Sound

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UK - Turbosound reports that London-based Audio-Tek International has completed a variety of bar, club and corporate installations using Turbosound's TXD, QLight and Impact systems. Audio-Tek International's recent projects have included Birmingham club venue Air - home of Godskitchen; the Hard Rock Café in Manchester; and the brand's Hard Rock Bar in Bristol, plus the Anam Bar in north London.

At Air in Birmingham, Audio-Tek has installed six Qlight TQ-440 units, along with four THL-828 bass enclosures and TXD-151 systems, while Bristol's Hard Rock Bar features TXD-121 and TSB-110 loudspeakers. As part of a new mezzanine-level development, Manchester's Hard Rock Caférequired a new audio system to provide a medium-level wash throughout the area, with Audio-Tek installing 12 diminutive Impact 50 loudspeakers for the purpose. The company's installation at the very stylish Anam

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Italy - From 11-14 November 2004, the beautiful setting of the Verdi Theatre and the exclusive Caffè Pedrocchi hosted the seventh edition of the Padua Porsche Jazz Festival, one of the most prestigious Jazz festivals in Italy. The event attracted top artists on the Italian and international jazz scenes.

Outline sound reinforcement systems were chosen for the entire festival. The floor-stacked Butterfly Vertical Line Array at the Verdi Theatre consisted of 10 high-packs and two low-packs, processed by two Lake Contours, controlled via wireless tablet PC; amplification was from Outline's Series T amps. Two Stage 15 Plus and two Victor Live subwoofers covered the front rows of the audience, and eight H.A.R.D. 212 monitor wedges were used on stage. In this case, digital control was courtesy of Genius 6 processors, and amplification was once again Series T.

At the Caffè Pedro

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UK - London's Regent Street celebrated its 50th year of hosting innovative displays of Christmas lights. The mile of style was the first street in London to display Christmas lights back in 1954. The city has continued to invest in the tradition by transforming the street into an entertaining outdoor event each year.

Brit Award winners Busted launched this year's lights with a performance of three of their number one hit singles. SSE Hire was there to provide audio coverage for the event with an arrangement of Nexo Alpha and GeoT. Production manager, Neil Cranston, on behalf of Andrew Cheeseman Productions, commented on how he had 'never seen Geo T ground stacked before but it really fulfilled the criteria of the job'.

With 45,000 people gathering during the day to see the live reindeer, 50 Father Christmases, street entertainers and music through the decades it was imp

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USA - LOUD Technologies introduced the addition of Carolyn Hommer as director of customer fulfilment and Paul Roberts as domestic sales administration manager. Hommer brings ten plus years of management experience from Trendwest Resorts in a variety of departments including Financial Services and IT. During her time at Trendwest, she was recognized for her contribution as recipient of Manager of the Year for three successive years and IT Employee of the Year. In her new role, Hommer will manage the sales administration department, with a primary focus on processing new sales orders and working closely with the sales, finance and operations departments.

Paul Roberts was inside sales coordinator at Symetrix for the past seven years and worked in all aspects of international and domestic sales administration. At LOUD Roberts will focus solely on domestic sales administration, and l

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UK - A.C. Lighting and Production Services Ireland has worked in partnership to supply the lighting rig and PA sound system - which includes the UK's first Turbosound Aspect installed-sound system - to Queen's University in Belfast.

Queen's, which is ranked as one of the Top 20 UK universities, required a new multi-purpose entertainment system including, PA trussing, lighting, dimming, and control equipment for the refurbishment of the main campus's Mandela Hall and Bunatee Bar/Games Room student union facilities.

The Turbosound Aspect permanent install series consists of six TA-880H mid-high units, eight TA-880L bass units, six TA-880HM downfills, four TSW-124 sub bass units and two TA-890H tri-amp units. The speakers are powered by MC2 E25 and E45 power amplifiers with XTA processing.

The Aspect system was specified by Queen's consultant Mick Williams of Symonds Group in c

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UK - The diverse cultural backgrounds and interests of today's university students pose an ongoing problem for campus bar managers: how to entertain more than one group of people at a time in a given space.

