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The Netherlands - Two lucky sound engineers, who each won a DPA d:fine single earpiece headset mic in a prize draw during the IBC 2011 show, have been putting the mics through their paces.

d:fine headsets have gone to Mark Graves, a member of the sound engineering team at his London church, and to Andrea Purchiaroni, chief engineer at Roman TV production company Etabeta.

"I was very pleased indeed to win a microphone," says Graves. "At St Pauls, Ealing, a large Anglican church in the New Wine network, we have a comprehensive PA rig manned by an enthusiastic volunteer team of PA operators. Our worship style is modern, with a full band in place for every service.

"On its first outing, the d:fine was used straight out of the box to mic the speaker, with no time ahead of the service for set up," says Graves. "The operator was immediately able to get

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UK - Adlib's specialist installation division has designed and installed a complete new CODA Audio system - the first fixed install of its type in the UK utilising CODA's LA8 (compact) and LA4 (ultra compact) line array speakers at The Manchester Velodrome, the country's National Cycling Centre.

Adlib's sales and installations team, headed by John Hughes and Roger Kirby, was approached by ISG Regions, who were managing the building development works for Manchester City Council, about a fixed solution for the Velodrome track.

Once the plans for the system design were approved, the installation schedule was gruelling. It involved Adlib's crews working at height, in confined spaces and using a variety of mobile high level access platforms during five weeks of overnight shifts.

Adlib believed that a line array would deliver optimum unified audio coverage that was required. Havin

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UK - Drum 'n Bass DJ, Andy C, is currently on tour in the UK with a new show, based around the Allen & Heath Xone:DB4 digital FX mixer.

The concept of the ALIVE tour is to "take DJ'ing to a new dimension, incorporating visual and audio clips, which are controlled by the latest technology".

"ALIVE was not possible until the DB4 arrived - it is the piece of kit that cemented the fact I could do it," explains Andy. "The ergonomics and layout of the mixer was a culture shock at first, as the DB4 is different to every other mixer but I soon realised it was a new step, which would become a central point for control, as it's too complicated to flip between keyboards, controllers and computers - everything is controlled from the hub."

The Xone:DB4 controls various MIDI devices, computers loaded with Traktor and Ableton, three turntables, a

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UK - POLARaudio has recently launched its new dealer portal. The online resource permits all account customers to log in and manage their entire account profile. Users have access to a full range of accounts, sales and technical support tools.

The dealer portal is a secure website designed to allow customers to get fast accurate information, place orders or view their account 24 hours a day. The ergonomically designed and easy to use portal includes a host of tools designed to make it as easy as possible to do business, says the company.

The 'Your Account' tab enables registered users to view their balance, account status, order history and to print copy invoices and statements. The 'Return and Repair' tab allow users to arrange a repair or replacement of a faulty item, whilst the 'Spare Parts' tab gives customers access to detailed descriptions, images, prices and data sheets

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Germany - t&m Systems, based in Ibbenbüren, is launching the ProjectMix818, a flexible and competitively-priced eight-zone mixer with paging functions for installed public address and music applications.

The ProjectMix818 features four line and four mic/line inputs that can selectively be switched as the source for any of the output zones. Easy to read LCD displays for each zone show which input source is in use and a similar LCD display is also used on the remote control panels.

A further mic input can also be sent, with level control, to any or all zones in addition to their selected source. The ProjectMix818 also has 2 inputs for t&m paging mics. These paging mics have selection switches for each zone or all-zones and an expansion module can be used to expand the paging mic by another 8 zones if two or more ProjectMix818 units are linked together.

Each zone features an a

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France - SLS is the second company in France to invest in Adamson's Project Energia as a beta partner. SLS's entire loudspeaker inventory is made up exclusively of Adamson products. With 15 full time personnel and 140 freelancers, their Adamson inventory includes Metrix, SpekTrix, Y10, Y18, SX 18, Point Series and M series monitors housed in a 36,000sq.ft building in Ales, with a second location in Montpellier.

