UK - Cirque du Soleil returned to London’s Royal Albert Hall (RAH) on 12 January for an eight-week run at the prestigious venue, bringing Luzia to Europe for the first time. Britannia Row Productions once again supplied the sound, continuing a relationship that has spanned almost two decades.
Through the design, chorography and acrobatic elements that give Cirque du Soleil shows their character, Luzia takes audiences on a journey through imaginary Mexico. The name is derived from the Spanish words for light (luz) and rain (lluvia), two important themes in the show’s narrative.
Britannia Row has supplied every Cirque du Soleil show at the RAH for the last 17-years. The company’s sales director Lez Dwight explained: “We were brought in mainly because the touring systems weren’t sufficient to cover the hall. Cirque came to us as we were local and

USA - Every year, the award-winning veteran audio production crew behind the Grammy Awards telecast strives to further raise the bar on the audio quality of ‘Music’s Biggest Night’. This year, in a first for the show, the audio team implemented a Dante network powered by Focusrite RedNet D64R 64-channel MADI bridges, Focusrite RedNet D16R AES-to-Dante interfaces and RedNet MP8R eight-channel mic pres and A/D converters to deliver the vocal performance and production wireless microphones to the house sound and broadcast audio mixing consoles.
The show was broadcast live from the Staples Centrein downtown Los Angeles on the CBS network on 26 January 2. Performers included Best New Artist nominees Lizzo; Billie Eilish; and Lil Nas X, as well as Tyler, the Creator; H.E.R.; Gary Clark Jr. with the Roots; and Demi Lovato, among many others.
The new AoIP transport sch

USA - For Callas in Concert, opera singer Maria Callas was brought back to the stage via hologram, 40 years after her passing. A live orchestra accompanied digital remastered recordings of Callas for the production, which presented FOH and recording engineer Howard ‘Howie’ Lindeman with a unique challenge.
Since the show was focused around the visual of Callas on stage, and the hologram system used to project her image, Lindeman needed to find a low-profile microphone that would not be obtrusive on-stage, while still providing the highest audio quality for the live orchestral instruments.
Lindeman turned to the 4099 Instrument Microphone from DPA Microphones because of its sound, lightweight design and compact size of the instrument mic clips. In all, Lindeman and his team deployed a total of 27 4099 Instrument Microphones (with mic clips) for the 14 violin

The Netherlands - Shure has announced a firmware update (version 4.1) that provides additional functionality for multiple products in its Networked Systems portfolio. This update includes compatibility with Audinate’s Dante Domain Manager (DDM), compatibility enhancements with leading third-party software and hardware videoconferencing codecs, and AES67 networking compatibility for products utilizing the UltimoX chipset.
The expanded support for additional third-party video codecs includes Cisco, Zoom Rooms and Microsoft Teams, providing programming-free USB mute sync compatibility with the IntelliMix P300 and ANIUSB-MATRIX.
“This firmware update adds new features and capabilities that the market demands,” says Chad Wiggins, senior director networked systems at Shure.
With Dante Domain Manager compatibility included in firmware release 4.1, Shure products i

Argentina - The Teatro Astral in Buenos Aires relies on an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system for the launch of the Broadway musical, Kinky Boots, which saw its opening night in January.
The large-capacity venue accommodates up to 1,200 people and has become a home to various productions, events, conferences, congresses, seminars and exhibitions. With the theatre not having its own in-house system, the venue turns to audio rental company BR Sound S.R.L to help host its events. With the latest Kinky Boots production being scheduled for multiple times a week over the next two years and featuring a large crew of on-stage actors and musicians, the engineers needed a large format desk that significantly expanded the theatre’s capabilities in terms of channel counts, processing power, speed and flexibility.
Lead engineer, Santiago Rivero (BR Sound

Europe - The Audio Engineering Society has opened registration for the upcoming AES Vienna 148th International Professional Audio Convention, taking place at the Austria Center on 25-28 May. Early registration discounts are available through 29 February for the dedicated European pro audio event that celebrates ‘A World of Audio’.
AES Vienna attendees will experience “stellar, leading-edge recordings - including VR productions from the Abbey Road Spatial Audio Forum and examples of immersive music and game audio - presented with production insights from the engineers who brought the projects to life”. Legacy productions will be examined, such as the music of Bruce Springsteen.
Core audio topics and the technology of today and tomorrow will be explored, including audio for new distribution platforms like Magic Leap.