At Warwick University, the Rootes Building is the home of Warwick Hospitality, the largest company of its kind in the UK. Wholly owned by the university, Warwick Hospitality markets the university's facilities for use outside term time, attracting conferences, exhibitions and training sessions from commercial and industrial sectors as well as other parts of acadaemia. For Lawrence Walters, bars manager for Warwick Hospitality, the problem is multiplied. How can he best use the 1200sqm Rootes Bar to entertain a diverse group of students during term-time, and still provide value and functionality for the non-student users?

Walters and Warwick Hospitality turned to CGA, the Be

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UK - Community distributor HSL has just completed two one-day product seminars at its extensive new showroom and demonstration facilities in Blackburn. Following HSL's engagement of Alan Lochhead and Steve Coxon to handle Community sales the number of appointed dealers and installers has grown substantially and Simon Stuart, MD of HSL, decided on in-house seminars to provide comprehensive product and application training. As he explained: "The Community range is now very comprehensive following the introduction of many new products this year. To cover such a massive range in detail required dedicated seminars in a large demonstration facility."

Stuart Thomson, EMEA regional manager for Community, assisted HSL with the presentations, which were attended by around 40 dealers and installers from across the UK. Lochhead was very pleased with the attendance commenting: &quo

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Ireland - Zandar Technologies will be demonstrating the dynamic Fusion Series of MultiViewers on stand 4202, hall 8 at this year's Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) exhibition on 26 - 28 January, 2005, Amsterdam.

Modular in design, the FusionPro MultiViewers have the ability to display up to eight (1RU) or 26 (3RU) video (analogue, HD, SDI) and computer sources on a single display device in a choice of high-resolution formats. Additional features include: user-designed layouts, dual hot-swap power supplies, dual outputs, video alarming, in-picture audio monitoring and alarming, remote panel control and LAN control of multiple systems.

The Fusion Series creates a 'virtual monitor stack' on any kind of LCD, plasma, and projection system. Users save significantly on space, power consumption, cooling and weight - the high costs normally associated with traditional CRT monitor stacks

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UK - Bill Bailey's one-man stand-up show, Part Troll, toured for 11 weeks prior to its present residency at the the Lyric Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue and has so far had its West End run extended twice, such has been its popularity and success. So what makes Bailey's show so unique? Perhaps the way he combines music with stand-up and delivers both so ingeniously, using a combination of music genres, story-telling and three carefully crafted jokes - which are spread thinly through the show!

Featuring plenty of audience participation and some pretty weird and wonderful musical instruments, the show depends on communicating every intonation, facial expression and word to the audience - making sound and lighting both essential ingredients to the successful delivery of the material. Prior to the show, I met up with FOH engineer Ian Horne and LD Arturo Ollandini, both of whom are generally mo

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UK - Blue Audio from Coalburn in Lanarkshire has just finished a complete audio installation for the new multi-function London venue in Dundee. London offers customers a choice of five separate areas, including a nightclub, funk room, lounge, piano bar and restaurant and all are digitally networked using NetCIRA.

The relationship between Blue Audio and London goes back some seven years and this was its largest fully networked installation to-date. Blue Audio's Nadar explained the brief: "High quality music is a main theme for this busy venue and the client wanted clarity, power and the flexibility to be able to switch any of the nine sources to any of the five rooms. There are several products I knew that would do the job but all had a host of unwanted functions and were unnecessarily expensive. I approached Dave Thomson of Avolution, a good friend who is always up on the l

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USA - During LDI, L&SI was invited by DiGiCo to experience first-hand the sound mixing capabilities of its D5T console on the import of the British musical We Will Rock You, a recent arrival at the Paris Hotel, Las Vegas. Pre-show, we met with associate sound designer David Patridge and head of sound John Trace, who discussed the D5T and the advantages they felt it had given them at the head of the show's PA system.

So why go digital? Patridge explained: "We liked the idea for ease of set-up and the smaller footprint. We were very happy to work with a company that was so enthusiastic about developing a digital desk for the theatre market. Sonically, the D5T sounds excellent whilst still retaining the warmth of an analogue desk. It's also intuitive to work with and simple to programme."

Trace said: "I particularly like the touch-screen function, it mimics the control su

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Sweden - Located in a historic food market on the picturesque riverside of Uppsala, Saluhallen is a new venue which functions as a food market by day before reverting to a chic nightclub complex after dark. All the leisure hospitality areas are operated by Svenssons Krogar (responsible for a number of bars and restaurants in the city), with the signals digitally processed and routed using the BSS Soundweb DSP platform.

