Sound

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UK - There was a point during the month of October when sound production company Skan PA had no fewer than seven Digidesign Venue digital mixing systems out on tour. With their two original D-Shows supplied by Marquee Audio assigned long-term to the high-profile Muse tour, Skan's Chris Fitch knew he needed back-up.

But the back-up was soon out on the tour as well - and this month Skan had to call on two further consoles to support Gnarls Barkley during their recent spate of European television and live concert dates. On monitors was Tim Engwall, who has scarcely been away from the D-Show surface since receiving his induction at this year's Montreux Jazz Festival; out front was Steve Curtin who is another recent convert, having made his debut on a D-Show at a festival in Detroit earlier this summer.

Having worked with Eighth Day Sound's Venues in the States, both men were delig

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Belgium - Thirty of Marantz's PMD570 and PMD670 units have been used to create an innovative and versatile learning system for students of a large language department in Belgium.

Local AV specialists Swing CVBA has provided 26 PMD570 Installation Recorders and four PM670 Solid State Recorders to Ghent High School, giving staff the means to exchange materials and mark coursework over the internet, and students the ability to take their language studies off-campus to be continued at home.

The School's previous system used cassette recorders and traditional tape for recording and playback of learning materials, but teachers prompted the move to digital media technology. Using Marantz's PMD recorders, each student uses his or her own flash card, which is removable and can therefore be used to play back lessons and exercises at home. Via the internet, data can be shared among membe

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Spain - A modern construction of concrete and glass, the Granollers TheatreAuditorium just north of Barcelona, Spain, has that special touch theCatalans can bring to such potentially lifeless materials.

But lifelessness still managed to manifest itself in other, more acutely problematic ways. "The auditorium was very dry," said head of sound for Granollers, David Carrión. "Less than one second of reverberationis not a proper acoustic for the performances we wish to present."

Fortunately Carrión has twenty years experience as a sound engineer and knewexactly what to do; install a surround system to support the acoustic. "Wehave established a system configured to provide three reverbs: 1.2 secs forjazz; 1.6 secs for contemporary classics; and 2.0 secs for classical."

Choosing the correct system was less obvious. "Apart from the reverberatio

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UK - There's now less than a week to go before nominations close for the PLASA Executive Committee election.

For 2007 there are four seats available - three representing three-year terms and a fourth representing a one-year term. PLASA is undergoing a time of rapid development - key projects include the running of the PLASA Show, the launch of an industry certification programme, a major membership restructure and much more. Those elected to a place on the committee play a key role in influencing the development of all aspects of PLASA and the industry it serves.

If you are interested in working with the Association, and are employed by a Full UK PLASA Member, please consider standing for election. The closing date for nominations is 5pm Wednesday 15 November.

If you would like to know more about what's involved or need a nomination form, please contact Norah Phillips on 013

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Spain - The desert landscape of Aragon, Spain, was teeming with 40,000 revellers this summer, come to enjoy an oasis of the best electronic music at the 12th annual Monegros Desert Festival (MDF). Larger than in previous years, the festival boasted seven main stages, installed with Xone:62, 92 and 3D mixers, which hosted more than 70 artists, including Jeff Mills, Ángel Molina, Richie Hawtin, Thievery Corporation, Danny Tenaglia and Cypress Hill.

The 'San Miguel Tent' included an impressive 100-metre stage, installed with Allen & Heath's latest addition to the Xone range, the Xone:3D MIDI controller/mixer. This stage hosted national hip hop and international techno DJ's, including Chris Liebing.

An Xone:92 mixer was used on the Beach Club stage, a stone built club with a small beach, together with deck chairs for guests to relax. A Xone:92 was also installed in the 'Bacardi T

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Brazil - Adamson Systems Engineering and Sotex, a division of Grupo Classic based in Contagem, Brazil recently came to an agreement to have Sotex be Adamson's exclusive representative for Brazil.

Grupo Classic is made up of five companies. The oldest "A Serenata Ltda", is a retail store chain that was established over 40 years ago by Marco Bousas' grandfather Antonio Carlos, who still runs the division today, with the help of his son Junior. At the inception of the company, it was primarily a retail store for musical instruments. Today it sells over 5000 local and international brands of music industry related items. "Michael" the wholesale musical instrument division is now seven years old and sells a total of 700 different instruments including two proprietary brands Michael and Trigger. Icone Logistica is a one year old logistics division that takes care o

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Singapore - The Sentosa Golf Club of Singapore is one of the most highly regarded golf resorts of Asia. Its Italian restaurant and lounge Il Lido offers refined dining in a relaxed atmosphere right in the heart of Sentosa's picturesque Tanjong 18-hole golf course with its panoramic views of the South China Sea and stunning sunsets.

