Sound

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UK - A three-dimensional audio experience greeted visitors to London's Broadgate Arena earlier this month when United Technologies Corporation (UTC) put into place an art installation commissioned from American sound artist Stephen Vitiello.

As UTC's official partners, Harman Pro UK supplied the multichannel sound system, which was designed by Arup in collaboration with Vitiello and housed in an open air, geodesic dome situated in the terraced public space near Liverpool Street Station.

Harman's acoustic designer Tom Williams with contractors Middlesex Sound and Lighting installed the system, which incorporated 19 JBL Professional Control 29 AVI monitor speakers, four JBL Control BS210 Dual 10 subwoofers and three Crown CTS 8200 Series power amplifiers.

Entitled The Smallest of Wings, Vitiello's installation created an environment of sound built on field recordings of

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UK - With her Volta tour now well underway, Björk's technical director Alan Pollard is currently masterminding the complex sounds that accompany the artist's signature impish vocals and fine melodies.

Björk's music has always been intricate and it takes an army of musicians, composers and technical experts to help deliver the live instrumentals, electronic percussion and edgy digital instrumentation for which her shows are renowned.

For this tour, Alan Pollard was keen to keep the cabling as simple and tidy as possible so he turned to the technical department of UK cable specialist VDC Trading for help.

"As we're visiting a lot of different venues in both the US and Europe, I wanted a cabling system that was relatively pain-free to set up," he says. "To achieve this, I ordered four mains distribution boxes from VDC Trading - one for each rack on stage

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West Indies - In preparation for this year's Cricket World Cup, a number of the island nations embarked on significant redevelopment programmess, both to their stadia and the surrounding areas.

The 17,000-seat Queens Park Oval in Trinidad, the oldest Cricket stadium in the Caribbean, received an extensive makeover that covered both aesthetics and infrastructure. The venue, which has long been known as an acoustical challenge, was fitted with a new sound system comprising 109 Community R.5-HP loudspeakers, powered by Crown CTS2000 amplification.

Raj Patel of the global consulting group Arup's New York offices was brought in to see that uniform standards were met for intelligibility and acoustical consistency throughout the various stadia.

As Michael Pereira of Trinidad-based AMR Limited explains, the project presented several challenges, the most daunting of which was the tim

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UK - A technological breakthrough on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage this year was the implementation of a digital signal path from the Digidesign D-Show FOH desks right up to the Funktion One loudspeakers on the main stage - using an Optocore optical fibre solution.

The enhanced sound quality owed its success to the faith invested by Simon Honywill, sound designer for the control and monitor system suppliers RG Jones, and the support offered throughout by Marquee Audio's digital expert Andy Huffer.

It was Huffer who had proposed the digital solution to Honywill near the beginning of the year - suggesting three of Optocore's DD32E network devices to transmit a maximum amount of digital data at high speed.

Marquee are not only the official UK distributors of Optocore fibre networks but are also Digidesign resellers, and Andy Huffer was on hand at FOH to support the consulting eng

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Switzerland - The Montreux Jazz Festival presents its 41st edition near the shores of Switzerland's Lake Geneva from 6-21 July. Since 1986, Meyer Sound has been the Official Sound Provider for the festival, supplying sound systems for its many venues, including Auditorium Stravinski, Miles Davis Hall, Parc Vernex, Miles Davis Hall Club and more.

The festival's 16-day run will encompass the huge array of styles for which it has become famous, offering performances ranging from jazz giants like Chick Corea and Gary Burton to rock artists like Wilco, Jeff Beck, and Norah Jones to international favourites such as Youssou N'Dour and Cacau Brasil. The festival's venues are spread between three main buildings, outdoor performance areas, the Young Planet youth club, and "venues on the move": buses, boats, and trains hosting performances.

Meyer Sound's involvement with the fe

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UK - Following a successful public beta programme, Digidesign reports that its highly anticipated Structure professional sampler workstation is now shipping.

Structure ships with a 128-level multitimbral universal sound engine, an integrated multi-effects processing engine including convolution reverb, and support for an unlimited number of nestable patches and up to 8-channel interleaved samples.