The system design was carried out by BSS' Swedish distributors, Septon Electronic AB, in collaboration with local contractor Scenteknik AB, who were responsible for the installation. Septon's solution was to specify two SW9088iis networked signal processing devices and an SW9026 audio switcher to cover a total of seven zones (two bars/dancefloors, two restaurants, two VIP rooms and an outdoor patio), with access to 12 sources via custom wall panels.

Contained

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The reissued Furman Sound's Q-Series II Equalizers comprise the Q-2312 two-channel, 31-band, 1/3-octave graphic equalizer; the Q-1311 single channel, 31-band, 1/3-octave graphic equalizer; the Q-2151 two-channel, 15-band, 2/3-octave graphic equalizer; the Q-2152V long throw, two-channel, 15-band, 2/3-octave graphic equalizer with VU meters; and the Q-1312V long throw single channel, 31-band, 1/3-band octave equalizer with analogue VU meter.

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A few blocks away from the convention centre, in the Continental Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, L-Acoustics mounted the launch of what the latter-day pioneer of the technology called the "next generation" of line array - so expectations were high. Kudo (below right) was duly unveiled, and described by technical support manager for touring, Paul Bauman, as "something a bit different from the usual line source array".

Kudo apparently gets its name from 'K-Louvre Modular Directivity', a patent-pending technology designed to enable users to change the coverage pattern of the array mechanically - either vertically or horizontally. It incorporates the company's now-famous WST waveguide fundamentals, and comprises a medium-format, active 3-way system with two12", four 5" and two 1" components. But uniquely, K-Louvre itself is a system of control panels that s

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UK - This year's AES Convention in San Francisco played host to a couple of high-profile presentations of the TiMax Audio Imaging DSP delay matrix and showcontrol system. At the Live Surround Symposium, chaired by Fred Ampel in the historic Merchants Exchange Building downtown, around 150 attendees listened to presentations from various audio luminaries on live surround in theatre and orchestral productions, ambisonics, soundfield microphones and live sports broadcasting. The session ended with a live band mixed by Buford Jones on the new DiGiCo D1 console matrixed via TiMax to a nine-channel Meyer CQ2 surround system.

In his Delay-Imaging presentation, TiMax creator Robin Whittaker demonstrated to audience members how audio wavefront arrival time differences significantly influence the perceived localization of multiple audio sources, a phenomenon discovered by Helmut Haas in

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Rane was demo'ing its Scratch Live system - an interesting product with some pretty clever technology. The Scratch Live interface connects almost any computer to an ordinary pair of turntables or CD players. It can then faithfully track every subtle movement of the stylus on the included control records. The same movement is then instantly applied to any digital audio file in the user's collection, producing a sound and feel that is indistinguishable from vinyl. All Rane products are manufactured in the USA.

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With 16,153 attendees and a near-record 415 exhibitors, San Francisco's AES Convention at the end of October displayed a genuinely positive mood. On the show floor, the typical reaction was expressed by Outboard Electronics' Dave Haydon - surveying four days of the exhibition from his vantage point in aisle one. "Certainly from the point of view of being one of the wallflowers round the edge, it's been very busy," he said. "It seems to me that the ideal combination of having both the quality and the quantity of traffic has applied here.

"There seems to be an AES habit of starting round the edges because you already know who's in the middle and you'll get to them eventually, but there's a lot of cool stuff from small companies in the end booths that kind of sneaks in from the outside. So, even as in some ways a peripheral participant, we've been very much part of it

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Exhibiting on its own doorstep, and two days after a lavish 25th anniversary party at the HQ in Berkeley, Meyer Sound announced that it had finally developed a proprietary digital loudspeaker management system. Called Galileo 616, the product represents the company's first foray into DSP, and comes after a typically cautious watching brief on the true potential of the technology.

"We weren't going to approach it until we could do it with 115dB of dynamic range," said director of European technical support, Luke Jenks. "It's not just a management system; it's also a line driver. So if you put it across your system, it has to perform at low output levels without noise, and at high output levels without clipping. That's where you really need the dynamic range. We have a huge stake in what happens after the DSP stage, so we only embarked on this once we were satisfied that t

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UK - Adlib Audio has serviced a plethora of its North American client base throughout 2004, after concluding the European section of David Bowie's "Reality" tour in 2003, including Jill Scott, N*E*R*D and The Calling.

