UK - The combination of a small footprint, exceptional processing power, Dante networking and local i/o makes Yamaha's QL series digital consoles ideal for the Festival Fringe - Edinburgh's annual smorgasbord of the inspired, the ingenious and the idiosyncratic. This year, six QLs enjoyed a month of exceptionally hard work throughout August with multi-venue operator Pleasance.

The Fringe is renowned as a difficult taskmaster on both equipment and staff alike. A month of relentless hard work, with shows continually playing from morning through to the early hours of the following day, staff have to grab sleep where they can and equipment is invariably left powered up for the duration.

Add into that mix many of the venues are in 'found' spaces, or parts of university buildings, tha

Russia - German fibre network specialists, Optocore, has appointed Audio Solutions to distribute their products in Russia.

According to manager of the Pro Audio Department, Igor Kovalev, the 12-year-old Moscow-based company will be providing Optocore solutions to their two core markets: sound reinforcement (theatres, concert halls, live events) and broadcast.

In addition to their formal distribution arrangement with Optocore, Audio Solutions say they are also working on a major project, using sister company BroaMan solutions for delivering scalable customised solutions for clients requiring SD/HD/3G video routing.

Kovalev states that adding Optocore to the company's brand portfolio was an obvious step. "It represents a good price/performance ratio when compared with other brands, along with amazing flexibility / scalability and extremely high sound quality. It will allo

Italy - TC Group has confirmed the appointment of Prase Engineering as the exclusive distributor of Lab.gruppen and Lake for Italy from 1 September, adding to the company's successful relationship with fellow TC Group brand, Tannoy.

The deal will see Prase Engineering, located in Venice, become the primary contact for all three brands in the country from September, with exclusive access to extensive library of Lab.gruppen and Lake amplification and processing products adding to their exclusive access to high performance loudspeaker ranges from Tannoy.

Ennio Prase, CEO of Prase Engineering, commented: "We have had a very strong working relationship with TC Group via the Tannoy brand for some time, so it is a joy to finally add products from Lab.gruppen and Lake to the offering for our customers. Both of these brands have a strong reputation for quality, and we look forward

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Case Study: Hans Zimmer Live

When award winning film composer Hans Zimmer brought his smash-hit tour Hans Zimmer Live to North America fall 2024, the show's audio team sought out to bring infrafrequency bass to the show to add new depth to the show's audio experience. The team chose Danley Sound Labs.

UK - In light of demand from the industry, PLASA is developing a scheme for Trainee Riggers, for launch later this year.

The success of the PLASA National Rigging Certificate has increased the number of qualified riggers in the industry. Freelancers who wish to take the PLASA National Rigging Certificate at Level 2 have found it difficult to gain enough experience to get to the point where they are ready to be assessed because many venues won't allow them to work unless qualified.

The Trainee Rigger Scheme has been created as a result of demand from rigging companies, the Riggers Forum, venues, seminars and individual riggers who felt that extra help was needed to prepare new entrants to the industry to gain the levels of experience in order to register and achieve the National Rigging Certificate Level 2.

PLASA, are therefore developing a way in which those who wish to purs

UK - PLASA Media, sponsor of the PLASA Awards, has announced the shortlist of nominees for this year's prestigious Gottelier Award. The winner will be announced at the PLASA Show in London (5-8 October, ExCeL London).

Named in honour of the late Tony Gottelier, the industry innovator and commentator who passed away in 2006, the Gottelier Award is for our industry's product developers who have made significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field.

The nominees for 2014 are:

Richard Belliveau

As one of the co-founders of Texas-based lighting manufacturer High End Systems, and still leading the company's product developments today, Belliveau has been behind a long line of successful products from the company, from the Color Pro,

The Netherlands - A production of The Passion was attended by thousands in the northern city of Groningen earlier this year to see Dutch actors taking on the roles of Jesus, his disciples and others in the Easter story. Staged at the Viskmart in the heart of the town, the production began with a 6m long white neon cross carried from the Groningen FC soccer stadium all the way to the square.

