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UK - The Church of Christ The King in Brighton has undergone a refurbishment of its audio facilities, including the installation of a new 32-channel Midas Legend console that also operates as a foldback mixer.

Live music plays a prominent role in the Church's services, and a number of touring Christian music bands perform there, so technical expectations are high. After extensive discussions with Shuttlesound, the Midas distributor in the UK, the Church selected the Legend with 32 mono plus 4 stereo channels, supplied to Modern AV by Autograph Sound.

The Church is based in a large modern building that was previously a warehouse but is now home to one of the New Frontiers group of churches. Its services are held in a large meeting hall on the upper floor with regular congregations of around 900 worshippers.

"The layout of the building didn't provide space for a permanent

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USA - A technological tour de force has been installed in Chicago's Millennium Park. The Crown Fountain - thought to be one of the most expensive pieces of public art ever undertaken - is made up of two 15m glass towers, displays the faces of hundreds of people videotaped by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa. Each digitized face is projected via a Barco video server, which supplies added information to the ETC Emphasis control system which switches colour mixing LED fixtures on or off in each light tower in sync with the video images.

Each face appears for five minutes at a time, smiling and grimacing until it purses its lips like a playful modern-day gargoyle and spits out water. A signal is sent back from the Emphasis system to a Barco show controller to control the intensity and colour saturation of the towers' video.

At night, the towers' faces are supplemented by nature image

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USA - Coldplay's newest video, Speed of Sound, features the innovative use of LED lights and a novel approach to control: the video's backdrop - and its major source of light - is a wall of 640 Versa TUBEs. The Versa TUBE, from Element Labs, looks like a fluorescent tube but contains a row of pixels composed of red, green and blue LEDs. Designers can map pixels from a video signal directly to the pixels in the tube.

What sets Speed of Sound apart, however, is that production designer Michael Keeling used PRG's Mbox media server to provide the video to the LED lights. Mbox allows designers to manipulate source material - including video, still images and effects - directly from a DMX lighting console. Programmers instantly can change colour, scale, 3-D rotation, rate of playback, degree of transparency and other elements, all without waiting for rendering time, say

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UK - Strand Lighting is to supply the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) with five racks of the EC21 dimmer for the Courtyard Theatre development in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Courtyard Theatre will be the Company's main performance space while the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is redeveloped from 2007. Installation will start at the end of 2005 with The Courtyard Theatre opening in mid 2006 as part of The Complete Works of Shakespeare Festival.

EC21 is the latest high density modular dimming system from Strand that allows the user to mix and match Truesine sinewave, thyristor, fluorescent and non-dim dimmer modules, with no loss of density. Up to 96 x 5kW sinewave dimmers may be contained in each rack. The rack and dimmers are fully web browsable using Strand's ShowNet Ethernet network and support Strand Outlook and SWC architectural controls. They also support DMX512 and come ready t

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Spain - This year's European AES exhibition in Barcelona benefited not just from the great location and excellent weather, but also from the introduction this year of seminars aimed at the live sound sector - one of which was Sunday's Loudspeaker Line Arrays session that was presented by John Taylor and Ralf Zuleeg from d&b audiotechnik.

This was a three-part seminar that took place over four hours and began with a presentation from John Taylor titled Demystifying audio techniques, which embraced visual images, experiments and practical demonstrations that included the assistance of Daisy the duck*. This part of the session was aimed at expanding the participant's knowledge in order to obtain the maximum benefit from sound systems, concluding with what constitutes a well-behaved loudspeaker and how it affects what we hear. Ralf Zuleeg then took the stage to look at

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UK - The HSL Group is to exhibit at ABTT for the first time. HSL is currently supplying lighting to some major UK theatre tours including Blood Brothers, Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy, as well as servicing other major arts events like the Holland Park Opera Festival and providing equipment to TV studios across the UK. HSL is also sponsoring the Bar in the mezzanine level of the Lawrence Hall throughout the show."

HSL is now streamlined into three divisions. HSL Rental is "fully committed to ongoing investment in the latest technology to offer lighting designers and specifiers all the cutting-edge creative tools". HSL Rigging provides bespoke rigging solutions to corporate, theatre and live music events and HSL Sales & Distributions is the sole UK and Irish distributor for Community Loudspea

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The Netherlands - HOF audio - lighting - vision has invested in a complete sound package from Alcons Audio. The system consists of 18 units LR16 ribbon line array modules with ALC4 controller-amplifiers and extensive rigging. An AIM (Alcons InclinoMeter) digital incline levelling system has been added to enable accurate bumper positioning.

