Sound

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UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound equipment and crew to the Latitude Festival for the fourth year running, this year taking over two new stages - the event's Uncut second stage, and the Sunrise Arena.

The other stages supplied by Adlib were the Lake Stage, the Film & Music Arena and the Cabaret Tent which also had an associated 'roving' sound system. The Adlib team of 14 was crew chiefed by Richy Nicholson.

Adlib specified and installed an L-Acoustics V-DOSC rig for Uncut, configured as two flown arrays of six elements, 12 SB28 subs on the deck and a combination of dv-Dosc and ARCs cabinets for in-fills and out-fills. It was all processed via Adlib's standard set up using Dolby Lakes.

Uncut saw some heavy hitting headliners in the line up including Gossip, Magazine, Bat For Lashes, Squeeze, Newton Faulkner, Spiritualised and many more in a demanding environment for sound requi

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UK/France - For the first time in nearly 20 years, Nexo is exhibiting at PLASA in its own right, marking the recent strategic move away from third-party distribution to direct manufacturer support for the UK market.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Nexo will be unveiling new mainstream loudspeaker products. This range of high-output high-versatility compact cabinets is designed for near-field portable and installed PA applications in clubs, houses of worship, theatres and A/V installations. As well as being an exceptional choice for stage monitoring at all levels of live performance, the cabinets will serve as fill-in complements for Nexo Geo and Alpha systems, says the company.

All the new products can be auditioned in the Piccadilly Room over the duration of the show. Nexo's technical director Francois Deffarges will be on hand to discuss the new design technology

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Japan - MSI Japan is the latest PA rental company to join the L-Acoustics Rental Network and take delivery of a complete K1/Kudo system and LA-RAK touring rack fitted with LA8 amplified controllers.

The company has a long history with L-Acoustics, becoming the first V-Dosc partner in Asia in 1998. For more than a decade the relationship between the companies has flourished, and MSI has become one of Japan and Asia's leading sound companies. 11 years after their initial contact, MSI was contacted by L-Acoustics founder Dr Christian Heil and invited to France for a meeting about K1.

"I flew over to France with MSI vice president, Nishio Motoshige and listened to the K1 system at L-Acoustics," says MSI director Fujii Shuzo. "The moment I heard the system, I immediately knew I would be buying it, and we were given the opportunity to become part of the pilot programm

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USA - Crossword Christian Church in Riverside, Calif. recently upgraded its sound system on a massive scale, replacing the systems in its sanctuary, courtyard, and children's wing with an assortment of Electro-Voice equipment from CBC Technical.

Crossword's new sanctuary system comprises five Phoenix PX2152 boxes in a flown left-centre-right configuration (including a central cluster of three) with two Phoenix PX2181 subs on the ground at stage left and right, with Dynacord VL262s compact double-six-inch, two-way loudspeakers as delays. The system is powered by EV's CP4000S amplifiers.

Chris Batchelor, sales manager for CBC, comments: "This is a Gospel church, and the system they had in there could not keep up with the volume they required. We came to the conclusion that Phoenix was the best option to get the SPL that the church was looking for, with dual drivers on each

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UK - With little more than a month to go until the PLASA Show, organiser PLASA Events has confirmed over 40 exhibitors new to this year's event, as pre-registrations look set to match 2008's record levels. Pre-registration for PLASA09 is still open, with a 50% discount for online bookings (see website below).

New & Returning Exhibitors
Exhibitors new or returning to the show include Adam Hall, A.T. Industries, All Access Staging & Productions, Ambient Lighting, Artistic Licence, Avid Technology, Bestlight, Bison Produkter, Coemar S.p.A, Entertainment Equipment Supplies, Flying by Foy, Gerriets, Indu-Electric Gerber, Klotz Audio Interface Systems, Laserworld (Switzerland), LumenRadio, MediaLas Laserproducts, NEXO, Picturall, Prism Media Products, Promoberg, Pyrotechnology, R K Sound Engineering, ShowCAD Control S

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Downloads Down - There has been a slight drop - from 63% last year to 61% this year - in the number of young people illegally downloading music, a survey suggests. The UK Music-commissioned study, now in its second year, also found that 85% of those who downloaded illegally would pay for an unlimited download service. UK Music is an umbrella body that represents the British music industry.

Some 1,808 14 to 24-year-olds from across the UK were surveyed this spring by the University of Hertfordshire. Of the 61% of respondents who said they illegally downloaded music, 83% said they did so on a daily or weekly basis. Last year's survey research was based on 773 respondents. Of those who said they would pay for an unlimited MP3 download service, 77% said they would continue to buy CDs.And 78% of respondents said they would not pay for a streaming service, such as Spotify.

