Sound

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Germany - Audio production company Profi Musik has extended its inventory of digital mixing consoles, purchasing a compact Soundcraft Vi4, with Vistonics touch screen interface. Supplied by Harman Pro distributors Audio Pro, the desk went straight out onto the Al Jarreau/NDR Big Band tour where Profi Musik's Dirk Dechring was handling the FOH mix.

The company's first experience with the new platform, with its Vistonics interface, was at the Jazz Baltica Festival in Salzau, after the company had been introduced to the Vi6 during one of Audio Pro's regular product roadshows.

Dirk Dechring claims it took him just half an hour on the console to convince him that this was the control surface he wanted to use on Jazz Baltica. "I had heard all about the exceptional audio quality of the Vi6 and quickly came to the conclusion that an outboard rack, with compre

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USA - As a fitting cap to Crown International's 60th anniversary year, the DC 300 amplifier, first introduced 40 years ago in 1967, was inducted into the TECnology Hall Of Fame on the opening day of the 123rd AES Convention in New York City. Gerald Stanley, Crown International's senior VP of R&D and the original designer of the DC 300, was on hand to accept the award.

Presented by the Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio, best known for its production of the TEC Awards, and hosted by the AES, the Fourth Annual TECnology Hall Of Fame ceremony was emceed by George Petersen, executive editor of Mix magazine and director of the TECnology Hall Of Fame.

Petersen prefaced Crown's award by remarking: "The DC 300 was a classic that really ushered in and defined the era of the modern power amplifier. And 1967 was a perfect time for this product to come out. Suddenly there

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Greece - Mid-October saw Turbosound's Greek distributor, Athens-based Metro Audio, holding its fifth Metro Workshop in the country's resort of Kamena Vourla, at which a Turbosound Aspect system played a starring role.

The Workshops are a very important event for the Metro team, as it gives them the opportunity to meet and talk with clients from both Greece and further afield, to hear their requirements and answer their needs.

However, it is just as important from Turbosound's point of view, not only raising awareness of its latest products, but answering questions from those needing advice on systems and helping users to get the very best from its products, says the company.

Turbosound's European sales manager Chris Hinds and applications engineer Dan Orton attended the event, making a full presentation of the company's products. Focusing on Aspect, the highlight was an outd

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Denmark - The Danish Football club Vejle BK, is due to open its new stadium equipped with Dynacord enclosures installed by Ascon Trading, a Danish pro audio specialist. The sound system is in the new 10,000-seater football stadium in Vejle which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2008 and will be the new home of Vejle BK, one of Denmark's oldest clubs.

The stadium now boasts 56 Dynacord D-12 speakers, a ProMatrix distributed sound and voice alarm system, and a variety of Dynacord ceiling (DL69) and wall (WL90) loudspeakers complemented by ceiling loudspeakers (Evid 6.2C and Media 4.2) from sister company Electro-Voice.

Another major project in which Ascon Trading is currently involved is the Forum in Horsens. This extensive complex combines the functions of a sports and cultural centre with that of a football stadium. Ascon has already installed security and sound systems f

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Hong Kong - Two Iconyx IC24 digitally steerable arrays from Renkus-Heinz have been installed alongside a giant LED billboard at the entrance to the Elements shopping mall and the MTR Kowloon underground station in Hong Kong. Collectively, the equipment delivers information and advertising related to the large shopping mall and new Cultural Centre on Union Square.

The audio system needed to partner the Daktronics ProStar screen had to combine powerful long-throw capability (to cover the immediate area of the screen, the station entrance and the adjacent open area) with tightly focused sound, preventing noise spill to the nearby towers. A competitive loudspeaker 'shoot out' organised by Renkus-Heinz is Hong Kong distributor CAH Professional Sound resulted in the selection of self-powered Iconyx IC24 arrays, supplied in fully-weatherised versions and mounted one apiece on both side

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Norway - PA rental company Lydfiksern, has purchased an Allen & Heath iLive digital system to add to its hire stock. Comprising an iDR10 mix rack and iLive-144 control surface, the new system was used for the first time at the premiere of a new musical, called Snow and Fire, which debuted at the annual Polar Spectacle festival held in Varanger, in the northern extremes of Norway.

"Varanger is literally located on top of the world, it must be the farthest north iLive has traveled," comments °ystein Wierli from XL Audio Norway, who sold the system. "The iLive performed flawlessly, and the entire crew quickly felt comfortable with operating it."

