Sound

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UK - Riedel Communications unveiled the new RockNet RN.345.IL network plug-in card for Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing console family at this year's PLASA show in London.

The RN.345.IL card fits into any iLive MixRack Port B expansion slot and provides an interface to 64 input and 64 output channels. A rotary switch on the front panel sets device identification and selection of up to 15 programmable routing tables. The RN.345.IL enables the iLive console system to become part of the RockNet digital audio network.

The RN.345.IL in combination with RockWorks also supports RockNet's Independent Gain Feature. Independent Gain allows several mixing consoles to operate with the same mic pre-amps without affecting each other. While the master-console is controlling the analog gain of the pre-amps remotely, all other consoles operate with emulated pre-amps just as if they were al

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UK - Yamaha Commercial Audio enjoyed a highly successful PLASA 2010, with the company's new StageMix iPad app enjoying an enthusiastic response from audio professionals. Coupled with the debut for Macintosh editor software for the M7CLV3 and LS9, the company's stand was busy throughout the exhibition's duration.

With all three software products confirmed as being made available at no cost, interest levels were high.

"Our philosophy is to introduce products that users want and have asked for," says Karl Christmas, deputy general manager of Yamaha Commercial Audio (UK). "There are thousands of Yamaha digital mixing consoles out there and the highest priorities on user 'wants lists' were facilities to make use of them more efficiently."

Featuring a straightforward, intuitive graphic interface and the iPad's multi-touch and gesture control, StageMix uses the

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Germany - Since its introduction earlier this year, Yamaha's M7CL-48ES digital mixing console has proved a significant success, with sound rental companies keen to adopt the flexible and highly transportable package of the console, SB168-ES stage boxes and EtherSound multicore. One of the latest purchasers of the systems of Germany's POOLgroup.

Emsdetten-based POOLgroup has one of Germany's most progressive audio companies at its heart - Westfalen Sound - which for 32 years has serviced many of the highest profile tours in Europe and worldwide.

Westfalen Sound has purchased three complete Yamaha M7CL-48ES systems, each comprising a console and three SB168-ES stage boxes. These join six standard M7CL-48 and two PM5Ds already in the company's inventory.

"This purchase was a substantial financial commitment, but the quality and reliability of Yamaha products made it an eas

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USA - Responsible for the production of two highly anticipated concerts in one of the country's most difficult audio environments, festival production specialist StagePro successfully conquered high elevation, harsh winds and zero humidity with a complete JBL Vertec line array solution for this year's Rock Jam and Country Jam festivals, staged in Grand Junction, Colorado. With artists ranging from Alice Cooper and Cinderella to Keith Urban and Sawyer Brown, the events presented many of the nation's top current touring acts.

Utilizing 48 JBL VT4889 full size line array elements and 32 VT4880A full size arrayable subwoofers, Ottawa, Kansas-based StagePro president Jay Waller and system tech Nick Mourn overcame the environmental obstacles plaguing the country and rock festivals for nearly 20 years.

"We originally purchased the JBL Vertec rig to help solve the s

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UK - At PLASA 2010, organisers of the First Night Riders (FNR), Brenda Edelstein and Triple E managing director, David Edelstein, announced the 2011 route for its second charity motorbike ride.

Surrounded by stars of the stage, screen, and television including: James Fleet, Cyril Nri, Trevor Peacock, Peter Benson, and Phyllida Law, David Edelstein explained the FNR's mission to raise money for The Theatrical Guild (TTG). TTG is a charity that supports active and former backstage and front of house employees that have hit hardship or require support.

The 2011 event follows hot on the wheels of the successful 2010 inaugural First Night Ride. Last June an international posse of entertainment and backstage professionals raised £10,000 by motor-biking around some of the UK's most historic and interesting theatres.

In just eight days they travelled from London's National The

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UK - Midas XL8s played a pivotal role at three of the UK's biggest outdoor events of the year as London's Hyde Park hosted the BBC's Proms In The Park, BBC Radio 2's Elvis Forever tribute and Pope Benedict XVI's Evening Vigil.

The consoles were rented from Britannia Row by London-based System Sound, which has been providing the PA and broadcast splits for The Last Night Of The Proms and other Hyde Park events for 15 years. "This year we had the best sounding system we have ever had," says System Sound's Simon Biddulph. "The XL8s contributed to that in a huge way."

Hundreds of musicians in orchestras and bands, plus singers and speakers, participated across the three events before a combined live audience of over 140,000, with millions more tuning in to the events on radio and television. Explaining the challenges the events threw up, Bi

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UK - Audio Alliance reports that it designed and supplied the sound and communications systems for two of the five productions that have been nominated for Best Conference at the upcoming UK Event Awards being staged this autumn.

