Sound

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KT demonstrated Helix RCS (remote control software), together with V2.02 of the Elgar Library Manager Shell. The RCS software allows access to all of the functions of the Helix digital EQ from a PC, via the 'FastNav' page that shows every function of every channel. The new wireless tablet PCs are supported.

Elgar provides a single place to store, load and edit Add-Ins such as Helix RCS and the Heritage 1000 Library Manager, creating a framework within the PC that allows the Add-Ins to communicate with the relevant piece of hardware. The latest release, V2.02, features the Elgar Comms Manager, which allows multiple Add-Ins to be run simultaneously.

Helix can link to the DN6000 real-time audio analyzer to provide auto-EQ functions if required, and the NAMM launch of the Midas Siena adds another console - along with the Heritage and Legend ranges - which can use the Helix Solo Tracking

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Fifty Line' is a compact, active, long-throw PA system in three modular units: the FL10 passive HF speaker, with horn-loaded 10" woofer and B&C 1" coaxial compression driver; the FL15 mid/bass unit, incorporating one 500W/RMS power amp and one 300W+100W/RMS power amp used to power the FL10 via a four-channel speaker cable; and the FL18 sub, driven by an 18" B&C woofer with an internal 600W/RMS class-H power amp.

The PU 901 M/L UHF wireless microphone system is digitally controlled with detachable antennae, 16 selectable frequencies, multi-channel capabilities and digital code squelch. Up to eight PU 901 systems can be operated simultaneously in a single TV channel, while an optional active antenna splitter - the AS 6 - is available for multi-channel installations. Hand and pocket transmitters are powered with a standard 9V battery; operating time exceeds 30 hours.

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UK - When Umbaba opened to a select clientele recently, it completed a trio of exclusive London West End venues equipped from the ground up with ATC transparent reference monitors. Overseen by acoustician Nick Whitaker, the Umbaba system came about as a development of the PA they had designed and installed at Aura and Chinawhite. The guiding influence had been Freddie Moss, who has a strong financial stake in both Aura and Chinawhite, and was introduced to the ATC sound by Whitaker himself.

ATC's method is to use recording studio quality loudspeakers in slightly greater numbers to give enhanced sound performance and extended listening comfort. "The major advantage in the greatly reduced distortion over a PA-type system," says ATC's R&D engineer, Ben Lilly. "Distortion is the major cause of listener fatigue and discomfort."

"We wanted hi-fi quality bu

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Australia - Australian hospitality entrepreneur, Geoff Haywood, has renovated one of Perth's 19th Century classic pubs, the Brisbane Hotel, appointing club specialists, Megavision, and audio suppliers, TAG, to install a new audio format.

The resurrected venue is a fusion of new design elements and classic tradition. From an audio perspective the main hospitality area splits into two zones - the Long Bar and the Beer Garden. Globally connected and able to be operated as a single system, each area can also run independently and has been custom-designed to best meet the expected use.

All the audio system zones are controlled by an 8 x 16 Allen & Heath iDR-8 digital mix processor with settings addressable via wall panels - including the eight fader PL-6 - via laptop, or using the iDR's TCP-IP address over the web.

Strategically located between The Long Bar and The Beer Garden is

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UK - Birmingham-based AV installation company Argus Services is creating something of a benchmark for sound reinforcement systems among the leading football clubs in the UK, having recently installed Martin Audio's AM Stadium Series loudspeakers cabinets at three Premier Division clubs.

The latest to install the specially-designed weather-proofed cabinets is West Bromwich Albion FC. Argus has added seven AM15 cabinets to the main stand at West Brom's Hawthorns stadium. Jerry Matthews of Argus explains that "it's a deep tiered stand, and, although there was already a single row of speakers at the front, the further you went up the rows, the less you could hear. We've had to mount a row of Martin Audio AM15s about 25ft up the stand, just about where the directors sit!" All the AM15's have been suspended on custom-built brackets. "These enable us to do everything fr

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UK - Michigan-based Thunder Audio has invested in DiGiCo D5 Live and D1 Live digital mixing consoles for its current tour with Garbage. With 25 years' experience in sound and light rental, Thunder Audio is a premier audio and full production company in both the US and the rest of the world, and they have chosen to invest in DiGiCo as their first foray into the world of digital audio mixing.

"We always said that we would take the digital plunge when it was necessary," says Paul Owen, vice-president of Thunder Audio. "We chose to go for the D5 and D1 Live with fibre optic split because of DiGiCo's excellent reputation and the request for these particular consoles on the Garbage tour. We know that we're going to have them rented out for the coming 12 months and that makes for a very sound investment."