Though the French sound company is focused mainly on festivals and corporate events, they do provide sound production for a few tours, their main client since 2007 being the French band Les Ogres Barback (often nicknamed The Ogre). The Ogre are currently on tour with SLS's new Adamson E15 system. The band has released 12 albums since 1997, and their vast repertoire of intricate songs and complex arrangements are "a wonderful showcase for the capabilities E15 system&q

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Germany - The Digital Workflow workshop was held at Lawo AG in Rastatt, earlier this month. Entitled Integrated and innovative - from the mixing console to the microphone, the free-of-charge seminar was led by experts from Sennheiser, Neumann and Innovason who presented the latest product developments and their role in the digital workflow. Further, this practical workshop, offered sound engineers the opportunity to try out the digital microphones and mixing consoles in small groups.

The lectures about Neumann digital microphones and Innovason's Eclipse GT digital live mixing console were focused on creating easy workflows; they were followed by explanations from Martin Kaiser of TSE AG who, as technical director of this event, illustrated the successful deployment of these devices at the Classic Open Air classical music festival in Berlin in July.

The af

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Scandinavia - TTA, manufacturer of Stagetracker FX, has strengthened its sales and distribution network across Scandinavia with the appointment of two new distributors; Alfa Audio A/S in Denmark, and Drammen Lyd AS in Norway. The two companies already have a strong working relationship with each other, and also with Arva Trading AB who is TTA's long-established distributor in Sweden.

According to TTA's sales and marketing manager, Flemming S°rensen, the move made sense for all parties concerned. "Scandinavia is a small market, so it's very common for companies to collaborate between countries. Drammen Lyd and Alfa Audio already knew each other very well, and Alfa Audio is in fact owned by Arva Trading in Sweden, so the link there is clear. The result for TTA is a strong foothold in three Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Norway and Sweden - with companies who can suppor

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Australia - The existing Darra Chapel, was built in the early 1920?s, and its existence has played a significant role for the community of this Brisbane suburb. Recently Cottee Parker Architects renovated the Chapel and added an extension, engaging ASV Audio Visual to design and install the audio requirements.

"The design and architecture of the chapel, being long and narrow, required a particular small frame speaker but they also had some band requirements too," explained Rod Fishwick, managing director of ASV Audio Visual. "That meant I had very few speakers to choose from and the JBL CBT 70J fitted the bill perfectly. It offered both voice intelligibility as well as the fullness to support organs and some light band music."

As well as fulfilling the performance and technical requirements the JBL CBT 70J speakers fit the architectural design of the buildi

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UK - Sound rental company, RG Jones has been producing sound reinforcement infrastructure for the Raymond Gubbay Classical Spectaculars at the Royal Albert Hall since 1993.

With production harnessing cannons, pyro and lasers in a festival type 'Proms' atmosphere, it has taken all of FOH engineer Simon Honywill's expertise to keep the show's audio fidelity evolving with each generation of new technology.

Honywill is no stranger to Martin Audio proprietary line array platforms, introducing W8L Longbow systems to the Glastonbury Pyramid stage, and taking the new MLA (Multi-Cellular Loudspeaker Array) on tour with Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds.

Rigging the MLA at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time ever this month, he reports, "We've made a massive leap forward with the MLA ... the results were remarkable."

With MLA-certified systems engineer Mark

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UK - Housed within the modern Radisson Edwardian Guildford Hotel, which recently arrived in the historic Surrey county town, the Market Kitchen & Bar describes itself as an all-day Mediterranean café, offering relaxed local bistro-dining from brunch and lunch, turning into a cosmopolitan evening destination. It also contains a relaxed bar lounge, with soft, colourful furnishing.

To help maintain its chameleon effect, a sound system was required that could provide hi-fi music at low level from an eclectic playlist stored on hard-drive during the day, pumping up the energy into the bar lounge during the evening when a fully-specified DJ front end comes into play.

Meeting the combined requirements of potency and aesthetic (the system needing to blend discreetly with Rabih Hage's interior design), the venue opted for a Martin Audio AQ architectural solution to underpin its

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In Harmony - The UK government has announced its first ever national plan for music education in response to Classic FM managing director Darren Henley's review of the sector. Henley's review, published earlier this year, made 36 recommendations for the minimum expectations of what any child going through the English school system should receive in terms of an education in music. One such recommendation was that there should be a comprehensive national plan for music education.

Launching the scheme, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove claimed it "will deliver a music education system that encourages everyone, whatever their background, to enjoy music and help those with real talent to flourish as brilliant musicians" while culture minister Ed Vaizey said that the new resources would help "provide our fantastic creative industries with the next generation

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USA - Registration is now open for Focus: Tech, the live event production workshop running alongside PLASA Focus: Austin 2012, at the Renaissance Austin, on February 19-22 2012.

