Business

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UK - Following the decision of brand-holder Andrew Hunt to take the sales and marketing of Matrix amplifiers into his new manufacturing company, Clive Kinton has left the firm he jointly founded with Hunt in 1995. Tony O'Neill also left the company earlier this year for family reasons.

"We have over the last eight years, steadily built the Matrix brand to be a major player in the amplifier field but production has always been a challenge. Andrew feels he has solved the problems with his latest factory and wants to optimize the profit in what is a very competitive market," said Kinton at the launch of his new sound company - Meteor Electronics.

Meteor Electronics is a specialist sound distribution company and is working closely with several manufacturers on new and developing products. A lightweight, class D amplifier range including speaker modules will be available

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UK - Alternative Video Solutions Inc (AVS) provided Marshall Field's charity event Glamorama with an impressive moving Lighthouse LED screen display. The well-known department store Marshall Field's, together with US magazine, recently staged its annual fashion show in both Minneapolis and Chicago. The event was hosted by Tracey Ullman, with performances by Bond and Uncle Kracker, along with fall clothing lines from top designers.

The set for the show consisted of four Lighthouse LVP1010D 10mm pixel pitch, 1000 Nits brightness, indoor LED screens, rigged to a complex I-beam tracking system with motors and Variolift trolleys. This allowed them to be moved separately, and live during the show, into different configurations - up, down, and side to side.

"Lighthouse LED technology truly fits into the Alternative Video Solution way of thinking," said AVS president Ron Th

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Europe/USA - Lighting designer Andi Watson pulled out all the stops for Radiohead's Hail to the Thief tour. The look was achieved in part with the use a 'wall' of 72 James Thomas Engineering Pixeline LED battens. Watson started the European leg of the tour earlier this year with 48 of the fixtures and was so pleased with their look and performance that he specified another 24 for the North American leg of the tour. The design contains 48 x 4ft Thomas Pixeline 1044, high brightness LED battens, installed end-to-end in 24 x 8ft strip vertical towers and spaced at 3ft intervals across the back of the stage.

The LED battens are controlled by a new and soon-to-be-released Beta version of the Catalyst software, which now includes control of LED lighting fixtures amongst a host of other new features. The LED fixtures are used for around a third of Radiohead's set to achieve a variety

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UK - Rola-Trac installed the ground protection required around the motor circuit at this year's Goodwood Revival festival, to ensure the site was not damaged by the vehicles and crowds. The Goodwood Revival runs for three days in September each year, celebrating the racing venue's active years of 1948-66, by re-enacting the races that once occurred there. This year 94,000 racing fans visited the event.

Each year owners of vehicles from the pre-1966 period descend on Goodwood to display their treasures for the first two days, when visitors can take a good look at the cars. For the owners there is also the business of winning, after two days of qualifying and warming up, the third and final day of the event offered some surprisingly competitive races around the circuit.

This year event was blessed with fine weather, which meant the ground remained very dry and the Rola-Trac gro

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UK - Artists playing live at Sound Control's new flagship venue - situated in the basement of the Virgin Megastore in London's Oxford Street - will have their sound mixed by a fully-featured Soundcraft MH4 multi-function desk. The first use of the new venue was for the launch of Dido's new album Life For Rent at the end of September. Soundcraft UK sales manager (North), James Baker, has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Scottish-based music chain and was quick off the mark when he learned about the ambitious plan to develop the Megastore's famous live stage and incorporate it as a key feature of the Sound Control London experience.

Sensing that some huge bands were lined up to play weekly gigs he immediately proposed installing Sound Control's flagship store with a flagship-mixing console. "I looked closely at the type of desks other bands had been bringing in - so

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USA - A theatrical show celebrating 100 years of aviation, recently produced by the US Air Force, enlisted the aid of a High End Systems Catalyst and a Wholehog II lighting console to help the show take flight. Born of a Dream ran from 19-21 September at the National Theatre, Washington, D.C. Its cast was exclusively enlisted Air Force personnel.

Production was supplied by IEP/MPG from Jessup, Maryland. Programmer Jonathan Goldstein was in charge of the Wholehog II and Catalyst system. Though he'd had training on the Wholehog II, he was surprised that even without training on the Catalyst, he still found it straightforward to use. "I am already very familiar with the (Apple) Mac platform so operating the software was just as simple as using a moving light," Goldstein explains. "Setting it up was as easy as punching a DMX address, and the orbital head makes

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UK - Style In The City have opened their latest Babushka Bar - on the prime location site of the former Buddha Lounge in Manchester's Printworks. The £500,000 vodka bar development places a high priority on music, therefore installer Tarsin Ltd has once again fitted a Nexo sound system as the core of a technology package masterminded by Peter Dyer.

