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UK - Gareth Collyer has been appointed as Nexo's new sales manager for the UK and Ireland, spearheading a new distribution programme.

Nexo is exhibiting at PLASA in its own right for the first time in nearly 20 years, marking the recent strategic move away from third-party distribution to direct manufacturer support for the UK market. As Nexo's regional manager, Gareth Collyer will take charge of a network of elite dealers, with a brief to expand and consolidate Nexo's profile in the UK and Eire.

Collyer is well-known to the pro-audio industry, having spent the last four years bringing Harman's professional brands to the UK's installation and tour sound markets. He has an extensive track record, having spent his formative years in sales and market development with Bose UK and Lamba plc. He joined Harman Pro UK in 2005, where his career trajectory through the company and its pr

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UK - XMOS announced today (Monday) that it will provide support for Gigabit Ethernet AVB networking. The XMOS Gigabit endpoint implementation supports AVB applications including high speed streaming of up to 72 channels of audio traffic over Ethernet to networked electronic devices.

As demonstrated at PLASA09, the XMOS Ethernet AVB solution consists of XCore event-driven processors, open source AVB software, application notes, prototyping board schematics, gerber files and documentation with general availability planned for Q4 2009. XMOS AVB systems are programmed in C using freely available development tools, providing unmatched design flexibility.

XMOS provides a cost-effective way for designers to implement Ethernet AVB with professional levels of quality of service. Applications that are enabled with XMOS AVB products range from consumer audio equipment such as home theatr

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UK - The digiLED team has brought its latest LED display surface, digiTILE to the live events and fixed installation markets.

The digiTILE range is officially launched at PLASA09 although it is already in production for clients in the UK, Norway, Belgium, France, Lebanon and Austria, with more prestigious projects in the pipeline.

The digiTILE range uses a standard mechanical platform for all pixel pitches. Each tile is 400mm wide, 300mm high and 82mm deep making it the slimmest conventional LED product on the market today (although digiFLEX from the same manufacturer is only 7mm deep).

The digiTILE housing is moulded using a high pressure injected reinforced polymer contributing to the low weight of 23kg per square metre for indoor and 28kg for outdoor products. Each tile is capable of front or rear access for service and can quickly be installed into a digiFRAME, measuring

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Polished Performance - Sir David Attenborough brought the 115th BBC Proms season to a close on Saturday night by playing a floor polisher as a musical instrument. Sir David was joined on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London by pianist Stephen Hough on the vacuum cleaner. Comedian Rory Bremner also took part in the performance of Sir Malcolm Arnold's piece A Grand, Grand Overture. The eight-minute work has parts for two other vacuum cleaners, four rifles, an organ a and full orchestra.

For the first time, the Proms finale was screened via satellite to cinemas on every continent of the world. The BBC said the two-month classical music festival had been the most successful yet with a 32% increase in under-16s attending. Proms director Roger Wright said the event had included "outstanding and inspiring music-making".

Goodnight Vienna - The tribute conce

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UK - Crown yesterday announced the latest update to its Macro-Tech i series of amplifiers, featuring increased power and new dual port capability. Comprised of three models, the MA-5000i, MA-9000i, and MA-12000i, the Macro-Tech i series features Class-I circuitry, which delivers greater power while reducing the amplifier's weight by more than half.

The new Macro-Tech i series also features dual-port capability. An additional network port now allows a user to daisy chain the network control down the rack of amplifiers instead of having to run a separate cable from a switch to each individual amplifier.

"The professional sound reinforcement community knows what to expect from the Macro-Tech i series. They are getting the best sounding, most reliable analogue power amplifier in the world. The best just got better with these updates. The upgraded power and features reflect t

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UK - In a break from its traditional base, Optocore, the worldwide pioneer of digital optical fibre network systems, has unveiled what it calls as "a revolutionary new technology" at the PLASA Show in London.

Receiving its worldwide launch at PLASA09 (13-16 September, Earls Court), SANE (Synchronous Audio Network plus Ethernet), is a new digital audio networking protocol using ring network topology: it claims to offer the first fully-synchronous Cat5 network solution for streaming uninterrupted media in real time.

This new low cost and high efficiency system, based on proven Optocore technology, has evolved from the German company's new AD/DA X6R and V3R converters launched earlier this year; these offer split AES-EBU ports, sample rate conversion up to 192kHz, and five different card options.