Geoff Lissaman, DiGiCo's vice-president - Concert Sound,

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UK - The Brit Awards, now celebrating its 25th year, saw Shure hard-wired and wireless mics plus personal monitoring being utilized. Many artists chose to use the combination of Shure Premier Wireless with a Beta 58A capsule. Those included four Brit nominee, Natasha Bedingfield who performed Chaka Khan's disco classic 'Ain't Nobody' with her brother Daniel. Another stunning duo to use Shure Premier Wireless were Jamelia and Lemar who performed a raunchy version of Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love'; both urban artists were nominated for several awards. Winner of Best UK Solo Artist, The Streets was another Shure wireless user delivering his recent UK number one track 'Dry Your Eyes'. Furthermore, arguably the highlight of the evening, Robbie Williams and Joss Stone chose to use Premier Wireless whilst performing Robbie's 'Angels', for which he received the Best Song Award. Joss

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Denmark - A large quantity of DPA Microphones including 14 DPA 4011 cardioid mics, 10 DPA 4022 compact cardioid mics, eight DPA 4006 omnidirectional mics, 32 4061 miniatures and 22 4066 miniatures are in use at the new Danish Opera House in Copenhagen. The opera house, which is one of the most advanced in the world, was inaugurated with a gala performance on 15 January 2005.

The new venue is a gift to the people of Denmark from Danish businessman Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, and home to the Danish Royal Theatre, with whom DPA Microphones enjoys a close relationship. The Danish Royal Theatre has assumed technical responsibility for the venue, and the mics were specified by Claus Wolter, head of sound for the Royal Danish Theatre and Opera. "I have to believe in the quality of every single piece of equipment we use in our daily work, and that's why we always have different type

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UK - The National Theatre has just completed a refit of the main proscenium loudspeaker system in the Lyttelton Theatre, using Opus Audio Developments loudspeakers, amplifiers and controllers. Adam Rudd, Sound Supervisor for the Lyttelton, together with members of his team, went through a lengthy evaluation process to find the system that gave them the most natural sound quality and best coverage.

Adam Rudd explains, "We've had various systems in the Lyttelton over the years, but never one we were completely satisfied with. Up for evaluation were the usual systems you'd list for top quality theatre and Alan Lochhead also approached us with the Opus products. I have to say that there was some scepticism before the listening tests but it soon became clear that the full Opus system of loudspeakers, amplifiers and controllers were in a league of their own as far as accurate, n

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USA - For the eighth consecutive year, Audio-Technica microphones was extensively deployed by the Grammy Awards show for star performances, and to provide backline signals for the major international broadcast event, televised in both HDTV and surround sound on the CBS High Definition Television Network.

Michael Abbott, audio coordinator for the 47th Annual Grammys, stated: "We are pleased that Audio-Technica has continued its support for the 8th year as a Grammy manufacturing partner. I would also like to commend A-T on the 5000 Series Wireless. Its high-fidelity and solid performance made it a go-to wireless for artists and engineers alike."

Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series Wireless Systems were used for front-line vocals by artists such as: Gwen Stefani, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, Johnny Van Zant, Blind Boys of Alabama, Melissa Etheridge and John Ma

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UK - Seasoned pro audio technical salesman, Tim Shaxson, joins DiGiCo's sales department as technical sales to work alongside sales director James Gordon. Shaxson joins DiGiCo from HHB Communications where he spent 12 years as Senior Pro-Audio technical salesman and was consistently one of its highest achieving team members. His appointment comes during a period of exceptional growth in the digital mixing console market and the expansion of its sales department is a reflection of DiGiCo's continued confidence and increased demand.

"We had been looking for a suitable addition to our sales department for sometime and Tim's experience in the industry and relaxed customer style make him the perfect fit for DiGiCo," comments Gordon. "Tim is going to be focusing his activities on promoting Soundtracs and DiGiCo consoles both nationally and internationally in conjunction

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UK - Baldwin Boxall will launch its feature rich Vigil 'EVAS' master and slave units at the forthcoming ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt (6-9 April 2005), International Fire Expo in Birmingham (16-19 May 2005). A DSP processor-based routeing matrix designed for the voice alarm/voice evacuation market, the Vigil 'EVAS' is designed to meet all current, and even future, standards for Voice Alarm systems, including BS5839 part 8 and EN60849, say the company.

