USA - JBL Professional is celebrating a double victory after its products came first in both loudspeaker categories at this year's Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio Awards. Over 750 industry movers and shakers attended the Awards held in San Francisco during the recent AES Convention.

JBL Professional's LSR4300 won the Best Studio Monitor Loudspeaker category, while the company's VRX932LA won the category for Best Sound Reinforcement Loudspeaker.

Martin Seidl, JBL's director of sales, Europe, says: "Everyone at JBL is very proud that our hard work has been reflected in the votes of Mix magazine readers, who have chosen to endorse LSR and VRX as industry-leading successes. We were especially delighted to receive two of the most prestigious Awards in pro audio in front of such an esteemed crowd."

The LSR4300 Studio Monitor is designed to provide accurate mixes i

UK - Launched at the recent PLASA Show, the long-awaited, fully updated and massively expanded latest edition of White Light's Reference Guide was a huge hit, with hundreds of lighting designers and electricians leaving the show with a copy of the new guide.

For those who haven't yet obtained a 'real' copy, the Reference Guide is now available for download in PDF format from the White Light website. The downloadable Reference Guide complements the ever-growing on-line Knowledge Base which can also be found on the White Light website.

"We were overwhelmed by the demand for our new Reference Guide at PLASA," says White Light's marketing manager, Aubs Tredget. "I hadn't realised quite how much people had been coveting their old catalogues as an invaluable reference guide; hopefully we've managed to retain all of that information and fit lots of useful new informati

UK - Following the success of last year's new category - Entertainment Lighting - The Lighting Design Awards are again looking for entries from lighting designers within the entertainment sector. This includes concerts, festivals, theatrical productions, corporate events, exhibitions and also temporary or one-off lighting installations intended for an audience.

The judges will be looking for creative use of lighting which commands audience attention and which highlights, complements or is in itself the main focus of the event.

The Award, sponsored by PLASA and Lighting&Sound International, is designed to give lighting designers across the industry recognition for their creative work. Last year's winner - The Storr - provided the backdrop for a subtle and imaginative light and sound installation that the judges described as "an awesome undertaking". They also praised

UK - The new national tour of Chicago, the Musical starring Jennifer Ellison, opened in September at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre. Having supplied the production in Dubai earlier this year, Stage Electrics is once again providing all lighting & electrics for the musical which is touring the UK for the next 40 weeks.

"This is a particularly busy time for us and with our London Bridge facility now firmly established as a vital resource to London's West End, coupled with our national network of branches supporting touring productions, we are ideally suited to provide a first class level of service to any show we are involved with" says Chris Patton, business development manager for theatre.

The fit up of over 16 tonnes of lighting equipment required for the West End production of The Sound of Music is now under way. Stage Electrics is supplying the ent

UK - A new breed of Internet search engine, designed to serve the specific needs of b2b users, will target electronics industry professionals as its first market. Developed by Reed Business Search, the Internet search division of Reed Business, Zibb.com aims to deliver a better search experience for b2b users than any other search engine.

Graeme McCracken, COO of RB Search, explained: "Zibb.com is a dedicated b2b search engine, honed to deliver the specific information that business users want. It delivers quicker and better answers for b2b queries than is possible with general search engines. Though still in its test phase, the site is now fully functioning for the electronics industry and this will be our first market.

"It's simply about using the best tool for the job. We challenge the industry's professionals to visit www.zibb.com/electronics, make the comparison

UK - Daddy Cool is showing at the Shaftesbury Theatre and is set to the music of 70s legends Boney M. This exciting musical is directed by Andy Goldberg and stars Michelle Collins, Harvey from So Solid Crew and Javine. Set design is by Jon Morrell, and the lighting design for the show is by Rob Halliday. The Mirror-ball, and Ma Baker's Bar are just two of the sets featuring lighting supplied by South Woodham Ferrers based LED specialists Chamaeleon Technologies.

Chamaeleon technical director, Adam Knight, says: "Working on Daddy Cool has been exciting experience for Chamaeleon. It's our first musical, and great to be involved with. It's given us a real in-sight and appreciation for the thought and scale that goes into set design." Knight reserved special praise for Simon Needle and the Electrolite team for the installation of the Mirorr-ball, for Ian Moul

USA - The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson recently completed a total renovation of its set at CBS Television City in Los Angeles. The good news for musical guests visiting Studio 58 is that there is now a larger performance area as well as an improved monitor system, which benefits from a dozen new L-Acoustics 112XT and two 115XT stage wedges, all powered by the manufacturer's LA Series amplifiers.

