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USA - By blending traditional bluegrass technique with modern songwriting themes, Boston based group, Della Mae, brings a new and fresh perspective to their music. When the members of the band decided to step up the quality of the group's live performances and achieve more mobility on stage, they chose DPA Microphones d:vote 4099 instrument microphones to make this happen.

Dedicated to crafting exquisite American roots music in the tradition of such greats as Willie Nelson, Del McCoury, Leon Russell and Laurie Lewis, not to mention Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, the members of Della Mae sought out the DPA mics because they knew the gear would give them maximum mobility on stage and bring out the best sound from their instruments. The band members - Celia Woodsmith on vocals, Jenni Lyn Gardner on mandolin, Kimber Ludiker on fiddle, Courtney Hartman on guitar and Shelby Means o

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USA - Thirty years on and Def Leppard is still one of the most important bands in rock music. Over 100m albums sold, a catalogue of rock anthems and a reputation for spectacular live shows attest to that.

The band has always had a loyal following in the US and has just wrapped up a Rock of Ages summer tour there with lighting design by Kenji Ohashi. Kenji's design used the Union Jack as its main theme and lit by a mostly Martin Professional lighting system supplied by Upstaging.

"It has been another great year of touring with Def Leppard," says Paul Costa of Upstaging, who have been supplying Def Leppard tours for years. "It was a pleasure to work with Kenji and the whole Def Leppard production."

For the summer 2012 tour Upstaging supplied 46 MAC Auras, 28 MAC III Profiles, 36 MAC 2000 Wash XBs, 8 MAC 2000 Beam XBs, 42 Stagebar 54s, and 30 Atomic 3

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USA - The Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple Dharma Center's mission is to promote peace and tranquility throughout the world, so it comes as no surprise that they embraced an elegant yet high-tech approach to upgrading their AV systems. Working with local system designer Tim McFarland of American Music, the Dharma Center chose the new Line 6 StageScape M20d smart mixing system to bring improved quality and ease of use to their presentations.

"After learning their needs, I thought the StageScape M20d was a good fit for the Dharma Center," says American Music owner Tim McFarland. "The system offers all this great technology, but without a big learning curve, which is important since they don't have any professional guys on staff. When I described the system to them in one of our meetings, they thought it would be perfect, so we went for it."

Greg Tsudama, a memb

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Austria The most successful German-language musical of all time celebrates its 20th anniversary in the famous Viennese theatre, the Raimund Theater. Having played to over 8.5 million people across 11 different countries, Elisabeth tells the gripping story of Austria's attractive Empress Sisi. The occasion has merited a brand new sound design by world famous sound designer and engineer, Thomas Strebel, with the addition of eight APG MC2 loudspeakers designed for high intelligibility vocal reproduction following the initial installation of an APG SMX15-based loudspeaker system in 2010.

The original design by Matthias Reithofer for the musical Ich war noch niemals in New York was an A-B configuration based on SMX15s and MX1 delays with TB118S and TB218S subs. The idea of using an A-B system to separate the mix was to avoid the summing of microphone signals that can le

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Germany - Aquanario, Europe's biggest mobile water show, celebrated its official premiere on 17 August in Berlin, Germany. For 10 nights, no less than 45.000 visitors saw an impressive show with water, lasers, fire, lights, pyrotechnics and music. Rock Solid Lighting created the lighting design and was responsible for programming and the lighting control system.

From 17 to 26 August, the Zentraler Festplatz of Berlin was transformed into a magical stage, featuring Europe's biggest water show. Flash Art Show Productions' director Markus Katterle and Rock Solid Lighting's lighting designer Jens Hillenkotter created an extraordinary 50-minute performance with 500.000 litres of water, lasers, fire, lights and pyrotechnics synchronously to the music.

From the very early stages of the show, Markus Katterle and Jens Hillenkotter decided to use the V:3D software of Syncronorm.

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USA - London-based projection artist Ross Ashton was commissioned by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire to produce an exclusive Son et Lumière show celebrating the 50th anniversary of its high profile Hopkins Centre for the Arts.

The show Five Windows was based around stunning large format projections highlighting the history, achievements and impact of the Hopkins Centre, which also houses the Ivy League College's drama, music, film and studio arts departments.

Giant images were projected on to the magnificent front façade of the Hopkins Centre, which was designed by architect Wallace Harrison and opened in 1962.

The College approached Ashton who has completed several prestigious projected art installations in the US within the last three years.