This new product comes in the form of the BVRD2M master and separate BVRD2S slave, both of which are housed within a 1U 19" rack-mounting format. The BVRD2M has eight electronically balanced inputs and seven electronically balanced outputs. Inputs 1 and 2 have an 'all call' processor bypass as well as a dedicated in-built 'all call' fail safe emergency message generator in the event of a processor failure. The BVRD2M

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Canada - An Adamson SpekTrix compact line array system has been permanently installed at the new Cats Theatre in Tokyo, Japan. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats has enjoyed successful theatrical stagings across the globe, and although the Broadway and London productions have completed their extended, record-breaking runs, the popularity of Cats in Japan has never faded.

Running in the country since 1983, Cats, performed in Japanese by the Shiki Theatre Company, has been presented in a number of major cities including Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Shizuoka, Hiroshima and Sendai. Pulling in more than 5.7 million people over the course of almost 6,000 performances in Japan, the musical has returned to the city of Tokyo after an absence of eight years.

The specially-designed Cats Theatre can accommodate a capacity of 1,200 on two levels of seating. The s

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UK / The Netherlands - MC2 Audio has appointed Match Audio and Vision to distribute its range of amplifiers in The Netherlands. "We have been active as a pro audio distributor since 1997," explains Robert Pigeaud, sales manager of Match Audio & Vision. "We were looking for a high-end amplifier brand to complete our range of products and, after being introduced to MC2 and meeting Ian McCarthy, we decided that we wanted to become their Dutch distributor. "Of course, the audio quality and reliability of all MC2 products played an important role in this decision, as well as the support of the people within the company.

"We believe that MC2 will become a serious competitor to the big Swedish and American brands because of its pricing, functionality and unmatched performance. We will be focussing on the Dutch rental market with the E-series and several rental

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USA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) - the organization which awards the famous Oscars each year - plays a much wider role in the day-to-day workings of Hollywood. As a large organization holding many meetings and conferences, the Academy recently undertook an expansion and modernization of its main Los Angeles conference room, which includes the installation of Sennheiser' ME36 condenser microphone.

Los Angeles-based Offenhauser/Mekeel Architects oversaw the redesign of the AMPAS room, and Warner Constructors, the firm behind many of Disney's theme parks, spearheaded construction. To create the room's audio and video systems, and provide acoustic design, Offenhauser/Mekeel brought in Menlo Scientific Acoustics, who have brainstormed acoustical and presentation system designs for venues including the Getty Center and the Getty Villa Museums. Menlo princ

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UK - Following the release of Stardraw Control Beta 1 last month, software provider Stardraw.com has announced the public availability of Stardraw Control Beta 2 with immediate effect, prior to its formal launch scheduled for NSCA next month. A community of nearly 600 systems specialists was involved in the Beta 1 test phase and further participants in the Beta 2 test phase are similarly invited. Stardraw Control Beta 2 offers enhanced stability and applicability over the first Beta version, which was developed on the Microsoft.net v2 platform, which is itself still in the beta testing stage. As there is no firm release date for MS.net framework v2, Stardraw has released Stardraw Control Beta 2 on MS.net v1.1, the current release version. "It will be very easy to port everything back over to MS.net v2 when it is formally released later this year," commented Stardraw.com

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USA / Germany - At the Frankfurt ProLight&Sound exhibition (6-9 April), Shure will preview its new UHF-R Wireless System - the new benchmark for high-performance, networkable wireless applications. Designed for the most demanding wireless applications and users. UHF-R features networked automatic set-up to minimise set-up time, integrated software for advanced, real-time network control, broad bandwidth for reliable, trouble-free operation and innovative technologies for exceptional audio quality.

Shure - booth D12 in Hall 4.1.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - The official opening of Shearer's Bar at Newcastle United's St James Park ground on 12 February was marked in grand Geordie style with guitar legend Mark Knopfler, with fellow Dire Straits member Alan Clark on keyboards, played a live version of Knopfler's 'Local Hero' film theme to a very enthusiastic home crowd. The 'Local Hero' connection comes from the fact that the song is played at every Newcastle United home game as the players take to the pitch. After agreeing to help out, Knopfler needed a PA system to enhance his own backline. Q Music (Northern) Ltd were on hand to provide a full 2.4kW HK Audio Actor system, together with two HK Audio D.A.R.T. monitors.

Q Music managing director Gary Nicholson commented: "The specification for this event obviously had to be of an extremely high standard, as befits a performer of Mark Knopfler's standing. The chosen rig would

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USA - TOA Corporation's NX-100 Network Audio Adapter has earned two prizes in the IPv6 Appli-Contest 2004 (sponsored by the IPv6 Promotion Council of Japan), both in the Implementation Category, including the Top Prize in the corporate category and the Grand Prix for being judged the product most likely to contribute to IPv6 applications today and in the future.

