UK - Turbosound has supplied multiple TCS and THL systems to sound and lighting contractor Innovation, for installation at the Blu Bam Bu - a new beach-theme club in the city of Newcastle. Boasting one of the liveliest nightlife scenes in Europe, Newcastle's Bigg Market area is home to many bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants, and Blu Bam Bu is the area's newest venue, with a sophisticated approach that is reflected across all its facets - interior design, lighting and sound.

Innovation, based in Sunderland, designed and installed the new club's sound and lighting systems, using Turbosound TCS and THL models throughout the venue. The club's impressive street-level entrance takes you into a ground floor bar area, leading to a VIP lounge, with eight TCS-59 units and four TCS-118 subs in the bar, plus a combination of TCS-10 enclosures and TCS-108 subs in the lounge. A large void on

USA - This spring the M.I.N.D. Institute will open the doors to its new home on the UC Davis Medical Centre campus in Sacramento, California. M.I.N.D is a centre that takes a collaborative approach in its study and treatment of a number of challenging neurodevelopment disorders among children. The new 135,000sq.ft complex includes two buildings - a research facility and an outpatient clinic, library and resource centre.

To aid its research efforts, the Institute’s new buildings incorporate a number of observation and conference rooms - 20 in total. These rooms are used for a variety of purposes, including evaluating new students, the effectiveness of new procedures or new treatments and for family or patient conferences. Each room has a self-contained sound system, designed in such a way that it allows for future input and output expansion, and independent operation. Eac

UK - Colin Pattenden, managing director of CP Sound, the Staines-based audio and lighting design and installation company, makes a guest appearance on the popular BBC2 quiz show ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ next Monday 17 March.

Colin appears in The Identity Parade round of the show, hosted by Mark Lamarr, during which the audience is shown clips of famous performers anything between 10 and 30 years ago. The teams - who've not seen the clips - have to pick the correct band member from a line up of 5 people - one genuine, and four actors.

Colin was bass player and founder member of the legendary rock band Manfred Mann's Earth Band, back in 1969. During this time, he toured the world several times, playing to audiences of 35,000 plus. Manfred's Mann's Earth Band's classic ‘Blinded by The Light’, reached the top of the UK and US charts. The band enjoyed glo

Germany - Berlin-based production company Complete Audio has become the first to purchase Martin Audio’s new compact line array (W8LC). The company’s managing director, André Rauhaut, placed the order for 12 W8LC enclosures (including rigging frames and amplification) with Martin Audio’s German distributor, Atlantic Audio, during the recent ProLight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt, where the system was unveiled.

Complete Audio are no strangers to Martin Wavefront technology. Their rental inventory already includes 20 Wavefront W8C top boxes, 8 Wavefront W8CS subs, 20 Wavefront WSX subs, 8 LE12JB floor monitors and 10 LE700A floor monitors - all powered by Martin Audio/Lab Gruppen amplification.

Explaining the reasons for the purchase, Rauhaut said: "We needed to invest in a line array, as many of our competitors in Berlin already have one and we needed to

UK - Leisuretec Distribution Ltd has announced the appointment of Peter Owen as UK sales manager. Owen joins Leisuretec after six years at Arbiter Pro Audio, where he was responsible for developing sales of JBL Professional loudspeakers and dbx signal processing product ranges in the UK.

Leisuretec managing director Nick Spalding is confident that Peter’s decision to head up the sales team at Leisuretec will prove to be a great move for Owen, the company and in turn the company’s extensive customer base. "Peter always impressed me whilst at Arbiter with his willingness to go the extra mile, making sure our customers received the products they needed, when they needed them. He was also singularly responsible for encouraging Leisuretec to invest in a large stockholding of both the JBL and dbx product ranges, resulting in significant increases of turnover of both l

UK - The Institute of Sound & Communications Engineers (ISCE) is sponsoring an industry-wide invitation workshop on 31 March in Watford, with the aim of setting up a certification body to combat what is seen as the current trend of falling installation standards. Representatives from across the public address, voice alarm, sound, fire and insurance industries are being invited to attend.

Further details of the workshop are available from Cathy Makenzie on 0151 639 5211 or via e-mail at the address below.

