Australia - American rockers Fall Out Boy recently toured the country in support of their new album Pax Am Days which reached No. 2 on the ARIA album charts.

Lighting designer Robb Jibson toured a Vista L5, the latest addition to the Jands Vista range of consoles and control surfaces, with a Mac Mini based S3 as a system back up.

Robb has been a Vista user for over 18 months reporting that he was instantly blown away by the simplicity of the interface and the intricate timings that he could dial in.

"My favourite feature is probably the swing based FX," he added. "Not having to create multiple macro-based cue lists and the ease in which you can lock sync with the band and those FX. Close second would be the way the console deals with multipart fixtures an

USA - The EZ4 from Elation Professional is a high-quality, 4mm pixel pitch LED video panel and the highest resolution LED panel offering in Elation's expanding line of affordable LED displays.

Designed for indoor use in installations, broadcast environments, corporate productions, car shows and more, this light weight yet sturdy panel is ideal when outstanding high-definition image quality is required, says the company.

Black face LEDs ensure high contrast while a high density of 10,816 pixels (104 x 104) per panel ensures a clear and sharp picture. Colours display vivid, consistent and uniform, and a brightness level of 1,200 Nits means the EZ4 performs well even in high ambient lighting conditions.

A high-precision die-cast aluminium frame produces a flat and seamless video display and professional-grade features like modular rigging and design options allow users to easil

USA - Whether the staff at Hume Lake Christian Camp are performing services at home or on the road, one thing is certain, they will be using DPA Microphones' d:fine Miniature Headset Microphones. With services held at four camps situated on 360 acres in Sequoia National Park, its campus in San Diego and its 400-acre camp in Connecticut, as well as during outreach trips to locations such as Hawaii, South Africa and Papua New Guinea, Hume Lake needs high-quality headset microphones that will stand up to the rigors of repeated use.

A popular Christian Camp, Hume Lake is not just active during the summer. Throughout the year, the facility hosts as many as 35,000 people between its 10-week winter camp, off-site trips and a variety of weekend retreats - such as those for mothers/daughters, marriages and firefighters.

During Hume Lake's 10-week summer series, as many as 3,000 student

featured content

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

USA - Home of the American Hockey League's Providence Bruins and Providence College Men's Basketball, The Dunkin' Donuts Centre is the major sports and entertainment venue of the Providence, Rhode Island metro area. Seating approximately 13,000 depending on configuration, the arena hosts not only games, including NCAA Men's Division I Basketball, but also corporate events, trade shows, commencements and concerts from artists including hit-makers such as U2 and Elton John.

The facility, which was extensively remodelled in 2008, benefits from solid acoustic design and good interior treatment. Even so, the sound during games was lacking until a recent sound-system upgrade featuring loudspeakers, power amplifiers and digital routing systems from Electro-Voice.

"The two main issues with the old system were lack of coverage and lack of intelligibility," says Tom Barrett, p

USA - Since the launch of its Impact series of LED video display panels -featuring Cree high-brightness SMD (Surface-mount diode) LEDs - Lighthouse has dominated the outdoor SMD LED display market with more than 107,639sq.ft of active outdoor SMD LED area. Powered by LEDs from Durham, N.C.-based Cree, Lighthouse and its partners have wowed people around the world with installations such as the 2013 display at Safeco Field, home of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

At Safeco Field, ANC Sports Enterprises installed a Lighthouse display distributed by Panasonic which is the largest LED video screen in Major League Baseball. A Lighthouse Impact 16 using Cree CLV6 LEDs, Safeco Field's new LED display is 1080p high by 3840p wide, the equivalent of two side-by-side high-definition screens. Standing 56.7' (17.28m) high, stretching 201.5' (61.42m) across, and totalling over 4m pi

Germany - AVM Event GmbH recently invested in Clay Paky - it increased its stock with 60 A.leda Wash K10s, as well as various products made by other companies.

