UK - Veteran producer & mix engineer Chris Kimsey recently completed three days in London's boutique Kore Studios, recording the winners of Shure Europe's 2013 Call For Legends unsigned bands competition, Fingertrap.

The Welsh four-piece were selected as the competition winners from a total of 240 bands from 31 different countries, and used their winning session time wisely, managing to track and mix three new songs. During the sessions, Chris Kimsey also experimented with some new Shure microphones, particularly enjoying the KSM313 bi-directional ribbon mic.

"As with all my recordings, I tried a few mics to find the perfect sound, and ended up using the KSM313 mic on guitars and on vocals. It sounded outstanding on guitar, giving a 'full-fat' sound but with a top end not n

QSC Audio Products has announced that Ray van Straten has been promoted to vice president of QSC Professional, the newly formed business unit which will serve customers in the retail, rental, production and distribution (box sales) segments. In his new role, van Straten will be responsible for guiding the direction of the business unit, utilizing his vast experience in sales, marketing, product management, channel management and strategy to grow and unify the QSC brand in the business segments served.

QSC Professional will work together with the newly-formed QSC Systems and QSC Cinema Business Units to serve the company's customers worldwide. QSC Systems will focus on serving customers in the Integrated Systems business, and will be headed by Joe Pham, QSC President and CEO who will serve as its interim VP. The new QSC Cinema Business Unit will be headed by existing unit head Barry Fer

Australia - Leading production designer LeRoy Bennett and lighting visionary Peter Johansen will become reunited in July this year - down under.

Responsible for specifying what was eventually more than 500 of SGM's game-changng X-5 white strobes on Beyoncé's The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in 2013 - his unforgettable strobe dominated 'Wall of Inferno' creating one of the brightest stage displays ever - Bennett heads the line-up of speakers at Entech Connect, Australia's evergreen trade and technology show.

The conceptualiser, who has worked with many of the world's top artistes, will be discussing his personal philosophy of design on the opening morning of Entech Connect, which takes place at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (23-24 July).

SGM will also be heavily involved in collateral events, sponsoring the Visitor Network Evening partnership, while Pe

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LD Systems ICOA PRO series – high-performance coaxial PA speakers for professional demands

The popular ICOA PA systems have been further developed to include two active full-range coaxial speakers – ICOA PRO 12 A and ICOA PRO 15 A – as well as the active 21″ bass-reflex PA subwoofer ICOA PRO SUB 21 A. With its professional features and high output power, the ICOA PRO series is aimed at ambitious bands, musicians and DJs as well as hire companies and commercial customers looking for a compact, robust and powerful PA sound system. The ICOA PRO series is rounded off with modern connection and control options via Bluetooth 5.1 and the specially developed ICOA PRO app, for use on smartphones and tablets.

ld-systems.com/icoapro

Sweden - Friends Arena, the home of Sweden's national football team, is Scandinavia's largest indoor arena and can accommodate up to 65,000 people for concerts, sports matches, and other events. Located in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Arenastaden in Stockholm, the arena is considered the centrepiece of an area surrounded by new residential, shopping, and commercial buildings.

Tyréns, one of Sweden's leading urban planning consultancies, was brought in to develop a lighting plan for the various areas around the arena, including the surrounding streets, bus terminals, ramps, roundabouts, squares, lifts, and stairs. The company installed a range of coloured lighting including Martin Professional Tripix 300 LED strips to create different effects and visual attraction.

Faced with strict budget constraints and the need for a retrofitted solution, Tyréns had to dev

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

Germany - The 136th Audio Engineering Society Conventionopened today with healthy attendance at the Estrel Hotel and Convention Centre in Berlin.

Offering a wide variety of Technical Programme events, manufacturer exhibitions, the Project Studio Expo, and more, the 136th AES Convention brings attendees the latest in professional audio innovations, as well as networking and educational opportunities with leaders in the industry.