(Lee Baldock)

USA - Symphony Hall, home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for more than one hundred years, recently upgraded its house audio capabilities with, among other things, a new L-Acoustics loudspeaker system. Steve Colby of New Hampshire-based Evening Audio Consultants was selected to head up the retrofit. To assist him on the project, Colby, a senior sound engineer for the Boston Pops as well as a frequent engineer and consultant for the Boston Symphony, chose to assemble a group of seasoned professionals, including both Mark Brosnan and John ‘Klon’ Koehler of Greenfield, Massachusetts' Klondike Sound.

Suspended above the proscenium, the new system features a central cluster of seven L-Acoustics V-Dosc enclosures with a pair of dV-Dosc small-format/downfill array elements hung beneath. Both the V-Dosc and dV-Dosc array elements incorporate a patented Dosc waveguide to fac

Japan - Yamaha's new ACU16-C amplifier control unit and NHB32-C network hub and bridge facilitate the design and creation of very large, sophisticated and complex audio systems. Up to 64 channels of digital audio can be streamed using a simple wiring scheme. Both units are conceived as audio network interfaces, which provide easy and hassle free access to a Cobranet.audio network.

The new NHB32-C Network Hub and Bridge is equipped with four AES/EBU terminals for connectivity between digital audio devices via the Cobranet, whilst the ACU16-C Amplifier Control Unit operates as an output device that can be used in combination with Yamaha¹s new PC9500N or PC4800N power amplifiers. The ACU16-C allows both control and monitoring of the PC-N series amplifiers and features high quality DA converters delivering high quality analog output to the PC-N series.

A maximum of 8 NHB32-C and

Spain / Belgium - D.A.S. sound reinforcement systems were in use recently at the Davis Cup eliminatory tournament between Spain and Belgium. Held at the ‘Olympic Tennis’ sports complex in Seville, the event drew a crowd of over 5,000 tennis fans.

Seville-based Klarson, run by Sergio Clarasó Estebe was in charge of installing the sound systems at the event. D.A.S. DS-12 12" two-way systems were used to provide coverage in the three large bleachers and lobby areas. Installed in the press conference rooms were the ultra-compact DS-8 full-range systems that use an 8" low frequency transducer with a 1.5" voice coil.Klarson specializes in the rental of sound, lighting and audio-video equipment for all types of live events, including sports events. Segio Clarasó, proprietor of the company comments regarding the sound of D.A.S. products: "I depend on th

UK - As fast as digital technology within the broadcast industry develops, Quentor matches it with the design and development of its range of innovative transit case and storage products.

The company’s Q-Fix flight cases are constructed from high quality weight-saving aluminium honeycomb panels, giving a good strength to weight advantage. They also utilize a new, patented, construction system offering high strength and quality assembly.

The cases are ideal for applications within the broadcasting, entertainment and AV industries, including as they do flight-trunks and racks, together with more specialized cases for aerials, cameras, lighting and other broadcasting equipment. Q-Fix Cases are offered in a range of standard sizes or may be custom-built in almost any size, style and colour. Quentor also specializes in precision cut custom foam inserts tailored to suit any p

France - Auvitran SARL - Audio Video Transcoding - is a new technology company recently formed through a spin-off of ex-Digigram SA employees, Yves Ansade, Wlodek Sielski and Jeremie Weber. All three were involved in both research and design, as well as commercial development, at Digigram.

Auvitran will design and manufacture audio, video networking and computer-based solutions and products. Having recently signed a full IP licence with Digigram for its EtherSound technology, Auvitran will focus on this technology over the coming months, as Yves Ansade, who will be the managing director for Auvitran, explains. "Having been heavily involved in EtherSound’s development whilst with Digigram, we were keen to exploit this technology through adding value with our own EtherSound-based products, as well as offering services to other companies in our industry who may wish to l

UK - Saturday 8 March saw Manchester’s production community uniting to show their support for peace, on the occasion of the ‘Don’t Attack Iraq’ event organized by Manchester Coalition Against the War. Consisting of separate marches from the North and South of the city, together with one from Salford, the event culminated with some 12,000 people converging on a rain-soaked Albert Square to hear a packed programme of speakers, plus acoustic performances from Elbow and Josephine Oniyama.