Rapport Events have been using Audio Alliance as their audio supplier since their inception nearly four years ago and are responsible for the production of Astellas Senior Managers Meeting 2010, the first nominated event in the Best Conference category.

The Astellas event was based on a long catwalk used to represent a timeline, running through the past, present & future. Delegates and presenters used the set throughout the day's activities, starting in the past, they worked their way to the future by walking the catwalk. Oliver Driver, Audio Alliance's managing director, designed one single system, with a three way signal split, all controlled

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UK - Sales of Soundcraft's new Vi1 compact digital desk have immediately gone into overdrive, report UK and ROI distributors, Sound Technology, rapidly boosting inventories in both the rental and permanent install sectors.

In the latter category, Paul Duffy's Pacific Sound & Light have been quick to install a 32-input board at the new flagship Glee Club in Nottingham - a hybrid theatre which hosts, comedy and an eclectic mix of both emerging and established song-based artists.

Pacific recommended the desk to Glee Club owners, Comic Enterprises, after working on the resident 'parent' Soundcraft Vi6 console at the O2 Arena's IndigO2 while on tour last year. This led to an invitation for a demo at the Soundcraft HQ.

At the same time, SSE Audio Group had also been speaking to Pacific, which resulted in Jon Nash, the venue's production manager, heading across the Midlands to atte

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Japan - Japanese Folk Music is stark, beautiful, and demands to be exquisitely realized. "The reasons are bound in history," explained Mr Sato from M audio labo, a specialist pro audio rental company based in Komaki near Nagoya. "The instruments used, for example the Japanese harp or O-koto, the flute (Fue), and especially the Shamisen, our traditional three string banjo, all differ slightly from region to region. The tuning and tonality from each region exhibit subtle variations; being able to discern them is what excites audiences most."

M audio labo had recently supplied a sound system for just such a special folk music event; staged for an audience of 7,500 people at the Sun Dome in Fukui; the concert was a private function for an important local bank. "It's a very large room, not normal for such recitals. We knew we needed something special to trans

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USA - Peavey Electronics is is playing a major role in the re-opening celebration of the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on 28 September as an official provider of amps for the iconic show.

"Peavey amplifiers have a long history with the Grand Ole Opry," explains Hartley Peavey. "It feels great to be able to support the restoration of the Opry to its home stage and the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville following the flood."

Not only will Peavey amps be centre stage for every Grand Ole Opry performance, but also the artists' dressing rooms will be equipped with Peavey's Vypyr 15/ Rage 258 amps, and bass amps. On stage, artists will perform with Peavey Sensation 212 and Classic 50/212 guitar amps, as well as Trace Elliot bass amps and cabs ( AH600/ 1048H/ 1518H) and Budda V40 guitar amps.

"We're pleased to offer Peavey and Trace Elliott amplifiers fo

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UK - PLASA Media, publisher of Lighting&Sound International magazine, has announced that the videos of the PLASA Award for Innovation product presentations from this year's PLASA Show are now available to view at the LSIOnline YouTube channel.

The Awards for Innovation, for the first time, were judged 'live' at the Innovation Gallery by an independent panel of 16 expert judges, in front of show visitors and a camera team on Sunday 12 September. Show visitors are able to watch the judging process replayed on large screens in the interactive Innovation Gallery for the rest of the show.

Seven Awards for Innovation and one Gold Award were presented by PLASA CEO Matthew Griffiths.

The winners of the 2010 PLASA Awards for Innovation were . . .

Clay Paky Sharpy, a newly developed beamlight t

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South Africa - Sun City Resort is home to one of Southern Africa's major venues for entertainment, the Super Bowl. This indoor venue, which can seat 6,855 people for a show or handle up to 10 500, with a standing configuration downstairs, has recently taken delivery of a new J-Series line array system, installed and supplied by Stage Audio Works.

The new sound system, designed by Gustav Barnard from Stage Audio Works and Stefan Goertz from d&b Audiotechnik, comprises of 16 J8 and four J12 Line Array modules, together with flown arrays of five deep J-SUB per side together with four J-INFRA and Q-Series out-fill. The entire system design was first conceptualised and designed using d&b's ArrayCalc and simulated in acoustic prediction software, EASE, to ensure optimal design.

Alan Barry, head of sound for the Sun City entertainment department commented, "After quite a few yea

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Saudi Arabia - For the technical fit-out of the new Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) building in Riyadh City. Integrators KHALDI EST turned to RCF to provide high speech intelligibility and full translation facilities.