To supplement the existing background music system in the Il Lido lounge, the club recently acquired an ELIAS PX system.

Tirso Garcia, marketing & entertainment manager of Il Lido explains their rationale: "Especially on weekends our guests often want something more after dinner than plain background music, and so Il Lido will often spontaneously transform itself into a dance club. To allow for this flexibility, we wanted a sound system with a great deal more 'kick'. Plus, we hold our sound system up to the same high quality standards as we do

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UK - Shuttlesound is boosting its profile within the UK concert sound industry with the appointment of Neal Allen as a representative dedicated to the customers of Electro-Voice loudspeakers, amplifiers, microphones and network solutions.

Electro-Voice's range of sound reinforcement products means that the Shuttlesound customer base includes great diversity, from school fetes to Britannia Row Productions. The appointment of Allen signifies a strong commitment on the part of EV's UK distributor to increase its contact with users at every level, providing more communication and support as well as assistance with system design.

Allen brings a truly multi-faceted CV to his role with Shuttlesound. Eight years in music retail led up to a position as PA buyer for the hugely successful Academy of Sound Group. He has run his own PA hire company, and is still teaching a live sound modul

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UK - At the recent Mobile Choice Awards, sponsored by Mobile Choice Magazine, the cream of the mobile phone industry gathered to receive this years awards.The event was held at one of the City of London's oldest building, the Grand Hall at Billingsgate, now converted into a conference and events centre. Billingsgate has four floors, the largest of which is the Grand Hall on the Ground Floor. This area boasts a grand 25 ft, triple height ceiling, double height windows on the south and north sides of the building, with an architectural suspended gallery across the centre of the Hall.

Though pleasing to the eye, the Grand Hall presented Jason Price of JAP Sound Hire with more than few acoustic problems. He takes up the story "The awards ceremony is the biggest event in the mobile industries calendar. For us it's not only the voice presentations, but the system also has to supp

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USA - Following this year's dominance at the 48th Annual Grammy awards, leading microphone manufacturer Audio-Technica carried that theme to the world's premier Latin music awards show - the seventh Annual Latin Grammy Awards which was held on November 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The show was broadcast live on the Univision Network.

Artists who performed using Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System, with the AEW-T5400 handheld microphone/transmitter and AEW-R5200 true diversity frequency-agile dual receiver, included: Thalía, Grupo Pesado, Joan Sebastian, Gilberto Santa Rosa, and Andy Montañez.

John Harris, music mixer for the seventh Annual Latin Grammy Awards, explained: "I used a wide selection of Audio-Technica microphones at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards with great success, and I wanted to have that same kind of reliability and au

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USA In the first field use of JBL Professional's new Vertec DP Series compact powered line arrays, audio-visual rental company Meeting Services provided technical production and AV requirements for the 26th Annual ESRI International User Conference at the San Diego Convention Center. Located in Redlands, CA, ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) was founded in 1969 as a privately held consulting firm specialising in land use analysis projects. Now an industry leader in the field of digitally-imaged applications for many industries, the firm returns to the San Diego Convention Center on an annual basis for its ESRI International User Conference.

This year's event featured the first USA deployment of the new compact powered Vertec DP Series systems by the rental firm. Systems used for the general assembly conference, opening and closing sessions included VT4887ADP-AN lou

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UK - Liverpool-based Adlib Audio is supplying full audio production for the Scissor Sisters current UK arena tour, with Adlib's Dave Kay engineering at FOH and Ben Booker on monitors.

Kay, Booker and the Adlib team have worked with the Scissor Sisters since they were an club band. They too have experienced their meteoric rise to the heights of stardom with their powerful blend of electro club party-pop.

Dave Kay explained how the band's hectic schedule since the launch of the new Ta-Dah album in Trafalgar Square in September, meant they couldn't attend all of the short production rehearsal period in person at Lite Structures' facility in Wakefield. However, in terms of sound, they were replaced by the 'virtual' version - a series of top quality recordings produced during the preceding US tour.