UK Music

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UK - English Heritage and IMG have again been promoting their successful summer Picnic Concert series at London's Kenwood House and Audley End in Essex, retaining RG Jones to provide all the sound reinforcement and control throughout the festival season.

For the final weekend in Saffron Walden, featuring Back to the 80's, with an all-star line-up, followed by The Last Night of the Audley End Proms (headlined by Katherine Jenkins and featuring a Spitfire display) RG Jones assembled their own 'strictly '80s' technical line-up.

For acts like The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Go West and Heaven 17, they had their own 'old boys' Jim Lambert project/production managing and Al Woods (both ex RG Jones employees from the 1980's) mixing all the bands on a Yamaha PM5D (with the exception of The Human League).

With the spectacular Audley End House providing a

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UK - Tannoy's VQ Series has recently benefited from a welcome expansion to the range, maximising the potential of the product and making it a truly capable and modular high SPL sound reinforcement loudspeaker system. The newly expanded range will be given its first UK unveiling at the forthcoming PLASA show, within the innovative Red Square Audio Pavilion (more details on that to be released soon).

Initially launched last year, VQ Series is a range of loudspeakers designed for any application where precise directional control, outstanding sonic performance, and high SPLs are critical issues; such as large corporate AV systems, stadiums, large dance clubs, live concert halls, theatres, houses of worship and open-air venues. "Utilising precision engineering and design, the VQ series can produce enough power and clarity to be used individually, maintaining your building's aest

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Italy - On Sunday 21 June, Pope Benedict XVI made a special visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, in southern Italy to pray in the Sanctuary of Saint Pio da Pietralcina.

The Pope celebrated Mass and recited the Angelus in the churchyard of San Pio da Pietralcina Church, which was packed with more than 50,000 worshippers coming from all over the world.

RCF's TT+ Touring and Theatre system had been chosen to amplify the sound for the event. Local rental company Sonika, which had organised the technical aspects of the celebrations and had also looked after many such events in past years, chose again to use the TT+ Series from RCF for this important day.

Apart from giving vast coverage, the system had to be flexible enough to amplify both the speech and the music, which was played by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Niccolò Piccinini Conservatoire in Bari. TT22-A and TT08-A were

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Japan - Atsunori Abe, former general manager of Audio-Technica Corporation International Department (Japan) died on 10 July, 2009. Abe passed away in his native Japan and is survived by two brothers, a sister, his wife and their three daughters. Atsunori Abe (pronounced AH-bay) joined A-T in 1978, and in addition to holding the position of the general manager of Audio-Technica Corp. International Department, he also served on the company's board of directors. He retired in 2005.

During his tenure at the Audio-Technica Corporation, Abe helped the company grow internationally and was instrumental in launching groundbreaking products including the AT4033 Cardioid Condenser Microphone, the microphone that is credited as being the first high-quality, studio-grade microphone available at a price within the reach of the home and project studio market.

He was one of the key people who

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UK - The two-site packaged acts festival is an embedded feature of the UK summer scene; take that model to extremes - as is only right and proper for metal music - and you get Sonisphere. Six sites across Europe saw a truly muscular line-up of bands visit Holland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and culminated with a massive thrash at Knebworth Park in the UK.

The festival has learned well from its forebears: this is not a 'cram them all in a big field and gouge the wallet' event; two main stages, and two lesser venues give fans the chance to sample a broad cross section of world class acts as well as some up-and-coming bands.

For Britannia Row Productions Ltd (Britrow), charged with servicing three of the four stages, the demands were clear. "They needed the controlled release of power," said Bryan Grant of Britrow. "That's what these bands are all abou

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Brunei The Jerudong Park Amphitheatre in Brunei has purchased an Allen & Heath digital iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-176 Control Surface.

The venue is part of the largest amusement park in South East Asia. In addition to various community services and events, the venue has hosted a long line of premier international artists and theatrical productions including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Seal, Janet Jackson, Ronan Keating and Spirit of the Dance, as well as artists and prestigious Asian performers.

The venue wanted to migrate its FOH set up from an analogue to a digital system and approached Singapore installation firm, BCI. They recommended the Allen & Heath iLive system due to its distributed audio design and flexible architecture, making it an ideal choice for the large size of the venue and the variety of major productions hosted there.