Additionally, AES executive director, Bob Moses, made the announcement that next year's European AES Convention will take place in Warsaw, Poland (Spring 2015) taking advantage of its burgeoning audio industry and growing base of audio engineers, producers and music aficionados.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Ed Warren is well known for his innovative and different lighting and visual designs and is lucky enough to work with a list of equally interesting and inventive artists, one of which is UK electronic act, Metronomy.

Warren has designed their lighting since 2007. In March 2014 they launched their Love Letters album, the campaign for which kicked off in the UK - exclusively using Robe moving lights - and culminating in a spectacular show at London's Brixton Academy.

Before the start of each tour, he combines minds with Oscar Cash regarding set design, and this time around they came up with the idea of making it resemble a low-budget 1970's music TV show. Warren is also inspired by James Turrell's light art, and so wanted to have a canvas that offered multiple contrasts for lighting.

He decided to make all the band risers diamond shape, downlit with LED tape, also

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

UK - PLASA Focus: Leeds sees Audio-Technica showing key products from the Vicoustic acoustic treatment line-up for the first time since the company assumed UK distribution for the Portugese brand earlier in the month. A selection from the core Wavewood, Multifusor and Varipanel ranges will be on display, alongside Audio-Technica and Allen & Heath microphones, headphones and mixing desks.

The new M Series headphones will be among the Audio-Technica highlights at PLASA Focus - the professional monitoring headphones (M20x, M30x, M40x and M50x) debuted at the NAMM Show in January and have met with praise from press and public alike for their natural, well-balanced tone and comfort during long tracking or mixing sessions. The new line-up takes its lead from the original, much-loved M50 and shares the same sonic signature, making it available at a variety of price-points.

High-end r

Serbia - Elation Professional's Serbian partner, Light and Sound Design, recently held a special Elation Open Day at the prestigious National Theatre in Belgrade where the latest in Elation lighting technology was demoed for lighting professionals from Serbia's television and theatre industries.

"We had an excellent turnout with over 30 attendees spending quality time and getting a closer look at Elation products," stated Milan Scepanovic, general manager of Light and Sound Design. "All the attendees were professionals, many representing government institutions or TV stations, and half of them came with their own lux meters and measuring devices. We had a lot of products on hand and a beautiful venue to display them in. Overall the response was very positive and the day quite a success."

A full range of Elation LED lighting solutions optimized for theatre,

Short Run - The West End musical based on The X Factor is to close after just two months. Co-written by Harry Hill, I Can't Sing! pokes fun at the talent show and its creator Simon Cowell. The show, which opened to glowing reviews at the London Palladium in March, will close on 10 May.

Rebecca Quigley, chief executive of producer Stage Entertainment UK, said the show had been well received "but it seems that isn't always enough...The West End can be an unpredictable place as the closure of a number of high profile productions recently has shown."

Announcing the closure, Nigel Hall of Cowell's production company Syco Entertainment, said: "Alongside Stage Entertainment we'd like to thank the cast and crew who have worked so hard on this show. To everyone at Really Useful Theatres and the ever supportive staff at the London Palladium, and everyone inv

Norway - Until recently, the lighting system at Oslo's Det Norske Teatret consisted of some 100 conventional and moving lights. But the theatre produces both musicals and plays, and the noise level from the lighting rig often became an issue: they were forced to turn off movers and keep scroller use to a minimum.

So when a lighting renewal was suggested, the managers decided to see what new technology was available. They already had Eos®-family control desks in each space, along with Sensor dimming and ETC Net3 networking, so they wanted to get the most out of the equipment they had invested in.

After having a shootout with various types of fixtures - both conventional and moving lights - they "fell in love with the ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ units" that had been brought along by ETC dealer Elektrik. Says resident lighting designer Torkel Skjærven, "The fan

USA - The organisers of The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival raised eyebrows when they announced that they were adding a second weekend to their iconic event. Would it be possible, the naysayers wondered, to sustain Coachella's well-known spontaneous sense of excitement over such an extended period?

