USA - When Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Ben Rector embarked on a 34-date autumn tour of the USA to promote his The Walking in Between album, lighting designer Ryan Burton employed a Jands Vista S1 to provide portable yet powerful control.

Ryan's lighting concept for the tour was to create a warm and natural vibe, reflecting the feel of the songs, whilst contrasting with blasts of colour when the music reached more dynamic levels. To achieve this, Ryan specified a lighting rig including Martin MAC Auras, Thomas 8-Light Blinders and Altman 1500W 18" Scoops, all controlled by the Jands Vista S1 console connected to a MacBook Pro running the Vista v2 software.

"The Vista S1 is very flexible," says Ryan. "I really like the programming interface, which is intuitive and visual, as well as the controllability I get with the timeline. It makes it very e

USA - As all eyes were fixated on the actors who graced the stage of the 86th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday night, audience's ears were tuned to the musical accompaniments of the show's orchestra, which performed remotely from Capitol Records.

Since the piano was positioned among the noisy percussion instruments, the show's orchestra mixer and orchestra setup coordinator needed a way to isolate its sound. To accomplish this for the piano, the duo used a combination of DPA Microphones' d:dicate 4011A Cardioid Microphones and d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones. He also positioned a pair of d:dicate 4011E Hanging Microphones for the orchestra's drum kit.

By using the combination of d:dicate 4011As and d:vote 4099s, the duo was able to close the lid of the Steinway Grand Piano, giving live and television audience members a full appreciation of the pristine i

USA - Multi-platinum recording artist Kip Winger has always had serious musical chops, as he demonstrated during his first high-profile gig, playing bass with Alice Cooper, and for six years fronting the glam-metal band Winger. But aside from occasional shows with the reformed Winger band, his fans most frequently see him at his solo acoustic shows, at which he often performs using an L1 Model II portable loudspeaker system, B2 bass module and T1 ToneMatch audio engine from Bose Professional Systems.

Winger generally takes only a single L1 system on the road for his solo acoustic shows. But he actually has two complete systems because he is also using a stereo L1 rig as studio monitors at his private home-based facility in Nashville.

Winger has long used Bose QC15 headphones during the final stage of mixing. "The last three records I've made, I'll mix my album and then th

Known for its wide range of entertainment, Leeds University Union operates three popular live rooms, including the 1200-capacity main Stylus as well as subsidiary Mine and Pulse (with respective capacities of 450 and 350).

Having installed a new sound system two years ago, it has always placed high priority on keeping its technical infrastructure at the cutting edge.

However, it was with their burgeoning hire business in mind that they recently purchased a Soundcraft Si Expression 2 mixing console, opting for the 24 mic input capacity in order to be able to service a range of events - from conferences to big warehouse dance parties - on both a wet- and dry-hire basis.

The purchasing decision was taken by LUU's technical manager, Sam Ryder, who joined the University last summer, and who was already familiar with the Soundcraft topology and operating system from his experience using

Poland - GigantSound Letus recently deployed a large number of Powersoft amplifiers to drive their JBL VerTec PA rig, at a special concert in Warsaw welcoming in 2014.

According to owner of the company, Jurek Taborowski, the concert, which was organized by Stoleczna Estrada, saw the sound specialists provide a system, driven by Powersoft K Series amplifiers, to satisfy an audience of 200,000 people on the square near Stadium Narodowy in Warsaw.

"We decided to use 64 Powersoft K10 amps to drive a 96 JBL Vertec cabinets (low, mid, high) and 32 Powersoft K20 amps which powered 88 (2 x 18") subs. That's a gigantic amount of power - but the concert was performed live, and the Square is a huge space.

"We knew that the 15-minute firework show would bring in a lot more people, so we had to have an adequate supply of power."

In the event around 200,000 people tu

Germany - Riedel will present the MN-ST-AL-2, the company's new MediorNet expansion card for Studer consoles at ProLight+Sound. The MN-ST-AL-2 card provides two ports, each with redundant interfaces, for connecting Studer mixing consoles via the Studer A-Link protocol. In this way, the consoles become an integrated part of the entire signal distribution infrastructure.

Users can gain up to 384 channels per connection and realize significant cost savings in cabling and maintenance while benefitting from MediorNet's unparalleled flexibility and signal quality. Routing of the audio stream is handled by the user-friendly MediorWorks control and management software via drag-and-drop programming, which makes last-minute changes easy and intuitive. Additional routing adjustments can be performed via Pro-Bel commands or the new EMBER+ remote control protocol in MediorNet.

One MediorNe

UK - Stage equipment hire specialists, Hawthorn, pressed their new fleet of SGM P-5 washlights, both RGBW and TW (Tunable White), into service to implement a concept by one of Denmark's most creative lighting designers, Søren Peglau, during London Fashion Week recently.

The event at the Danish Embassy in the UK capital was sponsored by 'Re Present', a collective made up of fashion houses originating from Scandinavia. Hawthorn project manager, Sean Ferris, was introduced to the event by SGM senior area sales manager, Henrik Kloster, and SGM UK's Matt Wiseman.