The MOHE building is considered to be one of the major projects in Saudi Arabia's new era of development. KHALDI EST masterminded the technical fit-out after winning a competitive tender, which included the design, supply and integration of all audiovisual components for the Ministry's main auditorium. The company, which specialises in delivering complete turnkey projects, has so far completed in excess of 100 major auditoriums.

The Ministry auditorium was designed to seat 850 people, with the ground level for use by male guests only, and the upper balcony for ladies (with separate entrances provided for each level). Part of the A/V system design was to link

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USA - For over six decades, Doug Weston's The Troubadour has been a flagship venue of the American music industry. The famous club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood has been the site of performances by top artists through rock history, including the Eagles, Elton John, James Taylor, Metallica, Franz Ferdinand, the Strokes and Guns N'Roses, who, like many classic artists, got their careers going as a result of performances there.

The Troubadour continues to be a vital link in the evolving American music industry and culture, and microphones from Audio-Technica have played a key role in keeping it that way. Bobby Crown, the FOH Mixer, production manager and system engineer for The Troubadour for the last seven years, brought an all-A-T package of microphones into The Troubadour in 2008 and they've been in use since.

Crown, who at one point was simultaneously an enginee

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UK - PLASA 2010 saw much interest lavished on Alcons Audio's new range of subwoofers, the high output BQ211 quarter-wave loaded, all-carbon 21" subwoofer and the BC543 triple, all-carbon-coned triple 18" in bass-reflex configuration: a self-contained cardioid subwoofer or: with cardioid controllable dispersion pattern.

Particular interest in the new products was shown by live sound engineers, both being the first introductions of the upcoming LR24 mid-sized pro-ribbon line-array touring system. However, both can also be used with all of the company's current pro-ribbon line-arrays.

"PLASA was a good opportunity to meet up with existing clients and make new contacts," says Alcons' Tom Back. "The annual Alcons dinner on Tuesday was also an enjoyable gathering of Alcons Network members and partners. It is always a great opportunity to 'talk audio' and enj

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Italy - For the only Italian date on his world tour, Michael Bolton played the amphitheatre at the Vittoriale degli Italiani (Shrine of Italian Victories), which overlooks Lake Garda.

In Gardone Riviera, where Bolton presented his latest album, One World One Love, the Vittoriale's amphitheatre was sold-out and an Outline audio system was used.

Cipiesse Produzioni per lo Spettacolo was the Brescia rental company that supplied and installed the sound reinforcement system for Bolton's show.

The main rig comprised six plus six Outline Butterfly Hi-packs and two plus two Mantas modules for down-fill (120°), hung below the main Butterfly arrays, as well as five Subtech 218, installed on the ground for the reproduction of infra-low frequencies. Five ultra-slim (self-powered) H.A.R.D. 115 SP monitors were positioned on stage and the system's processors and power amps were

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UK - The V2010 festival was another highly successful summer event for Sennheiser, with the company's service support and artist relations teams decamping to Weston Park, Staffordshire, for a weekend of sun, support and supply.

With Sennheiser UK's Mark Saunders, Andy Lillywhite, Phil Cummings, Richard Minter and Rob Sales in attendance, the company offered a full on site service to artists and their engineers for the duration of the festival, as well as the festival's audio rental companies who were using a substantial amount of Sennheiser equipment.

The team was busy throughout, carrying out repairs, supplying some emergency spare parts and dispensing much needed advice on the important Channel 38/Ofcom issues, as well as using the opportunity to keep in touch with engineers and artists who regularly use Sennheiser equipment and making new contacts for the future. On site sa

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Austria - The Wiener Konzerthaus, one of Austria's most famous and prominent concert halls, recently installed two Soundcraft Vi digital consoles as part of an equipment upgrade. The consoles were sold through Kain Audio Teknik, Soundcraft's Austrian distributor.

The Konzerthaus dates back to the beginning of the 20th Century and is one of the largest and most artistically progressive institutions in international music. During the course of a season, which extends from September to June, approximately 750 wide-ranging events take place and more than 600,000 visitors can listen to around 2,500 different compositions. With this comprehensive and varied selection, the Wiener Konzerthaus-together with the Vienna State Opera House and the Musikverein-is central to Vienna's reputation as one of the world's leading music capitals.

The Vi6 is used as the FOH console in the Grand Conc

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UK - Sound designer Colin Pink has specified DPA miniature microphones for a new UK tour of Chess, the opus of Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. The UK tour opened at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle in late August featuring a cast of West End stars, and continues into 2011.