As anyone who was at the 2014 edition of the famous festival can attest, the answer to this question was a resounding "yes!" With surprise appearances by Beyoncé and a parade of other stars, the festival was as fresh and bright as a summer's morning. The "bright" part was helped along by dynamic lightshows, like the one at the high-profile Outdoor Theatre anchored by 36 Nexus 4 X 4 panels from Chauvet Professional.

Todd Roberts and Brandon Dunning of Visions Lighting (Brea, CA) specced the Nexus panels for the Outdoor Theatre Stage rig, because

Germany - LumenRadio and their OEM partner Feimex have announced that one of Feimex's best selling fixtures, FX 300, is now equipped with the multiple award-winning wireless CRMX OEM modules.

After FX 300 tremendous success at the previous Prolight+Sound Show in Frankfurt, Feimex's sales director Thomas Feuerstein believes the partnership will continue to be very successful, "It's a joy to work with LumenRadio. Not only do they provide the best wireless technology on the market, their professionalism and support is outstanding."

Feimex, who are based in Hamburg, Germany, are one of the leading manufacturers of high-tech equipment in the field of professional event technology. The very popular FX 300 is available for both indoor and outdoor use. With extremely long service life, tremendous luminous efficacy and 18 high-performance LEDs with exceptional color rendering

UK - Established lighting designer Richard Rhys Thomas of the Royal Albert Hall turned to the high-quality colour and reliability of Clay Paky fixtures to implement his richly layered lighting design for the Mountbatten Military Festival of Music at London's Royal Albert Hall (RAH).

Her Majesty's Royal Marines performed traditional marching songs alongside bespoke compositions and a soaring rendition of Swedish pop-group Abba's top hits. Thomas's lighting design wrapped the orchestra in swathes of colour, working in flawless harmony with the score.

"The brief was to create lighting that would seamlessly complement the music," explains Thomas. "The music ranged from film to classical, big band to traditional marches and the spectacular corps of drum displays. The standard of music was remarkable and so it didn't take much to create a spectacular show."

Tho

UK - Early March saw thousands of eager party goers shake off the winter doldrums and dance the weekend away at Outbreak Spring Festival at Ricoh Arena in Coventry. The all night dance party went on until the wee hours of the morning beneath an Elation lighting system supplied by live event equipment hire company MusicMann of Walsall.

Outbreak is the UK's fastest growing House Music festival and features a full list of top DJs and other artists.

Production manager for the event was Steve "Shaggy" Wright, lighting, video, and production pro at MusicMann, who speced an all Elation lighting rig for the event.

"We've carried a full line of Elation products for many years and they've proved very reliable for the variety of events that we do like this," he stated. "It's the first year they've held Outbreak on this scale; it's a real arena-sized show now an

Russia - Moscow's Arena Club played host to the Welsh band, Bullet for My Valentine, on 6 March 6 with Martin Professional lighting fixtures and the M1 Console, provided by Moscow's Euroshow Rental Company. Robert Coleman, the lighting designer for the tour and Moscow show, deployed Martin to bring out the most of his creative ideas.

The set of lighting fixtures included 10 MAC 700 Profiles (six on the middle truss, four on the back truss), 14 MAC 401 RGB Zooms (four on the side truss, five on the middle and five on the back), nine Atomic 3000 DMX strobes, six MAC Viper Profiles and the M1 Professional Lighting Console.

Coleman, who was introduced to the M1 console a few years ago but never previously had the opportunity to use it, worked with Alexey Zhuravlev, lighting designer, Euroshow Rental Company, to programme the Moscow show.

"I thought the design was good, and

UK - Hastings, Sussex- based lamp and LED lighting specialist CLD Distribution has added a comprehensive new range of Hytronik motion and lux sensor switches to its range of innovative lighting control options.

Utilising microwave technology, these are designed for wide ranging types of commercial, industrial and civic / public amenity applications - including offices, factories, retail outlets together with schools, libraries, hospitals, etc., plus transport hubs like stations.

