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UK - Audio visual specialist RaceTech AV is working with sound system manufacturer Bose to provide audio, visual, control and digital signage solutions to the new Marriot Hotel in Lingfield as part of their multi?million pound new build hotel complex.

The project has included design and build services for a bespoke turnkey solution to multiple public areas within the hotel, all controlled by AMX touch panel controls that are networked throughout the facility for maximum flexibility and ease of use. The whole system utilises a simple 'touch screen' interface that manages all of the installed technology.

"By working with prime contractors, architects and client representatives we have been able to provide a leading edge turnkey design and supply service to the Marriot Hotel a

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UK - HHB Communications has announced the appointment of Jonathan Darby as product support specialist. He has worked at post-production facilities in London, Dublin and New York where he honed his specialist skills in production, Pro Tools HD, Avid, Final Cut Pro, video and audio encoding and digital hardware.

"I've known HHB for a long time as a customer," comments Darby, "and have always been impressed with the service culture and depth of technical knowledge that runs throughout the company. Now I¹m looking forward to adding my experience to the mix, providing product support to HHB¹s many broadcast and post customers."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - The ABTT show comes at the end of what has been an extremely busy year for Unusual, which has seen the company simultaneously supporting three major international installations, as well as smaller theatre projects and tours. The show will also see Unusual launching a new 'widget' which, like so many good ideas, is a simple answer to an industry-wide problem, says the company.

The widget - a neat and effective protector for use on tension wire grids - came about as a result of a major project to supply over 1750sq.m of tension wire grids to Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre. Due to open in January next year, the Centre will provide Stockholm with a congress hall with seating for up to 3000 for both local and international events, as well as offices and a 418 room hotel. The hall will be used for a wide range of events, including exhibitions and conferences as well as conc

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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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UK - On 12 February Enter Shikari played the last date of a UK tour at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Lighting designer and programmer Steven Bewley's brief was for a 'big, brash, in-your-face' rig that could keep up with the breakneck pace of an Enter Shikari show and he turned to some of Martin Professional's newest MAC luminaires.

"This was the last show in the UK for a while so the band wanted to go out with a bang so to speak," Bewley reports. "The show had to be quickly rigged and be totally flexible as the tour stretched over a week with venue sizes ranging from big to small. These had to be shows the audience would never forget; they had to walk away feeling hungry for more, which I feel we achieved with the rig chosen."

Bewley created the feel with an arena style set up that fit comfortably within the confines of venues like the Hammersmith Apol

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The Netherlands The Daughters of Africa theatre tour saw its premiere in Amsterdam's Royal Theatre Carré recently. The sound is provided by Kater audiotechniek and Van Dijk SoundSupport.

Daughters of Africa is the successor of the African Mamas tour from 2009, that attracted more than 175,000 visitors. For this new show, 12 young women were selected from eight different African countries. Their diversity and cultural backgrounds are the theme of this vibrant show, accompanied by a live band.

For the première in the 1,800-seat theatre, attended by Princess Máxima, The Ribbon Network member Jan van Dijk deployed a large Alcons system, consisting of 30 units of LR14 ultra-compact line-array.

Two main clusters were built upon 12 units of LR14 line-array and four units LR14B line-array bass each. Two groundstacked arrays of three LR14 units and two S

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Taiwan - Hot on the heels of his Scandinavian tour, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli has embarked on dates throughout Asia, drawing on L-Acoustics' strong Rental Network in the region to provide a system in every location.

Appearances in Tokyo, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore saw local agents Kyoritz, Seoul Sound, MSI Hong Kong and CSP Productions respectively supplying V-Dosc/dV-Dosc systems. However when the tour arrived in Taiwan, local rental company Winly provided Bocelli's sound designer Andrea Taglia with an extensive Kudo large format line source system for the Taipei Arena.

"The system was based on a monophonic concept," says Taglia. "This was accomplished with a centre cluster of 16 Kudos dedicated to the floor audience and first floor central balcony, while two side systems of 15 Kudos each covered the side balconies, and two delays of 12 dV-Dosc each prov

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Switzerland - Allen & Heath's Xone:92 was once again the DJ mixer of choice at the recent Caprices music festival, which takes place every year at the Crans-Montana ski resort in the Swiss Alps.

The four-day festival hosts a comprehensive programme of DJ performances, as well as live band performances.

A highlight of the DJ programme was a special daytime event called Modernity, held at an altitude of 2300m at the Cry d'Er station. A new colour Xone:92 DJ mixer was requested for the event, which included sets by Riccardo Villalobos and friends.

In the evening, Villalobos' concept band, Narod Niki, put on a special show. Narod Niki is a collection of international DJ's forming an improv-techno-all-star band, who perform together using a special variation of Ableton's Live software for synchronisation. The Narod Niki line up at Caprices featured eight producers - includ

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UK - On the express instructions of sound designer Derrick Zieba, Britannia Row Productions supplied its Electro-Voice X-Line array system for the biggest night in the British classical music calendar - the Classical BRIT Awards 2010.