Snow and Fire is a new musical depicting the race by air and land to the North Pole between Norwegian polar explorer, Roald Amundsen, and Italian aeronautical engineer, Umberto Nobile. A theatre stage

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USA - Audio Logic Systems, of Bloomington, Minnesota, recently completed an Electro-Voice audio installation in the new 650-seat worship facility at Plymouth Covenant Church (Plymouth, Minnesota). The all-EV system features Xi series loudspeaker arrays, CPS amplifiers, NetMax processing, and REV wireless microphones.

"This is a beautiful new addition to the church," says Jason Kartak, installation manager, Audio Logic Systems. "It's a wide open room with a balcony, and has a multi-angled ceiling with a peak about 50ft (15.2m) over the stage. This is a very 'live,' acoustically challenging space, and the EASE modeling made it clear that we needed to combine acoustical paneling for absorption with an extremely focused, ultra-linear loudspeaker. The Xi was the ideal choice, as it balances high output, concert-quality performance with precise coverage and EV's charact

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UK - Blaydon Communications recently deployed Biamp Nexia digital sound processors at the new Pan-Asian restaurant Fat Buddha in Durham City. The AV design for the £1.4m, 220-seat restaurant needed to be visually discreet, highly intelligible and scalable for future expansion.

Blaydon insisted that the system be controlled by two of the Nexia SP digital sound processors purchased through beyerdynamic UK. Dave Chapman from Blaydon commented: "we have used these and other products from Biamp and found them to be extremely adaptable and allow us to give the client virtually whatever they require."

The multi-zone restaurant comprises a ground floor bar covered by six powered loudspeakers; a side seating zone covered by an additional two powered loudspeakers; a main restaurant with four loudspeakers, and four 'Tatami' rooms, catering for about 12 persons in each roo

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UK - Illusionist Derren Brown is once again set to tour the country with the Audio-Technica AT892 Micro Set headset. In February he begins the second, three month, 40 date, leg of this his third tour.

.Previously Brown had been miked with a lapel mic, but this was proving problematic in providing good pickup of his voice at critical moments during the show. Sound engineer Francis Dale of Intasound has worked with Brown's touring show for two years, and recommended the low visibility AT892.

"On the last tour, getting a consistently good sound with a lapel mic was an issue. Having experienced all the 'usual' constraints and quality characteristics, we needed another solution, but one that was very discrete," he explains.

"There has always been resistance to using a headset mic because they tend to be very noticeable. We purchased the AT892 into hire stock last y

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UK - Situated at Southend-on-Sea's Western Esplanade, Adventure Island is a 40-acre leisure site packed with fun park rides, experiences and restaurants. Having provided sound reinforcement earlier in the year for the restaurants and bumper car rides, Mike Glover's locally-based Essex Sound & Light were called in again when Adventure Island owners Stockvale decided to launch a new weekend carnival parade titled Light Fantastic. Designed specifically for the Autumn and Winter season, they wanted a potent sound system which would envelope spectators, to complement the new illuminations.

After purpose designing the structure for the new illuminations, Robert Roberts, general manager of Adventure Island, tasked ESL with matching the catenary effect of the festooned lighting by fixing discreet loudspeakers to the custom-designed lamp post-style poles - spaced equidistantly alo

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USA - Formed in suburban Washington in 1993, indie rock band Modest Mouse has come a long way from 'The Shed', their practice space built by guitarist and vocalist Issac Brock next to his mother's trailer. Now embraced by both indie enthusiasts and mainstream listeners, the six-member group has become a platinum-selling act, and performs for fans on three continents.

During an early leg of this year's tour supporting their latest release, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the band found it difficult to hear themselves properly and decided they needed better monitoring equipment.

"When you're using mismatched gear and whatever the local house has, it's a roll of the dice every night," says monitor engineer Myles Kennedy, who was pleased to learn that Taylor, Michigan-based Thunder Audio was bringing a set of new Meyer Sound MJF-212A high-power stage monit

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USA - Technomad Associates reports that its complete line of loudspeakers and subwoofers are compliant with the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) IP56 rating under its IP Code. IP56 is a stringent standard for superior protection against hazardous parts and water ingression, and is an extremely rare rating for full-range outdoor loudspeakers. IEC provides international standards and conformity assessments for government, business and society for all electrical, electronic and related technologies.

The IP Code, defined in IEC's international standard 60529, classifies the level of protection provided against the intrusion of solid objects, dust, water and accidental contact. All Technomad products ranging from its 60W Vernal 15 loudspeaker to the 800W Chicago 15/12 subwoofer have an IP56 rating.