Kay is touring the new Soundcraft Vi6 mixing console in parallel to his Sou

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UK - Digidesign today announced the new Digidesign Mbox 2 Mini, an ultra-compact, USB-powered Pro Tools LE system that packs professional features into a robust, easy-to-use audio workstation. The newest and smallest member of the Mbox 2 family, Mbox 2 Mini delivers superior sound quality and professional hardware design, and is the most affordable Pro Tools LE system ever, says the company.

"When we released our highly successful Mbox over four years ago, we were very excited to make Pro Tools available at just over £300," says Dusty DiMercurio, marketing manager of Digidesign's personal studio product line. "With Mbox 2 Mini, we're proud to expand our Mbox 2 family to include a solution under £200, reaching a new level of affordability for a Pro Tools LE hardware/software system."

Powered by Pro Tools LE software, the Mbox 2 Mini ships with a

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Ukraine - Based in Kiev, Ukraine, Gali-Leo's permanent sound crew includes five people and their offices employ about 20 full-time employees, plus several freelancers who are frequently on call for their bigger events. They cover most parts of production including lights, stage, audio and backline. Until now the company was well known mainly as a lighting and staging company, but they have now expanded to full production.

Dimitri Pruidze, the managing director of the company and his team first found out about Adamson's high-end sound reinforcement products at Frankfurt's Music Messe in 2001.The final decision to purchase Adamson came when Roger Waters rolled into town with Adamson as his top pick on the technical rider.

They have now upgraded to a large system comprising of 16 Y18, eight T21 Subs and four M15 Multipurpose enclosures, all of which are powered with Lab.gruppen a

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Russia - Community Professional Loudspeaker's Russian distributor, Arsenal Music, was awarded a Gold Medal by the jury of the 'Stations of Russia' exhibition. The award was presented for the company's contribution as a supplier of hardware to the Russian Railways with quality sound equipment.

The 'Stations of Russia' exhibition was held in early November; Community's sales representative for the region, Sylvia Fritsch, commented: "'Stations for Russia' is very different to the usual pro audio exhibitions we're so used to. Being market specific it enables real focus on the needs of the application, and Community is unique in being to able provide such a range of all-weather systems, with high intelligibility over a comprehensive range of distances and coverage patterns. The Russian Railways need a broad range of loudspeakers for indoor and outdoor use and there is no greater

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Australian - Specialist Australian contractor Saltec Audio Visual and Electrical of Bankstown, New South Wales has undertaken some significant Turbosound-based installs during 2006, ensuring that the clientele of several Sydney bars have the perfect audio backing for their leisure time.

Describing itself as 'eclectic, warm and decadent', the Dome Bar at the exclusive Crown Hotel prides itself on its ostentatious décor. So not only did Saltec have to provide a top-quality audio system which would primarily handle background music, but also be suitable for the bar's Friday and Saturday night DJ slot, but the loudspeakers needed to be visually unobtrusive.

Saltec's Stephen Askins chose eight TCS35. "The client wanted a good quality of sound with an even coverage throughout the venue," he says. "We chose TCS35s as we had used them in other venues with great s

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UK - Andy Abraham, the 2005 X-Factor runner-up, brought the repertoire of easy listening and soul standards from his debut album The Impossible Dream to the Royal Albert Hall this month at the culmination of his tour.

Sound reinforcement for the Production North event saw Wigwam Hire dress the acoustically-difficult RAH with a Martin Audio W8LC/W8LM system, placing the operation in the hands of FOH engineer Mark Littlewood, and his system tech Jon Brooks.

Since first mixing Massive Attack at the venue back in 1998 Littlewood has learnt much of the room's characteristics; and with technology advancing apace both he and Jon noted how well the Martin Audio line array combination had sounded last time the two men rigged it here - for a show by G4 - particularly the front-fill sound created by the Mini Line Arrays.

With a large ensemble including drums, bass, acoustic and

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Hong Kong - Bosch Security Systems has supplied fire and emergency voice alarm systems to Hong Kong's new AsiaWorld-Expo exhibition and events centre.

Completed in December 2005, AsiaWorld-Expo adjoins Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok International Airport built on a man-made island 25 kilometres from the city. With more than 70,000sq.m of rentable exhibition, conference and entertainment space, the new centre is Hong Kong's largest event facility.

