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USA - For more than 170 years, North Carolina's State Capitol building has served proudly as a centrepiece of the city of Raleigh, and a focal point of state government. This classic architectural masterpiece, its majestic columns evoking ancient Greek temples like the Parthenon, has been a gathering place for generations of events, both large and small.

With this grand building as a backdrop, Pat McCrory was recently sworn in as the 74th Governor of North Carolina. Despite the familiar setting, McCrory's inauguration was the first to take place on the Capitol's South Lawn, with the stage looking out down Fayetteville Street, a vibrant thoroughfare that serves as Raleigh's ceremonial centre.

With highly reflective marble buildings lining both sides of the street, the setting presented some daunting obstacles to speech intelligibility. "We were really concerned about the l

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UK - Mixing the Pet Shop Boys' current Electric world tour, the band's long term sound engineers, Holger Schwark (front-of-house), and Seamus Fenton (monitors) have been relying on an Optocore 'multicore' system to transfer signals, and keep the sound within the digital domain.

Holger has been carrying two Optocore DD4ME MADI converters in his compact FOH side rack for some time, with a third DD4ME at the monitor desk. Providing production on this tour is Capital Sound Hire - who themselves invested in an Optocore system for last year's Take That stadium shows.

Both Holger and Seamus have chosen the compact DiGiCo SD10-24 consoles, along with a DiGiCo SD-Rack at the monitor desk. While these consoles come equipped with an optical loop interface, they decided instead to run Optocore as an entirely independent network, giving them greater flexibility to patch signals between the

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London Calling - Punk pioneers The Clash are to be given an honorary award recognising their contribution to the music industry at the Silver Clef Awards next week. Mick Jones, the guitarist and co-frontman of the group which split up almost 30 years ago, said it was a "real honour" to receive the award..

David Munns, chairman of music charity Nordoff Robbins, which organises the awards, said, "The Clash's music has just as much influence today as it did when they first came onto the music scene in 1976." Other award winners to be honoured at the event in London on 28 June include Coldplay, Labrinth, Alison Moyet and Barry Gibb. The winner of the best live act prize will be announced on the day. The Kinks' Ray Davies will get an ambassador of rock award. New York band Vampire Weekend will also receive the international award.

Glastonbury Live - The B

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Australia - Wildfire, one of the leading waterfront restaurants in Sydney, has gained an enviable reputation over the years for fine dining, fine wine, all with a stunning view. Recently, owner Ton?i Farac decided it was time to give their fine establishment an audio makeover calling in the experts at Compact Monitor Systems.

"The client also wanted to expand the audio to several zones and include areas that haven't previously been covered whilst redoing those that had with a more complete sound system," explained Bill Richardson, managing director of Compact Monitor Systems.

Compact Monitor Systems completely dismantled the existing audio system and replaced all of the processing with BSS BLU, all amplifiers to Crown Audio and added a wide range of JBL speakers. The venue already had a dozen JBL Control 25AV speakers which were redistributed into areas that were not

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UK - On 15 June, the ladies of Delta Sound and Sound By Design pulled on their hiking boots and windbreakers to make the 245 mile trip to climb the highest peak in England and Wales, Mount Snowdon. Leaving behind the warmth and safety of their office in Surrey were Emma, Emily, Ruth and Sarah who braved fierce winds, lashing rain and freezing temperatures as they trekked to the 3,560ft summit to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

The idea for the expedition began back in January when Sarah chirped up with an idea of mountainous proportions. "I want to climb a mountain, who's with me?" she said. Just half an hour later the team was assembled, a plan formed and the all-important team name chosen. The MountainEARS, were going to climb Snowdon in the middle of June in the beautiful Summer sunshine. It was foolproof....

Fast forward to 4am on 15 June as the pierci

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UK - The University of Southampton Students' Union building, more familiarly known as SUSU, is a busy place offering a broad and varied range of facilities to the students. The Bridge venue offers a relaxed bistro dining experience during the day and in the evenings is host to a varied line up of events and performances. Consequently when Ed Blackwell, assistant technical co-ordinator at SUSU, needed to install a new loudspeaker system into The Bridge venue, his shopping list needed to tick a lot of boxes simultaneously.

The choice of a d&b audiotechnik loudspeaker system from the xS-Series was made after extensive research despite SUSU already being a d&b customer through Entec Sound and Light, as Blackwell explains, "When The Bridge was refurbished, the aim of the project was to create a space that appealed to a wider demographic of students, provide a small gig space for

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Lithuania - The new Kaunas Žalgiris Arena in Lithuania, originally opened in August 2011 to host the European Basketball Championships, today enjoys a multipurpose role and has the ability to accommodate up to 17,500 people when used in concert mode.