Marking the 11th year of the Awards, a glittering line-up of international stars gathered on-stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London, home to the Classical BRITs since it started in 2000. Accompanied by the London Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Warren-Green, the live performers included Angela Gheorghiu, Bryn Terfel, Rolando Villazón, André Rieu and his Johan Strauss Orchestra, and the legendary Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, picking up her Lifetime Achievement Award.

Zieba is a familiar sight at the big awards shows; his contract with BRITS TV also includes the mainstream BRIT Awards for popular music, and he has designed many

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UK - When the 133-year-old Father Willis Organ at England's Salisbury Cathedral was sent for repair during February and March of this year, the church's liturgical music programme continued uninterrupted with powerful, richly textured pipe organ sounds. The sounds were instead produced - with uncanny accuracy - by a digital 'virtual organ' and transparently reinforced by 12 Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers.

Commissioned by the cathedral to help recreate the sound of the organ in the challenging acoustical space, Major Tom Limited was clear that the sound had to be powerful and accurate, and the various audio elements had to be perceived in the same way at various points throughout the building, and particularly in the choir.

"Before the organ repairs commenced, we came in one night with our Meyer Sound SIM 3 audio analyser and eight microphones," says Chris Mars

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UK - On 1 May, mac threw open its doors to the public. A £15 million newly-refurbished arts centre in Birmingham, it includes a digital audio system featuring two RSS M-400 digital mixing consoles coupled with the latest battery-powered lightweight RSS Snakes which can be used anywhere inside or outside the building.

Initially established specifically for young people, over the years mac has broadened its remit, and today welcomes over 500,000 visitors each year, including 10% of Birmingham's population, who come to enjoy a programme which concentrates on the contemporary, showcasing artists across the full range of arts practice: film, theatre, dance, literature, visual arts, music and comedy.

The Edgbaston venue, also known as the Midlands Arts Centre, has made the most of the opportunity to install a cost-saving Cat 5e REAC-based network, which provides flexibility to

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UK / USA - The spring season has seen a number of high profile new plays and musicals choose to use FocusTrack to give them a complete, accurate record of their show lighting. In New York, these shows include the musicals Come Fly Away and The Addams Family and the play Red.

Come Fly Away, the Twyla Tharp show based around the music of Frank Sinatra lit by Donald Holder took the showfile from their grandMA console into FocusTrack to work out which focuses were used by which lights in the show. The lighting team, including associate lighting designer Jeanne Koenig, assistant Caroline Chao, programmer Joseph Allegro and head electrician Brad Robertston then used FocusTrack to control the console to bring each light on in each position in turn to take a photograph, which was then incorporated into the show's FocusTrack.

The Addams Family, lit by

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Germany - Launched amid the 19-date Nuendo 5 World Tour across 14 countries, Nuendo 5 represents a new state-of-the-art production environment tailored to top-flight production studios in post production, live recording and audio production, says the company. The new features include an ADR toolset, new sound design features such as the Clip Packages system, new plug-ins as well as a range of mixing, routing and automation enhancements. Supporting Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 as well as Windows 7, Vista and XP, Nuendo 5 will be available from authorized Steinberg dealers from June 2010.

"This is a landmark release for Nuendo, introducing extremely valuable new functionality to what is probably the premiere native production platform for post, live and audio production," comments Timo Wildenhain, Steinberg's product marketing manager for Nuendo. "These days, efficiency,

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Italy - Outline now manufactures a third of its loudspeaker systems with the help of the sun. A few months ago, a modern amorphous silicon photovoltaic system for the generation of clean energy was installed on the roof of the Brescia loudspeaker system manufacturer's premises.

"Approximately a third of the energy necessary for building our loudspeaker systems is provided by this photovoltaic system," says Outline's Stefano Noselli. "We're at the beginning of the road but are rightly proud. The aim we're determined to achieve by 2015 is to considerably reduce the energy consumption necessary for our activities by means of a series of projects that have already been planned for some time."

In sync with the concept of maximum efficiency and respect for the environment, Outline and its R&D department have built up an expertise enabling it to achieve ambitious

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USA - Audio-Technica was recently selected as microphone of choice employed by the new mobile studio for the Folk Alley live streaming web radio programme from Kent, Ohio-based WKSU-FM. Audio-Technica microphones are used for announcement/voiceover applications, live music broadcast and in-studio guests/performances in the mobile broadcast vehicle, which has been up and running since August 1, 2009, and was part of the team for the National Public Radio (NPR) stream from the Fifth Anniversary Newport Folk Festival later that month.

WKSU and Folk Alley Executive Director Al Bartholet stated, "When we first developed our plans for Folk Alley's mobile recording studio, we put Audio-Technica microphones on the top of our wish list. Music and radio are industries that revolve around audio, and having the ability to use mics of Audio-Technica's outstanding quality makes it

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UK - Canford has announced the publication of the 2010 edition of their catalogue The Source. This is Canford's largest ever catalogue containing over 4,300 new products and two complete new product chapters. Each chapter contains hundreds of new additions covering 'Fibre Optic Cables, Connectors & Interfaces' and 'IT Accessories & Media'. The launch sees Canford introduce not only thousands of completely new products but also the latest versions and additions to existing products and ranges.