These lights were used for the first time in Halle 7 in Bremen, where several events took place in the second half of October. AVM has organised shows of all kinds for 20 years, including summer festivals, megashows and industry conferences, with between 100 and 20,000 guests.

"With its A.leda K10, Clay Paky has come up with an exciting LED washlight from every point of view," said Mr Wiegandt, the head of the German rental company. "Thanks to the individually controlled LEDs, the light offers an incredible variety of effects and functions. However, of course, the extremely high standards of Clay Paky lights also play a key role. They are extraordinarily light and therefore suitable for use everywhere.&qu

Europe - The Christmas Metal Symphony 2013 European tour blazed its way through Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany to packed houses appreciating the metallic full force of the Magnum Opus Rockestra directed by Joost Van Den Broek, a collaboration between the Metalforce 1 band and a 32 piece Hungarian symphony orchestra.

The featured vocalists for 2013 were Michael Kiske (Helloween), Joey Belladonna (Anthrax), Chuck Billy (Testament), Joacim Cans (Hammerfall), Udo Dirkscheider (ex-Accept) and Floor Jansen from ReVamp and Nightwish.

Lighting this mix of metal mayhem was Nick van Balen, who is based in The Hague, The Netherlands ... an experienced designer with a particular penchant for lighting the various genres of rock music.

He chose to light the 2013 Christmas Metal Symphony entirely with Robe LED Wash moving lights - 44 x LEDWash 300s and 12 x LEDWash 600s to be preci

Foundation Funding - Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation has announced six grants, totalling more than £150,000, which will support apprenticeships within professional arts organisations.

Five theatre organisations and one music festival will receive funding. Shared Experience will receive £105,000 over three years to support one trainee director and producer per year via paid six-month apprenticeships; Tangled Feet will receive £14,000 over two years to help fund its participation programme for young people; Manchester Royal Exchange's Young Company will receive £10,000; Chickenshed will receive £15,000 towards its Young Creators Programme; Icon Theatre in Medway will receive £9,000; and the Lake District International Summer Music Festival will receive £10,000.

Since the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation was re-launched in 2011,

Norway - When Ibsenhuset Theatre in Skien, Norway, was about to undergo a complete refurbishment, the technical managers looked for new lighting fixtures and controls that could take the theatre well into the 21st century. They ended up specifying over 100 ETC Selador Desire LED luminaires, along with two different - but connected - ETC Unison control systems.

The installation was complicated by the existing mix of DMX and DALI systems at the theatre, according to Benjamin Reinhoff, project manager at Elektrik Solutions, who supplied the products and helped with specification. "We installed two Unison Paradigm systems to control the new Selador LED lighting in the auditorium and around the stage area, as well as in nearby rehearsal and side rooms. There's also a new Mosaic processor for controlling the 600 DALI lights in the 800 square metre foyer, which is used as a perfor

UK - Former European sales manager at City Theatrical, Alex Cowan, has taken up a new post in the sales department at staging equipment, set construction and studio hire company LS-Live, in Wakefield.

He brings to the role a wealth of experience in sales and new business development, having secured big wins in previous posts for a variety of entertainment industry companies such as HSL Group, Pixelrange and City Theatrical.

Said Cowan, "I visited LS-Live to discuss business and couldn't believe this top of the range facility. I've been all over the world and there is nothing else like this out there.

"As soon as people understand that they can get everything from under one roof, from set design to final construction and rehearsals in the studio, they won't use anyone else.

"My job is to ensure that when anyone thinks about touring and live events, whether th

France - Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris is one of the most fashionable streets in the world, and it is here that the flagship store of Hermès is located. This famous luxury department store, dating back to the 18th century, recently decided to decorate its façade and called in the established Paris-based technology specialists Lumière et Son to help fulfil the project.

