Sound

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Digigram, an innovator in digital audio network solutions, announces the release of Mac OS X drivers for its VXpocket v2, VXpocket 440 and VX222 sound cards. "The release of the Mac OS X drivers make it possible to achieve the best professional audio with the latest Apple OS," said Digigram managing director Philippe Delacroix. The drivers are fully compliant with both Mac OS X v10.1 and v10.2 (Jaguar). The VXpocket range enables serious audio production on laptops. The VX222 had earned popularity for Mac-based video and other applications through an effective pairing of reliability with professional analogue and digital interfaces.

(Lee Baldock)

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Toploader, one of the UK's most successful live bands of the last two years, are currently touring the country with a flexible line array rig from EAW. The three-month tour takes in venues of all shapes and sizes - which meant that the choice of speaker system became even more sensitive than usual. "I loved the sound of the KF760 system when I heard it at Hammersmith Apollo," recalls FOH engineer Andrew Thornton, "but I admit I was concerned about the idea of bringing it into theatres and having to groundstack it for some show. In the end, though, it's proved to be much more flexible than a 'normal' system."

It has proved so flexible, in fact, that the tour's system technician Pete Hughes, who is responsible for the Canegreen-supplied system, opted to fit single wheelboards to the 16 KF760 and KF761 cabinets, in order to be able to split the arrays differently for e

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In one of the largest ever conference system installations of its kind, Philips CSI has supplied a high-specification Concentus DCN (Digital Congress Network) system to the German government’s impressive new Bundeskanzleramt international conference centre in Berlin. The Philips Concentus system had to meet much more stringent demands than are normally encountered: up to 15 simultaneous language translations and the ability to display Cyrillic, Arabic and other non-standard character on built-in displays. It also had to cope with large numbers of delegates while being easy to use and to have an attractive aesthetic design for this prestigious new government facility.

To meet the need for simultaneous interpretation and language distribution for the new Berlin conference facility, Philips supplied a 140-position Concentus DCN system. The top of the range Concentus is able to handl

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Some of the biggest names in television gathered at the Royal Albert Hall recently for the 2002 National Television Awards. RG Jones was the principal audio contractor for the event, which was broadcast on ITV on 15 October. Engineer Simon Hodge saw this as a perfect opportunity to put the new compact Nexo GEO system through its paces, which was duly supplied by SSE, along with Camco amplification.

According to Simon, as a complete package GEO was "a joy to work with." He explained that the main issues of the event were to do with sight lines. "As a major televised show for the television industry it was crucial that we have a physically tiny system so that it did not interfere with sight lines either for the audience, or more importantly for the many cameras filming the show. GEO was fantastic in this respect. We had the two hangs positioned quite wide behind the lecter

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Simplifying the setup for turntablists worldwide, Shure recently announced the release of the M44-7-H Turntablist Cartridge pre-mounted on a Technics headshell. Scratch DJs can now virtually eliminate set-up time and install this model directly onto a turntable tone arm. Shure’s premium scratch needle, the M44-7 has earned a reputation because of its ability to deliver great sound without skipping. Along with ultra-high skip resistance, the M44-7 offers a high output and minimizes record wear, making it the battle needle of choice for champion scratch DJs worldwide, including the former Invisibl Skratch Piklz, X-ecutioners, and The World Famous Beat Junkies. The M44-7-H will debut in Shure's exclusive new line of DJ cartridge packaging. This exciting new clear-tube package is both reusable and recyclable.

(Lee Baldock)

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Aztec, the innovative new live console from Audient, has just completed a 14-date preview tour of Ireland with American Hot!, London’s newest musical show. Rental company Thames Audio supplied the desk for the tour via UK distributor Expotus. Tour sound designer and FOH engineer was Jem Kitchen with Thames Audio’s Graham Simpson acting as co-designer and systems engineer.

The tour began at the Bakewell Arts Festival on Sunday 11 August. It then visited The Palace Theatre, London; the An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny, County Donegal; Waterfront Hall, Belfast; Leisureland, Galway; The Everymen Palace Theatre, Cork; The University Concert Hall, Limerick, before finally stopping on 28 September for two performances at the RDS (Royal Dublin Society) Concert Hall, Ballbridge, Dublin.