Having purchased 72 P-5s, which were used to wash both the interior and exterior of the building, the company also supplied 34 SP-6 SixPack Blinders. Meanwhile, Hawthorn contacted another SGM customer, Chris Morgan at Blueprint Event Services, who provided an SGM LT-200 3D pixel tube chandelier as an architectural f

UK - Northampton-based production company Stage Right has been using LED specialist EMTO's new LED screens on a number of recent theatre productions including an ever popular Jack & The Beanstalk staged at the 1000 seater Deco Theatre in Northampton, and the acclaimed UK tour of the smash hit Broadway musical Rent produced by JP Productions and starring Kerry Ellis as Mimi.

2014 is the 20th anniversary of Rent's first staging. In this time it's becoming one of the most universally popular and successful musicals worldwide.

Stage Right's Kevin Roach has known Aylesbury based EMTO's Wes Matthews for many years and comments, "I use EMTO whenever we need specialist LED screen elements for our shows and events. The products are really reliable and EMTO's service and back-up is excellent."

For Jack & The Beanstalk, two elements of EMTO screen

Germany - Audio-Technica is to re-introduce one of its classic microphone models at ProLight + Sound 2014, with other new headphone and microphone products also receiving their PL+S debut at the event.

The AT4060a tube microphone rejoins the Audio-Technica line-up for 2014 - the cardioid large diaphragm condenser boasts a dynamic range that "far exceeds other tube mics", and is capable of handling high SPLs, making it suitable for bringing vintage warmth to everything from vocals to guitar cabinets.

In addition, ProLight + Sound will see Audio-Technica showcasing the newly-arrived M Series monitoring headphones, System 10 Stompbox guitar wireless system and BP894 subminiature headworn microphone.

(Jim Evans)

UK - With their debut album only released in September 2013 and about to embark on a lengthy tour of the UK, Europe and the USA, London Grammar have made a rapid impact on the music scene. They were nominated for the 2014 Brit Awards in the Best Newcomer Category.

Their lighting and video designer. Steve Bewley has over a decade of experience with the likes of Dizzee Rascal & Enter Shikari to name a few and, by his own admission, is always on the lookout for a new piece of kit that can produce the fluid creativity he looks for in the control of his rigs.

"I am using a grandMA2 Light on this tour and went to see the guys at Ambersphere Solutions to do some pre-programming on the console. We chatted about the screen that had been spec'd for the tour - it is a new model of LED screen that works as a lighting effect as well as a screen - and Lee House, who is on their technic

USA - In His Presence church in Woodland Hills, California, has always brought a dynamic media element into their church services but has upped the visual quality recently with high resolution LED video panels from Elation Professional. In 2012, an installation of 56 Elation EPV762 LED video panels added high resolution graphics possibilities to their 1000-capacity auditorium, and more recently a large centre screen made up of 90 EZ6 high resolution LED video panels has been added to replace their video projection system.

"The Elation video panels allow us to achieve the wow factor that our pastors were looking for and give us a great digital backdrop to use for sermons, praise of worship and other elements within the church," states David Lewis, who handles media and digital production at the church. "They really help to bring forth the message to the congregatio

UK - Britannia Row Productions has invested further in DiGiCo consoles, with latest SD7 purchase going straight out on the recent Mastercard BRIT Awards.

Watched by over four million television viewers, the ceremony, held at London's O2 Arena, was once again hosted by James Cordon and featured performances from Beyonce, Katy Perry, Arctic Monkeys, Rudimental, Lourdes, Bastille and Bruno Mars, plus a medley from Pharrell Williams and Nile Rogers.

"For the first time on the BRITS I specified DiGiCo SD7 consoles for use on Front of house and Monitors," says Derrick Zieba, audio designer and live sound supervisor for the show. "I had used this console for the first time on the Classic BRITS last year and was amazed by the audio quality, transparency, flexibility and reliability of this board.

"For the BRITS, both the Arctic Monkeys and Bruno Mars requested th

USA - American jam band Moe. thrives on spontaneity for their improvisational music. No two nights are the same. However, their lighting designer Preston Hoffman needed reliable fixtures he could rely on night after night giving the same steady performance. He now counts on Robe Robin Pointes and Robin LEDWash 300s for the features and flexibility he needed for their recent East Coast U.S. winter tour.

Boston-based Hoffman of Pulse Lighting designed, built and operated the tour using 16 x Pointes and 16 LEDWash 300s.

Due to availability, he needed three companies to supply the gear. The main vendor was KM Productions of Long Island, New York, supplemented with Pointes from Main Light Industries in Wilmington, Delaware and LEDWash 300s from TERI Productions of Knoxville, Tennessee. "This tour featured a lot of firsts for me," said Hoffman. "It was my first tour w

UK A slice of 1950s Americana is currently rockin' and rollin' all week long throughout the UK and Ireland, as Happy Days, A New Musical brings The Fonz, Ritchie Cunningham and many other familiar characters from the television series to provincial stages. A Yamaha CL5 digital console is helping to deliver the c-o-o-o-l sound of the era.