The event was managed by Jon Drape Event & Production Management, with production management and trucking provided by Andy Stratford at Walk the Plank. With a budget of just £50 to cover fuel, Jon and Andy appealed to Manchester’s production supply companies to come up with the goods, a call that was met with overwhelming support.

So it was that Manchester Light & S

UK - Raycom has completed the design and installation of an elaborate radio system for the new Corinthian Television facility in Chiswick Park London. As the leading supplier of professional wireless solutions, Raycom custom designed a robust frequency plan which allowed the use of a complex mix of radio equipment.

The supplied system included four Raycom RTB3211 talkback base stations. One base station is shared between Studios 1 and 2, a second is in the Green Room covering all the downstairs areas outside the studios, the third is located on the roof performance area and the fourth unit is used for the outside performance area. The latter two base stations used ‘down-firing’ antennas to contain the coverage of the radio signals.

Raycom also supplied and programmed 21 Icom IC-F22 UHF radios with belt packs, headsets, cases and chargers and other ancillary equipme

UK - Former Audio-Technica sales manager Rod Geary has joined forces with Chris Collings of Aspen Media to create Gearline Marketing, a professional sales management company working in the entertainment technology and commercial installation markets which provides face-to-face contact with a dealer or contractor on behalf of manufacturers or distributors.

Geary explained the reasoning behind the new venture: "Having studied the success of commission-based manufacturers’ representatives in the United States, I believe that with our integrated approach - the right team and the right lines - our model will be very successful in the UK. The salaries, cars, overnight stays, pensions and all the other associated costs make a single line sales team very expensive to maintain. Out-sourcing sales to Gearline Marketing cuts the supply channel costs for manufacturers and distrib

Spain - Soundart the Spanish specialist in DSP systems, in partnership with SpinAudio Software, has announced the full release of a software plug-in ported to Soundart’s Chameleon platform - the world’s first fully re-programmable DSP-based rack-unit.

FXDesigner from SpinAudio is the first VST/DX plug-in to be ported to the Chameleon platform. It is a delay-based digital audio effects processor with a flexible signal processing design that allows to produce such audio effects as chorus, flanger, phaser, spatial effects, various reverbs and any combination of above. FXDesigner offers six modulated delay lines with LP/HP filter sections, six freely assignable LFOs and flexible tap interconnection matrix. The plug-in is perfectly suited for any experimental electronic music production. FXDesigner comes with a factory bank of 70+ ready-to-use presets.

The Chameleon ho

UK - Following the creation of its dedicated pro audio sales department last year, Birmingham's SSE Hire Ltd has announced a new addition to its sales portfolio - the Midas Venice mixing console.

The company has become a member of the exclusive main dealer network for the Venice consoles and now offers potential and existing Venice users the full range of services which SSE's clients benefit from, including sales, service and custom flightcase manufacture. This latest addition to SSE's sales lines joins an already formidable line-up including Nexo, Camco, InnovaSon, Klark Teknik and Allen & Heath.

(Ruth Rossington)

UK - Asked to provide sound services for American legend Arthur Lee and Love, Worcester-based RMPA considered that the UK tour would offer a relatively gentle opportunity to ease themselves back into the rock and roll rental market. Instead, Lee's profile went through the roof, with the star being mobbed by MPs amongst others, and shows selling out all over the country.

Arthur Lee and the band he fronted, Love, are acknowledged as one of the finest and most influential groups of the late 60s, their psychedelic-folk masterpiece, Forever Changes, regularly appearing high in polls of the greatest albums of all time. Their comeback tour included several weeks in the UK, with RMPA providing an Electro-Voice system with Midas control when required.

"The show was already challenging," says Rick Bailey of RMPA, "featuring a rock band plus eight-piece orchestra on stage.

UK - This week has seen the launch of The Marketing Business, a company which offers SMEs in the entertainment technology industry, the full range of marketing expertise, from business development and export advice to corporate identity and public relations.

The Marketing Business is an informal association of three companies which together have over 60 years experience in the entertainment technology business and which individually are recognized as experts in their field: PE Consulting, Harmer PR and The Wells Partnership. PE Consulting was formed in 2002 by Peter Ed, previously marketing director for ETC Europe and business development manager for Strand Lighting. Peter’s experience will be of great benefit to companies wishing to expand their business by moving into exporting or into new market segments by combining tried and tested marketing techniques with in-depth k

UK - The Canford Group has announced a big increase in profits. Pre-tax profits rose from £142,000 in 2001 to £545,000 in 2002. Figures released recently show that while total sales fell by £1.25m in the last financial year, profits substantially increased.