Technomad loudspeakers are installed around the world in cruise shi

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UK - Top experts in their specialised field will be speaking when the Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers hold their annual exhibition on Tuesday, 26 February 2008 at a new venue, the Park Inn Hotel, Northampton.

The wide range of seminar topics, which will run alongside the exhibition, are: The Speech Transmission Index Demystified (Thomas Steinbrecher - Bose Professional Systems); The Application of Sound Field Systems (Kevin Sherwood - CIE-Audio); The Unlimited Possibilities of Using Standard IP Networks (Johannes Rietschel - Barix AG) and The Significant Contribution to Performance that Well-Chosen Connectivity Can Offer (Michael Whiteside - Fuzion plc).

More than 20 specialist suppliers to the sound industry have already signed up including; Ampetronic, Barix AG, Baldwin Boxall Communications, BC Technology, Canford Audio, CIE Group, Clockaudio, Communication

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UK - Blitz Communications was recently commissioned to provide a sophisticated AV solution for Jessops, the UK's leading photographic retailer. Jessops revealed its brand advertising and Christmas campaign to suppliers and managers during a three day event which took place at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire. The conference comprised a suppliers' welcome dinner, team building activities, an awards ceremony and dinner. Blitz and Jessops worked in close partnership to bring Christmas to life using spectacular imagery which ensured that all of the 600 delegates over three days, were captivated not only by the Christmas campaign and supplier exhibition of products, but also by the complete conference experience.

Peter Riordan, Jessops' stores director comments: "The entire team at Blitz contributed to the phenomenal success of our conference. As it was a one-st

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USA - The new EAW NTL720 is a self-powered line array loudspeaker system featuring a true three-way design and numerous other EAW patented and proprietary technologies housed in a compact (9.4" x 24" x 14.3") and low-weight (less than 50lb/22.68kg) package. The entire enclosure face of each NTL720 module is filled by a full-sized mid/high horn providing 110° (horizontal) by 12° (vertical) dispersion. The extreme horn size insures broadband pattern control throughout the entire MF/HF pass-band.

High frequencies are produced by six 1" dome tweeters, configured in two vertical columns (each with three tweeters) mounted on a manifold that feeds a single slot in the centre of the horn, highly effective in controlling vertical dispersion. Flanking the HF section, dual 6" cone woofers handle the MF range, also loading on to the horn, with minimal space

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Ireland - Big Bear Sound has supplied Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) - the Dublin-based independent state broadcaster - with two Digidesign Venue live digital mixing systems for use in their outside broadcast vans (OBVs).

The broadcaster's main OB radio truck is equipped with an integrated Venue D-Show console, Stage Rack, and FOH rack. RTÉ also has the more portable D-Show Profile console, which will be used both as a backup system for smaller venues where carry-ins are required, and for additional redundancy and channel capacity at larger classical events and festivals for which the broadcasters provide coverage. To enable multitrack recordings of its broadcasts, RTÉ also purchased a Digidesign Pro Tools|HD system, which is connected to the D-Show mainframe and Sidecar combination through HDx cards.

The search for a new digital console began 18 mont

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USA - Featuring headliners Hinder, Papa Roach and Buckcherry, the Bad Boys of Rock tour recently wrapped its summer run, having delivered the goods in arenas around America with an EV PA deployed by LD Systems of Houston, TX.

"Once again, X-Line proved itself without peer for loud, heavy, rock 'n' roll," says Robert Ausmus of LD Systems. "This system has the warmth and sonic finesse for all genres of music, from country to pop, but it also has the power handling, punch and reliability tours like this need to deliver the full-bore rock experience. X-Line simply sounds good, whatever the SPL.

Add the remote control RL amps (running IRIS-Net control and supervision software) to the equation and you have a PA that is as streamlined - in terms of system setup time and centralized control - as it is seriously rocking."

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - Two of the Netherland's hardest-working touring bands have both purchased WideLine-8 line array systems from QSC Audio Products. Feeling and Trainband are not only popular Top 40 acts, but they also play the circuit of weddings, town fairs and corporate functions. Since each band works more than 100 shows each year, they not only needed to provide top-quality, evenly-dispersed sound reinforcement to those on-axis, but also to audiences out in the wings.

QSC Audio distributor Holland Audio Import had first demonstrated the 140° wide dispersion advantages of the manufacturer's larger WL10 system to Feeling, who they say immediately became converts to line array technology. But when they were informed that QSC's ultra-compact WideLine-8 would shortly be in production it seemed a better fit for both their road truck and their budget.