SANE offers a unique solution, the company says: it transports recognise

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UK - Soundcraft is releasing a range of small multipurpose mixers, some with integral digital FX, bearing the name of the Notepad series. The new Notepad 102, 124 and 124 FX models boast Soundcraft audio performance with the acclaimed GB30 mic preamp and EQ technology in a compact and solid chassis.

Each 124 model has four mono mic/line inputs while the Notepad 102 has two mono mic/line inputs. All models boast four stereo line inputs, and suit a very wide range of applications where simple yet high-quality mixing is required, such as in home recording, small band/cabaret PA systems, AV presentation systems, small broadcast edit suites, educational environments and general contracting.

The Notepad 124FX also has an integral digital effects processor which has a feed from every input and over 100 effects, including a pink noise and test setting. The FX control can also be used

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UK - Orbital Sound has unveiled its latest training programme to take place in October, focusing on practical sound techniques for theatre with hands-on, application-based training. Scheduled to run on 26-27 October, Developing Sound Skills for Theatre is intended primarily for students wanting to extend their operational expertise in theatre sound, and will take place at Orbital's purpose-built 225m2 seminar facility in Brixton, south London.

The course is free of charge, offering students the opportunity to benefit from a wide cross-section of technical disciplines, including communications, networking, loudspeaker system set-up and control, and mixing practices.

The course will be led by Orbital's training manager, Theo Holloway, who explained the rationale behind the autumn training programme, "The popularity of our annual courses underlines the appetite among

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USA - Audinate reports that its Dante networking solution was used on the Oasis tour and multiple live events at Hyde Park in London by Britannia Row. Taking advantage of the low latency offered by Audinate's Dante, high quality audio was distributed around the network at these events using the newest addition of Dante enabled products - breakout boxes from XTA.

Dante offers a complete networking solution and provides users a no-hassle, self-configuring digital audio networking experience using standard Internet Protocols over 100Mb and/or Gigabit Ethernet.

The NXBoB8 and NXBoB16 breakout boxes from XTA with 8 and 16 output channels respectively leverage the tight synchronization and very low latency offered in Dante. The breakout boxes easily connect to other Dante-enabled devices such as processors or mixing consoles over either 100Mb or 1 Gigabit Ethernet.

"Dante was

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UK - Based acoustically on the AKG Blue Line Series, the Architectural Microphone Series (AMS) allows users to customize the microphone by easily adjusting the length of the gooseneck module as well as selecting various designs for the shape of the capsule housing unit. The self-designed microphone can be personalized with any colour as well as a shiny gold, chrome or a nickel finish for professional settings. In total, the entire microphone series are available in more than 6,840 customizable settings.

Beside the three different polar patterns to match different room acoustics, the AMS showcases a diverse range of capabilities, such as flat frequency response for acoustic performance, gold sputtered ultra-low mass diaphragms, switchable bass cut filter and preattenuation pad. The series also offers an extremely high resistance to RF interference for extended versatility.

Addi

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UK - Eat To The Beat has rounded off a festival filled summer with a successful and sunny Bestival on the Isle of Wight.

This is the first year that ETTB has catered for the production team and artists at the event, but the island was familiar territory for Anne Crawford, ETTB's team leader, who said: "The Isle of Wight is a great place to source local ingredients, from meat, the world champion Isle of Wight Blue cheese, to sweetcorn straight from the farm adjacent to the festival. Fresh ingredients make for tastier food and a reduced carbon footprint for the catering operation."

DJ Rob da Bank started Bestival six years ago, with just 2,000 people on site. This sixth Bestival attracted a capacity audience of 45,000, with production management undertaken by Loudsound, who's Festival Director Jim King commented, "Having Eat To The Beat join o

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USA - Exhibiting at the PLASA09 exhibition in London, Italian manufacturer RCF has announced the appointment of Frank Loyko as President of RCF USA Inc. In his new position, Loyko will be responsible for defining and directing all US sales and operations for RCF and dB Technologies.

One of the founding members of loudspeaker manufacturer EAW, Loyko has more than 30 years of professional audio sales experience. Most recently, Loyko served as Director of Live Sound Sales for Avid Technologies / Digidesign and, prior to that, as senior vice-president of sales at Loud Technologies Inc.

Arturo Vicari, managing director of RCF Group commented: "Frank has a very solid track record for building professional audio brands and is extremely successful in leading high-performance sales teams. He has broad experience in all aspects of live sound sales as well as extensive connections w

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Hungary - Pleasing 390,000 people is a difficult task. It is especially challenging when many of those people are musicians. At Budapest's 17th annual, five-day Sziget Festival, audio engineers not only kept 200 performances on 15 stages running smoothly but they kept headliners like Faith No More, Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, and Placebo more than happy.