Hytronik sensors can be used in conjunction with CLD's range of LED lighting fixtures to help further optimise all the cost and energy saving benefits of using LED technology for environmental lighting by switching off lighting in unused areas.

Designed to offer the full flexibility, the Hytronik sensors can be programmed to react to specific patterns based on movement in a space, lux / light levels

Brazil - As the owner of creative content and social impact company Content-OS, producer Andres Levin is an expert in developing inspired content for cause-marketing campaigns. When presented with an opportunity to collaborate on an awareness campaign for The Rainforest Alliance, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving biodiversity, Levin knew he wanted to take the project to a new level. To offer viewers a true-to-life snapshot of the environment, he traveled to the depths of the Tijuca Forest to record a unique musical and cinematic production.

Knowing he'd be faced with extreme temperatures, high humidity, limited space, and less than four days to record, Levin knew rugged, reliable gear, that could withstand the harsh conditions and consistently record professional-quality sound, would be imperative to his success. Based on his decades of experience u

UK - Le Mark have produced their professional tour labels for the Production Office Ltd for the Gary Barlow Since I saw you last Arena Tour 2014.

"Thinking about design is hard but not thinking about it can be a disaster," wrote Ralp Caplan. The Production Office Ltd is one of the world's leading concert tour & event production companies with offices in London & New York proving how important this statement is.

Georgie King contacted Le Mark's Linda Gibbons with a brief to produce a clear, durable and position specific labelling system. This would be used on all the road cased equipment destined for the tour.

Le Mark's tried and tested Tour Labels were chosen. This enabled TPO to select Le Mark's multi colour digital printing option. Enabling 12 sector specific designs to be produced running consecutively 1 to 12. This provided a simple but very effective 12

UK - West Midlands UK technical production and rental specialists Central Presentations Ltd. (CPL) supplied the design and full technical production - video, lighting, audio, set - including a bespoke projection screen - and staging - for the 2014 TaxAssist Accountants' AGM. The event was staged in the Caernarfon Suite at the Celtic Resort & Conference Centre in Newport Wales, UK.

CPL's team was headed by dynamic project manager Jimmy Smith who was working to a brief that required a clean, contemporary conference environment for the daytime sessions, which would be quickly and seamlessly transformed into a glamorous evening location for a gala dinner and Awards event!

With that adaptability in mind, he designed a practical and highly effective solution to meet the client's needs.

Behind the stage a 42m wide starcloth backdrop was installed and in front of that the set was bu

UK - Music Group has announced the promotion of Graham Rowlands to vice president of global sales, Professional Division, following his success as head for the Asia Pacific region. In his new capacity, Graham will head global sales for the company's professional brands, which includes such legendary brands as Midas, Klark Teknik and Turbosound.

"Music Group is entering an exciting new phase and my goal is to make our professional brands number one around the world," stated Graham. "I am thrilled to take on this role and fortunate to have the support of a very talented sales team. Together we will make this vision a reality."

"Graham brings strong Pro Audio knowledge to Music Group, having championed several truly impressive campaigns over his 16-year career in the industry," stated Music Group founder and CEO Uli Behringer. "Graham's approach

UK - American R&B trio, TGT, played London's iconic Eventim Apollo (formerly the Hammersmith Apollo) on 27 March on their Shirts Off tour beneath an Elation lighting rig of Platinum Series and other Elation fixtures supplied by UK rental company MusicMann.

Handling production on the London show was Steve "Shaggy" Wright, lighting, video, and production pro at MusicMann, who speced an Elation lighting system that included Platinum Wash ZFX Pro LED moving heads, Platinum Spot 15R Pro discharge moving heads, Platinum Beam 5R ACL beam effects and Rayzor Q7 LED moving heads, along with warm white Cuepix Blinders.

"TGT play a lot of ballads and the lighting needed to reflect that slower, smoother pace," Shaggy stated. "So I used a lot of soft washes from the Platinum Wash ZFX Pro's, which I used as the main stage wash and for general stage lighting fr

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