He comments, "It was an amazing opportunity to work with one of the most prominent educational institutio

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USA - St Joseph Parish in Needham, MA has been a part of this community for more than 100 years, beginning with a humble wooden church in 1894 and expanding its campus over the years to include a convent, elementary and middle schools, and a range of ministries. In 1966, having outgrown its existing sanctuary, the church completed construction of their current building.

The space has served them well for more than four decades, though there have always been sonic challenges. The room's architecture provides good acoustics for the traditional choir and organ arrangements, but the sanctuary's spoken word intelligibility left a bit to be desired.

"It's a rectangular space with a flat ceiling and lots of right angles," explains Zeke Zola, install manager at Boston Light and Sound, the company behind the design-build project. The walls are all brick and there's minimal ac

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South Africa - With a reputation of putting on superb musicals for the past 35 years, the Ligbron Academy of Technology for high school students in Ermelo outdid themselves with the production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

For a sprinkle of magic, Ligbron called on the services of JSF Productions for the full technical production. All equipment was hired in from MGG Productions.

"The show was very theatrical, it is after all a Disney musical," commented Johan Ferreira of JSF Productions, technical director, designer and operator. "I did months of research and design to be able to recreate the Disney enchantment on an extremely tight budget."

Ligbron usually host their musicals in a charming and well equipped theatre in Ermelo. With the venue not being available for this year's production, it was held in the school hall instead. "The stage

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Finland - Let's Dance Finland is the spin-off of the highly popular British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide. Currently the format has been licensed to over 42 territories. As a result, the series became the world's most popular television programme among all genres in 2006 and 2007, according to the magazine Television Business International, reaching the Top 10 in 17 countries.

Running for the seventh season, Finland's version received a lighting and set design by Mikki Kunttu who again relied on an MA control system consisting of two x grandMA2 light and an MA NPU (Network Processing Unit).

Kunttu says about his design, "It is the third season running with this set design. Although the lighting setup changes from season to season, the main principles stay the same. It's a show with a lot of glitter and eye-cand

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UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light has recently become the exclusive distributer of Altman Lighting products in the UK. Altman, innovators of theatrical, architectural, film and video lighting, will join the family of exclusive brands entrusted to White Light, based in London.

"We are very proud to announce this next step, which continues our long relationship with Altman," commented Peter Threadgold, White Light's sales director. White Light has been an Altman Lighting dealer for many years.

Mr. Threadgold continued, "Altman's commitment to manufacturing inventive, high quality equipment is a perfect match for our aim to deliver superior products and service. The fixtures and accessories have always been well-suited for the varied needs of our customers across multiple fields." With shared values and a customer focus, both Altman and White

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UK - Clay Paky's President and CEO Pasquale Quadri presented the lighting industry charity Light Relief with a substantial donation at this year's glittering Knight of Illumination Awards in London.

Quadri, who is the 'Paky' - a shortened version of his first name - in Clay Paky, handed the cheque for £5,000 to Light Relief's Rick Fisher to help the charity provide practical support to lighting designers experiencing extreme financial hardship.

Clay Paky is already heavily involved with the lighting industry, not just as a manufacturer of much specified entertainment lighting fixtures but also as a main sponsor and organiser of the KOI Awards and as corporate sponsor of Light Relief.

Pio Nahum, chief commercial officer for Clay Paky discusses, "Without the lighting designers who use our equipment so imaginatively and who willingly feedback to our R&D Clay Paky cou

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Switzerland - Schertler, the Swiss manufacturer of contact microphones and acoustic amplification systems, continues to grow its international distributor network with recent appointments in seven territories.

Five new distributors have been named in Europe: GVI Vertriebs GmbH of Freistadt is now the Schertler distributor for Austria. Netherlands-based PB Music BV has been appointed to represent Schertler in the Benelux. SC Sound, Vejen, is the distributor for Denmark, completing Schertler's Scandinavian line-up. IMS Distribution in Port-Mort has been appointed as the distributor for France and Waltons Music of Dublin is now handling sales in the Republic of Ireland.

In Asia, Seoul-based Soundstream Co. Ltd is the official distributor for Korea, adding to an existing network of Schertler MI and pro audio distributors in Japan, Singapore, China and Thailand. Dynamic Music, base

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Sweden - A former brewery may not seem the obvious choice for a live venue, but that is exactly the use that Stockholm's Bryggarsalen has been put to. A newly-installed Alcons Audio system ensures that the sound for live events has a crisp head and a full body. Just like a good ale, in fact.