The Canford website (The Source online) has been fully updated to match and has a new Google powered search facility making access to product descriptions and technical information easier than it has ever been.

Dave Holloway, Canford's sales & marketing director says, "This is our widest offering ever. The two new chapters covering IT accessories and fibre optics, when taken i

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UK - Manchester based DBN Lighting helped creative production company, Just Communicate to realise a visual concept for the annual conference and gala dinner of a leading technology company at the Hilton Metropole Hotel, Birmingham NEC.

The brief from show producer Julian Ward was to transform the hotel's Monarch Suite into a flexible presentation space and gala dinner venue. This would host a daytime conference for a leading international technology company, and then morph into an X-Factor style televisual environment for the evening awards dinner.

Just Communicate's concept was to use the entire stage set as a screen surface using a large LED screen as a backdrop, DBN's Stephen Page suggested utilising Martin Lighting's LC2140 product wrapping around the back of the stage with a Trevira cloth rigged in front of it for the daytime sessions, giving a dynamic moving backdrop fo

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UK - Dolby Laboratorieshelped Disney create a cinema first when it provided technical support to host the global premiere of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Multiple premieres and supporting activity took place on four continents, stretching across five time zones in a single day, as the stars of the new movie linked to every event live from London.

Dolby contributed to the success of the challenging project in the form of technical support in each country to ensure the best screening for each of the invited premiere audiences around the globe. Along with its satellite partner Arqiva, Dolby also provided the satellite and fibre optic links for the live connections to Australia, Asia and Central America which made the whole global extravaganza possible.

"We were very excited to be asked by Disney to be involved in this complex project," said Richard Welsh, dir

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USA - Audio-Technica has become a Diamond Level Corporate Sponsor of the Cinema Audio Society (CAS). Audio-Technica has long been a strong presence in the markets the Cinema Audio Society serves - film sound, television sound, sound for documentaries and other produced programs - and A-T's shotgun microphones and lavalier microphones have been increasingly used in the production of numerous major events and programmes.

The Cinema Audio Society, now in its 47th year, is "dedicated to the advancement of sound". It consists of sound mixers and associates from the film and television industries. The Society was founded to create a proper channel of communication between the related sound crafts and between those instrumental to the production and distribution of film and television soundtracks. The Corporate Sponsorship programme allows the CAS to expand their awards progr

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France - The city of Orléans, some 130km south-west of Paris, is best known for being the city that was liberated from the English during the Hundred Years' War by Joan of Arc. To this day the city's inhabitants have continued to remain faithful and grateful to her, and the annual FΩtes de Jeanne d'Arc is held in honour of her victory.

Part of the programme this year, which included parades, medieval festivals, markets, concerts and exhibitions, was a late-night open-air DJ session which followed on from a spectacular son-et-lumiere show. Free entry and a stellar line-up including sets from Laurent Wolf, Greg Cerrone and Da Fresh guaranteed a big turn-out, and organisers weren't disappointed - over 21,000 revellers showed up to dance the night away.

AV rental company ACS, provided a powerful Uniline compact line array system from French loudspeaker company

Details
USA - The 2010 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in southern California was once again an overwhelming success, drawing a record attendance of 225,000 people over a three-day span. At Coachella's Mojave Stage, Ian C. Charbonneau of Le Mobile Remote Recording relied on JBL LSR2328 studio monitors to mix a roster of top artists for live webcast.

During the Festival's three days, the Mojave Stage hosted performances by 30 acts, including Devo, Grizzly Bear, Imogen Heap, Julian Casablancas, Shooter Jennings and Les Claypool. In other words, rest was not an option for Charbonneau. "When you're mixing live from 10am to 1am for three days, it's a tough gig for the ears," Charbonneau said, "but it's such a great time doing it, especially when you love music and you love what you do."

Not only does the schedule itself pose a challenge, but Charbonneau

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Turkey - L- Acoustics' Turkish distributor Elit Light&Sound Technologies has assisted the Christian & Missionary Alliance of Canada hold its biannual assembly in Antalya, Turkey, providing the requisite PA system and manpower.

Usually held in Canada, the organisation's proposal to hold it in Turkey posed an interesting situation for Scott Murley and Mark Lasebnik, technical director and FOH engineer respectively, who have been supporting the C&MA Assembly for more than 16 years.

The five-day event includes business sessions, break-out seminars and evening plenary events incorporating a live band, on-stage choir, string section, spoken-word teaching, dramatic elements, pre-produced video, all requiring production equipment and staffing.

The C&MA's assemblies in Canada is known for its quality of production, especially audio, so it was deemed that Murley and Lasebnik find a Tu

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