Handling the lighting for the project was PRG EML Productions in Utrecht. Under direction of production manager Martijn Roosen, W-DMX was used to create a wireless link between the Viskmart stage and Martini Tower, a church nearly 700m away. The network distribution was based on Art-Net with nodes and switches from ELC Lighting.

Martijn said, "ELC Lighting is always my first port of call on any job. I have been using ELC products for over seven years now - in fact we use them as

UK - London-based audio consulting firm RH Consulting, has announced a major addition to its team in the form of renowned consultant, Richard Northwood. Northwood's integration into RH Consulting is effective immediately.

Richard Northwood brings 30 years of experience working on projects including Wembley, Ascot, Nokia, Oman Opera house and very many more. His reputation throughout the industry is exemplary as one of the audio industry's most respected consultants.

"We've been talking about working together for quite some time, so it's great that we have now finally made it official," commented Northwood. "Roland and I have already worked together on a number of projects and our skills are very complementary."

(Jim Evans)

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OPUS X4 PROFILE – the most powerful LED moving head from Cameo to date

The OPUS® X4 PROFILE is the new flagship model from Cameo and is among the most powerful LED moving heads on the market. Equipped with a 1,400-watt LED white light engine, this spot profile moving head produces an enormous light output of 50,000 lm, providing powerful spot and gobo projections on even the largest stages and much more.
www.cameolight.com

Indonesia - Indosiar Visual Mandiri (Indosiar) is an Indonesian national television station, operating in West Jakarta since 1994 that employs around 1,550 people and is a member of PT. Elang Mahkota Teknologi Indonesia (Emtek) - Indonesia's second largest media group. Currently, Indosiar is fully owned by Emtek's subsidiary, Surya Citra Media.

The station has a strong focus on cultural programming, such as a programmes dedicated to specific types of performance like wayang puppet theatre. Recently it has been broadening its horizons with reality shows, talk programmes and drama series'. For those reality shows and singing competitions a highly reliable and powerful lighting control solution was needed - a grandMA2.

Lighting designer Hadi Suroso specified a grandMA2 light: "Having used the console for the first time during the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, it h

UK - The library that supports Stardraw Design 7.1 has reached a new milestone, now containing more than 70,000 symbols representing products from over 700 manufacturers.

Stardraw's symbols library has been a work in progress for over 20 years. Since the advent of the Symbols Request service in 2002, Stardraw's specialist symbols department has received almost 13,000 product requests, of which 95% have been published. On average, the company receives around 100 product requests per month.

The result is that Stardraw's symbols portfolio represents the largest, high-quality graphical library available to the professional AV industry from a single source: all symbols are generated in-house by Stardraw's Symbols Department according to an established data specification. This means that regardless of the original data or what the symbols might represent, a qualitative standard is m

The Netherlands - British image processing specialists, Calibre UK will launch their new Fovea-F1 broadcast grade motion estimated and motion compensated standards (MEMC) convertor at the upcoming IBC 2014 trade show in Amsterdam.

To extend its global launch, Calibre has signed a global distribution agreement with Imagine Communications.

Calibre's Fovea has been updated to the new Fovea-F1 model with an all-new web browser interface including real-time status reporting. A new compact, functional and versatile design incorporates easy-to-navigate quick access to key controls.

The existing ability to select different MEMC levels has been greatly enhanced with MEMC presets for virtually all key types of content - a valuable tool for a broadcaster or post-house for frame rate conversion. Additionally, it is now possible to seamlessly change between MEMC content type presets live

India - On the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the launch of the Genelec 8000 Series, KJ Singh, one of India's foremost audio engineers at work in the film and music industry, pays tribute to this popular monitor range.