"The Sziget system exceeded my expectations of what Meyer Sound speakers are capable of," said Ian Nelson, Placebo's sound engineer. "In fact, I found that I needed to do an almost unheard of act: turn the subs down. I've worked with most of the current speaker systems over the 2009 festival season. Mixing on Milo (line array loudspeakers) again cemented our decision to carry a Meyer system on our forthcoming autumn arena tour, again."

A critical component to making this high-stakes festival run smoothly i

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Japan / Italy - Exhibiting at the PLASA09 exhibition in London, Midas and Klark Teknik have announced the formation of Midas Consoles Japan and Midas Consoles Italy - both of which take over as exclusive distributor for their respective countries with immediate effect.

Based in Tokyo the new, brand-orientated division of Bestec Audio is dedicated to the sales and after sales support of Midas and Klark Teknik products in Japan. General manager Takayuki Ozaki joins the company from EVI Audio Japan, where he worked with Midas and Klark Teknik products for 13 years.

"I encountered the Midas XL3 in 1993 when I was involved in the concert sound industry, and I still remember how very much I was impressed by it then," he says. "I joined the EVI Audio Group to sell Midas and Klark Teknik products in 1996 and from that time on, I have been the product manager for the bra

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UK - At the PLASA09 exhibition in London, Midas has revealed the latest software upgrade for its XL8 Live Performance System. Described as a "major functional upgrade", the new XL8 v1.11 software is available free of charge to XL8 owners, and includes a comprehensive new feature set targeted specifically at theatrical applications, say Midas.

The XL8 v1.11 software allows the user not only to crossfade fader levels on a global basis, but to configure one or multiple groups within each snapshot recall, which can fade up and down, and at different rates of change. These 'morph' groups can be used perform the more common fader transitions, but other console parameters such as bus sends and pan positions, including surround imaging, can be programmed to morph between two states, as automated timed events.

Fade-in and fade-out times can be configured separately, and speci

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UK - JBL Professional is introducing the MSC1 Monitor System Controller, a new product that integrates monitor system control and tune-ability at an accessible price point. The MSC1 Monitor System Controller includes features found in large mixing consoles to control essential monitoring functions from the mix position.

Since the acoustic issues in the room can compromise the quality of the mix, the MSC1 includes JBL's RMC Room Mode Correction Technology that tunes the monitor system to overcome low frequency problems in any room. The MSC1 works with any speaker system.

The MSC1 provides the ability to monitor up to three two-channel input sources, such as a mixing console, computer workstation, and personal music player while controlling the volume of the monitor system and connected headphones.

"Our LSR6300 and LSR4300 Series Studio monitors were first speakers with R

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UK - The annual Michael Northen Bursary recognises imagination in design and creativity in lighting design, and once again the level of entry, both quantity and quality, was extremely high. Jack Knowles, organiser of the judging for this year's awards and also one of last year's winning students, said: "Although the three winners stood out clearly from the crowd, there was still a lot of discussion among the judges over the merits of other entries."

However, there was one clear winner, Dan Hill from The Central School of Speech and Drama, whose design for Woyzeck at the Embassy Theatre showed how his research developed and influenced the final production. He clearly described ideas, concepts and influences and illustrated how they translated to the final outcome.

The judges - ALD members David Howe, Anna Watson, Natasha Chivers, Phil Gladwell, Tony Simpson, Ma

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UK - When ETC introduced its iRFR (Radio Focus Remote for iPhone and iPod Touch) four months ago, Luke Delwiche from ETC Tech Services in London suggested that the profits be shared between Light Relief and its US equivalent, Behind the Scenes.

At PLASA09, Luke was delighted to present a cheque for £1,800 to Light Relief trustee Lesley Harmer. In thanking Luke for the money, Lesley said: "This is an incredible amount of money to raise in just four months. We thank Luke and everyone at ETC for their generosity, and for a brilliant idea which will continue to raise money for this worthwhile cause year after year."

When users purchase the iRFR application from the iTunes store, they designate the charity of their choice. The Light Relief or Behind the Scenes logo then appears as the iRFR start screen. ETC software engineer Chris Mizerak developed the application w

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UK - A group of bikers connected to entertainment on a long fun-ride raising money for good causes, the idea for The First Night Riders (motto Out of the Wings and into the Wind) came out of the tyre tracks of America's Long Reach Long Riders. The initial event for the First Night Riders, in 2010, will raise money for The Theatrical Guild, one of the UK's longest serving theatrical charities which offers support to those working backstage and front of house.