"

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Germany - The Stadttheater Am Hagen, as the municipal theatre in Straubing is known, is an affiliate of the Landestheater Niederbayern (Lower Bavarian State Theatre). In 2003, the theatre was thoroughly renovated and now seats 330. To make it possible to stage lavish musicals and other musical productions in future, it was necessary to reequip the auditorium with new sound equipment. TRE Professionelle Audiotechnik, which is based in Parkstetten, was entrusted with the installation. It was supported in this task by Thomas Sterling, PI sales manager at Bosch Communications Systems' Support Centre (South).

The centrepiece of the theatre's new sound system comprises - for the first time in Europe, Africa and the Middle East - the new Electro-Voice Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) system. This system, which was specially designed for fixed installation. The full-range, passive system

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USA - Located outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, the National Infantry Museum honours the oldest and largest branch of the US Army. The signature attraction at the new museum, called The Last 100 Yards relies on Renkus-Heinz Iconyx steerable array loudspeakers in its portrayal of 234 years of infantry history.

The exhibit, which acts as an entryway to the rest of the museum, is a gently sloping, 100-yard ramp featuring a chronological multimedia journey through eight key battles from the Revolutionary War up through the current War on Terrorism. According to Major General Jerry White (ret.), president of the private National Infantry Foundation, which operates the museum, "The Infantryman's mission is best portrayed by having visitors fight with those soldiers over the last 100 yards of major wars from the Revolutionary War to the present. The music, the gun

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USA - With Adam 'MCA' Yauch recovering from recent cancer surgery, the Beastie Boys were forced to cancel their Day 2 appearance at this year's Lollapalooza. In their place, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs agreed to take the stage at the very last minute, sending lead singer Karen O scrambling through wardrobe for suitable stage attire to complement an equally electrifying set list.

Once onstage, O commandeered visual attention with a fluorescent outfit featuring a headdress and cape shaped from cloth cut-outs of multicoloured human hands. Delivering her sound to the crowd using a handheld Shure UHF-R wireless transmitter sporting an SM58 capsule, the colourfully-clad Ms. O couldn't stop smiling throughout the entire set. Drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner cut loose musically with equal panache, bringing the night to a close with a hot energy factor matching the day's earl

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Serbia - With over three million judges tuning in to select the winner of the Serbian equivalent to American Idol, singer Darko Lazic turned to AKG's vocal system to help him stand out as the Grand Star of Zvezde Granda. The final night of competition, which was held on 20 June at Belgrade Arena in front of a live audience of 18,000, was sponsored by production vendor Studio Berar and fully stocked with AKG's sound systems.

Auditions for Zvezde Granda began in September, with judges and producers visiting locations throughout all of Serbia. By June, the TV audience had narrowed the competition to seven contestants, all of who competed for the grand finale using AKG WMS 450 wireless microphones.

"This year, they had the highest watched show in Serbia on Saturday nights," said Alfred Reinprecht, AKG's vice president of marketing and product

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The Netherlands - As a further extension of its successful L-series of products, Alcons is now shipping the LR7Bass, a bass-system, designed as la ow-frequency extension of the LR7 micro pro-ribbon line-array system, in both permanent and portable applications.

Featuring a single 12" long excursion woofer with Neodymium magnet structure in bandpass loading configuration, the LR7B delivers high output bass response from a micro-sized and weight efficient package, measuring only 3 CD's wide by 3-CD's high.

The extended frequency response of the dual tuning enables the LR7B to be used as mid-bass reinforcement (80Hz-160Hz), full-range bass extension (45Hz-160Hz) or subwoofer (45Hz-75Hz); All in both flown as well as stacked application.

Main attention was paid to the concentric band-pass configuration, consisting of 4 + 1 individual reflex vents in circular configuration,

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Spain - Multi-media/audio provider Focus, S.A. was recently contracted to furnish sound reinforcement for Pride Barcelona 09, a huge GLBT event attended by an estimated 15,000 people. The event was held 28 June at Avenida Maria Cristina in Barcelona. Focus turned to EAW for loudspeakers and processors for the night's main stage concert, which featured several live musical artists and DJs performing well into the early hours of the morning.

The main P.A. system consisted of 16 EAW KF760 Line Array Modules (eight on each side of the stage), eight EAW KF730 Compact Line Array Modules (four on each side) and 16 EAW SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers, all processed by EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Processors.

Onstage sound for the bands was accomplished with eight EAW JFX260i Compact Full-Range Loudspeakers, and for stage monitoring for the DJs, FOCUS used two side-fills formed by

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Nigeria - As THISDAY Music Festival rolled into Lagos, Nigeria this summer, headliner R. Kelly made his first-ever African appearance to a 50,000-strong crowd. Sound reinforcement for the two-day live event at the Federal Palace Hotel and Tafawa Balewa Square was handled by Meyer Sound Milo and Mica line array loudspeaker systems provided by GQ Acoustics.