Owned by the Kaunas City government, the €50m Žalgiris Arena spans 39,684sq.m and is the largest in the Baltic states. This required a top quality PA that would deliver excellent sound coverage to every seat in the house. Management company Kauras Arena found this with a Martin Audio H3+ horn-loaded solution, proposed by Martin Audio's Lithuanian distributors, Audiotonas, which not only met the overall specification but introduced other advantages, when used for basketball or ice hockey matches.

Audiotonas co-owner, Algirdas Sidiskis, explains. "During basketball play, in particular, we typically have audience noise crossi

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Qatar - To take account of growing interest in the sport, a new stadium, the Qatar Cricket Stadium, was built recently in the municipality of Al Rayyan in Doha. The stadium is part of an entertainment complex that includes restaurants and a cinema. With a capacity of 13,000 spectators, the Qatar Cricket Stadium satisfies the highest international standards.

That is true not only of the sporting facilities but also of the stadium's sound system. For the installation, the stadium operators commissioned the Doha-based specialist Helmet Trading and Contracting. After conducting a variety of tests and head-to-head comparisons, the company opted - with the full agreement of the stadium management - for a sound reinforcement solution from Electro-Voice.

There were several reasons for this decision, as Mahmoud Fahmawi, Helmet's project manager, explained, "First of all, the quali

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Japan - Adding to its already substantial rental inventory, Japan's Hibino Corporation has recently purchased a number of DiGiCo digital mixing consoles, which include four of the UK manufacturer's flagship SD7 consoles and two SD10s.

These additions bring Hibino's total to six SD7s, four SD10s and ten SD8s, allowing the company to continue to support the Japanese touring markets increasing requirement for top quality audio equipment.

"Of course the most important reason for investing in DiGiCo consoles is because of their high quality and usability," says Hibino's managing director, Mr Ryoichi Hashimoto. "A significant amount of DiGiCo consoles are being used all over the world and have achieved the trust of many engineers. Their high reliability is another big reason why we keep choosing DiGiCo consoles, along with the fact that we have trust in DiGiCo and hav

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The Netherlands - When De Levende Steen (The Living Stone) Pentecostal ministry outgrew its existing building in the Dutch town of Hoogvliet, the church built a brand new facility in nearby Spijkenisse. Opened in the spring, the €10m state-of-the-art house of worship features Yamaha a digital audio system.

The new building covers an area of 12,000m². Its main space - dubbed The Dome - seats 2000, with a second room holding 450. Central to the design is a high quality audio network - needed to provide sound reinforcement for services and other events, as well as to allow De Levende Steen to broadcast its Saturday morning service on Dutch national television channel SBS6 and to record services for future use.

"People come from all over the Netherlands and from Belgium," says the church's technical manager Rens van Reenen. "The old building was too small to accom

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UK - Rycote, the UK-based manufacturer of advanced microphone windshields and suspension systems, has announced the departure of Stefano Pucello, the company's sales & marketing director.

Pucello, who joined Rycote in January 2010, is leaving at the end of June. During his time at Rycote, first as sales & marketing manager and then as S&M Director since 2011, the company has diversified successfully from its original broadcast supply base into the pro audio and DSLR accessories markets, which has involved a great deal of travel to set up and service new sales outlets internationally. Pucello initially plans a well-earned rest before deciding on his next career move.

"It's always important to leave a company on a high note, having achieved what you came on board to accomplish, and Rycote has expanded enormously into new markets during the time I've been here," he comm

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UK - Atlantis Nightclub, situated at the end of Eastbourne Pier, has recently undergone a full re-fit complete with brand new audio and lighting systems.

Christos Stylianou, general manager of Eastbourne Pier and Atlantis Nightclub commented: "I wanted to use 3D LED tubes to maximise the impact of the arched ceiling. In addition to this we required moving heads, architectural highlighting and a complete sound system. All of this was needed on a budget."

Christos approached Ian Goacher from Accord Audio, based in East Sussex, to specify and install the equipment. Ian has a very long working relationship with the venue and understands their requirements perfectly. He sourced the majority of the equipment from MilTec (UK) Ltd, based near Maidstone in Kent.