Graham Simpson of Thames Audio, says of the desk: "The Aztec was sonically very tr

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Show Presentation Services (SPS) has recently provided full audio-visual and staging facilities, including live camera work, at the high level BSkyB 'Leadership Forum' for 320 of its senior management executives from all over the country. The annual event for BSkyB's senior managers, held in the London Suite at the Marriot Hotel, Heathrow on 13 September, 2002, was hosted by Sky News's political editor, Adam Boulton.

SPS has been developing the event format with BSkyB over the past eight months, working together on the stage and set design, as well as planning the seating layout, lights, sound and cameras. Neil Smith, the manager of the project at SPS said: "We have had a good working relationship with BSkyB for the past six years now, so we were delighted to be working on the forum again this year. An event of this size and content takes extensive planning in the months leading u

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JBL Professional's EVO speakers have been installed into a multipurpose room inside Vienna's new Leopold Museum. The 117-seat room is used for a variety of functions including concerts, podium discussions, movies, and presentations. One of the new museums in Vienna's art district, the five-story Leopold Museum houses the art exhibition of Rudolf Leopold, with over 5,000 paintings including works by artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka.

The installation was completed by audio specialists, Georg Vanek and Frank Bocksteiner / Ton&Technik, who chose EVO because of its functionality and ease of use. Aside from audio quality, another factor in the decision to choose EVO was its compact and elegant design and ability to be mounted horizontally, allowing for speaker placement below the ceiling line. Vanek, pleased with the installation, stated: "It sounds very g

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Wlodek Sielski, director of business development with Digigram SA, is expanding Soundbits, his business development and marketing consultancy for the pro audio and broadcast industries, to cater for the converging and expanding world markets. To aid this expansion, he will leave his permanent position from 1 January 2003, while remaining as a key consultant.

Digigram’s co-founder and president of the executive board, Philippe Girard-Buttoz, commented: "Wlodek has been with Digigram for 15 years, and his extensive knowledge of the industry and understanding of the worldwide markets has been invaluable. He commands great industry respect and we are delighted to keep Wlodek/Soundbits as an important consultant. However, I understand his need to expand his own operation, and he is just the man to cater for the changes and needs of our fast-moving industry."

In the last

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Audio Logistics and Richmond Studios founder Toby Alington has been commissioned by leading Welsh film and TV production company Presentable for the audio production of the latest series of the successful BBC Wales light entertainment show Mike Doyle, being filmed in Studio C1 at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff.

Filmed in front of a live audience with a live band, the format includes music, comedy, chat and celebrity guests, and is captured with a seven-camera shoot and some 70 channels of audio to cater for the large band and 24 channels of radio microphones. The sessions are recorded direct to digital multi-track with a full PA system and monitor setup from Welsh company AB Acoustics, provided through Audio Logistics. The audience mix is engineered by Clinton Cast with the monitor mix by AB Acoustics owner Huw ‘Buzz’ Evans.

Post production is handled by Toby Alington

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MixArt Ltd from Russia has been named Allen & Heath Distributor of the Year for 2002. The award is given each year to the distribution company which has done most to the support the brand and its customers in their territory. A special plaque was presented to the president of MixArt, Dmitriy Modin, during a dinner held for Allen & Heath's distribution team at Langans Coq d'Or restaurant in London during the recent PLASA show (Earls Court Exhibition Centre, 8-11 Sept 2002).

MixArt are based in Moscow, with a satellite facility in St. Petersburg and plans for another in Siberia. Allen & Heath's sales and marketing director, Bob Goleniowski, explains why MixArt was chosen to receive the award: "Rather than just looking at overall sales figures, we consider criteria such as the way that the distributor looks after our customers, how well they communicate with us and how fully they get

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A new dance venue - called ‘The Locomotion’ - has opened its doors in the Dutch town of Zoetermeer. The new 2,000-capacity discotheque is equally suitable as a venue for live performance, and its sound system takes both applications into account. The owners and Electric Audio BV, the Dutch Electro-Voice distributor, decided in favour of an extensive Electro-Voice system. After a three-day installation period, the test run was a great success: "Our customers were enormously impressed with the combination of very high sound pressure levels and a complete absence of distortion," remembers Axel Nagtegaal. Then it was the turn of the disco people to test the power reserves of the system. "They, too, were highly enthusiastic - above all about the unbelievable bass kick. One sound engineer even commented that you could blow dry your hair with it!"