The 4 day hands-on workshop offers a limited number of aspiring lighting designers, sound engineers, and video designers the chance to design and run a live concert, which will be performed in front of Austin's entertainment technology community, at PLASA's first North American regional event.

Beginners and professionals at the early stages of their careers are invited to take part in the event, which will see industry experts Richard Cadena, Brad Schiller, Chad Yeary, and Damon Lang pass on their tips and tricks for success to Texas' new talent, with prizes for the best designs.

Eminent production manager Ola Melzig, who's accolades include the Eurovision Song Contest, will be production-managing th

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Tunisia - Housed in the Maison Blanche hotel in Tunis, Le Madison is a well-established bar and lounge. Centrally located, it is notable for the excellence of its service and the opulence of its interior design, which has a distinctly French flair - a combination that makes Le Madison a popular meeting place for both tourists and businessmen around the clock.

Tunis-based company Acoustic Design and Broadcast (ADB) were responsible for the planning and installation of the bar's new sound system. ADB's sound specialists opted for systems from Dynacord. The following components formed part of the September 2011 installation: D-Lite series loudspeakers systems (comprising 16 D8W cabinets and four Sub 118 bass units); two DSA 8212 amplifiers and a DSP 260 signal processor plus a compact, 10-channel CMS 1000-3 mixer.

"The Dynacord systems convinced our clients with both their s

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World - Mongolian band Anda Union are using DPA microphones on their current world tour to provide a powerful live sound for a large and wonderful variety of acoustic instruments. The band, who hail from Hohhot in China, formed in a mission to discover and perpetuate their Mongolian musical heritage, and have been performing worldwide for the past eight years. The mics were supplied by DPA's UK distributor, Sound Network.

"The main instrument I needed microphones for is the horse head fiddle, which is like a smaller, two-stringed version of the cello," explains the band's engineer, Tim Pearce. "One of the main problems I had using a mic on a stand is that they are so energetic it was impossible to keep them close to the mic. With up to eight of these playing at any one time, that is a lot of open condenser mics picking up a lot of ambient sound.

"The perfec

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UK - The colourful world of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers is currently bringing its Art Deco delights to audiences across England and Scotland, in the first ever stage adaptation of the 1935 film Top Hat. With some of Irving Berlin's most famous songs alongside full ensemble tap dance numbers and perhaps the biggest collection of hats ever seen in one production, sound designer Gareth Owen chose a pair of Yamaha PM1D digital mixing consoles for this complex production.

"I like to use the PM1D for classic, older style musicals," he says. "It sounds really good for this kind of show which, in this case, is very cinematic in its sound design. By cascading two PM1Ds together, it was also the only desk with which I could get the required number of input channels."

The show's high channel count stems from three main reasons. The first is that the18-piece

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UK - Two Welsh theatres have recently installed DiGiCo SD9 consoles. Milford Haven's Torch Theatre is a multi-function venue that combines main and studio theatres, an art gallery and café, it caters for plays, films, live music, dance, conferences and much more.

The Torch has also joined a growing trend in regional theatre of showing live and recorded transmissions of high profile stage shows, such as those by the National Theatre and New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Supplied by Stage Electrics, the SD9 has transformed the theatre's experience with digital audio, which began on a less than auspicious note.

"The SD9 isn't our first digital console," says the theatre's technical manager Andrew Sturley. "Previously we had a 24 channel digital desk from another manufacturer and went through four in a year, so it wasn't a great start. We ended up without any

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USA - Sports bars have come a long way from the dingy, smoky, male-orientated establishments of the past. The most successful ventures today are big, bright and highly family oriented with casual but generally upscale décor, full lunch and dinner menus, scores of imported beers on tap, and multi-room, high-end audio and video systems.

P.J. Whelihan's is a prime example of today's sports bar with all the right elements. First opened in 1983, the chain now covers 16 locations in the Philadelphia and southern New Jersey region, including the most recent addition in suburban Downingtown, PA. It's a multi-use venue that can handle not just day-to-day sporting broadcasts but parties and live events as well.

"They've got a stage set up at one end of the main room for live performances and DJs," says Bob Schermerhorn of Allentown, PA-based Entertainment Service Group

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Europe - Outline has announced the appointment of The Audio Specialists b.v. as their exclusive distribution partners for Benelux and Germany , with immediate effect.