USA - Located just outside Los Angeles, Concordia University Irvine recently opened the Borland-Manske Centre, marking a significant expansion of its music programme.
The acoustic spaces in the $30m building were designed by Walters-Storyk Design Group and include an 1100sq.ft. studio suite connected to a 3000sq.ft. orchestral hall and a 2500sq.ft. choral hall for large scale recordings. Anchoring the studio is a new 32-channel Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console, fully-loaded with 32x Shelford 5052 Mic Preamp / Inductor EQ modules, 9x Shelford 5051 Inductor EQ / Compressor modules, and the company’s own SwiftMix automation.
“I have been fortunate to work on consoles designed by Mr. Rupert Neve for many years,” says Prof. Steve Young, Concordia’s director of commercial music. “One of our core values for the new facility is to provide students with an opportunity

Czech Republic - Rock band Kabát recently completed a sold-out stadium tour to mark their 30th anniversary, accompanied with an upgraded PA system featuring DiGiCo’s Quantum 7 console.
Kabát is a nationally renowned classic rock band, which has been popular since the 1980s. Its 10th anniversary stadium tour was the most prosperous in Czech music history, and the band represented the Czech Republic at the country's first entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. The latest anniversary tour visited stadiums and venues across the country over a three-week period.
The band is managed by Prague-based production company, the Pink Panther Agency, which also takes care of a number of other Czech artists. Its touring division recently expanded its hire stock with the addition of the Quantum 7. Purchased through DiGiCo’s distributor, Pro Music, the company was experiencing de

India - To deliver clear, intelligible vocals and a surround sound experience, Cine Tech Engineering Works equipped Century City Cinema Punjab with a JBL Professional cinema audio system.
Located in the heart of Mandi Dabwali, Century City Cinema is a 381-seat multiplex with two luxurious screening rooms. Cine Tech Engineering Works was hired to upgrade the aging audiovisual system with a cutting-edge Harman Professional Solutions cinema audio system featuring JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers.
“We recently installed cinema sound solutions in Century City Cinema, Punjab, with the help of the Harman Professional Solutions team,” said Asad Rashid, owner, Cine Tech Engineering Works. “As per the client's requirements, we designed a cutting-edge audio system that includes JBL 4732-T loudspeakers and JBL 4642A high-power subwoofers along with JBL 9300 cinema surro

South Africa - Nexo is working with the new generation in South Africa’s technical production community, providing free skills training and access to the latest Nexo sound reinforcement equipment in the country’s major cities.
With extensive support from the full-service production company Sound Stylists, a long-time Nexo user and dealer, Nexo has collaborated with South Africa’s Academy of Sound Engineering in Cape Town. Together, they hosted a free ETC training course encompassing workshops, hands-on and listening experiences, and an overview of Nexo’s line array evolution, from Geo S and D ranges to the contemporary Geo M and STM Series.
Presented by Nexo’s leading training engineer Nicholas Poitrenaud, the three-day seminar was attended by students and teachers from ASE, freelance engineers, house of worship technicians, and audio techs from Sound Stylist

The Netherlands - A select portfolio of Shure networked systems products - Shure’s Microflex Advance MXA910 Ceiling Array, MXA310 Table Array Microphone, and the IntelliMix P300 Audio Conferencing Processor - are now certified for Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams provides a complete online meeting solution that includes online meetings, live broadcasts, Microsoft Team Rooms, cloud video interoperability and audio conferencing. Whether it’s a corporate conference room, special event venue or higher education campus, sourcing a dependable audio solution that provides clear audio while also integrating with leading collaboration technologies is important for successful communication.
Designed for such demanding environments, Shure microphones and digital signal processing products enable “easy-to-deploy, cost-effective, premium audio suitable for a variety of rooms

UK - In addition to deployment in the West End, DiGiCo is used widely in touring theatre. “As one of the earliest adopters of DiGiCo consoles for use in theatre, we’ve been happy to contribute to their development and continue to be so,” comments Autograph’s Duncan Bell.
“From as far back his first meeting with them in 2002, Andrew [Bruce, Autograph’s founder] has been particularly closely involved in the development of the ‘T’ theatre-specific application software. His contribution, and that of numerous other theatre sound designers, means that DiGiCo is the established Gold Standard in theatre globally, and in fact most of the sound designs we see are based on the capabilities and workflow of T-equipped DiGiCo consoles.”
“A factor that works particularly well for us as owners of an extensive DiGiCo inventory is the return on investment from their