Bosch has provided AsiaWorld-Expo with equipment and accessories from its Universal Intrusion and Fire Alarm Panel 2000 Series together with the Fire Monitoring System and Praesideo, the world's first fully digital public address and emergency sound system. The systems are integrated with each other and with external control and emergency monitoring systems. The total project is the largest of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region for Bosch S

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Norway - Norwegian city Trondheim has recently been changing the local Dock House into a concert hall called Dokkhuset. Owned by Trondheim Jazz Forum, Jazz Centre of Middle Norway, Trondheim Baroque Music and Trondheim's association of classical soloists, the venue's schedule is consequently turned to both classical and jazz music; Dianne Reeves & Mory Kante feature among the artists who have performed recently at the Dokkhuset.

Scandec Systemer, L-Acoustics distributor in Norway, provided an L Acoustics sound system for the venue. The configuration is comprised of two arrays of thre ARCS, and two stacks of SB218 subs. Two 112P self-powered speakers are used as first delays in mid point of the audience, and two 108P are located at the rear restaurant as second delays.

Bj°rn Johnny Valsgård, sales manager in charge of the project at Scandec Systemer, explained: "The m

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UK - Denon Professional has announced the arrival of the DN-A7100 AV professional AV preamplifier/surround sound decoder, which has been comprehensively designed not only to decode industry standard formats but as a fully-featured AV source switcher.

The manufacturer believes AV professionals will appreciate the eight true balanced line-level outputs and the device's ability to decode digital surround sound signals and output them to their specific speaker output. The DN-A7100 is compatible the with most advanced surround sound formats and because of its unique design, is ideal for any installation that requires high-quality, channel-separated audio outputs - especially those installations where adapting unbalanced RCA preamp outputs is unacceptable or the extra weight of ill-purposed, unused consumer power amps is not required.

In addition to the eight balanced line outputs,

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UK - Wigwam has announce its sponsorship and participation in the launch of The Charlie Jones Scholarship Scheme - names in memory of a man who played a very important part towards the growth and development of Wigwam over the past 20 years.

Wigwam say: "In recognition of his service and desire to develop the next generation of Sound Engineers, we feel it is time for a company like ours to get involved in providing a training scheme that is worthwhile and that will hopefully will lead to employment within the audio industry."

The past 10 years has seen major developments in technology used within live audio, and the company sees a need for engineers and technicians to have specialist training to use the equipment available to achieve the best end results. "If we can train young people wishing work in our industry in the continued advancements in working practice

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UK - ADSworldwide has introduced a new range of headphones and headphone/microphones aimed at the primary and junior school market. The Primary School extensible headphone set, robustly made in re-enforced nylon, is fully adjustable to accommodate all head sizes in the primary school category, says the company. The Senior back headphone has been styled to suit the older, more fashion conscious student with a unique easy to fit profile, while for the primary school student the Media headphone, together with integral microphone, is a compact unit designed for regular and varied use.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - British rock band Razorlight have completed the UK leg of their 2006 tour, enhancing a minimalist stage set with the addition of live action screens, video and effects projection, all supplied by London rental company, PSL Music.

For all shows, PSL set up a 40ft wide white drop centre screen, using a Catalyst digital media server playback source, operated from front-of-house lighting control. Featuring black-and-white stills, moving graphics and effects, as well as simple colour washes, projection on the main screen was fed by PSL's new Barco SLM R12+ units.

Under the direction of crew chief Rod Martin, PSL also supplied a four-camera PPU system and operators Simon Hudson and Bruce Selkirk. Additionally, three mini-cams on the drumkit of Andy Burrows gave video director Steve Price and the PSL engineers a choice of seven feeds from which to mix a rich and dynamic visual c

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Australia - Based on the life, songs and music of the entertainer and songwriter Peter Allen, and performed for the first time in 1998 in Sydney, The Boy From Oz has just closed after a sell-out three-month Australian tour. This new production of the original musical especially designed for arena format venues (more than 10,000 people), include a 25-piece live orchestra and 100 singers from the Australian Girls' choir. Australian V-Dosc Partner, Jands Production Services, was chosen to design and supply the sound reinforcement.

Sound designer Michael Waters, who won a Helpmann Award for Best Sound Design for Dusty the Musical, specified a turnkey L Acoustics V Dosc system which includes 36 V Dosc, 27 dV-DOSC, 4 ARCS and 18 SB218 subwoofers.

Jim Straw, general manager of Jands Production Services, stated: "The Boy from Oz is a complex and ambitious are

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