Offering close cooperation, SGM's French distributor, Sonoss, delivered 360 LB-100 LED Balls (measuring 30 x 12m). The company's product and project manager, Vincent Criulanscy, explains, "They were looking for a 'soft' kind of illumination; different from that of a Christmas tree - more elegant."

It is not the first time Lumière et Son has selected SGM fixtures for their projects. Previously, the SixPack LED blinder has been used to great effect for fashion shows by Yves Saint Lauren

Greece - The leading AV turnkey installation and theatre sound specialist in Greece, Telmaco S.A., has installed the last ever Cadac R-type console in the landmark Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

The R-type was installed by the Athens based company in the main 500 seat Amphitheatron Hall, in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall's new M2 building, as part of a major turnkey project that included sound reinforcement, projection, conference and interpretation, video and audio relay, intercom and stage management systems. "The client requirement was for a console of the highest audio quality and reliability that was quick to install. The Cadac R-type fulfilled these demands better than any other comparable console," says Telmaco sales engineer, George Regginiotis.

Telmaco previously installed a Cadac S-type console in the central control room in the M2 building when it opened in 201

USA - Preston Hoffman provided a dynamic lightshow with a difference for the third consecutive year at the annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. He decided to use GLP's new compact impression X4S almost exclusively, bolstered by few other discharge or conventional tungsten effects.

The Pulse Lighting designer is no stranger to GLP's impression series (or the U.S. Cellular Center, Asheville, NC where the show takes place). Last summer he pulled 12 of GLP's larger X4 fixtures for the Red Rocks show by Slightly Stoopid in Denver, so he knew all about the strength, intensity and flexibility of the lightweight LED sources.

For the 25th edition of Christmas Jam, Dizzy Gosnell at Bandit Lites' San Francisco office - described by Preston as "one of the best in the business" - provided 56 of GLP's X4S for the special Christmas show, enabling the technician to group 36, divided

UK - Stage Electrics' popular regional exhibition, hosted by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, heads to the city of Cardiff on Friday 21 February. The one-day event aimed at schools, colleges, theatres, the arts, broadcast and entertainment includes over 25 industry leading manufacturers exhibiting their latest products in audio, lighting, video and staging in an intimate friendly environment.

The 2014 event welcomes new exhibitors, Allen & Heath, Chroma-Q, 5 Star Cases, Doughty and Robert Juliat, alongside Prolyte, Martin Professional by Harman, ETC, Avolites & Avolites Media, Le Maitre, Rosco, Philips Entertainment brands Selecon, Strand, & Vari-Lite, EM Acoustics, DiGiCo, Lee Filters, Sennheiser, Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Yamaha, ELC, Analog Way, Chauvet, Zero 88, Roland Systems Group, Pulsar, Swisson & Magic FX.

"We are looking forward to welcoming visitors to

Israel - Waves Audio has announced the availability of its new Dugan Automixer plugin. Developed in association with sound engineering legend Dan Dugan, the Waves Dugan Automixer is a software version of the popular Dugan Speech System Automatic Mixing Controllers used the world over. Available for every console, the Dugan Automixer is MultiRack SoundGrid- and MultiRack Native-compatible and works on 32 or 64 channels.

Using Dugan's proprietary voice-activated process, the Waves Dugan Automatic Mixing Controller plugin automatically controls the gains of multiple live microphones in real time while preventing feedback and excessive noise pickup. Maintaining the gain of one mic in the room even when multiple speakers are talking simultaneously, it makes "perfectly matched transparent cross-fades".

Dugan notes, "People have been asking for a Dugan plugin for a lon

Austria - One of Austria's Leading recording studio complexes, Prime Studios, tucked away in Mils near Innsbruck, has added a third control room, C , and a fourth live area to house its latest addition; a classic EMI TG12345 MkIV console, built originally for Abbey Road Studios. One of only two in the world, the console's twin is owned by producer Mike Hedges. Prime Studios opened in 2008 and is favoured by such producers and engineers as Chuck Ainlay, George Massenburg, Christian Seitz and Alfons Weindorf.