The Miltec lighting equipment comprised of 172x 3D-PixelTubes and 4x EPW2 LED moving heads. For the architectural

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UK - When Pacha London recently won the 'Best Dance Club' category at the London Club & Bar Awards 2013 it became the latest leading night club with a Martin Audio sound system to win an award.

The Awards, which have been run each year since 1994, were presented at a gala event, held at the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel. And following the Ministry of Sound's recent success in the premier international IDMA's in Miami, Pacha was rewarded for their recent £500,000 refit which has seen them extend to a third, soundproofed Glass Room on the first floor as part of a complete club redesign earlier this year.

During the refurb, the Martin Audio WT3/WS218X system, installed back in 2008 by Bernard Mani's Systems Etc was reconfigured and enhanced by Viba Sound, with their project manager Hugh Sadleir adding a pair of WSX subs to complement the flown Martin Audio Blackli

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USA - Community Professional Loudspeakers reports that John T. Wiggins, Community's vice president, will retire after a distinguished career spanning 41 years with the company.

Wiggins joined Community's founder, president and chief engineer, Bruce W. Howze in 1971 and became a partner in 1972. He has held multiple roles during his time at Community, including VP of sales, VP of Marketing and his current position as VP of business development.

Throughout his career with Community, Wiggins has worked closely with countless audio luminaries, contractors, consultants, musicians, film studios, NASA, professional sports venues, motorsport tracks, cruise ships, themed entertainment and amusement parks, and government organizations.

Wiggins is a member of SMPTE, ASA, AES, TEA, IAVM and InfoComm, and is active with NCAC and various theatrical groups. He was awarded a patent for the

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The Netherlands - Leiden NL based Audio van Hooidonk, one of the country's most respected and historical rental firms, took delivery of yet another Outline Doppia II 9075 + DBS 18-2 set.

Just one year after company owner Anton van Hooidonk attended an Outline demo at The Audio Specialists headquarters, they ordered a second Outline Doppia II set. More specifically, the system in question is made up of four Doppia II 9075 and four DBS 18-2 subwoofer systems. All are driven by Outline's T-Series amps, whilst signal processing is handled by an Outline Genius 24

Anton van Hooidonk explains, "When I heard this FOH set for the first time, I could not believe that such small lightweight cabinets were able to produce such an amount of SPL without any compromise in headroom and fidelity. Now, having worked for a year with our first Outline set, we wanted all our gigs to experience

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UK - Sennheiser has released new headphones specially created for conference and visitor guidance systems. The lightweight HP 02, NP 02 and EP 01 headphones provide "the perfect complement to the audio specialist's existing solutions for the market", and were unveiled for the first time at InfoComm in Orlando, USA. They feature optimum speech intelligibility and reliability as well as high hygiene standards.

Clear and intelligible sound is essential for successful communication, whether in a meeting, at a governmental summit or during a factory tour. The Sennheiser conference and visitor guidance solutions help customers get their message across - even in noisy environments. "Being optimized for speech, the flexible HP 02, NP 02 and EP 01 headphones perfectly round off our conference and visitor guidance portfolio," explained Jens Werner, portfolio manager at

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Canada - Meyer Sound has been named the official sound reinforcement sponsor of the Montréal International Jazz Festival 2013 in cooperation with Montréal-based Solotech. Solotech will provide festival-wide audio support using a variety of Meyer Sound systems, including a Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system for the festival's largest stage, Scène TD.

Ranked by Guinness World Records as the world's largest jazz festival, the Montréal International Jazz Festival will span 10 days starting Friday 28 June, featuring 3,000 artists who will perform over 1,000 concerts, including 300 free shows.

"Our main goal is to maximize the quality of the experience for every festival goer," says André Ménard, artistic director for the festival. "Working with Solotech and Meyer Sound gives us a peace of mind in that respect. The co

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USA - Originally built in 1949, San Antonio's Freeman Coliseum has hosted everything from rodeos, boxing and hockey to expositions, circuses and concerts over the years. Now, Bexar County and the facility's management team are in the middle of a multi-year initiative to update the venue, the most recent phase of which included the addition of a new ARCS Focus arena loudspeaker system installed by L-Acoustics certified provider LD Systems.

According to Garth Hemphill, sales engineer for LD Systems' Houston office, Nelson Wilcox served as the project manager with project engineering handled by Tom Smith and Whit Whitworth. Following a careful evaluation of the 11,700-capacity arena's needs, the LD Systems team worked closely with Andrew Nagel, L-Acoustics' head of application, install, to ultimately specify a system comprised of 40 ARCS Focus enclosures paired with 16 SB18i subs.<

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Israel - Waves Audio's popularity is growing among live sound engineers. One front-of-house engineer who has recently adopted Waves' SoundGrid live platform is Tom Wiggans (UB40, Squeeze, Wet Wet Wet, and Roni Size & Reprazent), who is currently using SoundGrid and Waves plugins on tour with Irish alt-rock mainstays The Cranberries.