China - Qinhuangdao Jiayun Electric Appliance Co recently deployed a complete JBL Professional audio system for the theatrical production Tang Dynasty Legend Songzhou • Wengcheng, put on by the Songpan County Party Committee and County Government.
Located in the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, modern-day Songpan County includes the site of the ancient city of Songzhou. According to legend, in the year 632, Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo attacked Songzhou after being denied a marriage alliance with the ruling Tang Dynasty of China. Although the Chinese managed to repel the invaders at Songzhou, the Tibetan emperor was eventually allowed to marry princess Wengcheng, in an event often referred to as the “national marriage” of the Han and Tibetan people.
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China

Germany - Lawo launched its 50th anniversary celebrations in January with a Michelin-star studded party for its 300-plus employees in the company’s hometown in Rastatt, close to the Rhine River and the Black Forest region of Germany.
The milestone anniversary follows the company’s most successful business year to date, achieving a record revenue result that represented growth of 40 per cent. This performance was generated by an extraordinary uptake of Lawo’s IP media solutions based around core products of video, audio, workflow and monitoring technologies.
Founded by Peter Lawo in 1970, Lawo started out as an engineering office providing bespoke technical solutions before focusing on broadcast and media production technology. The creative drive of its founder and his son Philipp, who took over as CEO in 1999, ensured continual innovation helped evolve and grow t

UK - Audiologic has appointed Andy Barnby as business manager. This is a pivotal role built on a strong foundation to support their growing network of customers, which will ensure the highest level of customer service and support is offered.
Andy will be responsible for driving forward Audiologic’s strategy and success in providing technical excellence, conducting demonstrations and taking a true ‘hands-on approach’ to guide projects successfully through to completion, on time and on budget, to the highest standard.
With 30 years’ experience, Andy joins Audiologic from Prolight Concepts, where he was area manager for 14 years representing brands such as eLumen8, Global Truss, PCE, Kuzar, Zenith and Clever Acoustics. This included lighting, staging, truss and rigging, as well as audio. Andy first started his career in audio working at Bose Professional, followin

The Netherlands - Coda Audio has introduced a new ultra-compact three-way line array. N-RAY places the benefits of Coda’s flagship AiRAY technology into a shallow, lightweight cabinet perfect for theatres, performing-arts centres and corporate events. N-RAY is part of Coda’s latest N-Series, a range of lightweight, compact systems with the efficiency and power to rival much larger and heavier loudspeaker systems.
N-RAY incorporates the latest in driver and system design technology, delivering twice the power handling and SPL, as well as significantly more low-frequency output, when compared to other systems. It delivers high-fidelity sound with a large dynamic range and extended low- frequency with unlimited flexibility, thanks to its variable horizontal dispersion.
Key to N-RAY’s efficiency is the incorporation of a unique six-inch double diaphragm planar wave

The Netherlands – L-Acoustics has launched its first install-specific amplified controller at ISE. Primarily designed to power L-Acoustics compact loudspeakers, the bridgeable 4 x 4 channel LA2Xi offers anywhere from one to four outputs, allowing it to also drive medium and large format loudspeakers, in full or reduced SPL, for various types of applications. LA2Xi is the ideal choice to power background music in leisure installations, distributed fill systems in performing arts centres, studio monitors, private auditoriums and more.
LA2Xi adapts to the needs of various applications, allowing the choice of a four-, three-, two- or one-output channel configuration. In 4 x 4 single-ended mode, it can drive up to 16 X4i or 5XT compact coaxial loudspeakers. In residential applications where maximum SPL is not required, LA2Xi powers a stereo pair of elegant Syva and Syva Low col

The Netherlands - At ISE 2020, Shure introduced IntelliMix Room, billed as the first audio processing software for Windows 10 PCs that is fully optimised for use with Shure networked system microphones.
IntelliMix Room is a software-based DSP that requires minimal customer setup or additional special hardware, which reduces the costs and footprint required to deploy premium AV conferencing. It can be deployed to in-room Windows 10 PCs and meeting control devices that are already in-place to run popular software-based AV conferencing services, bringing premium audio to video conference calls.
This new software-based approach also allows systems integrators to install more rooms, more easily, more consistently and more cost-effectively than traditional hardware-based DSP solutions. Providing up to 16 channels of audio processing, IntelliMix Room deploys the same algorit