The equipment

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Norway’s broadcaster NRK has ordered six RMS2020 radio mics for a bizarre new reality TV programme. Loosely speaking a cross between Big Brother and Fame Academy, the new show features 12 elderly contestants who will be ‘locked away’ in a ‘culturehouse’ in a remote part of Norway and challenged to write, produce and stage a cabaret show in 10 weeks. The film crew will, of course, be on hand to capture all the trials and tribulations and ego clashes which ensue. Audio Ltd mics were chosen because they are discreet and reliable for virtually any situation.

(Lee Baldock)

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Eastbourne Youth Radio is planning its second broadcast next month, following the success of last year’s 24-hour broadcast, which involved over 1,000 young people and around 50 community and business organizations in the Eastbourne area. Similar projects have since been launched in other parts of the country.

The EYR website received thousands of hits and significant media coverage was gained for Eastbourne and the many participants including links with BBC Southern Counties, Sovereign and SouthernFM radio stations. Bolstered by this huge success, Eastbourne Education Business Partnership is working on arrangements to run EYR again for 36 hours on 28-29 November 2002. Programmes will contain a mix of live and recorded interviews, local performance work and music. In particular, EYR will help to raise awareness of SRB6 ‘Pooling our Resources’ and other community proje

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Renkus-Heinz Inc is now providing the professional sound reinforcement industry with a unique on-line tool for searching and configuring RH products - the Web Configurator, which replaces the previous, standalone Renkus-Heinz Configurator software package. Available free from RH, this is designed to help RH distributors and audio consultants in choosing available options for each type of loudspeaker and cluster, as well as amplifiers and loudspeaker controllers. With a wide range of options available for most Renkus-Heinz products, it makes pin-pointing the precise solution simple and efficient.

The Web Configurator’s on-line database stores complete standard specifications, available options and full performance data for every RH product, plus AutoCAD drawings for all products, along with polar plots, architects and engineers’ specs, downloadable product PDFs and full spec

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Liverpool based sound specialist Adlib Audio Ltd report that they’ve had a very busy few months. The company has recently purchased a Nexo Alpha system which, combined with their JBL Vertec line array system, ensures that their stock caters for a wide range of requirements. Tours out with Adlib this year include Atomic Kitten, Gomez and The Coral, plus have Groove Armada shows coming up, not to mention US big boys the Fun Lovin’ Criminals. With Dave Kay (FOH) and Paul Roberts (systems tech) out on the road with Mercury Award Nominees The Coral and soon heading to the US, Adlib look set for an equally busy winter.

(Lee Baldock)

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From 10-13 October, Moscow was home to Russia’s largest music trade fair. ‘Music Moscow 2002’ attracted visitors and exhibitors from all over the world. One of the highlights was provided by Ruton S - the Russian distributor for Electro-Voice, with its dynamic yet business-like presentation.

As well as introducing visitors to a whole series of products drawn from the current Electro-Voice range, such as the Eliminator Double, the Eliminator kW, the EVID speaker and the new Co-11 and Re510 condenser microphones, the team, led by Gregory Ronin, had laid on a rock band, ‘The Vinyl Steam Locomotive’, whose powerful sound quickly established them as one of the biggest draws at the show. The band - all dedicated EV users - were showcasing the EV Eliminator Double and Eliminator kW enclosures, as well as the new Fri-2082 monitors. This allowed music dealers as we

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The acclaimed MH4 console now has an option for LED bargraph metering, Soundcraft has announced. The new meter bridge option has 16 LED meters that display all auxiliary/group outputs (particularly useful in a monitor situation to show all monitor send levels simultaneously) and can be switched to read matrix outputs. The mix left, right and centre outputs are shown on VU meters.

The MH4 has won many admirers for its easy-to-use multi-purpose functionality, which makes it simple to configure the console for use of FOH or monitor duties, or as a single desk fulfilling both tasks. Since its launch earlier this year, the Soundcraft MH4 has won many friends, including an appearance on two stages at the Montreux Jazz Festival, touring around Europe and on the recent series of Big Brother in the UK. The MH4 has also found favour in many large churches in the USA.

(Lee Baldock)

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MC2 Audio’s distributor in India, Performance Audio India Pvt Ltd, has installed sound systems powered by MC2 Audio amplifiers in two of Mumbai's newest clubs - Mikanos and Velocity. Velocity is situated in the Tardeo district of Mumbai and comprises the main Velocity club area, a 'retro' lounge called RPM, the Bollywood restaurant and a private members lounge. The club caters for all preferences from a quiet dinner to a night of non-stop dancing on the 1,000sq.ft dance floor.