Dyer's company has enjoyed a long association with Style in the City - and in addition to Babushka, has included other Style brands, such as Bed and Nylon in its work portfolio. The company adopted a Nexo/Crown model as their preferred sound system when they were building the Bed Bar in Smithfield nearly two years ago, they have raised the stakes at Babushka, Manchester - having been asked to upspec the Nexo/Crown system.

"It was obvious they were serious about their sound," remembers Dyer, "and with a growing emphas

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Italy - Notti di Luce (Night Lights), the brainchild of the Bergamo Chamber of Commerce and staged in collaboration with lighting manufacturer Clay Paky and other Bergamo-based corporations in the entertainment and communication field, has become an eagerly awaited annual event. The project aims to encourage community use of the town and its facilities, and the enhancement of its squares, monuments and ancient architecture.

Light plays a central role across all three evenings of the event and the lighting system was supplied exclusively by Clay Paky. The light project was the creation of Renato Neri from Xenon with technical and artistic support by Andrea Mantovani. Xenon was also responsible for organizing and outfitting the stage.

The lighting system included 10 Stage Profile Plus SVs for front lighting, the general lighting and projection of shapes onto the Court House; 20

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UK - Peak 4 is a new version of the leading stereo waveform editing application for Macintosh, is now out. More than an upgrade, Peak 4 offers many new features such as audio unit plug-ins, an innovative sample-based reverb technology called ImpulseVerb, multi-processor support, redbook CD burning from within the Peak application, new DSP tools and a mastering-quality compressor/limiter called Sqweez.

Peak 4's graphic user interface has been streamlined, also, designed to appeal to Macintosh enthusiasts it has a new brushed metal look,. Now a Mac OS X-only application, Peak 4 users can take full advantage of the services within the OS. For users still on OS 9, BIAS includes an optional Peak 3.5 OS 9 installer on the CD. Christine Berkley, VP marketing for BIAS said: "We've received a huge response to Peak 4 since its unveiling, users are excited by the new look and addition

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UK - The Dave Martin Memorial Sailing Trophy or DAMMSTY held its 12th annual sailing weekend on its usual date in the calendar, the last weekend in September, when seven boats from the audio industry sailed from Sunsail, Port Solent to Cowes, Isle of Wight, stayed overnight and sailed back on Sunday.

Saturday evening went well with 60 diners exclusively occupying the 'Red Duster Restaurant' in Cowes High Street, where the generosity of all participating raised over £400 in the raffle and around another £2,000 will go to the profoundly deaf pre-school children at the Elizabeth Foundation School in Portsmouth, bringing the total donated to over £50,000.

This hugely worthwhile industry fund raising weekend has for the past 12 years succeeded in providing a great opportunity for novice, experienced and highly efficient sailors alike who together race in Solent waters in modern

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UK - MJK Productions staged a spectacular production for the Mastercard MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) Awards 2003 at London's Royal Albert Hall on 25 September. The awards were dominated by 50 Cent, who picked up the honours for Best Hip Hop Act, Best Album and Best Single, while Justin Timberlake won Best R&B Act and Big Brovaz scored Best Newcomer.

Featuring many of the production team from the Mastercard BRIT awards, the MOBOs was directed for television by Julia Knowles and produced by Sharon Ali. MJK, for the eighth year since the event's début, were in charge of the live production and a team that included Britannia Row (audience sound), 021 (broadcast sound), VLPS (lighting), XL Video (video), Outback (rigging), Steel Monkey (set) and Eat Your Hearts Out (catering).

The show featured MJK's trademark five-minute changeovers between live performances, a substantial lighti

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South Africa - Big Brother Africa (BBA), the continent's first pan-African reality TV show, was a smashing success. Arguably the continent's most watched program throughout the summer, BBA was the first Big Brother of it's kind, incorporating 12 strangers from 12 different African cultures.

South African lighting and technical production company M.J. Lighting was awarded the contract by Effect 28 Creative Solutions to provide lighting and structure for the Big Brother Africa final, held outside the M-Net studios in Randburg, South Africa on the 6 September 2003. Francois van der Merwe, M.J.'s in-house lighting designer, utilized a host of automated luminaires on the show including eight MAC 2000 Profiles and 20 of M.J.'s newest fixtures, the Martin MAC 250 Entour, supplied through Martin's South African distributor, Electrosonic SA. One of two new versions of Martin's groundbrea

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UK - Leading rental company Capital Sound Hire has increased its already substantial stock of Martin Audio touring enclosures, by making its first investment in the British manufacturer's W8LC Compact Line Array.

