Sound

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14 March 2016

PLASA CEO Matthew Griffiths explains, "This year marks the first stage of the show's long-term strategic development. ExCeL is located just five minutes from London City Airport, which handles 350 flights a day from 40 international destinations, and ExCeL's seven onsite hotels provide thousands of rooms within walking distance. With increased connectivity to Europe and beyond, as well as new, world-class facilities, we hope to send a clear message about the show's plans for future international growth."

In addition to the new campus-style experience for international visitors, PLASA Events

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14 March 2016

Professor Harold Haas is widely regarded as one of most eminent innovators in communications technology today. His current research is focused on three main areas: optical wireless communications, spatial modulation and interference coordination in wireless networks. A finalist for the world Technology Award in 2011, his work on Li-Fi was featured by TIME magazine as one of the "50 Best Inventions in 2011".

Addressing an audience at an entertainment and installation technology event for the very first time, Li-Fi - Broadband Through Light is a speech that considers the application of using light, specifically light from LEDs, rather than radio wa

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14 March 2016

Hideo Matsushita passed away of natural causes at the age of 93. In accordance with his family's wishes, a private wake and funeral service were held on 8-9 March.

On the eve of Audio-Technica's 40th anniversary in 2002, Hideo Matsushita reflected on the company's early beginnings: "I came to Tokyo at age 32, and, thanks to an introduction by my uncle, went to work for the Bridgestone Museum of Art. At the urging of the museum's director, I began organizing LP concerts. These were much more successful than anyone imagined. After a decade at the Bridgestone Museum, I struck out on my own and established Audio-Technica in 1962."

He continued, "The company immediately launched its first product, the AT-1 Ste

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14 March 2016

Stage Audio Works, based in Southern Africa, is a leading supplier of cutting-edge live event audio and lighting technologies.

"Their philosophy of providing the highest quality products in their distribution lines up perfectly with Radial Engineering's product brands; Radial Pro Audio, Tonebone guitar pedals and Primacoustic acoustic products," explains Steve McKay, international sales manager for Radial. "Having well developed service, training and technical support departments further enhances the possibilities for the future."

"We are excited to increase Radial's presence across the African region," adds Gustav Barnard, technical director for Stage Audio Works. "The quality of the construction and audio performance make Radial th

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14 March 2016

New product releases include the USB I/O VSR Dual Channel Broadcast Standard USB Audio Interface.

Designed to the specifications of a major British broadcasting company, the USB I/O VSR features fully transformer isolated and balanced Inputs and Outputs, multiple selectable sample rates and is a true 'Plug and Play' USB digital / analogue pro audio interface, says the company.

Also being shown for the first time is ARX's new MaxiDrive 8 - Eight channel high current line driver / distribution amplifier. The MaxiDrive's very low

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14 March 2016

The band, which comprises Oliver Sim, Romy Madley-Croft and Jamie Smith, won the 2010 Mercury Music Prize for their debut album xx. They were introduced to DPA's d:facto Vocal Microphones by their live sound engineer Rik Dowding who was keen to find an alternative to the microphones Oliver and Romy had been using.

"One of the most important things about working with this band is the translation of the very intimate, late night vocals of the albums to a live situation," Dowding says. "Higher mic gains introduce unwanted stage noise into the microphones, especially in smaller venues. In order to get that 'in your face', yet delicate sound, I needed a mic

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14 March 2016

Jack Vad is accustomed to making fine recordings of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in the spectacular Davies Symphony Hall but he just had a feeling that this one might be a cut above the usual. The main piece on this Hybrid SACD is Harmonielehre by contemporary composer, John Adams. The complex and challenging orchestral writing in this piece requires careful microphone placement as well as precise execution. As always, the recording was live and portions of this production were simulta

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14 March 2016

Front of House engineer Gary Bradshaw, who also engineers for Take That, opted for a DiGiCo SD8 to take into account the restrictions on space presented by the tour's choice of venues.