One of the distinctive features of Indian cinema is the importance given to song and dance in the plots - it is what gives the films their unique flavour and a primary reason for their popularity. Maintaining this popularity requires continuing excellence in sound track and background score production of which the audio engineering process is a key element. One of the leading figures in the field is KJ Singh (Kanwarjit Singh Sawhney), a recipient of many major industry awards for his audio engineering work.

KJ Singh is based in Mumbai and has had long and fruitful working partnerships with many figures in the Indian film industry, including A. R. Rahmann, t

UK - Pixels, a European distributor of digital media players and AV systems has supplied 50 BrightSign media players for the Digital Revolution exhibition at London's Barbican Centre.

Digital Revolution: An immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames, which opened on 3 July and which closes on 14 September, is described as "an immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames" and "the most comprehensive presentation of digital creativity ever to be staged in the UK". The exhibition will tour the world after its London run.

The BrightSign media player is normally deployed in digital signage applications. It is, however, characterised by its ability to deliver content to a screen with absolute accuracy and reliability, and this capability was critical for the designers of Digital Revolution, 59 Productions.

"We specif

USA - Building on the success of its first Meyer Sound M'elodie line array loudspeaker system installed seven years ago, Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. has implemented a second M'elodie system in its 300-seat Wolf Den showroom.

"We bought 16 M'elodies to use as main arrays in our Cabaret Theatre, and that experience made me a big fan of Meyer Sound," says Mat Diamond, head of audio at Mohegan Sun. "So when it came time to upgrade the Wolf Den, choosing M'elodie again was an easy decision."

To cover the 300-degree audience area, the new system features two main arrays of six M'elodie loudspeakers each, two side arrays of four each, and four for front-fill. Four 700-HP subwoofers provide low end, with system drive and alignment provided by a Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system. The system was supplied by HB Communications of North Haven, C

Sweden - One Direction has arguably been the most successful band in the world this decade. They are the first act to have all their first three albums debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 200 list and their latest album Midnight Memories was the best selling album of 2013 according to IFPI.

For the 2014 Where We Are Tour, FOH engineer Mark Littlewood and monitor engineer Ant Carr decided to add four Milab DC-96B's to the line-up.

Says Ant, "I'd never used Milab before we started rehearsals. Mark had put them on the input list for overheads and I was willing to give them a try. I like to build drum mixes in in-ears starting with the overheads, it's important to me to get a balanced mix of cymbals and drums without too much ambience outside of the kit and then mix in the direct mics. The DC-96B has such a smooth response and accurate pick up pattern, it g

UK - Taking its inspiration from the 2013 Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, which saw the first deployment of Blueprint Events' SGM LT-200 3D mappable LED pixel tubes, Chris Morgan's company has now delivered what he believes to be the largest SGM tube matrix ever seen in the UK - at the high profile Creamfields 2014 in the north of England, over August Bank Holiday weekend

Working for The Events Company UK, who handled the rigging and design, Blueprint decorated Size Records' Size Matters 10-pole big top with 400 x LT-200 SGM tubes and 130 x ILD controllers - spread over three separate grids.

The pixel-mappable 2m-long graphic tubes, loaded with RGB LEDs at 35mm pixel pitch, was specifically designed for Saturday night headliner, the Greek-Swedish DJ/producer, Steve Angello (of Swedish House Mafia fame) and his 'Size Records' family.

Reports Chris Morgan, "The Events Comp

Denmark - As part of a competition beginning today, DPA Microphones is giving 100 lucky people the chance to win a d:screet Necklace Microphone, which was launched earlier this year. The competition, running on DPA's Facebook page and Web site, asks contestants to come up with an ingenious idea for how and where to use the d:screet Necklace Microphone.

Five microphones will be awarded to the five most "liked" submissions on Facebook, while the remaining 95 will be given to the people who, in DPA's opinion, come up with the best, most creative and most original ideas. An example of one of the ideas can be found at this YouTube video, created by DPA Microphones: http://bit.ly/1ll1KBQ.