The decision to opt for the LR16s was made after extensive testing of the system during a number of high profile concerts with the Dutch Horn Ensemble, North Netherlands Orchestra and the Marines band in such venues as Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Rotterdam's De Doelen theatre.

HOF owner Bart Hof comments: "The projection of the system is impressive, it gives an honest reproduction, perfect imaging, crystal clear response and speech intelligibility is unsurpassed as a result of the ribbon technology. With the LR16 we can now offer a

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Germany - ChainMaster, one of the world's most successful manufacturers of chain hoists and chain-hoist controllers, has been supplying equipment for a number of major projects and productions, including the Spain Summer Tour, which is using 13 500kg VarioLifts and a computer controller furnished by the manufacturer's Spanish distributor.

Meanwhile, ChainMaster has added two more prestige German venues to its reference list, having installed a chain-hoist system for the video cube in the SAP Arena in Mannheim in collaboration with Sauernheimer (due to the enormous weight of the load, four 6000kg computer-controlled VarioLifts with a backup system were needed here) as well as producing the three 500kg BGV-C1 chain hoists delivered recently by Focon Showtechnic to the Mercedez-Benz museum.

Chainmaster has also announced that two more event service providers have recently

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UK - Earlier this year, six famous landmarks around the UK were given a spectacular colour makeover courtesy of White Light and Crown Paints to mark Crown Colour Week - a nationwide celebration of colour.

In each of six cities, residents were asked to vote for their favourite colour via a survey in a local paper. The winning colour was then used to light the buildings, orchestrated by a White Light team and led by production manager Simon Jones.

The buildings chosen were Bristol Cathedral, St Martin's Church in Birmingham, Cardiff Town Hall, the Urbis in Manchester, the Theatre Royal Newcastle and Glasgow University. Each landmark was lit for six hours after sunset. The touring lighting rig included twenty StudioDue CityColor colour-changing floodlights and seven Mac2000 moving spotlights as well as sixty Source Four Pars, and four Philips ArenaVisions. The rig also included o

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UK - Tryka L.E.D. is exhibiting its high quality LED luminaires for the bar and entertainment industry at this year's bar show (7-8 June, Earls Court, London). The company's full range of lighting fixtures will be on display, with units including small MR16 fittings, strips in a variety of lengths and powerful projectors, to name a few. Most products are available for interior and exterior applications, with a variety of optics and either RGB colour mixing, or with a wide spectrum of single colour LEDs, making them adaptable to most project requirements.

Tryka will also showcase the Gorillaluce, a gorilla-shaped 50cm sculpture designed by Shiu-Kay Kan of SKK Ltd and lit with Tryka LinkLEDs, the flexible LED lighting source available in both single colour and colour-changing versions, as well as with optional optic lenses. The aim of this statuette is to raise awareness for the e

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UK - Further to the article in this issue on the future problems concerning radio spectrum trading, there have been some new developments that are too late to get written up for this issue. Essentially JFMG has made its future plans public, and contrary to popular belief is not looking to act as a Spectrum Management Organisations (SMO) - essentially a profit making retailer/manager of spectrum for entertainment use. JFMG says it prefers an alternative model where spectrum rights are owned directly by the users themselves, rather than by intermediaries. The concept is described in detail in the JFMG's document Future Spectrum Management for Programme Making and Special Events which is available from the JFMG website here.

M

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USA - L-Acoustics US has enlisted BYZ International to direct its sales efforts within the Latin American market. Based in Fort Lauderdale, BYZ is led by Adinaldo Neves.

Neves' pro audio industry beginnings date back to the early '90s when he started designing concert systems and studios in Brazil. Over the past ten years, he has been involved with sales and marketing for Digidesign, Loud Technologies and other companies in Latin America. He also co-authored the book Tecnologia aplicada à Música (Technology applied to Music).

"We feel very fortunate to have found Adi for this position," says Paul Freudenberg, vice-president of sales and marketing for L-Acoustics US. "His rich background in electronics, sales and marketing, combined with his intimate familiarity with the Latin American market, will undoubtedly afford us an increased presence from Baja Californi

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UK - London-based Sound Hire has just purchased a DiGiCo D1 Live after becoming one of the first companies to invest in the D5 Live back in September 2002. The rental company, founded by Richard Lienard, has continued its commitment to DiGiCo by purchasing the D1 Live to meet their client's increasing demands for a more compact live console that still provides the versatility and sound quality of the D5.