"The gigs were very varied in their size," Bradshaw explains. "The biggest being the Brighton Centre, going down to a tiny seaside theatre in Scarborough where there's not much space at all. So I went for a nice, compact package, for which the SD8 fits the bill perfect

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14 March 2016

The Music Group booth in Hall 8.0 M90 will showcase products from Midas, Klark-Teknik and Behringer, including the latter's Eurocom installed sound products. With the main focus on digital mixing, Behringer will present the latest additions to its growing X32 product family plus the new iX16 iPad mixer, while Midas will have their full PRO line and XL8 consoles on display. Recording studio pros and aficionados will be able to experience the new NEKKST studio monitors, a major collaboration with Keith R. Klawitter that debuted at NAMM 2013, as well as the U-PHORIA digital interfaces and iSTUDIO iS202 docking station for iPad.

Costa Lak

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14 March 2016

"For NBCUniversal's new facility at Central St. Giles, we wanted to achieve the highest quality environment for sound and image," says cinema optics consultant Laurence Claydon, who engaged acoustic consultancy company White Mark on the project. "We already had experience of Alcons CR1, having achieved excellent results at Universal's original Oxford Street facility, and retained some of these components for the smaller screening room."

The larger room has a CR4 three-way screen system, c

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14 March 2016

The MSX 12s were supplied to the Installation Contractor by ARX's Australian distributor the Resource Corp Pty Ltd.

The ARX MSX 12 transformer isolated microphone / line splitter delivers noise-free audio splitting and is a totally passive device requiring no power, and consists of Four channels of transformer isolated ultra low noise microphone/line splitter.

Each of these channels has a direct looped Main / FOH feed allowing phantom power to pass through the unit with a transformer isolated monitor split on the front panel and a transformer isolated aux split on the rear.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

"Previously, they had no real high-end in the room. There was no intelligibility. The room sounded muffled and speech was indistinct, so the priest always felt like he wasn't loud enough," said Morgan Sound A/V consultant, Stephen Weeks. "Tannoy's dual concentric technology is very helpful for keeping things coherent. The speakers are very clear, very clean and very warm in the low end and there were no smear issues like you might experience with a more traditional box, which was critical."

The 750-capacity sanctuary is a decidedly modern and elegant space. "Although impressive, it's also very reverberant," Weeks continue

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14 March 2016

Club TNT in Xi'ang is an 850sq.m venue which features a diverse array of live music and DJ sets, including pop, rock, electronic and hip-hop. The audio system was designed and installed by Real Music Acoustic & Lighting Technology, one of China's leading production technology houses, who specified four Apex Intelli-X2 48 processors to control a comprehensive Adamson audio system.

"We designed the system with a matrix of loudspeakers, to ensure that all guests are covered by audio from at least two different directions wherever they are," says Real Music managing director

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14 March 2016

Long established in both the education and HoW sectors, he has worked with this church for many years. Despite the complexity of this latest project, and the fact that the committee had invited much larger audio companies to tender, his bid was comfortably the most competitive and he was awarded the contract.

"The church is growing at an enormous rate," he confirmed. "The building is extremely wide, with what are almost transepts on the side, so they decided to tear out and replace the floor, using under-fl

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14 March 2016

"Catwalk Café-Bar features a warm, inviting, but timelessly classy atmosphere," comments Pavlos Symperas from Metro Audio Systems. "The bar is open day and night so the flexibility of the Turbosound speakers are an important part of this changing feel. They help to set the tone with their clear, high quality sound reproduction."

The biggest challenge for Metro Audio Systems was to deliver powerful quality sound, yet ensure that the system had an elegant and distinctive design. "We believed that the Impact series was the best f

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14 March 2016

Part of Switzerland's cultural landscape since 1824, City Casino Basel occupies two multipurpose spaces in addition to the Musiksaal, its principal concert hall. Musiksaal regularly hosts 1,500 people with performances from the world's leading orchestral ensembles, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony. Until recently, there was little call for sound reinforcement because the programming was dominated by unamplified music.