Feeling purchased a compl

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USA - Technomad Associates has announced that the ABC-TV Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team has completed installation of a Technomad Turnkey PA System at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Technomad donated the system, featuring two weatherproof outdoor loudspeakers and a complete PA rack to power the loudspeakers, to the popular ABC series last week for a two-hour special scheduled to air in February 2008.

On 7 November Patricia and Patrick John Hughes of Louisville, Kentucky, received word that Ty Pennington and the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team would renovate their home into a safer and more accessible home for their blind and disabled son, Patrick Henry, age 19. The storyline also includes the renovation of a practice field at the University of Louisville, where Patrick Henry marches in the University of Louisville School of Music Marching and Pe

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USA - Engineered Audio Rentals is using a combination of the latest high-performance, compact sound solutions from Electro-Voice to address demanding corporate applications. Built around EV's versatile Phoenix PX1122M and PX1152M two-way loudspeakers and Tour Grade TG-7 microprocessor-controlled, class-H amplifiers running IRIS-Net software, EAR's latest system designs are both streamlined and powerful, the company says.

"We recently provided sound reinforcement for a major US-based agribusiness company's worldwide town hall meeting, held in the large auditorium at their headquarters in Decatur, Illinois," reports Benny Oldenburg of EAR. "Various executives presented on lavalier mics, including the CEO, so impeccable vocal reproduction, as always, was critical. Complete audio coverage was needed for the 'in the round' audience, bearing in mind they would be partic

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UK - Deacon Blue's UK tour was another first for the Midas XL8 Live Performance System, with consoles used at both FOH and for monitors. The systems were provided by Scottish rental company EFX, who took delivery of the XL8s just days before the tour began.

Deacon Blue's FOH engineer Dave Pringle was previously unconvinced that a digital desk would provide fast enough access, but the XL8 changed his view. "The way it's been designed to bring the channels to you means it's really quick," he says. "It's become like second nature, hitting a VCA and seeing the channels that are grouped on that VCA move over to the left. I've always used Midas consoles, and switching over to XL8 was much easier than I thought.

"It has so much potential and I've been learning something new every day. I'm using the automation, saving a scene for each song, storing the FX and mute

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Czech Republic - To the delight of Czech jazzmen, the world's best jazz piano player Chick Corea arrived in Prague to give a concert at the prestigious Smetanova Hall. His technical rider, fulfilled by RentalPro, was satisfied by a Nexo Geo S8 and CD12 front-of-house PA, and a PS Series stage monitoring system.

Completely sold out, the much-anticipated show also featured legendary banjo player Béla Fleck. Although undemanding in terms of inputs (just 12), the show required nothing but the best quality sound reinforcement, controlled by an EtherSound network.

RentalPro flew Nexo Geo S8 arrays on either side of the proscenium arch stage, tucking the cabinets closely next to the decorative statues. Each array comprised nine S805s plus one S830 down-fill box, completed by two CD12 sub-bass units on the floor below. Four pieces of Nexo's PS8 cabinets were used as front-fill.

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Switzerland - The summer season by Switzerland's ThunerSeespiele theatre company saw a month of performances of the musical Les Misérables take place on the company's unique outdoor stage, with a DiGiCo D1 console making its debut on front-of-house and monitors.

ThunerSeespiele (Lake Thun Plays), performs in a beautiful exterior setting, its stage built actually on Lake Thun near the town of the same name. The backdrop of the lake and mountains make its productions visually breathtaking.

Equally as important to the company is the audio component which, being outdoor, requires sound reinforcement. Specialising in high quality audio consultation, design, engineering and installation, Basel-based contractor Audiopool was chosen to supply the sound infrastructure to the production.

Audiopool has a long association with the DiGiCo platform, as it was one of the firs

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USA - Link, introduced the new DGlink digital audio distribution system, at the LDI Show in Orlando.

"The primary objective was to offer a solution that will replace, or integrate with, traditional audio distribution systems (analogue and digital) during live applications, utilizing one, or multiple, digital transport protocol standards over Cat 5 or 6 cables", said Marco Piromalli, president of Link.

DGlink is a modular touring grade digital audio distribution snake (48kHz/24-bit) designed for live applications leveraging the architecture of traditional Stage Boxes.

Supporting up to 64 mic/line level inputs and up to 64 line level outputs (foldback and drive sends), DGlink offers remote control of all stage box functions including control of phantom power, polarity, and gain settings, while maintaining a modular system that supports multiple configurations of inpu

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