Launched at PLASA 09 by a galaxy of stars, including Brian Conley and Liz Robertson, both currently starring in Hairspray, Issy van Randwyck (of Fascinating Aida), Fiona Mollison and director Edward Hall, the event has already enlisted the following riders (subject to work commitments): Richard Bullimore, Steve Colley, Neil Collins, David Edelstein, George Ellerington, Ric Green, Darrell Hewitt, Simon Le Bon, S

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UK - Exhibiting this week at the PLASA09 exhibition at Earls Court, London, Australia-based LSC Lighting Systems made the official launch of its latest lighting control package - a powerful PC/MAC based lighting control package named Clarity. The Clarity concept was well received by visitors to PLASA09. "It's been really good," said LSC's Pete Floyd, adding, "In fact, I would say it's the best PLASA show we've done."

LSC believes that Clarity, which was a nominee in this year's PLASA Awards for Innovation, will excite even the most experienced user. It offers a powerful feature set and offers seamless integrated control of intelligent lights, LED pixel mapping and Media servers "the likes of which has not been seen before", the company says.

Paul Collison, the lighting/technical consultant for the Beijing Olympics, said of Clarity: "Clarity h

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UK - At a glittering ceremony in Glasgow, Edinburgh-based Northern Light won the accolade of Best Technical Services Company at the Scottish Event Awards 2009. The company had made it through to a shortlist of three to win the award.

The ceremony was attended by the leading players of the Scottish events industry and took place on 11 September in Glasgow's Hilton Hotel. The event, now in its second year, is designed to promote, reward and celebrate the growing events industry in Scotland. The Event Awards brings together all areas of the industry, from event managers, to organisers, venues, suppliers and in-house teams.

Lois Ferguson, marketing manager at Northern Light, said: "We are chuffed to bits with this award. Our event production service has only been in place for a few years, so receiving this accolade from a panel of UK event industry judges - and against much m

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UK - Hawthorn is delighted to have been an event partner for the second year running to the prestigious Clay Paky 'Knight of Illumination Awards' held on Sunday 13 September to coincide with the PLASA show in London.

The awards, dedicated to professional lighting designers, recognised lighting designs achieved in the fields of television, rock and theatre and were attended by the great and the good of the industry.

Hawthorn supplied all of the rigging, video screens and Martin Audio line array sound system to the event. The set showcased Hawthorn's 6mm indoor LED screen as the central display on stage, along with twin screen projection using Christie HD 10k projectors which provided an amazing clarity of video display to the audience.

"Hawthorn is proud to be associated with such a significant industry event and send their congratulations to all of the 2009 winners,&quo

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UK - With a little help from Stage One, a new multiplayer online role-playing game, Aion, developed by gaming company, NCsoft, has been launched at gamescom, Europe's largest interactive games and entertainment trade fair in Cologne. Stage One were brought in by Dylan Marks at Box Car Productions, to build the elaborate set for the launch.

"NCsoft really wanted the launch of Aion to make an impact and this was certainly achieved," said Simon Wood, sales and marketing director, Stage One. He continued, "by integrating fantasy elements of the game into the set and bringing two of the games characters to life, including the flying of them using Qtrack, our fly track system, we were able to engage the public in the story and deliver a real theatrical punch."

Each part of the vivid set, created by Mike Woodage, was designed to reflect the fantasy world in which

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UK - Every year the InAVation Awards celebrates the best and the brightest professional AV projects within EMEA and technologies from around the world, culminating in a gala ceremony.

The entry deadline for the fourth annual EMEA InAVation Awards is fast approaching. Companies still have the opportunity to submit entries for both the technology and project categories. There are no associated entry costs, all that is required is their time.

Once nominated, technology winners will be chosen by the pro AV industry, which will vote online. Projects will undergo evaluation by an objective panel of experienced professionals taken from the commercial and residential AV integration, architectural, building facilities management and media industries. The Technology entry deadline is 18:00 (CET) on 1 October 2009; the Project entry deadline is 18:00 (CET) on 6 November 200

  1. London Light announces console winners
  2. PLASA09: Martin Maxxyz Modules make debut
  3. Cadac reports "exceptional PLASA09"
  4. PLASA09: White Light shows raft of new products
  5. PLASA09: Outline software seminars success
  6. PLASA & ESTA announce intention to merge
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