"I'm definitely liking these monitors," says Late Late Show PA/monitor mixer Chris Maddalone, who has also mixed for The Price Is Right and American Idol and recorded and toured with numerous rock acts over the years. "I've gone through just about every box you can think of and these are right up at the top of the list, which makes sense seeing that I've used V-DOSC(r) and dV-DOSC a bunch of times and loved them."

Maddalone notes that the

Italy - Widely used by London rental firm Britannia Row Productions on the occasion of the concert by Roger Waters (Ex Pink Floyd) at Hyde Park and other high profile summer events, the Brescia manufactured line array was chosen by Nuovo Service of Bologna as FOH system for Cesare Cremonini.

The summer tour has lasted three months and the Butterfly system consisted of 14+14 CDH 483 Hi-Packs, 8+8 Victor Live subwoofers (plus 8 HARD 212 low profile wedge monitors).

Willy Gubellini, owner of Nuovo Service says: "I'm definitely satisfied with the results achieved in terms of SPL, coverage of the areas at the shows and as far as actual sound quality is concerned.

"I'd also like to stress the advantage of being able to install an array of 12/14 enclosures in such a small space and with such a very low overall weight.

"I'd say that the tour is definitely one of the

USA - At LDI 2006, TMB is promoting products from around the world including Alpha One, FinnLight, Green Hippo, Kinesys and Interactive.

Falcon high-power, compact fixtures from Alpha One of Germany are designed for architectural and portable use. Xenon and Metal Halide models are available, in static or automated versions.

TMB is now worldwide master distributor for FinnLight Film/TV lighting products. Emmy Award winning Director of Photography Bruce Finn, will be on the TMB stand demonstrating his Toplight and new Maxilight Micro.

Green Hippo is showing the new V3 software for the Hippotizer media server. V3 makes loading media files "idiot proof", incorporates timeline based on-board control, true SDI output and complete networking and control of multiple Hippotizers.

Interactive Technologies' new CueServer playback processor is a self-contained, web enabled s

UK - Catalyst Sound & Communication Engineers has completed the installation of a new PA system for the Harlequins' Twickenham Stoop stadium using Community R-Series loudspeakers.

Twickenham Stoop is today home to both the NEC Harlequins Rugby Union and Harlequins RL Rugby League teams. With Rugby Union playing the winter season and Rugby League the summer season, the stadium is in use throughout the year and in all weather.

Catalyst has been handling the installation and maintenance of the public address facilities for the Stoop for over four years and were again appointed to design and install the system for the new Lexus stand in 2006. The system is required for recorded music and live commentary and had to meet the usual requirements for open air sports facilities - very high intelligibility with tightly controlled dispersion to give full audience coverage whilst minimisin

Italy - Italian satellite channel, Sky used Rome's annual Notte Bianca (White Night) festival to launch this year's winter football schedules. White Night is an annual event, which takes place throughout the city and covers visual arts, music dance and theatre.

Locally based events company One Group, were contacted by Sky to look after the sound for the launch. RCF's Fabrizio Grazia says: "When we were contacted to One Group who handle our events business in Rome, we suggested that they use our new Line Array system TT+. We knew that when working in the confirms of Rome's historic piazza's, it can course some acoustic problems. But on the day the line array worked perfectly."

Group One used four TTL33-A per side and 1 TTL28-A per side as FOH.

(Chris Henry)

The Ukraine - Komora, the Ukrainian-British Joint Venture and Harman Pro distributor recently installed a 56-channel Soundcraft MH4 mixing console in the most prestigious concert hall of the country - the National Palace of Arts Ukraine.

In this 3,860-seat concert hall the country's most important cultural, artistic, concert and political events take place - which is why the requirements for the main mixing console are extremely high.

Chief engineer of the Palace Ukraine, Mr. B. Klevtsov, says: "We had been considering the features of different manufacturers' mixing consoles but without hesitation made our choice in favour of the 56-channel MH4."

The company says, the clear sound of Soundcraft consoles, their functional capabilities, ease of control, sufficient number of mono and stereo inputs (56+4), 16 Auxes, eight VCA groups are the essential features that will

The Netherlands - As the countdown to ISE 2007 continues to gather pace, the show organisers have today announced that Russound, a leading supplier of multiroom audio-video systems, multichannel amplifiers, and loudspeakers, is to sponsor a lounge dedicated for European distributors to network with their resellers.