Nduka Obaigbena, the festival organiser and publisher of THISDAY, Nigeria's daily newspaper, was more than pleased when he saw the crowd dancing to the music complemented by the sheer power and clarity of the Meyer Sound systems. "I like the consistency of the Meyer Sound systems," says Obaigbena. "In the past three years, GQ Acoustics has been supplying sound for our concerts and has never disappointed us in the quality of the production."

Having used Meyer Sound systems in some of Africa's

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Germany - Following hot on the heels of the successful launch of the innovative T-Series loudspeaker range at the beginning of this year, d&b audiotechnik is now offering the installation market a taste of the action. The same technology that went into the design of the T-Series has now been extended into the new Ti-Series, offering a collection of loudspeaker systems and hardware fittings specially targeted for fixed installation use.

The Series comprises the Ti10L being the line array loudspeaker and Ti10P for point source usage with the Ti subwoofer completing the package. The unobtrusive rigging hardware allows aesthetic integration, whether ground supported or flown and there is the option to colour coordinate both the system and rigging to suit visual requirements. The Ti-Series is designed to address a wide range of small to medium sized installation applications.

The T

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USA - NLFX Professional recently installed an extensive Electro-Voice sound system at Creekside Christian Fellowship, a church located southeast of Houston, Texas. With the help of EV's IRIS-Net remote-control and supervision software, NLFX continues to monitor the performance of Creekside's new system from its offices nearly 1,500 miles away in Bemidji, Minn.

NLFX's Travis Scharn described the project: "Creekside is really in the first of three stages of completion. At this point the main, 450-seat worship space acts as a large, multi-purpose room, and will remain in use while they complete an adjacent, much larger permanent sanctuary. Anything and everything takes place in the current space, in addition to housing their Sunday services. It doubles as their youth facility, a venue for trade shows and concerts, and even as a site for volleyball practices. We were referred t

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UK/Japan - TL Audio has announced that MI7 Japan will now act as exclusive distributor for the Japanese region. The recent appointment was made at AES Japan in Tokyo and both parties are enthusiastic about the new partnership and the possibilities for the future.

MI7 has been in operation for five years and has already established itself as a respected distributor. Managing director, Seiji Murai, has many years experience in the music and technology industry and brings many useful skills and much knowledge to MI7 Japan.

Sarah Yule, sales director for TL Audio comments, "We are delighted to be working with MI7 in Japan, they are a professional and innovative company and Seiji is a clever and inspiring business partner to have, together we are very excited about the future and what we can achieve."

(Jim Evans)

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Croatia - Klotz Digital's Varizone digital PA system was chosen for two sport venues in Croatia. Under the lead and management of Dicroic d.o.o., Klotz Digital's Varizone sales partner in Croatia, the complete AV systems for the Športska dvorana Žatika in Pore? and the Spaladium Arena in Split were designed and installed. Both sport venues were built for the men's handball world championship which took place earlier this year.

The Spaladium Arena, which seats up to 12,000 people, received a multimedia application. The core of the Varizone Performance-Line system is a V212 Matrix Controller - the central audio engine - routing any incoming audio signal to the required speakers. DSP features, such as EQ and DYN are integrated, which ensures intelligibility and eliminates listening fatigue. An intelligent digital bus system (DSS Bus) feeds all digital and 100V amplifiers, speaker

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USA/New Zealand - Denon DJ has announced a partnership with SeratoTM Audio Research, a software developer specialising in audio production and performance tools. As part of the new agreement, Denon DJ and Serato have commenced work on a new Denon-branded ITCH DJ controller, the DN-HC5000, which is scheduled to ship in Q4 2009.

Denon DJ joins a growing roster of hardware partners that are working with Serato on the ITCH project, which is an integrated software and hardware system designed to give music selectors and mobile entertainers new kinds and levels of control. Serato ITCH software lets DJs control their music from a computer, using purpose-built ITCH hardware. The new Denon model will use a proprietary HIDI technology that Serato developed to increase reliability and speed of communication between their software and partnered hardware.

"We're constantly working to

  1. FDW-Worldwide to distribute Audient in US
  2. The Saturdays go to work with Sennheiser
  3. Peak Hire bolsters its EAW arsenal
  4. PLASA09: Trantec highlights digital wireless
  5. Stappard to head Apogee Electronics sales
  6. A.C. Audio enjoys continuing digital business
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