TAS is the brainchild and property of former E-Audio Benelux managing director Axel Nagtegaal, under whom the company "achieved spectacular results for a number of leading pro-audio brands in Benelux , including Midas, Klark Teknik, Electrovoice and others". Nagtegaal and his team pioneered the concept of 'service hatch' distribution in pro-audio, where a territorial distributor effectively becomes the local office for the manufacturer(s) they represent. This model was instrumental in his prior successes in Benelux and will be re-applied to his new distribution venture.

"The Outline product portfolio contains a whole raft of innovative and relevant technologies that really make it so much more than

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France - Opened in 1998 for that year's FIFA World Cup, Stade de France in Paris has recently undergone a €1.5m upgrade to its audio system, with a major Yamaha and Nexo system.

Famed for staging rugby, football and athletics, Stade de France also hosts concerts by many of the world's biggest artists like the Rolling Stones, U2, Muse, Madonna, Prince and the country's iconic Johnny Hallyday. When constructed it was equipped with a Nexo Alpha audio system but, over a decade on and with considerable advances in digital audio technology, it was felt that a new system would improve the intelligibility and listening comfort for stadium users.

A number of companies were invited to tender for the contract. After a successful demonstration of a Yamaha/Nexo solution, Nantes-based Melpomen (the company which installed the original system) was the chosen supplier.

Featuring a Yamaha M

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET)'s audio division has supplied a new Nexo speaker system for the Performing Arts Centre at Downe House - one of the UK's leading boarding schools for 11 - 18 year old girls.

An integral hub of activity on the school campus, the multi-purpose space is a former barn, originally converted into a venue during the 1950s. The building is in constant daily use, not just for stage plays, dance and drama shows, bands and live music, but also for lectures and presentations.

It features a very distinctive hydraulic floor, which can be raised up to transform the flat floor space into a raked seated auditorium, which immediately changes the point of focus for sound and all the related acoustic characteristics of the space.

The time had come for the former sound system - installed about seven years ago - to be replaced. Joe Hilton, Downe House's

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Latvia - One of the most popular restaurant chains in Latvia and the other Baltic states, Gan Bei has a variety of establishments across the region, all of which are revered for both the quality of the food and the surroundings in which it is served.

When fitting out their new Asian restaurant Gan Bei City, located in the shopping centre Galleria Riga in the Latvian capital Riga, the restaurant owners were keen to continue the tradition of quality with a classy interior that had echoes of the Orient, but at the same time was sleek and ultra-modern. And they needed an audio set up that fitted in with that ethos.

Owner of the restaurant Oleg Arup called in audio specialists Unique Ltd to give them a system that wouldn't interfere with the design aesthetic of their new restaurant, but would still offer the quality and flexibility they needed.

Rihards Rubenis, CEO at Unique, sai

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UK/Singapore - UK-based broadcast mixing console manufacturer Calrec Audio have expanded their office in the Asia/Pacific Rim region with the appointment of Mr Ace Yip to a full-time technical sales and support position.

Calrec has had a permanent presence in Asia to support its distributors in the region since mid-2009, following a period when all sales and support was administered directly from the company's headquarters in the UK. Now based on the prestigious Alexandra Techno Park development in Singapore (also home to the local headquarters for Hewlett Packard, Nokia and Sennheiser), Calrec's Asian office is run by Graham Murray, who attributes the company's healthy and expanding sales in the region to having a local office in the right time zone for business in the region.

"We've had an increase of more than 250 percent in annual sales turnover in this region since o

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Portugal -- Acoustic solutions manufacturer Vicoustic has released ViTUNE, the company's first acoustic measurement software. More than simply a measurement tool, ViTUNE is designed to help both audio professionals and hi-fi enthusiasts tune their rooms without requiring specialist training.

Based on a simple 'traffic light' indication system, room measurement is carried out in four easy steps via the software's intuitive interface. Configure the sound card, test the signal level, enter the room dimensions and click Go! For customers with more experience of acoustic analysis, the software also includes an Advanced section showing results for full frequency response, smoothed frequency, impulse response, reverb time and energy time curve.

As well as measuring the room, ViTUNE also indicates how much treatment should be used to improve the overall acoustic. Two choices of produc

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