Russound has teamed up with the show organisers at ISE to sponsor this unique offering. Situated in Hall 1 at the Amsterdam RAI, access to this lounge will be free of charge to all distributors and specially invited resellers. This new initiative offers distributors and resellers a chance to network in a quieter atmosphere and to allow intensive one to one discussions away from the bustle of the exhibition floor. Complimentary refreshments will be provided throughout the day.

Jon Le Blanc, director International Division for Russound says: "This is a pivotal st

UK - Flux Events staged and production managed the recent Secret Policeman's Ball at the Royal Albert Hall for Amnesty International, working in close collaboration with TV producers, Tiger Aspect.

The charity event featured Eddie Izzard, Russell Brand, Chevy Chase, Seth Green, Dylan Moran, The Mighty Boosh, Graham Norton, John Culshaw, Al Murray, Andrew Maxwell, plus live music from Natalie Imbruglia, The Magic Numbers and The Zutons.

"The design brief was to produce a simple and memorable set that effectively communicated the Amnesty message" says event producer John Farquhar- Smith. Two large LED screens flanked the organ; a satellite stage in the shape of amnesty's logo and large projection screen was added at gallery level for those sitting behind the satellite stage to see the faces of those performing on it.

The satellite stage at the centre of the au

Denmark - Music fans at the Danmarks Smukkeste Festival, Denmark's second-biggest outdoor concert event, were recently treated to probably the best sound in the festival's 26-year history when Nordic Rentals A/S introduced the new Dolby Lake Processor on the mainstage PA system.

Nordic Rentals boasts the largest inventory of Dolby Lake Processor and Lake Contour digital loudspeaker processors in Europe - 20 units in total - and regularly supplies the sound and lighting equipment for all of the festival stages.

"I am a very happy owner after hearing the new Dolby Lake Processor at work over the last three months and receiving a massive positive response from audiences, promoters and band techs," says Jens Elsborg, technical director for Nordic Rentals. Elsborg said. "My first impression was of sweet, soft and highly detailed super-highs, and the lows are filled w

UK - UK cable specialist VDC Trading has been working in conjunction with Roland Systems Group UK to develop an easy way of connecting the company's new RSS Digital Snake to Front Of House mixing consoles.

The RSS system uses CAT 5e to connect the stage hardware to the FOH desk. At the stage end there are numerous female XLR connectors mounted directly onto the brains of the PCB. To make this connection point more rugged - and to give PA companies the opportunity to incorporate their existing line systems - Roland asked VDC's technical staff to devise a panel that would sit over these XLRs and provide one simple multipin connection.

At the other end of the system, where it connects to the FOH mixer, VDC was asked to devise another panel that would convert the fiddly D25 connectors to a simple and much stronger VDM150.

VDC director Giles Copeman, who was in charge of the proj

USA - When the student body at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas first voted to add a fee to help fund construction of the original Moyer Student Union building back in the early 1960's, UNLV had just 5,000 students, and Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack were still performing regularly down on the Strip. Forty years later the city of Las Vegas has grown beyond anyone's expectations and the current UNLV 28,000-member student population has more than outgrown the Student Union. Clearly time for an upgrade.

The new Moyer Student Union is being built in two stages, the first of which opened this autumn. The new 135,000 sq.ft space is bigger and better, offering a dining court, a TV lounge, office space for student advocacy and interest groups, more and expanded spaces for studying and socialising, a 300-seat movie theatre, and a powerful sound system utilising several models of Commu

UK - Specialist production company EVENT was selected to work with artist Carsten Höller and curator Jessica Morgan on The Unilever Series: Carsten Höller Test Site at Tate Modern, London. The piece which opened to the public earlier this month comprises five giant slides which spiral down from the galleries to the floor of the Turbine Hall.

"The biggest challenge was to create a lighting design powerful enough to be effective in broad daylight" said EVENT designer James O'Connell. "With the right kit in place, we were able to project shadow effects against the vast walls and floor of the hall, extending the impact of the installation across the entire space. It was crucial that this effect was able to counter the natural light from the huge glass ceiling."