Structure features 20 GB worth of comprehensive, premium factory sound libraries from EastWest and A.I.R., including Quantum Leap Orchestral Elements. Also included is a 30-day trial of Goliath Structure Edition, EastWest's 40 GB professional sound library. Structure also allows users to work with their existing sound libraries by providing support for importing SampleCell, EXS24, and Kontakt 1 and 2 sample libraries.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Switzerland's Merging Technologies, makers of the Pyramix digital audio workstation and VCube video player, has opened a dedicated sales and support office in the UK to meet the demand of its rapidly growing operation. UK company Total Audio Solutions, which has been the exclusive distributor for Merging in the UK until now, will continue as a principal dealer for Merging's product line. Some of the Pyramix and VCube support personnel from Total Audio Solutions have moved across to Merging UK to ensure continuity of support for Merging's customers, and sales will be headed as before by Paul Mortimer.

Merging's head of sales and marketing, Ken Barnsley, explains the company's decision to open a dedicated British office. "The UK market for Merging has grown incredibly fast over the last four years, to a level where we felt it important to be able to support our customers

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Germany - Meyer Sound has announced the appointment of Michael Bahr to the position of marketing coordinator at Meyer Sound Germany. Working closely with Meyer Sound headquarters in California, Bahr will be responsible for maintaining a consistent marketing presence in Germany and Scandinavia, and ensuring that the needs of those markets are met, says the company.

"Meyer Sound and its customers will both benefit greatly from Michael joining the company," says Meyer Sound director of marketing Rachel Archibald. "His extensive marketing experience, combined with his excellent language skills, make him the ideal person to communicate the values and philosophies of the company to the local markets in the region."

Bahr brings with him nearly 12 years of marketing experience within the musical instrument and automotive audio industries. He spent close to 10 year

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UK - Adlib Audio sent 20 crew and engineers headed by Hassane Es Siahi down to Glastonbury 2007 to run the Circus and Theatre Fields. Continuing its association with the Festival, Adlib supplied sound systems for the Theatre (La Belle Epoque), Circus Big Top and Cabaret tents, and the Outdoor Circus and Outdoor Theatre (now the Dance Saddlespan) stage.

Additionally, they also had two mobile systems, one transit-van based, that were on call for various outdoor areas as needed.

While the band and music stages are relatively predictable in what's upcoming, there's no such consistency of performance in any of the above areas explains Es Siahi, making the 'other' performance stages the most challenging on site for providing audio. The acts can range from a 20-piece Samba band to fire eaters, a juggler or acrobats. "We really have to be prepared for - and not phased by - anythi

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UK - The Soundcraft Studer Group has made some key senior sales management appointments. Whilst previously, Soundcraft sales and Studer sales were separated into two distinct management teams, in this move sales for both brands will be headed up by Bruno Hochstrasser who also continues as president of Studer in Regensdorf, Switzerland.

Andy Trott, president of The Soundcraft Studer Group says, "Bruno's experience spans over 35 years in the professional audio industry and he has been very successful in growing Studer's digital business. Now that we have completed the integration of our production, marketing and product development functions, it's time to complete our programme and unite these great marques under one sales team.

"We have incredibly exciting strategies for both brands to expand in the live, broadcast and recording sectors with working projects for a bra

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UK - Following a busy two years of installation projects and with an ever expanding hire department, Essex Sound & Light (ESL), a committed KV2 Audio user, is upgrading its audio equipment hire stock with an initial delivery of the new design KV2 Audio ES system.

Mike Glover, ESL managing director, comments: "Three years ago we invested in a large KV2 Audio ES system, of the original design, which was used extensively on a wide range of commissions from live music festivals, gigs and presentations to the Labour Party conferences in Brighton. The original systems were designed as 'plug & play' systems and they were fantastic, providing huge output from a small footprint.

"It was the very method and way in which this system performed that made this decision to re-invest that much easier. After having attended a few live, on-site demonstrations with Andy Austin-Brown of

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UK - Martin Chambers, founding member and drummer for the Pretenders, recently took delivery of a Lab.gruppen C 10:4X amplifier to power his slightly unusual monitoring setup on the band's current tour supporting Rod Stewart.

Chambers' monitoring is more physical than most. Tim Briscusse, Tour Manager for the Pretenders explains, " For his on stage monitoring, Martin expands on the usual wedges and drum-fill and uses specially designed 'thumper' speakers. These are bolted directly to his seat! This way he literally gets a kick out of his playing and finds that this unique setup really helps him keep the beat."

The two rack space, 8.5 kg C 10:4X produces 250 watts per channel into 4, 8 or 16 ohms and has a universal power supply. The C 10:4X, normally used for permanent installations, is perfectly happy in a touring situation being built to the same standards as Lab.g

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UK - Harman Pro UK's product roadshows, which took place last month at three locations around the UK, were a great success, particularly for three visitors who each won a limited-edition AKG C414 microphone while attending, says the company.