By housing a d:screet 4061 Omnidirectional Miniature Capsule in a soft rubber necklace, DPA has created a microphone that anyone can use. There is no need to worry about attaching it to c

Japan - New ELE Tokyo nightclub ELE has installed a lighting system featuring CHAUVET Professional used in a stunning fashion by LD Michael Meacham ofMIami-based iDesign Productions.

ELE instantly distinguished itself by offering what one reviewer described as "a classy alternative" to the typical late night club. At the same time, though, the club sizzles with EDM energy, featuring world class DJs and appearances by celebrities like Lady Gaga. Meacham's lighting design manages to highlight the elegance of the two-story club's architecture as well as its gold and silver decorating scheme, while also serving up a healthy dose of EDM attitude to its custom-designed DJ booth and dance floor.

"I designed the lighting so it became part of the club's architecture," said Meacham. "The lights work with the building's high-end features by doing things like wrap

Romania - Most nights of the year, Banffy Castle sits dark in the heart of Transylvania. After centuries of hosting only the most elite in Romanian society, the fortress has been left to face recent years alone. That is until the castle was plugged into the current generation. From June 19-22, nearly 80,000 people flooded the Electric Castle for a weekend of full-on dayglow, DJs, and dance music. With five stages and 130 artists, Banffy Castle set out to throw the party of the summer.

"To get ready for Electric Castle, we travelled to many different festivals throughout Europe," said artistic director of Electric Castle Festival, Teodor Negrea. "I always pay attention to the sound. I have to say, once we got Set Up, a local d&b audiotechnik system provider on our team, we were able to bring our festival to the next level. Our audio was on par or better than any fe

Denmark - In 2011, Danish waste management company Kara/Noveren set out to replace two furnaces with a state-of-the-art waste-to-energy incineration line. Three years later the incineration line, or more popularly referred to as The Energy Tower, stands tall on the skyline of the Danish City of Roskilde, ready for its opening this week with Martin Professional lighting fixtures.

Increasing demands to reduce Co2 emissions from fossil fuels calls for alternative energy production, and implementing a modern facility will allow Kara/Noveren to utilize the energy resources from residual waste that cannot otherwise be recycled. In line with Kara/Noveren's vision was for The Energy Tower to become a new Danish landmark. Naturally they wanted an energy efficient lighting solution to go with it so 112 Martin Exterior 410 fixtures and 78 Tripix 1200 LED strips were installed, controlled b

UK - Telecommunications and intercom solutions provider, 2N has released its new 914075E Net Streamer (2N Net Streamer), which is available in the UK through leading AV distributor, CIE-Group. The 914075E Net Streamer is a state-of-the-art analogue to IP audio signal converter, which allows standard audio sources such as CD, radio, mic or any other line-in source, to be converted to an IP signal, then integrated into a NetSpeaker audio-over-IP system. The system is ideal for large commercial operations looking to upgrade to audio-over-IP.

The concept of using audio-over-IP technology means that nearly any audio signal can be converted for distribution over a standard Cat5e/6/7 cable infrastructure via LAN, WAN or Web, allowing for extended use over large properties and sites. The 914075E Net Streamer eliminates the risk of losing sound quality and content when sending audio over

Latvia - This summer saw lighting designer Paul Normandale team up with Latvian rental outfit Company NA to specify 24 VL3500 Wash and seven VL3015LT Spot luminaires as the lighting solution for Kings of Leon's sold-out open-air show in Riga.

Taking place in the 20,000-capacity Mezaparks Stage, the show was Kings Of Leon's debut in the region, with a design centred on a vast 21.6m by 10.8m LED video wall which displayed a mixture of pre-made content and live camera feeds.

"As the Kings wanted a large video element I needed to consider which luminaires would be able to stand up to it," explains Normandale. "It was an easy choice - the VL3500 Wash and VL3015LT Spot are exceptionally bright and were able to offer tangible light against the wall, with the added bonus of the VL3015LT Spot's long-throw application."

With the show being outdoors, the powerful Va

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