The London PA specialists have purchased 26 W8LCs - principally for use as main PA in smaller venues, and for auxiliary side hangs and delays in the big arenas, where the larger Martin Audio W8L Line Array will typically perform principal PA duties. At the same time Capital took the opportunity to bolster its W8L stock, adding another four of the original Line Array enclosures. This will allow them to rig 14 boxes per side on the upcoming Stereophonics' British tour, where they will also be running eight of the new W8LS subs each side (using the new Compact Line Array Compact as side hangs). To drive the new W8LC system, Capital commissioned a new dedicated amplifier r

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UK - Sony Pictures Digital Networks (SPDN) new version of its Sound Forge software, the company's award-winning professional digital audio editor, has now been released. An industry standard for over a decade, this is the first new professional software release from SPDN since it purchased all of Sonic Foundry's desktop production software assets in July.

The new software includes many powerful features such as automated time-based recording, audio threshold record triggering, VU meters for recording and playback, enhanced spectrum analysis tools, directX plug-in effects automation, white, pink, and brown noise generators, media explorer previewing, project file creation and support for 24fps native DV video files.

Sound Forge software is one of the industry-standards for audio editing, recording, effects processing and media encoding on the PC platform. It is used worldwide f

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UK - CP Sound has completed an audio installation in St Mary & St Nicholas with All Saints Church in Leatherhead, Surrey, after being approached by organist and technical manager David Oliver to submit a sound system design and specification for the medieval building.

It was made clear that they didn't want a conventional house of worship system of 100V line column speakers and radio links. Hosting frequent band sessions and focusing on contemporary evangelical music for in-church entertainment, they wanted a more live music/rock and roll style sound, with 'stage' monitors and infills to ensure those sitting at the sides would also get a good sound. This off-beat nuance of the project appealed to CP's Colin Pattenden, "It's great working with people who are prepared to be experimental to achieve the best result" he comments.

The aesthetic requirement was for speaker

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UK - When television star Neil Morrissey was challenged to help a worthy cause for an upcoming ITV series With A Little Help from My Friends, pro audio distributor SCV London and staging and trussing specialist LiteStructures were among the companies he called on to help him complete the task. The voice behind Bob the Builder chose to help children's charity 'Kids Company' renovate a derelict community centre and wanted it to have a stage, so that kids could follow in his footsteps.

Morrissey called SCV London's marketing director, Steve McDonald, and asked him for a Fostex VF-160 Digital Multitracker for free. Steve was more than happy to give the Men Behaving Badly star the equipment to assist the charity, which works with deprived children. The Fostex VF-160 will be used to teach youngsters the elements of sound recording.

Morrissey also put in a call to LiteS

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UK - MIPRO have launched a compact, portable and completely self-contained PA system - the MA-705. This little unit delivers 50 watts rms into a high-performance 8 inch driver, that can be run on internal batteries for six hours from a four hour charge. A wired microphone, two wireless microphones, CD and other audio sources can be mixed simultaneously to the input. The MA-705 has optional extras such as an anti-shock CD player and advanced dual-channel UHF/VHF diversity receiver modules for long distance range reception, which are free from signal dropouts and interference. The elimination of an external antenna protects from breakage in transit, and the MA-705 is small enough to be used on a simple tripod stand or to be placed on a desk.

The compact design means that this unit can be set up anywhere: garden fêtes, election meetings, schools, seminars, parties or any venue tha

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Switzerland - Audio Tech KST AG has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Midas and Klark Teknik in Switzerland. Experienced distribution specialists who already carry a number of high-end pro audio brands, Audio Tech sees the Midas and Klark Teknik ranges as a perfect complement to its existing portfolio, since it already carries a number of other Telex brands, but doesn't have any high-end mixing consoles or signal processing.

Audio Tech managing director Richie Seeger commented: "With Midas and KT we now have the best two brands in the world in their field. That's great news for us and we are looking forward to doing some good business with them. If their recent distributor conference in Lake Como is anything to go by, we've got some exciting times ahead."

Sales and marketing director for Midas and Klark Teknik, David Cooper said of the appointment: "

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North America - Alternative rockers Matchbox Twenty are hitting the North American concert tour once again with a string of tour dates running through to the end of the year. Despite having been on the road non-stop since April, with tour dates included an initial North American leg before heading to a sold-out arena tour of Australia and Europe, the quintet show no signs of slowing down.