This year, the roadshows took place in Dublin, Liverpool and Guildford, and included a prize draw for one of the limited-edition C414s at the end of each day's product presentations, technical Q&A sessions and PA masterclasses.

"This year's roadshows were the best attended ever," said Amanda Chester, marketing manager at Harman Pro UK. "It helps that we are releasing some great new products in 2007, including the excellent mics being produced by AKG in their 60th anniversary year, like the very popular C5 and D5. The venues were superb too - the Temple Bar Centre in Dublin is always lively, and the mass of students that atte

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USA - Meyer Sound has released version 2.7 of its free, MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction software. The new version is a major update incorporating a number of improvements to functionality, user interface, and speed, as well as adding data for the UPJunior ultracompact VariO loudspeaker and the Stella-4 installation loudspeaker for Constellation electroacoustic architecture.

MAPP Online Pro is one of a growing family of Meyer Sound software offerings that also includes Compass control software for the Galileo loudspeaker management system, CueStation control and programming software for the Matrix3 audio show control system, and the RMS remote monitoring system.

Among the features added in the new version are an augmented ability to build groundstacked arrays, a solo feature similar to that found in the company's RMS remote monitoring system, and expanded loudspeaker syst

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Italy - Kool and the Gang's show in Turin took place at the Olympic Sports Arena with Lombardi Service, who are presently on the road with Gigi D'Alessio, providing an Adamson Yaxis system for the event. Toni Soddu, Gigi D'Alessio's new FOH engineer, was there as the stage manager and John Ryan, CHIC FOH, did the shooter design and gave Luca Libraro a hand with the system setup.

A total of 24 Y10's with 12 Y10 Subs were used. John Ryan calculated the shoot by fixing the maximum distance, right behind his head before the glass that separates the first seats from the hockey field. "I had practically no reflection from the empty Plexiglas seats and flat surfaces. The sound was evenly distributed throughout the floor," he says.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - With Digidesign's Venue D-Show and D-Show Profile occupying the FOH position on the main Pyramid Stage, this year's Glastonbury Festival was presented with the event's first all-digital festival format.

The Venue environment was specified as the resident system by Simon Honywill, system designer for the control system providers, RG Jones Sound Engineering. His decision was justified when around 85% of the main stage acts, spanning the gamut of artistic performance - from Shirley Bassey to the Arctic Monkeys, Paul Weller to the UK Youth Orchestra - had their sound mixed on a D-Show.

Two D-Shows piggy-backed between the main stage acts throughout the Festival, allowing the incoming sound engineers to pre-programme their mix, and these were output via AES into the master D-Show Profile for digital distribution to the loudspeaker system.

The consulting engineering team cons

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USA - At this year's International DJ Expo to be held 13-16 August at the Atlantic City Convention Center in Atlantic City, N.J, GCI Technologies will be showing a spread of new and established products.

"International DJ Expo is always an important show for us to connect with and educate the mobile DJ and entertainment industry on GCI's latest products and newest innovations," says president Alan Cabasso.

Gemini will be presenting its newly released MPX-40 Professional Touch-Sensitive MP3/CD Player, along with the CDM-500 Professional DJ Station, the latest edition of its GX line of 2-way ABS loudspeakers and new wireless products.

From the Cortex brand will be the rack-mountable HDC line of digital music controllers, including the HDC-1000 and HDC-3000 units along with the DJ industry's first USB-compatible professional digital music turntable, the HDTT-5000.

G

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UK The O2 Wireless Festival and Hyde Park Calling have become annual events for London's Hyde Park, as is the use of Turbosound's Aspect system on the second stage. Britannia Row Productions, audio suppliers to the Park's summer season, deployed exactly the same system for 2007.

The system comprised 14 TA-890H three way mid/high enclosures, 18 TA-890L bass enclosures and six TSW-218 18" horn-loaded bass cabinets.

"We're using exactly the same cabinets, same array and the same Dom [Harter] from Turbosound, who came down to help put it in on the first day," says Britannia Row's sound crew chief for the Hyde Park events, John Gibbon. "We decided to stay with Aspect again this year because it worked so well last year and we have the same kind of bands playing. At one point the specification was changed, but as we know what works well in the kayam tent that hous

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UK - Leisuretec Distribution has been appointed distributor for the imerge S3000 Sound Server, an MP3 player with multi-zone output, enabling the download of thousands of tracks with up to four different outputs playing simultaneously.