He notes, "I ended up using SoundGrid especially for problem solving. The most impressive thing for me is the Waves C4, since it is the first multiband compressor that I have used that I can actually hear working when making the subtlest of changes. I use it on the main vocal, backing vocals and bass. I also use the GTR3 guitar amps and stomp pedals on the DI outputs."

He continues, "I like to work at getting the source as correct as possible and apply effects/dynamics as a last resort, but in cases where this isn't possible Waves pl

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UK - The Pet Shop Boys have received rave reviews for the first two dates of their 2013 Electric tour. Capital Sound Hire deployed its Nexo STM system for the shows in London and Manchester, the largest they have undertaken to date, using the first three-wide configuration of the modular line array, requested by FOH engineer Holger Schwark.

For both the O2 Arena and MEN Arena, Capital's sound design presented a main left/right system in a 'double bass' configuration, with each array having a hang of 15x STM M46 main cabinets in the centre, and two hangs of 15x STM B112 bass units, one on each side of the mains. The out-fill arrays covering the sides of the arenas used 15x M46 main cabinets per side. There was also a flown line of nine STM S118 subs per side, and nine S118s ground-stacked per side.

Holger Schwark explains his decision to go with STM for the two concerts. "

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UK - DiGiCo consoles were specified on many band riders for 2013/14. This is reflected across the global festival scene, not least at this year's Glastonbury Festival for headliners Arctic Monkeys and Mumford and Sons, plus Smashing Pumpkins, who played the Other Stage on Sunday.

"Despite the popularity of our consoles, it's still relatively unusual for bands to take their own equipment into a festival, due to the restrictions imposed by the quick turnarounds between sets," said DiGiCo managing director James Gordon. "The fact that three top class bands are insisting on taking their DiGiCos into a festival as vast as Glastonbury shows just how much they have come to rely on the ease of use and great sound quality of our products."

"I only use DiGiCo consoles, so I will be using my SD7, while our monitor engineer John Shearman will be taking his SD10 on

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UK - London-based rehearsal facility Music Bank has added a DiGiCo SD9 mixing console to its portfolio.

"When an engineer steps into one of our rooms, they know they will have a familiar rig that they can step up to and use straight away," says manager Jimmy Mac. "Most importantly, it has to have the most up to date features. With so many different makes and models of digital mixing desk in the industry, having a powerful machine like the SD9 and a name like DiGiCo providing support is a winning combination."

Following a training session for Music Bank's studio technicians, run by DiGiCo's Tim Shaxson, the SD9 has been used on a number of sessions, receiving a universal thumbs up from engineers.

"Everyone has commented on the desk's logical use and the freedom to fully customise the layout to fit an individual's needs," says Mac. "Being abl

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UK - Technical solutions and rental specialist Adlib is supplying lighting, sound, rigging equipment and crew for the current Elvis Costello and The Imposters Revolver UK and European tour. It's the first time that the Liverpool based company has worked with the artist.

Adlib's account handler Phil Stoker states, "Working with someone of Elvis's stature is fantastic and production manager Milo Lewis and engineers Fern and Nathan have been great to deal with all along the way."

The format of the show is that there's no formal set list. Songs are chosen - enough to fill nearly three hours of performance - largely by audience members invited up onstage to spin a giant wheel bearing different song titles. There is a pool of over 100 potential numbers in total.

This concept of spontaneity and anticipation has been a massive hit and keeps everyone on their toes.

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Ireland - Sound Technology has announced a two-day BSS Soundweb London Certified Level 1 Training Course in Dublin on 24-25 July 2013. Alongside the official training there will also be a showcase of all the latest install products from JBL, Crown, dbx, BSS, AKG and Soundcraft in conjunction with Irish sub-distributor Reynolds.

The training and showcase will be held at the Bewley's Hotel at Dublin Airport and is free to attend although registration is required for both.

BSS Certified Training Level 1 is a two-day course designed to balance practical applications of the powerful Soundweb London platform with in-depth technical knowledge of its capabilities. Attendees will leave understanding the core features of the system and be fully capable of system specification, design, programming and troubleshooting. At the end of the course attendees have the option of taking the Level

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