Originally built in 1914, Stockholm's Bryggarsalen (Brewery House) ended its first incarnation as a brewery in 1970. The ensuing 40 years saw the building put to a variety of uses, until its rebirth as a live music and corporate event venue in 2010. With a restaurant and two bars complementing the event spaces, it's already extremely popular.

Bromma-based Electrosound has previously installed Alcons systems in several other Swedish venues, so the company's engineers knew that Alcons would deliver in what proved an acoustically challenging room.

Originally it contained the washbacks for b

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Europe - Martin Professional is hosting local events across Europe on an "Engineered for the Eye" roadshow tour that brings Martin directly to end users for a more detailed, personal discussion of dynamic lighting and visual solutions.

Current dates include:

Kent (30-10-2012); London (01-11-2012); London (02-11-2012); Plymouth (07-11-2012); Bristol (09-11-2012); Huddersfield (14-11-2012); Manchester (15-11-2012) Cheshire (16-11-2012) More stops to be confirmed soon.

Registration requires that Javascript is activated on your local computer. If you are having any issues with registration please send an email to roadshow@martin.com and you will be contacted shortly.

For more information and the latest news on the roadshow, visit the web address below.

(Claire Beeson)

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World - FOH and Monitors engineers, Antony King and Nahuel Gutierrez, have used Midas consoles of varying shapes and sizes during the year-long world tour with Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds. The pair kicked off the tour with a PRO6 then picked up an XL8 for the arena leg and followed up by using a PRO2C for festivals.

For the past 12 months Gallagher and his band have performed to audiences at a plethora of venue types and sizes, from huge outdoor festivals and arenas to small theatres and events - at home and abroad.

King and Gutierrez's mission - to ensure the quality of Noel's distinctive sound remains the same for every gig. Gutierrez explains, "The High Flying Birds tour has demanded several different engineering approaches to make it work. We had PRO6s in every territory for the first three months of the tour. Then we came back to the UK and into the aren

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UK - Although the old rhyme would have you believe that you will find a fine lady upon a white horse in the Oxfordshire town of Banbury, nowadays you're far more likely to find an event enjoying all the sonic benefits of a pair of DiGiCo SD9 consoles.

Recently purchased by production company Sound & Light Guys, the purchase of the two consoles and their associated D-Racks was the result of lengthy deliberations by co-owners Ged and Freddie Fitzpatrick.

"It took us several years to decide to change from analogue consoles, the reason being that a lot of the digital desks we listened to had that typical 'digital' sound," says Ged. "When we first heard the sound of the top of the range DiGiCo SD7, we realised that was the way to go. But, as we do mid range acts, the more compact SD9 was the best package for us."

With the same sonic quality as the SD7 and supp

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Qatar - Part of the Qatar Foundation's Education City campus, Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and RHWL Architects of Berlin, is the largest in the Middle East. Located in the fast-developing city of Doha, its myriad of facilities - theatre, three auditoria, conference hall, 40,000m2 exhibition space, nine halls, and plethora of meeting rooms - are of the highest standard with a technical specification that is world class.

Although QNCC opened in December of 2011, Lee Prince, director of lighting design consultancy firm Light + Design Associates of London, has been involved with lighting the multi-use facility since 2004. He comments, "The brief was to create a dynamic, changing environment for the various activities that take place at QNCC such as conferences, conventions, music, lectures, banquet events, etc. We've done

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UK - Liverpool-based technical solution specialist Adlib's audio division is supplying an L-Acoustics K1 sound system and delays for the UK and European leg of Radiohead's current world tour.

They are also supplying two of their top engineers - Tony Szabo and George Puttock - who are working with the Radiohead audio team to ensure that the band's quest for producing the very best sonic audience experience is achieved.

On the road, the sound crew is headed by FOH engineer Jim Warren, monitor engineer Mike Prowda and production systems designer Sherif el Barbari. Also integral to this set-up is Ross Anderson, who looks after Prowda and Brett Taylor, from New York based US audio contractor Firehouse Productions, who is overseeing the delays.

Adlib was asked to quote on the tour by Radiohead's production manager Richard Young, and were delighted when selected. Says Adlib's Direc

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UK - With Leona Lewis set to perform at one of London's top private members clubs, Annabel's, Steve White from Patchwork London, the club's audio provider, needed a loudspeaker system that would provided a high quality sound, without unwanted visual impact. A KR200 system from the Italian innovators proved the solution for both requirements.

The system specification originally came from Leona's front of house engineer Dave Wooster, who knew they needed something that could cope with the very low ceiling and compact nature of the venue.