For Lienard, the addition of a D1 to his console stock was the logical step to take. "You can customise the D1 very easily to suit your requirements for a particular show or event," explains Lienard. "It reduces the need for outboard equipment, and consequently space - a real bonus at front of house and during transportation - because the console has such excellent internal effects processing it's not necessary to carry extra racks with you. It has the added advan

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UK - Marquee Audio has supplied London audio rental specialist Blitz Sound with two Yamaha PM1D digital consoles, which have been used for a run of reality TV shows, including the BBC's Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. "We buy a large amount of our stock from Marquee, who also supplied our two Yamaha PM5D desks," says Blitz's Peter Russell. "Following discussions with Andy Huffer at Marquee, the PM1Ds were specified by Andy Groves, CTV's head of sound for Fame Academy; we then bought the two consoles and, since that date, they haven't spent more than a week in our building."

In terms of covering the biggest area and using the most inputs, Fame Academy is the largest of the productions to have used the brace of PM1Ds. The desks have also been used by Blitz on The Games for Channel 4 and on Channel 5's The Farm. Russell says: &

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Italy - The San Remo Festival is Italy's longest running popular song competition, bigger than Eurovision and Idol combined, and has Italy completely transfixed each March. It's been running for 55 years, each year starring some of the biggest names in popular music as special guests, performing alongside the home-grown talent. This hugely competitive song contest also attracts major established Italian music artists, and the winning songs become huge hits.

This year, the festival lighting in San Remo's Ariston Theatre featured 33 Robe ColorSpot 1200E ATs, used nightly by Rai Television for five days of live broadcast between 9 and 12pm. Lighting equipment was supplied by Arco Multimedia Group from Roma, owned by Luciano Vinciguerra. The lighting director was Giuseppe Quini, who also specified the Robe fixtures. Quini worked alongside his programmers, Fabio Roberti and Lorenzo G

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USA - Northway Christian Church in Dallas, Texas, has a new sound system based around EAW's DSA Series line arrays. These were introduced when acoustical panels had been removed during a general refurbishment and reverberation problems were encountered.

The Church enlisted the services of Fort Worth Electro Acoustics & Video consulted where president Chris Jordan comments: "At first, I was pretty certain the church would have to reinstall the acoustical panels to achieve a more desirable reverb time. However, I'd heard about EAW's DSA Series line arrays, which can steer the output directly at the congregation, and away from the troublesome reflective surfaces. This proved to be an elegant and practical solution to the problems at Northway."

Jordan continues, "The DSAs are incredibly compact and unobtrusive for all the sound they put out, but we made them even le

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USA - Long-established Manhattan nightclub Webster Hall has installed a new live sound reinforcement system, including a full L-Acoustics dV-Dosc loudspeaker rig, in its 1,400-capacity Grand Ballroom.

In recent years, live concerts at Webster Hall have been a rarity, with only a handful being promoted by media giant Clear Channel, and the venue's focus has been almost exclusively on dance music. Now, The Bowery Presents (TBP), a local concert promotion company that also owns and handles shows for the Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge, is bringing live music back to the 120-year-old venue.

Designer Matt Kasha's newly-installed sound system comprises twin dV-DOSC/dV-SUB line source arrays hung to the left and right of the Grand Ballroom stage. Each array has a single dV-SUB with 12 dV-DOSC cabinets flown below and three additional dV-SUBs hung at show trim. To augment the syste

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UK - Sigma Audio Visual has supplied a full DTS 5:1 sound system - consisting of five Outline Micra SP cabinets and an Outline Globesub - to the Tower of London. The system, which is all self-powered is controlled via Millenium DTS signal processor.

The DTS system saw service at the Tower for two weeks from 19 May through to 4 June 2005 in the Tower of London's Salt Tower, which in medieval times was used to store the saltpetre which was used in the manufacture of gunpowder.

Serious Productions commissioned Sigma AV as they were the only company to have a DTS solution for a specific work that was recorded by Platinum Tones recording Studios in Leicester. Tony Platt, producer for the piece, said he was overwhelmed by the quality and attention to detail that Outline and Sigma achieved.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Thunder Audio is putting its recently purchased MILO curvilinear array system to work on Robert Plant's 22-date summer US tour. According to Thunder vice-president Paul Owen, 34 MILO cabinets will be employed to fill the houses on the tour, which kicks off on June 15 in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded more than 25 years ago, Thunder Audio is well-known for servicing heavy rock clients such as Metallica and Slipknot, but actually has a diverse clientele that includes the Detroit Symphony.