The unit is designed for retail environments requiring different sounds to be channelled into different zones. The S3000 has a built in web interface to enable track downloads and is easily networkable. Capacity of the unit enables storage of thousands of tracks and unlike CD players - the lasers don't need replacing, says the company. With four size options available from 80 to 400GB, compressed the system will store up to 1500 hours of music. It can also be controlled from multiple locations with separate user interfaces.

"Conventionally, CD players have been used as a source, the S3000 is taking opportunities for the custom installer to

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UK - DMi D&M Installation, D&M Europe's new custom installation division, launched itself to the CI trade at CEDIA EXPO, demonstrating the potential of products across its portfolio of Denon, Marantz, Escient, Opus and Boston Acoustics brands.

The new Denon AVR-4308 AV surround receiver streamed audio wirelessly from Escient Fireball music servers and PCs on the stand.

The Denon AVR-4308 is a 7.1 channel Network AV Receiver, featuring Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, HDMI 1.3a, DAB, iPod connectivity, selectable USB ports, IP music streaming, support for AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, and all HD surround sound audio formats, HD video and 1080p upscaling, three zone room-to-room capability and seven discrete 140 watt amplifiers.

The new Escient FireBall FP-1 Music Manager, with universal iPod dock, and Fireball SE500 digital music server were also shown on the stand. Ethernet base

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UK - Seventy Outline Butterfly Hi-packs installed by Britannia Row Productions at Wembley Stadium contributed to the success of the Concert for Diana which was transmitted live in 140 countries and viewed by 500 million people.

The Butterfly Hi-packs were used along with 20 Subtech 218, and the system was powered by Outline T Series amplifiers. The system engineer for the maxi-concert was Sherif El Barbari.

This same Outline array will be used again at Wembley Stadium this weekend as part of the sound reinforcement for Live Earth.

(Jim Evans)

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Indonesia - Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) in Jakarta, has recently opened a new multi-purpose hall, installing a state-of-the-art audio system based around Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system.

Established in 1994 by the Pelita Harapan Foundation, UPH provides high-quality facilities including TV, photographic and scientific laboratories, and an international-standard sports centre. The University boasts 31 departments and 9,000 students. The latest addition to the campus is the 2,200-capacity Grand Chapel theatre based in the University's Digital Campus, which houses the Faculty of Music.

Local installer, Kairos MultiJaya, was contracted to design, supply and install the sound, lighting and video projection system into the Digital Campus. Central to the installation is an Allen & Heath iLive system, comprising an iLive-112 control surface and iDR10 stagerack, which

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UK - Shuttlesound, the UK distributor of Electro-Voice, Klark-Teknik and Midas products, has boosted its national sales force with the addition of two former pro musicians, both of whom have spent many years in the professional audio business.

Peter West, Shuttlesound's new M.I. sales consultant in the south of England, has worked as a musician for ten years. One of his first jobs was as a sales administrator for Shuttlesound's parent company Bosch. More recently, he spent four years working for Shure's pro-audio division, as well as various other audio and AV specialist companies.

Taking up the role of M.I. sales consultant in the north of England, Tony Cooper has also earned his living as a musician, although his first introduction to the business came through his family, which owned several music shops. Tony has since spent more than 30 years in the pro-audio world - five y

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Greece - One of Athens' few traditional theatres, the Pallas is a gem in the middle of this vibrant city. Built during the 1930s, the Pallas retains its art deco splendour while having just been subjected to a major overhaul. This has included the installation of Midas consoles and Klark Teknik signal processing equipment throughout its three venues, supplied by Greek distributor Omikron Control. The whole procedure was overseen by Omikron's sound system designer Vangelis Petridis.

The Pallas Theatre itself, a 1,500-capacity traditional auditorium, now boasts a Heritage 2000 at front of house, with Klark Teknik Square ONE Dynamics, Square ONE EQ and a DN500 Plus dual compressor/limiter. The adjacent Aliki Theatre has also been installed with a Midas H2000 while the new console in the Mikro Pallas is a Venice.

"It's great to have the Heritage here, and I'm very happy with

  1. QSC adds to AcousticDesign series
  2. Generation of Soundcraft at Glastonbury
  3. PSL supplies HAC complex
  4. CUK Audio appointed distributor for DIS
  5. Soundweb solutions in the Douro Valley
  6. Gottelier Award: last chance to nominate!
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