Pink explains that there were some unusual considerations to take into account when specifying the mics for the tour. "This is an actor/musician production, which means there are 30 performers on stage who sing, play and dance, often all at the same time. With this in mind, I needed mics that would work equally well on voice and instruments. The DPA 4061 miniature omnidirectional mic seemed to be the perfect choice for the job, as it is equally at home with vocals and instruments and is very open sounding, with a good dynamic range."

Pink experimented a little with mic placement, st

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Austria - AKG donated nearly 100 wireless microphone systems and handheld microphones in support of the 2010 Life Ball, held in Vienna. The event, which is one of the largest charity events in the world, is held annually, with the proceeds from ticket sales and donations going to various non-profit organizations for people suffering from HIV or AIDS.

AKG has provided the equipment supporting the Life Ball's various concerts, speeches discussions and banquets for 10 consecutive years. This year's microphone donation included numerous frequency-agile DMS 700's, WMS 4500's,IVM 4 in-ear monitoring systems and premium handheld microphones including D7's, D5's, C414's and D40's. AKG equipment was used in every presentation and on every stage throughout the entire night, providing clear and uninterrupted audio for some of the most popular celebrities and superstars in th

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Norway - With its origins dating back to the 1850s, Den Nationale Scene (DNS, or The National Theatre) is Norway's oldest permanent theatre. It has recently installed a DiGiCo SD7 mixing console.

Located in Bergen, DNS puts on around 20 productions each year across its three stages, which include international and national classics, musicals, contemporary drama and family shows. One of three national theatres in Norway, it has a reputation for high quality productions and also bringing on new talent.

The venue's biggest space is the 450-capacity Store Scene (Main Stage), where the SD7 was recently installed by Oslo-based Bright A/S. Front of House sound is mixed to a Meyer system, while an Aviom card in the SD7 feeds to the monitor system.

"When we were looking to install a new console, we looked at six and then narrowed it down to the two strongest candidates," sa

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Mauritius - Rental company Damoo Sound and Music has supplied an L-Acoustics Kudo line source system for Zee Nite in Mauritius. The live show, being filmed for Zee TV, featured more than three hours of live music and dance from top Indian artists, with a tropical stage set to illustrate the sun, sand and sea of Mauritius.

The Kudo system provided sound for an audience of 3,500 people at The Swami Vivekananda International Conference Centre. The left/right arrays of six cabinets per side provided more than adequate sound coverage for the room, impressing Zee TV directors who had travelled from India for the event. Familiar with L-Acoustics from their previous use of V-Dosc systems, they were particularly impressed with the high SPL provided by the small and compact Kudo boxes.

"We were getting good SPLs right at the back benches, and the same clear and punchy sound

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UK - FX rentals has purchased 10 of Turbosound's new Milan M15 self-powered loudspeakers through recently appointed distributor SCV London.

London-based FX Rentals has a wide range of clients whose requirements range from large Pas to musical instruments, effects processors, DJ equipment and recording systems. Versatile loudspeakers are always in great demand, servicing multiple events including corporate presentations, club gigs, parties and artist showcases.

The full-range Milan M15 is designed for these types of events, being digitally self-powered, portable and capable of delivering 450 watts of clear audio from its 15" LF driver and 1" HF compression driver.

"We were very impressed listening to the M15," says FX group chairman Roger Evan. "We have seen the hire demand for PA steadily grow over the last five years and it is now an important area

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USA / Germany - Solaris - a US-based resource for buying and selling used entertainment production equipment worldwide - will open a new European location in Germany in mid-November. Heading the operation will be industry veteran, Jerad Garza.

"With the overwhelming number of new global clients we are servicing, it was the next logical step to expand our services to our friends in Europe. We look forward to offering you a fresh new perspective in buying second hand and used pro concert equipment," states CEO, Oshine Najarian.

He added: "Jerad Garza is a seasoned veteran in the industry and at 35, has basically worked in the entertainment lighting and sound industries his whole life. Experience aside, Jerad brings enthusiasm, expertise, courtesy, and integrity to the table, and is dedicated to providing a level of service that is second to none for the European m

  1. A.C. Special Projects on board with Brittany Ferries
  2. The 2010 Behind the Scenes Boutique at LDI
  3. Yeovil club is first UK installation for EVA array
  4. Reunited Limp Bizkit rely on Sennheiser
  5. Jackson Browne, d&b and David Lindley on tour
  6. Axiom installations at Abu Dhabi Family Foundation
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