"I got to use the MILO system with Metallica when we were in Iceland," Owen recounts. "We were coming off of two years of touring with them where we saw just about every kind of system available on the European festival circuit. Now, I take (Metallica FOH engineer) Big Mick's opinion on a system more than anyone else's, having known him for twenty-five years. After using M

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UK - Tyco Integrated Systems (TIS) has been awarded a £1m plus contract by Transport for London (TfL) to provide a new generation integrated emergency communications system for the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

Radio public address will provide information and advice during emergencies by voice break-in direct to car radios via FM, MW, LW and DAB channels. The Rotherhithe Tunnel is believed to be the first tunnel in the UK to provide DAB radio rebroadcast with emergency voice break-in. The DAB voice break-in facility ensures future-proofing as digital radio replaces analogue and DAB vehicle radios become standard features.

Under normal circumstances, 21 analogue stations and all available DAB stations (five multiplexes) will be rebroadcast throughout the tunnel. Listeners in the tunnel will not have to take any action: the break-in announcements will simply replace all the normal progr

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Japan - One of Tokyo's highest profile nightclubs, Space Lab Yellow, has installed an Allen & Heath Xone:92 professional DJ mixer in the main DJ booth. The addition is part of a refurbishment of the lounge and bar spaces, and adds to the club's existing system, which contains an ML5000 VCA console, Xone:62 and Xone:464 DJ/club mixer.

The venue has hosted the promotional night World Connection since 1991, bringing top DJs and performers from overseas and developing new talent. Yellow's sound engineer, Mr. Kikuchi, commented: "In a nutshell, Allen & Heath's sonic quality is in a different class, and when I installed the Xone:92 it was as if I could actually see the sound. The high frequencies are sharp and clear, while the bass feels like somebody is beating a massive kick drum. I'm astounded by the mixer's huge cosmic sound scale - it's absolutely like no other!"

Acco

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UK - TMC Ltd have devised a tricky design solution for the Birmingham Christian Centre - an Elim Pentecostal church situated close to Birmingham's Broad Street - with the help of architectural effects provided by Lighting Effects Distribution. Commissioned during the late 1980s, the building's ceiling is split into awkward asymmetric segments within a polygonal building shape. But the infrastructure had now become tired, and the visual and sound mixing aspects were in need of upgrade.

TMC's hire department had enjoyed a long relationship with the church's events department over the years. The contract sales team were consequently introduced to the project, and invited to work with the client to develop the scheme. It was evident that the existing low pressure sodium lighting, with its familiar yellow hue, was inadequate and TMC were asked to design a concept in which the moods c

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South Africa - Martin Professional's Maxedia recently took a leading role amidst some of South Africa's finest opera singers, including Sibongile Khumalo, Fikile Mvinjelwa and Derick Ellis, at the Aqua Opera in Cape Town.

The location for the Aqua Opera, directed by Angelo Gobbato, is exquisite: the stage is set on a barge at the V&A Waterfront and enables the audience, seated on land, to view the breathtaking backdrop of Table Mountain and the ocean. As the tide would cause the barge to steadily rise as the tide came in during the show, meetings with the Harbour Master established a perfect time for the Aqua Opera to commence with the least amount of interference from the ocean.

Once the natural phenomenon had been taken care of, the technical aspects could be put in place. André Rossouw, lighting designer for the show, had the mammoth task of ensuring a lighti

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USA - Boston-based High Output put the Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE through its paces recently to help launch the new Play Station Portable. High Output purchased the 575W Alpha Spot HPE at the beginning of 2005. "For their size and price, I think they are a really good fixture," said High Output's Peter Smith. "The animation wheel is a real plus, and the smooth dimming curve is beautiful."

For the launch of the Play Station Portable (PSP), High Output had to transform the lobby of the Sony building on Madison Avenue in New York City - which features an oversized Spiderman used in the Macy's parade. To complicate matters further, the lobby is a public space until 11:00p.m. "The whole event was a challenge because the space is really not designed for shows," said Smith. "Add to that loading into the room in the middle of the night while it's raining

  1. Barco wins Chinese LED contracts
  2. CyberHoist for Coldplay
  3. Crown I-Tech for Nordic Rentals
  4. Cadac MI6 gets Korean blessing
  5. Manufacturers add EtherSound
  6. SoftLED aboard the QE2
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