Once the equipment had been sourced and initial design work done, EVENT began working with the

Canada - For the Dalai Lama's appearance in front of a 14,000-strong audience in Vancouver's General Motors Place, Audio Image Canada (AIC) supplied a system comprising Meyer Sound's MILO family loudspeakers: the high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker, 120 high-power expanded coverage curvilinear array loudspeaker, MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker, and the new M'elodie ultracompact high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker.

The AIC team began by scoping out the system design using Meyer Sound's MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction software. "MAPP is powerful and accurate," says AIC head engineer Mark LeCorre. "First we worked out the design in MAPP, then my system engineer Jamie Howieson and I spent a lot of time walking every part of the room with a WiFi-enabled tablet PC that controlled our system processor, making adjustments, and using o

Europe - Bandit and Chicago-based rock band, Disturbed, have just finished a European tour to promote the band's latest album, Ten Thousand Fists. The band, which formed in 1996, is set to begin touring in the United States in mid-November.

For the European tour, Lighting designer, Travis Shirley, chose to use Martin MAC 2ks, MAC 500s, MAC 250s, Martin Atomic Colors, High End Systems Studio Beam PC, Pulsar Chromabanks, PARS, and Color Kinetics Colorblast.

Shirley said that the overall lighting design was created to produce a concert atmosphere that matched the mood of the band's music. An important feature of the lighting design was the rig itself. Shirley said that he wanted the rig to display a dysfunctional look- to give a "disturbed" feel. The juxtaposed placement of fixtures created a multi level, asymmetrical wall. The strobes were in a grid allowing ver

UK - Northern Light has teamed up with the Edinburgh Clubbing Community Forum (ECCF) and the cream of the city's after dark scene to host a charity club night in aid of the Edinburgh Sick Kids Friends Foundation.

The Halloween event takes place on November 4 in the atmospheric venue of The Caves in Edinburgh's old town, situated in the old underground vaults of the city.

Northern Light is providing its expertise in sound and lighting free of charge for this event, which boasts a line up of DJs from the very best of the Edinburgh clubbing scene.

The event is showcasing 14 different clubs over four subterranean rooms and all profits will go to Edinburgh's Sick Kids hospital. In addition, the National Lottery has agreed to match all funds raised pound for pound.

Colin Cuthbert, managing director at Northern Light, said: "I'm delighted to offer our services to help such a

UK - Lift Turn Move (LTM) staged its first full course at base CM Lodestar Motor School this month, which was attended by 16 people representing many sectors of the industry. The course was presented by Dave Ward and John Jones.

Jones says, "There's a stronger demand than ever for Motor Schools from our clients, who want their staff and regular crews to be fully clued up on all the maintenance issues. We'd wanted to run Motor Schools for some time, but we had to wait until the current series of building modifications and expansion was completed before we had the space."

Numbers were deliberately limited to 16 places. Jones explained that their past experiences proved that this was the ideal number to allow a one or two person presentation team to give everyone sufficient individual attention. It was also a 'friendly' number that worked well in LTM's new training room

Italy - For the first time, Nokia Trends, a music, mobility and multimedia arts festival, was staged in Italy. The show, which featured artists such as Gotan Project, Tiga and Timo Maas, was held in the former Stazione Leopolda, in Florence - a railway station transformed into an atmospheric arena for hosting fashion events.

One full-size and one light grandMA console were used to light the two main stages. The video content came from two grandMA mediaPCs with grandMA video. Another grandMA full-size controlled the entrance, meeting, demo rooms and dance floor area lighting. Additionally a grandMA micro was utilised.

On the two stages the artists performed at different times. For this reason each media server was dedicated to a specific stage which had a unique screen composed of a high-resolution Barco LED wall and a low-resolution VersaTube on the top and bottom parts. Light

UK - Audio-Technica unveiled a major new marketing strategy at this year's PLASA exhibition, comprising corporate and product rebranding, promotional and pricing initiatives. The corporate rebranding is based around the concept of 'a world of serenity', and reflects the founding Zen principles of the Japanese microphone company.

The company's stand at PLASA was designed to provide stimulation of all five senses; sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Visually, the stand adopted a clean, gallery like approach to the display of products and graphics, while digital signage, promoting the new corporate branding, provided additional stimulation. Ambient sounds reproduced birdsong, while an aroma machine produced the smell of freshly cut grass, giving a sense of freedom and of being outdoors. Green tea was offered to visitors, and a central 'chill-out area' offered Japanese head and ha

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