Accompanying the band throughout the year has been a powerful lighting rig made up of Martin MAC 2000 and Atomic fixtures. The rig, designed by legendary LD Marc Brickman, is left in the capable hands of Ben Richards for the tour.

Lighting supplier Ed and Ted's Excellent Lighting of Oxnard, California supplied the Martin equipment for the North American legs, while in Australia, lighting was supplied by Bytecraft Entertainment through Martin Pro's distributor, Show Technology. Neg Earth took

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UK - tsg the Sheffield based media programming and systems company have recently installed a novel background music/speech system into Reg Vardy plc's new Vauxhall dealership in Nottingham. The brief from the Sunderland-based retailer, which runs 78 dealerships in England and Scotland, was to provide an 'invisible' background music solution for the main showroom area, whilst also providing a clear intelligible paging facility for the workshop, forecourt and service parking areas. tsg met this brief by specifying and installing Armstrong i-ceiling NXT panels in the showroom area, thus making for a very clean and unobtrusive installation.

Steve Dunn, marketing director at tsg said: "I was very satisfied with the final result, and I am particularly pleased with the i-ceiling's ability to handle both music and speech, especially as the ceiling panels are located relatively high

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UK - In order to improve its service to customers, the company is restructuring, moving to new premises and changing its name. The moves come as the result of a partial management buyout, in which directors Diane Grant and Wyatt Enever have increased their stake in the company and key staff are being given the opportunity to become shareholders.

"David Hersey had the foresight to realize that if the DHA brand and reputation are to remain as strong as they are today, structural and strategic changes would be needed," says Diane Grant. "The three DHA directors are at different points in their lives: David is ready to reap some of his investment in DHA, Wyatt wants to concentrate on R&D - integrating photographic techniques into laser output on dichroic glass and digital imagery for Scene Change - and I want to steer the company through another phase of growth toward

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UK - Sound installation company TASC is supplying a portable DJ system of Nexo PS15 full-range cabinets to Apres in Birmingham, which is opening a dancefloor area for the Christmas party season. Just months before, TASC completed the installation of a full house system at neighbouring Mechu, one of the busiest of Birmingham's destination clubs, which features Nexo PS10s and PS8s.

With an award-winning interior by RAW Design, Mechu is a successful bar/restaurant/late lounge club. Arron Smith of TASC designed and installed an all-Nexo sound system, featuring six PS10 full-range cabinets and three LS500 sub bass units. Compact Nexo PS8 speakers and LS400 subs are located throughout the club, amounting to nearly 30 in total. "Nexo PS cabinets are one of my very favourite products," enthuses Arron Smith. "Sometimes it's a struggle to get a customer to spend more and mo

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UK - PCM has just completed the refurbishment of stage equipment at the Princess Hall in Aldershot, Wiltshire. T technical manager Kevin Andrew's request to PCM was to replace the theatre's ageing hemp and winch system with a new, quick-and-easy lifting solution that would allow the venue's busy technical team to capitalize on tight turnaround times.

The theatre stages all types of production, including classical to contemporary live music, theatrical productions, dance, musicals, cabaret, panto and comedy. Their busy schedule often sees four or five different shows going through in a week, all with different lighting and production requirements. PCM's projects manager Tony Griffiths spotted an opportunity to recommend the company's new Unibar - winner of the PLASA 2003 Award for Product Design Excellence in the Stage Engineering category.

The Unibar is ideal for this style

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UK - Entec Sound & Light has supplied production lighting and audio equipment to the highly successful Skin 'Trashed' tour that has just completed its UK and European legs. Skin's FOH sound engineer Paul Ramsey and lighting designer Chris Oldfield have both enjoyed a good working relationship with Entec for some years, so they were the obvious choice as equipment supplier. Being essentially a club tour, the Skin production team, led by tour manager Andy Burnstein, toured their own consoles, specials and essentials, integrating them with the various house systems as they went.

Paul Ramsey has been working with Skin since 1996 and the Skunk Anansie days. He's a big d&b fan and says had he been able to take a full box system on this tour, that's what it would have been. However, they used the house stacks and racks at each venue, and took in their own DiGiCo D5 console, mics and ca

  1. Bandit Lites gets stripped with Christina Aguilera
  2. Press Red acquires Soundsense rental business
  3. Midas & KT host conference at Lake Como
  4. Awareness course for Stage Pyro
  5. Imagination creates Bollywood-style exhibition stands for Mela 2003.
  6. Maxxyz Takes Control at Sting DVD Shoot
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