Studio C is acoustically separated from the main building and features a customised 5.1 surround reference sound system by Surrountec. All the cabling and connectors for the new installation is by Van Damme, specified and ordered from VDC Trading using their new online YouSpec system, now an integral part of the VDC website.

The cabling included 24 pairs of 7m Blue EDAC90 c

The Netherlands - Christie reports that three of its products have been declared as fiinalists in the Technology section of the EMEA InAVation Awards 2014. The winners will be announced during the ISE trade show on Wednesday 5 February at the InAVate Awards evening, which brings together industry professionals from around the world at the Amsterdam Convention Factory to recognise outstanding achievement in AV.

The three Christie award entries are:Phoenix (Category #4 - Most InAVative Video Processing or Distribution Product); D4K with TruLife (Category #5 - Most InAVative Projector), and In Control & Virtual Remote apps (Category #10 - Most InAVative Integration Tool).

(Jim Evans)

UK - Nexo has just a few places left on its forthcoming ETC1 training seminar, to be held in London 28-29 January. The venue is the youthful and dynamic Soho Theatre in Dean Street, making this seminar a particularly interesting one for theatre sound technicians.

Nexo's ETC programme offers convenient and affordable education, training and certification in general electroacoustic principles, and real-world practical operation of Nexo line array and point-source systems in the live production environment.

The foundation module, ETC1, has been designed for sound designers, engineers and technicians working with Nexo equipment. Taught by Nexo instructors, this two-day event progresses from theoretical classes in general acoustics, line array concepts and the case for point source systems, to practical hands-on training with Geo S12 line arrays.

Technical overviews of Nexo's pro

USA - While the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is dubbed the 'Wizards of Winter' for their heavy-metal holiday songs, show designer Bryan Hartley wears the magician's hat as well. He made this year's The Lost Christmas Eve tour a bigger production than last year with the amazing trick of shrinking it - making three trucks and extra generators simply disappear!

His secret? Switching from some standard lighting tools to over 100 pieces of Robe's smaller-brighter-lighter Robin series fixtures - Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 1200s... all supplied by VER in Los Angeles.

TSO's $20m-plus production has performed for more than 7m people in over 80 U.S. cities in the short duration of this leg of the tour (under seven weeks). Because of the show's popularity during the short holiday season, they created duplicate productions to simultaneously tour the East and West coasts of

UK - Source Distribution has announced a further expansion of its salesforce through the appointment of Tim Gray as commercial audio sales manager.

This newly created position is in direct response to Source's growing presence in the commercial audio market sector, and will have particular emphasis on the PreSonus StudioLive AI range of digital mixers and active PA loudspeakers, Genelec's AV Install series of loudspeakers, RØDE's live sound and headset microphones, Eventide digital effects processors and outboard products from Universal Audio, API and Lynx. Based in the field and covering the whole of the UK, Tim's role will be to develop and manage a growing network of live sound dealers, rental companies and AV installers.

Gray started his career in technical sales at Shuttlesound, progressed to the role of sound reinforcement manager at Arbiter (with responsibility f

UK - Yamaha has announced new firmware and application software for its MTX Series matrix processors - a core component of the Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) range - a key benefit of which is making the MTX-5D seamlessly compatible with the MY4-AEC echo cancelling and Dugan-MY16 auto microphone mixing interface cards.

Designed specifically for the commercial installation market, the CIS series comprises an expanding range of loudspeakers, multi-channel power amplifiers and the MTX matrix processors.

Previously available for use primarily with Yamaha's DME Series digital mixing engines, the Dugan-MY16 optimises the gain distribution of multiple faders simultaneously, allowing sound engineers to focus on their mix rather than being preoccupied with microphone levels. The MY4-AEC Echo Canceller eliminates unwanted acoustic echo caused by secondary signals of speaker outp

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