US soul and blues diva Jill Scott (not to be confused with Gill Scott Heron) used a JBL VerTec PA system supplied by Adlib Audio for her UK tour. Gigs included two nights at Brixton Academy, Bristol Birmingham, Barrowlands in Glasgow and a grand finale at Manchester. Adlib supplied 20 JBL VT4888s and their own DF418 subs; the system was driven by ADLIB's new Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers. FOH engineer Chaz Clifton used a Soundcraft Series 5 desk, with BSS FDS-366 OmniDrive Compacts for system control and BSS FDS 360s for EQ. This offered the flexibility to zone the system as required. Monitors featured one of ADLIB's new Yamaha PM5D consoles. The console's

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A new version of the A-Net protocol behind the company's A-16 (right) Personal Monitor Mixing System, promising increased data capacity and signal control in this and future live performance audio networks.

"Because A-Net was originally conceived for live stage monitor applications, the protocol was designed to transmit in only one direction: from the A-Net input module or distributor hub out to the performers' mixers," said Carl Bader, president and CEO of Aviom.

"A-Net Pro is fully bi-directional and has dramatically increased capacity, while preserving the central performance specs of A-Net: uncompressed, low-latency in a plug-and-play system. The new version of the protocol carries up to 64 audio channels on a single wire pair in a Cat 5 cable, still at 24 bits. In specialized networks, A-Net Pro can carry 256 channels without sacrificing performance."

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The SpekTrix Wave cabinet has been added to the company's SpekTrix line array system, complete with Adamson's proprietorial wave shaping sound chamber. The product won a PAR Excellence award presented by Pro Audio Review. Shauna Kennedy marketing manager commented: "The PAR Excellence award recognizes promising new audio products that show a combination of innovative uses of technology and performance value for the professional user, we were honoured to receive it."

The 15° trapezoidal cabinet allows for extreme downward angles at the bottom of an array for front row coverage, as well as wide vertical coverage arrays such as multiple-balcony venues.

It's a 3-way cabinet with two Adamson 8.5" Kevlar, neodymium drivers - one ND8-L mid-bass driver and one ND8-M mid-range driver - and a 1.5" compression driver mounted on the wave shaping chamber. This produces a slig

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Nat Hecht, Principal and CEO of Transmission Line Marketing, established his company 18 months ago for "pro audio and video distribution throughout the Americas", and clearly has an eye for innovative European technology. As well as, on this occasion, helping to introduce TiMax to an AES audience, Hecht hosted Alcons Audio's debut appearance at a US trade show - along with its signature ribbon-based loudspeaker technology.Alcons MD Tom Back had this to say: "Contrary to the popular belief that ribbon technology is very fragile, has low impedance and poor power handling, after selling hundreds of products over nearly two years we haven't had a single one returned. We don't even have a price for a replacement diaphragm."

Back went on to reveal that the LR16 compact line array, designed for small to medium applications and receiving its US launch at the show, has been

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JBL Professional announced a new suite of system design and operation tools for use with VerTec line array systems. All-new DSP presets, expanded array DLLs for use in EASE 4.0 acoustic modelling software, and an upgraded version of JBL's Line Array Calculator are included in the package.The SRX700 series maintains the established SR and SRX series loudspeakers' claims to offer most advanced driver technology available in a portable PA. System weight has been reduced even further, even while the enclosures are made from hard-wearing birch.

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USA - Intelix, the US manufacturer of audio and video equipment, will relocate all operations as of January 15, 2005. The new facility will be located at: 2222 Pleasant View Road, Suite #1, Middleton, WI 53562. All other contact information such as telephone, web and email details will remain the same.

"For some time now, Intelix has been searching for a larger, more suitable facility to accommodate our rapidly increasing staff and inventory needs," stated Steve Cohan, Intelix CEO: "The pleasant view location allows us to meet both goals, as well as remain in the general area."

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

  1. Sound Division at the Zeta Bar
  2. Sennheiser - Evolution 900 Series US debut
  3. Inter-M - audio matrix router for installation
  4. Audient - US distribution
  5. SLS Loudspeakers - P-LS8695 powered compact line array
  6. Marquee at the Tate Modern
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