The IPv6 Appli-Contest was started in 2003 with the aim of bringing to light a variety of new ideas and needs that will arise as the Internet Protocol Version 6 (known as IPv6) takes its place in the networked society of tomorrow. The contest also hopes to stimulate interest in IPv6 among people in general. Applications for the 2004 contest, which were accepted from participants worldwide from June through September, included 371 products in three categories.

Mr. Kei Higashi from the Business Unit Department's Researc

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UK - One of the first feature-packed Denon DN-D6000 dual CD/MP3 players has been fitted into the high-profile Bar M near Piccadilly Circus, by Ed Manwaring of EM Communications. Owned by Glendola Leisure, Bar M acts as an annexe champagne lounge to CC-Club - on the site of the former Alien War at the Trocadero. EM Communications won the contract to fit the sound, based on their past knowledge of the site, knowing that the bar had to be open for midweek daytime trading, reverting to a dance venue in its own right Thursdays through Saturdays. At that point the hard disk background system would make way for the Denon playback.

Manwaring had carried out the original installation at CC-Club/Bar M while working for another company, specifying a pair of Denon DN-2100F dual CD players, which had continued to operate faultlessly over a four-year period. Last year, a pair of DN-S3000 tab

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UK - Every year leading US entertainment industry magazine Entertainment Design invites a distinguished panel of judges to select the Sound Products of the Year. This selection process has remained consistently rigorous for over nine years whereby a group of designers and technicians from around the country, and occasionally the world, are invited by ED to communicate via email or in person to debate the pros and cons of equipment launched during the course of the year. After which the panel decides the winners.

This year's judging panel included sound designers, board ops, an academic, and an acoustician whose choice of top sound products represents a unique cross section of incremental improvements to existing technology, and include everything from a protocol to a cable. The winners are Aviom's A-Net Pro64 ASIC protocol, d&b audiotechnik's D12 amplifier, DiGiCo's D5T console,

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The Netherlands - Midas Consoles Holland has made Klark Teknik's DN370 analogue graphic equalizer available to a wide client base by offering an EQ Amnesty across the country for a limited period. Under the terms of the offer, one previously-owned EQ unit could be traded against a brand new DN370 on a part-exchange basis, ensuring that a substantial discount was received on each new unit.

The deal was the brainchild of managing director Axel Nagtegaal, who explains: "I wanted to find a way of giving rental companies who recognized the quality of the Klark Teknik DN370 the opportunity to purchase them by generating money from the sale of their other brand EQs. In most cases, it would have been extremely difficult to offload these units second-hand in any other way."

When the offer ended, Nagtegaal was staggered to find that 110 rental companies and theatres had take

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UK - Production hire company Hawthorn Theatrical has taken delivery of a 32-channel Aztec console to complement its ever increasing stock of Audient equipment, including a sizeable number of Audient's graphic equalizer, the ASP231. Specializing in event design and production, Hawthorn has a wealth of experience in corporate, AV, install and live production, providing the "one-stop-shop" production and hire service. With a hire inventory of over 2615 lines of stock, 62 members of full time staff as well as a warehouse the size of 5 football pitches, Hawthorn's commitment to providing a professional service at the very highest level is clearly evident.

Audient's UK sales manager, Nick Pemberton says: "When I visited Hawthorn for the first time, I was taken back by the company's scale. It's a truly amazing place. Since then I have been back on a number of occasions

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UK - The Impression Series of loudspeakers from Phonic combine stylish design with power and efficiency specs virtually unchallenged by any other speaker series on the market, the company claims. The extensive range includes 12" and 15" two-way FOH/floor monitor speakers, a dual 15" two-way FOH model plus 15" and 18" subwoofers. All of the speakers have been designed to feature high power handling abilities and frequency response ranges.

The speakers are fitted with professional speakon-type connectors, as well as quarter-inch phone jacks, are covered with hard-wearing black carpet and feature durable die-cast handles, plus most models can be pole-mounted. The subwoofers feature built-in crossovers, as well as a phase inverting switch, ensuring high quality bass reproduction, says the manufacturer.

(Lee Baldock)

  1. Portable PA from Yamaha
  2. Sennheiser takes over Klein & Hummel
  3. Onyx order new Soundcraft desks
  4. Sennheiser mics are the ideal wedding guest
  5. Proel add to NEXT series
  6. TiMax supports Carmen at the Albert Hall
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