The brief for Rustom Pavri, director of Performance Audio India, was to equip the venue to handle the wide mix of music, from rock and pop to techno and country. This he achieved using Turbosound Floodlight speakers powered by MC1250, MC750 and MC450 amplifiers with T1000 amplifiers being used for the Turbosound TCS-35. Pavri says: "Since we installed the system, everyone has been very impressed with t

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Millbank Electronics has launched a new range of CM8 ceiling loudspeakers. The 8W 100V ceiling loudspeaker has a full power output of 103dB at one metre and a wide frequency response, which makes it ideal for PA/VA installations in shopping centres, offices and airports. Both standard and BS5839 pt.8 versions are fitted with three different mounting modes.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Soundcraft’s successful new multipurpose MH4 mixing desk is continuing to make an impact with the UK’s sound rental companies. Liverpool-based Adlib Audio is the latest rental company to purchase both 40- and 48-channel frame versions of the new console.

Fitted with four stereo mic/line inputs, the MH4 serves as either a dedicated front-of-house or monitor desk - or a combination of both - attributes which Adlib managing director Andy Dockerty had been seeking. The 48-channel desk went straight out with up-and-coming Liverpool band, The Coral, where colleague and sound engineer Dave Kay, was mixing at front-of-house. Andy Dockerty explained: "We are finding that in our marketplace - typically the 1,000-2,000 capacity venues - we need a reasonably high-spec desk in a relatively small footprint, which the engineers will be happy with. I liked Soundcraft’s Series 4,

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The Flightcase Warehouse and Q-Flightcases of Lisburn have formed a partnership to distribute their standard range of flightcases in Ireland. The new company will be called Flightcase Warehouse Ireland and will be based in Lisburn. Flightcase Warehouse managing director Steve Austin comments: "We know that the potential in Ireland is massive, but due to logistics and shipping costs, we are limited to what we can sell direct from the UK. According to our website statistics, we receive on average of 5000 hits per month from Ireland, indicating a need for an outlet in this region. Q-Flightcases are the perfect solution to this problem, and are well situated to cover the whole of Ireland."

Q-Flightcases co-director Joan Beggs adds: "At present those companies that take advantage of our local facilities, have mostly been interested in our specialized cases. Generally, for lar

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Sound Advice, the Music Industry Education Roadshow, kicked off its tour of the UK on Monday 21 October to a packed auditorium of eager young music students at The Brit School, the venue for the launch event.

The day, which began at 11am, was split into three seminars Can't Get You Out Of My Head - from the Song to the Recording; Help I Need Somebody - from the Concept to the Concert; Paid in Full - from Rights to Royalties. Panellists for the London seminars were Horace Trubridge, Andy East, Sharon Rose, Radio 1 star Steve Lamacq, and Blue Weaver for the creative panel; Howard Ricklow, Nick Kanaar, Martin Talbot, Peter Horrey, Jane Dyball and ex Dire Straits manager Ed Bicknell for the business seminar and Frances Lowe, Peter Horrey, Mark Jones, Jo Laverty, Malcolm Buckland and Jill Drew on the rights and royalties panel. Over 200 students joined industry professionals for the day of

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Dave Rice has been appointed president of Cerwin Vega and KRK Systems. The appointment follows the Stanton Group’s successful bid for Cerwin Vega last month, and Mr. Rice will report directly to Gerard Cohen, president and CEO of the Stanton Group.

Immediate priorities will be to review the current business operations, establish the overall direction of the organizations and implement business programs and procedures to obtain maximum profits. Rice commented: "Cerwin Vega has been a household name for many years, synonymous with value and bass. It has broad brand recognition in just about every speaker category - mobile/car, hi-fi, multi-media and pro - but has limited market share. This is because during the last few years the company has not reverse engineered products that consumers were asking for, nor at the prices they were willing to pay."

He is confident that

  1. Tim Riley leaves Trantec to launch new venture
  2. Allen & Heath zoning in Slovakia
  3. Capital Sound and XTA for Kosheen
  4. Record-breaking Jellyfish in Bagshot
  5. Denon launches new DN-S5000 single CD player
  6. JBL PD Series installed in Melbourne, Australia
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