In the past few years, however, interest in jazz, blues, and stand-up comedy has grown, highlighting the inadequacies of the Musiksaal's long-serving loudspeakers. With many touring productions bringing in their own sound reinforcement equipment, the Musiksaal team dec

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14 March 2016

"We are extremely proud to have developed an ingenious adapter range that brings the true DPA sound out of a wireless system," says Christian Poulsen, CEO of DPA Microphones. "The wireless systems currently available deliver very limited power to drive our high-end condenser capsules

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14 March 2016

"We love to be first!" jokes West Evenement's sales and integration manager, Ismaël Hifda. "At the end of 2011, we decided 2012 would be the year of change. We went round the world as we considered the major players of the industry in our quest to find a new partner. Responding to our urgent challenge, Nexo presented us with the STM project."

West Evenement's main criteria in its global search for a new PA system were more than matched by Nexo's STM Series, which displayed versatility, modularity and innovation as well as a

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14 March 2016

The company is also running demonstrations, by appointment, of its CDC8 and CDC Four digital consoles. It is exhibiting the extended CDC8 mix system, comprising the CDC8-32 and ultra-compact CDC8-16 frame size consoles, the CDC8-16S expansion sidecar and 32/16 and 64/48 I/O stage racks featuring CADAC's proprietary, high speed MEGACOMMS network protocol. The CDC8-16 is a 16 fader, single touch-screen control surface variant with an ultra-compact footprint but identical 1

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14 March 2016

Earlier this month, Sheffield Theatres was hit with a £106,000 cut to its £529,000 grant from Sheffield City Council, while Stoke-on-Trent City Council has said it will reduce its annual grant of £67,500 to Staffordshire's New Vic by £23,000 in the next financial year. Meanwhile, Moray Council in Scotland has announced it is to cut its entire arts budget. Morrissey said, "N

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14 March 2016

The former Hippodrome Theatre and adjacent buildings have been transformed into The Hippodrome Casino by father and son team Jimmy and Simon Thomas, who have invested more than £40m creating a high-end, opulent casino, blending theatrical history with contemporary, luxurious furnishings.

The complex comprises three floors of gaming with the main gaming floor based in the original 60ft theatre atrium. What truly sets the venue apart is its further facilities, which include a 180-seat cabaret theatre, an impressive restaurant, four private dining rooms, five bars and a number of lounges and events spaces. With aroun

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14 March 2016

Fabrizio is a long-term DiGiCo user, having started on the D1, not long after the company was founded. "DiGiCo consoles are my favourites," he says. "They go to places where other consoles don't. The automation is so in-depth and so easily editable that I can edit it during the show. Even at a really busy gig, I can still do really geeky things and make sure they work. It's very simple to do."

Fabrizio's choice of the SD8 has been based on a number of factors, all of which he believes the SD8 excels at.

"I love the SD8 for many reasons. Firstly it is a very clear,

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14 March 2016

At this year's NAMM Show, Aphex unveiled a number of new recording products that are set to start arriving in April. These include the USB500, a 500 Series rack combined with professional standard USB 2.0 audio interface, as well as a range of new 500 Series modules including mic pres, aural exciter, EQ and compressor modules. Not stopping there, Aphex also introduced the Project Channel, an affordable high-quality channel strip with Aural Exciter and Big Bottom technology, the MicX USB 24Bi

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14 March 2016

The debate, held in front of around 40 prospective students and parents, was part of an undergraduate open day at the University, in Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe.

The panel included live sound engineer, producer and promoter, Sean Cranny, also known as Rampton, who works with DJs, Chase and Status, and has enjoyed a 30-year career working with the likes of Basement Jaxx, The Libertines, and Razorlight; producer, designer and engineer, Chuck Knowledge, who has produced three award-winning albums for Dizzee Rascal, and worked with Taio Cruz, Calvin Harris, Jay Sean, and Tinchy Stryder, as well as the likes of Bush, The Divine Comedy, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Stereophonics; Chris McCarron, who is front of house engineer for Razor