UK - The addition of a scalable, arena-sized system has been confirmed by Adlib director and client manager, Dave Jones, and Joe East, business development Manager of Sound Technology, the UK and Ireland Harman Professional Solutions distributor.
The system itself comprises 48 x VTX A12 dual-12” line-array elements; 16 x VTX A8 dual-8” compact line-array elements; 24 x VTX S28 dual-18" subwoofers and 8 x VTX B18 single-18" subwoofers.
Powering these will be Harman’s Crown VRack complete touring amp rack solution; ten racks loaded with three Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers, and four racks housing three Crown I-Tech12000HD amplifiers.
Jones said the re-investment in JBL had been “merely a matter of time; we have always wanted to offer our clients a choice of systems and it is great to have JBL back as an option”. But it had been the substantial upgrade i

Finland - Genelec has opened a new extension to its lakeside factory in Iisalmi, Finland. Utilising the latest technologies, the extension will significantly increase the space, flexibility and efficiency of the company’s warehousing and logistics operations, while ensuring that the entire facility is now powered exclusively by sustainable sources including solar, wind and hydroelectric energy.
For over four decades Genelec has consistently followed a path of sustainable development and environmental responsibility, and has made recycled materials, low energy consumption and long product lifespan central to its design philosophy.
The current factory by Porovesi Lake in Iisalmi was built in 1985 with an architectural design that complements its natural surroundings, and was designed to significantly reduce energy wastage through its use of heat recovery and generous

The Netherlands - UK-based Polar announced at ISE 2020 the addition of ClearOne, UMA and Utelogy to its portfolio.
Polar “sees the provision of cloud-based technologies, which are helping to revolutionise the management and control of resources within a wide variety of workplaces, as essential tools for the future, emphasising the company’s drive to be far more than a simple distributor of products”.
US-based ClearOne produces hardware and software for complete collaboration and communication solutions. From ad-hoc workspaces, huddle rooms and mobile conferences to the largest meeting venues and boardrooms, ClearOne has a large range of audio conferencing, visual collaboration and AV networking solutions to address every need, significantly broadening Polar’s offering in the sphere of fast-evolving meeting room trends.
UMA is a privacy-first digital ass

The Netherlands - Integrated Systems Europe and global media brand TNW (The Next Web) have announced a multi-year strategic relationship aimed at bringing the best of tech and innovation to ISE 2021 and its new Barcelona home.
Formed in 2006 and now one of the world’s largest online media brands, TNW is primarily known for its news outlet thenextweb.com and award-winning tech event TNW Conference. The company also incorporates a co-working label, a global startup database and delivers custom innovation programmes to corporates and governments. The annual TNW conference in Amsterdam attracts senior executives from the world’s leading business and technology brands.
As part of ISE’s 2021 edition at Gran Via, Fira de Barcelona, on 2-5 February, TNW will programme three new content tracks focused on technology and its impact on society. This will run in parallel to

The Netherlands - At ISE, Yamaha is highlighting its entertainment and enterprise solutions, including new products from both the pro audio and Unified Communications ranges.
Exhibiting at stand 3-C95, Yamaha is launching the new, three-model SWR2310 series of switches, designed to provide additional high quality options for Dante systems at larger events and venues. Also new are the Unified Communications YVC-330 conference phone and CS-700 video sound bar, which make enterprise communication faster and more reliable, thanks to design and technology which delivers exceptional voice quality and ease of use.
Yamaha’s digital mixing systems are also on show at ISE, including Rivage PM and the latest V5.5 firmware for CL/QL series digital mixers, which supports ProVisionaire Control/Touch. The latest Version 3.6.0 enables complete control over the entire network chain,

The Netherlands - British loudspeaker manufacturer EM Acoustics is to preview the flagship model of its new Reference Series of loudspeakers at ISE 2020.
The new series features low-profile point source loudspeakers with flat frequency and phase responses. Coupled with EM Acoustics’ DQ Series amplifiers, the Reference Series offers a range of tools for audio professionals seeking high performance in a compact form factor.
Seen for the first time anywhere at ISE 2020 is the first in the series, the R10. Suited to any performance environment requiring ultra-high quality sound reinforcement in a versatile, low-profile package, the R10 is a three-way passive system featuring dual 10”LF drivers and a 4”/2.5” mid-hi coaxial unit.
The R10 is unique in that it is supplied with two different, easily interchangeable dispersion waveguide options - a wide 110° x 50

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