"From my perspective this is the perfect system for the job, not only for size, but for the performance that was required for a very discerning audience," says Wooster. "Leona performed a completely acoustic set featuring a band comprising backing vocals, piano, acoustic guitar and cello, the balance and nuances of which were perf

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USA - Spain based loudspeaker manufacturer Lynx Pro Audio S.L. has partnered with new US pro audio and entertainment technologies firm Event Systems Group, Inc. The agreement gives Event Systems Group exclusive distribution of the brand throughout the entire US and Canada.

For Lynx Pro Audio, the long awaited introduction to the North American market means a whole new realm of possibility for a brand that has seen great success in other countries in recent years. Lynx Pro Audio was formed relatively recently and already has a product line that is quickly gaining recognition as a major player on a global scale.

Ben Sinclair - Lynx Pro Audio export manager says, "Event Systems came to Spain and spent a whole week with us. They listened to all our systems, spent valuable time with the engineers and by the end of the week we were confident that they were the right guys to rep

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UK - Following a recent successful showcase of the Christie Nitro YK50 on their stand at PLASA 2012, A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has been appointed by global visual technology company, Christie, as sole UK & Ireland distributor for its new Nitro Solutions series of integrated motorised yoke and projector systems.

Initially, AC-ET will concentrate on the dual-arm YK50, the smallest yoke in the three product range, designed to support the Christie LHD700 3LCD, full HD projector, and LX700 XGA LCD projector - both offering a 7000 ANSI lumens output.

A.C. Video division's sales manager, Peter Butler comments, "AC-ET has been a Christie partner for many years and is delighted to add another high performing product to our distribution portfolio. The YK50 performed extremely well during testing and provides an exceptional quality of video with an extremely accurate y

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UK - Vicarage Road Stadium has been home to Watford Football Club since 1922, and Premiership Rugby high-flyers, Saracens, for the last 15 years. Over the past few decades, the ground has also played host to a number of major music concerts, most famously perhaps, the several headlined by its world famous piano-playing former-owner, Reginald Dwight (AKA Sir Elton John).

As part of its recent ground renovation plan, the stadium needed to improve the quality of its sound system, and opted to install a new integrated Public Address and Voice Alarm (PAVA) system. As well as adhering to a number of crucial life-safety standards, the system needed to provide excellent vocal clarity, and be loud enough to overcome the crowd volume.

Consultant for this project, Roland Hemming, says he had no hesitation in specifying a Peavey MediaMatrix system, as it was perfect for the job in hand.

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China / Europe - Based in the epicentre of China's optoelectronic industry, Ledman Optoelectonic Co., Ltd has grown over recent years to become one of the world's largest specialists in LED component, display and lighting product manufacture. Now, with contracts officially signed at PLASA 2012, the company has acquired Ledman Europe GmbH, a dedicated European operation, which will ensure that its expansion is set to continue.

Having thoroughly prepared its product range for the European market, with all important aspects such EMC certification in place, the company knew it needed to have a European base, providing local support from local language speaking experts.

"To support our customers properly, it's very important that we understand what is required in each location around the world," says Ledman founder and chairman Martin Lee. "Europe has very specific r

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USA - It's only a matter of weeks until PLASA Focus: Stamford 2012 shines a spotlight on the very latest entertainment technology products making their way to the tri-state Area. Now the third regional PLASA event to be held in North America, PLASA Focus: Stamford 2012 takes place on 12-13 November, 2012 at the Stamford Marriott, in Connecticut, just 30 minutes outside of New York City.

Visitors to the show will be among the first to see many of the new products being displayed and demonstrated such as Elation's new Energy Saving DMX moving heads, Rayzor Q7 and Rayzor Q12, Volt Q3 and Volt Q5, Platinum Beam 15R Pro, Platinum Spot 35 Pro, Platinum Wash ZFX Pro/ Platinum Wash ZFX Pro XL, Event Cylinder and the ELAR Quad series; MDG's versatile theFan; ETC's new Source Four Dimmer; Clay Paky's new Sharpy Wash 330, A.Leda Wash K20, A.Leda Wash K10, A.Leda Wash K5; the innovative W-D

  1. Allen & Heath iLive and GLD training day
  2. Audio-Technica on the campaign trail
  3. Martin MAC III Performance on China's Sing Off
  4. Clay Paky Sharpys on Carnival of Madness
  5. Arena to supply venue for City of Culture
  6. S+H LED screen tours with Kim Wilde
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