The fall in sales was largely down to a decline in sales to France and Germany, reflecting weak European demand, and a planned reduction in low margin business, but exports overall remained stable and contributed just under 30% to the group’s turnover. Sales to the Middle East were particularly strong, trebling to £600,000, whilst sales to the Irish republic were also good thanks to the completion of a £1m contract with the Irish police. NEAL, the security side of the Group’s business continues to strengthen.

Gross margins improved by just under one per cent, and interest costs were substantially reduced as

UK - A recent comprehensive install in the Soho Cafe Bar in Christchurch, Dorset, by the CPS Group is an impressive example of the often complex brief such installations require. "Our brief was to install a sound system which was truly multi-purpose," explains Richard Colegate of the CPS (Complete Production Solutions) Group.

"The venue is a fashionable wine bar/pizzeria which has three distinctly different clientele types. On weekday daytimes the system is required to provide a low-level background music source throughout the whole venue at an even level with even coverage. With things livening up considerably on weekday evenings, the system then provides dance floor music levels on the main dance area, and bar/club style programme material throughout the venue. This also has to cater for DJs doing personal appearances some nights. Friday and Saturday night are,

UK - Power Gems, best known for its design and manufacture of electronic HMI ballasts, has released the first in a series of high frequency ballasts for the remote control of fluorescent fixtures used in the motion picture and TV lighting businesses. This four-tube model, FB4/2P, automatically drives both 4ft and 2ft tubes without the need for manual selection. Additionally, a local dimmer and a DMX512 input, provides continuous dimming from full light output at 75W down to 1% light output. Individual tube cut switches are provided for greater flexibility and save the need to disconnect tubes at the fixture. True tube running indicator LEDs are provided for each tube.

The design team’s brief was to come up with a ‘rugged ballast’ with a reduced parts count. The result is a unique four-tube power circuit which employs just three FETs, including a ‘unity&rs

UK - DMX Music, an international digital music, imaging and messaging provider, has launched two new products - ProFusion X and ProFusion D, created to deliver highly customized in-store music and messaging programmes to retailers.

ProFusion X is an innovative multi-zone delivery system that stores and plays up to 1000 hours of professionally programmed music, audio advertising and video. Capitalizing on DMX Music’s music profiling, ProFusion X allows retailers to use in-store audio-visuals as a marketing tool. It is also designed to deliver branded in-store Retail Radio complete with DJs, idents, sonic triggers and advertising, all produced by DMX Music’s production department.

ProFusion D is a cost-effective way for retailers to take their first step into the world of professionally programmed digital music. Unlike CD players and tape decks, Profusion D uses M

UK - Crest Audio's X-Rack mixers have been proving to be a popular choice for audio engineers across the country. With the XR20 FOH console seeing use with W.E. Audio during the Queen's Jubilee celebrations in Portsmouth and with SSE in the Top of the Pops Star Bar, amongst others, it is possibly the XR-M monitor console that has proved to be the more popular of the range.

Last year saw Mick Potter specifying two XRMs for use on the monitor system for the West End hit Bombay Dreams with sound supplier Orbital Sound. Greg Clarke, an independent Sound Designer, had seen these in action and was impressed enough to specify them for the current RSC touring season of Merry Wives of Windsor and Corialanus.

The photos show the console in action at The Swan Theatre in Stratford with regional tour sound supervisor Steve Mayo. Steve comments: "The XRM was an ideal choice for this jo

UK - TSC Music has retained it highly valued ‘Investors In People’ recognition for a record third time.The Crawley-based company, which produces professional business music compilations and systems to high street shops and corporate brands across the UK, has become the only company in its market to earn this status and successfully maintain it three times in a row, after satisfying IiP inspectors during the company’s recent reassessment.

Having surpassed necessary key indicators, the IiP standard helps TSC to continue working more closely with its staff to monitor and develop employee skills in an effort to becoming a more customer-focused organisation.

Chairman and managing director Neal Abdool, said: "We recognize staff as our most valuable asset and with the right nurturing and appropriate training they make the difference that counts in TSC achieving

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