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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

"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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

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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14 March 2016

Hosting many one night theatre shows and a host of interesting music gigs, they wanted a multi-functional console that would be good for busking and fast programming 'on-the-fly' as well as for handling detailed pre-programmed shows.

grandMA was initially recommended to the Albany by lighting designer Lawrence Stromski, and originally they thought it would be beyond their budgets, but then Greenhill and Wallace took the opportunity to check out what MA had to offer at PLASA 2009. Here they saw grandMA2 in action and were se

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14 March 2016

Named by The Times as the Asian Björk, Sa DingDing sings in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Mandarin. By mixing traditional Chinese melodies and Buddhist prayers with electronic instruments, she has inspired many with a spiritual musicality reproduced by a Meyer Sound system.

"Milo was used because it not only provides the power we needed for the size of venue but also gives us the dynamics," states Roland Chan, concert engineer of Shalom AV Technology.

To cover 3,600 spectators in the four-level Star Hall measuring 30,000sq.ft, a Meyer Sound system with 16 Milo and four Milo 120 line array

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14 March 2016

More than 40 students, engineers and producers attended the two-day event, which was organised as a joint initiative by high end recording and broadcast equipment manufacturer Prism Sound/SADiE and JAMES, the education arm of the Music Producers Guild (MPG), the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS), and the UK Screen Association.

Phil Harding, chairman of JAMES, said, "It was a fantastic weekend that attracted good support from the industry and delivered key insights into some very pertinent topics. Many of those who attended expressed their delight in being able to learn from professionals who were willing to share their expertise and impart some useful tricks of the trade."

Throughou

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14 March 2016

The company moved to the new, larger Litlington premises from nearby Melbourn because of ongoing expansion. A major attraction of the new building was a studio featuring a live room and two edit suite/control rooms, which had seen very little use and was in immaculate condition.

"It was a fantastic opportunity to create a high quality demonstration and training facility and also to set up a cutting edge recording studio," says Absolute Pro Audio's Phil Darke. "The first thing I did when everything was wired up was to mic up the new Yam

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14 March 2016

The two and a half day training was held at the IAG Club in Shenzhen. More than 50 participants, consisting of Sanecore audio engineers and audio professionals from all over China, enjoyed the presentations by Pat Brown. The course was offered in English with Chinese translation provided by Tao Zhang, a US based technical a

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14 March 2016

Summit were working for equestrian event specialists and show producers Horse Power, and have supplied the show for the last five years, during which time its rigging requirements have steadily grown in scale.

This year, there were additional technical requirements, utilised for both the Horse Show and for the Windsor Tattoo, which was staged on four of the five evenings of the Horse Show.

Two 6 x 4m LED screens, each weighing approximately 1.2 tonnes were positioned at the ends of the arena - one straddling the warm up paddock entranceway, and the other at its opposite diagonal corner. These relayed competition and public information as well as

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14 March 2016

"This is a very exacting audience of industry professionals, who are used to hearing the best possible quality of recordings," says Zieba. "We wanted to match that quality, but also to lift their experience above that so that they know they're listening to a live orchestra. The XL8 does this imperceptibly; it effectively vanishes while delivering an incredibly complex mix to every corner.

"I've been doing the Classical BRITs here for six years, and the sound of

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14 March 2016

Danny Schurer, company director at Concept Audio, comments, "Having worked with most digital desks on the market, we felt that the Allen & Heath was the best value for money whilst being the most intuitive to use in the environments we were going to employ it in."

Currently providing technical production for the Warner's 2010 Strictly Come Dancing tour,

Concept Audio are using the iLive for this as well as various other projects during tour breaks, including the upcoming Madehurst Festival in Sussex. Martin Daley, sales manager at Allen & Heath, who visited Concept Audio personally to demo the iLive comments, "Danny and the team responded enthu

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14 March 2016

Team Hybrid's boom operator, CJ Withey, recently purchased his 4017mk2-R from DPA's New Zealand distributor, Amber Technology NZ, taking advantage of the mic's new features. This includes improved RF immunity, a further reduction in perceived high frequency noise and low cut filter modification, with the lower -3 dB point changed from 300 to 120 Hz. Like its predecessor, the shotgun comes complete with a kit of Rycote weatherproof systems.

V48Hours attracts thousands of moviemakers, from experienced film directors to enthusiastic newcomers across New Zealand. This year, 700 teams pooled their talents to create a short film in just one weekend. Teams are assigned a genre at the star

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14 March 2016

During Prolight+Sound, Theatrixx CEO Jacques Tessier began to envisage the potential for Cuelux - the platform independent software lighting controller - on the Canadian market and on his return to Canada placed his initial stock order, confirming the Distribution deal.

On Theatrixx' appointment as Visual Productions distributor, Tessier states, "This line of products is offering tremendous amount of possibilities for learning lighting programming for beginners as well as doing highly sophisticated programming for experienced designers; for both live and permanent installation. With the Visua

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14 March 2016

Rose has used the MAC 401's previously on both the ABC Disney Christmas Parade special and Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eveand stated, "For this show I had the concept of an updated 'wall of light,' like was done with PAR-64's in the heyday of heavy metal tours. I knew, from my previous experience, that I wanted to build this 'wall' with MAC 401's."

He created the spectacular look by hanging three rows of 14 fixtures

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14 March 2016

Excalibur, the Celtic rock opera created by Alan Simon, boasts a cast comprising icons from the '70s and '80s. In fact, there are over 100 international stars in this show including Alan Parsons, founder of the Alan Parsons Project, John Helliwell of Supertramp and Martin Barre, guitarist with Jethro Tull.

After the success of 2009 at Kaltenberg Castle in Germany with an audience of over 17,000, the show is now on tour in 12of the most important cities in Germany and Switzerland and is already scheduled to be performed in other European countries in the summer of 2011.

Swordsmen, knights and dancers in medieval costume perform on a stage with central dais designed in the form of the legendary sword. A spectacular lighting installation

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14 March 2016

In the large open space close to Porto's City Hall, two towers each with 12 PT-9 line array speakers were positioned approximately 30m from the sides of the main stage, providing coverage for between 60,000 and 80,000 people. In front of the stage, two Linea Focus LF-220 electronically controlled column speakers provided direct sound for approximately 1000 VIP guests. Such were the crowds that in neighbouring side streets additional loudspeakers were used to relay the mass to those unable to reach the main area.

Uli Haug, Fohhn Au