Designed by Ben Harrison and supplied by Orbital Sound, the show's audio production features a Yamaha CL5 at front of house, with i/o from two Rio3224-D units. One of these is in the orchestra pit for the band inputs, a combination of microphones and DIs, with the other on stage handling inputs from the cast mics. The AES outputs from the latter unit feed a Yamaha DME64N digital mixing engine, which in turn outputs AES to the front of house PA.

Meanwhile, a PC at FOH with Dante Virtual Soundcard is running Steinberg Nuendo Live, enablin

Rich Pickings - Taylor Swift has returned to the top of Billboard's annual list of music money makers, a title she held in 2012 only to relinquish last year to Madonna. The 24-year-old earned $39.7m (£23.8m) in 2013 from a combination of music sales, royalties and touring, according to the trade publication. Country star Kenny Chesney rose three places to second place, while Justin Timberlake came third. Rock acts Bon Jovi and the Rolling Stones round out this year's top five.

Homecoming - Hit musical Book of Mormon is due to play Salt Lake City for the first time next year, near the location of the Mormon church's headquarters. It will run from July to August at The Capitol Theatre, less than half a mile from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' flagship temple. Written by South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the show pokes fun at two naive m

UK - Event technology specialists Blueprint were recently tasked with the challenge of providing dynamic lighting to enable British chart topping artiste Katy B to make the video promoting her next single, Crying For No Reason.

And so they turned to their inventory of next generation LED tools from SGM, notably the 120 x 2m long LT-200 3D pixel tubes. This was accompanied by 60 of SGM's ILD controllers and a lot of SGM extension cable.

Said Jacob Swan-Hyam, producer at RSA Blackdog, "The tubes added great depth to the video bringing what would traditionally be 2D video out into the space, and allowing the camera to track in through the tubes."

Toby Shipway, Blueprint's SGM technician, added that the SGM LT range of products are incredibly bright for their compact size but still have the finesse to work at much lower intensities making them suitable for film

Germany - LumenRadio will debut "the smallest wireless DMX solution ever seen" at Frankfurt's Prolight+Sound this week.

Available exclusively from LumenRadio, the patent protected CRMXchip is the world's first wireless DMX ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) solution. By using the latest in chip technologies, LumenRadio has managed to reduce the size of a wireless DMX receiver to that of less than a fingernail.

With the 6x6mm CRMXchip, manufacturers can for the first time fully integrate a multi functional wireless DMX receiver into high volume products where cost and size are prioritized without compromising quality or performance. Built on the award-winning CRMX technology, the patent protected CRMXchip is fully compatible with all existing LumenRadio products.

"LumenRadio's CRMXchip is an industry first - a compact, developer friendly chip which

Germany - It's going to be a very busy show for Outline, as they announce the launch of a whole raft of innovative new products at MusikMesse 2014 (stand J70, Hall 8.0).

The best-selling EIDOS range expands yet further with the addition of three new members, the X123W, the 6.5 and the 12 SP:

The EIDOS X123W is a classic multi-purpose problem-solver, combining high power with an asymmetric cabinet design allowing myriad applications. Its use of modern co-axial driver technology (12"/3" LF/HF) allows a very light and compact unit to deliver serious spl.

The EIDOS 6.5 is a super-compact 6.5" + 1" module designed for installation purposes, especially where space is limited but which also requires power and intelligibility. It is also available in virtually any colour to match surroundings where needed.

The EIDOS 12 SP is a very powerful multi-role device co

Germany - The short commands and on-the-fly lighting controls of ETC's Cobalt family are now packaged to take on tour. The new Cobalt 10 lighting desk features the same capacity and functions of the larger Cobalt 20 desk, but is compact enough to take on the road or fit into control rooms with limited space.

"Cobalt 10 is the sporty member of the Cobalt family," says ETC Cobalt product manager Sarah Clausen. "It has high resolution, 12 inch (30cm) multi touch displays that articulate, so programmers can easily pack it into a road case for a touring show or adjust the screens to better see the stage in a small theatre."

Cobalt 10 also has a smaller master playback area than Cobalt 20, with 10 motorised faders and 10 backlit, colour coded endless pots. It has 5,000 channels to control dimmers, LEDs, moving lights, media servers and more, on up to 32 universes

Germany - British pro-audio manufacturer, Audient will be using this year's Musikmesse to showcase ASP880, eight-channel microphone preamplifier and ADC, the first product to be released since Simon Blackwood's acquisition of the company at the end of 2013.

ASP880 features eight of Audient's renowned console mic pres, two JFET D.I instrument inputs, pristine converter technology, variable impedance and variable high pass filters, all part of a versatile feature set neatly packaged in a 1U rack mount unit.

Chief technical officer Tom Waterman explains, "Listening to feedback from Audient users has been essential. As a result, we worked closely with David Dearden to develop a brand new eight channel mic pre combined with the latest Burr-Brown converter technology to ensure the best sound quality throughout.

"ASP880 is the perfect front end to any DAW system" say

Sweden - Having been declared European Capital of Culture 2014 all eyes now turn to the city of Umeå in Sweden. Lumination of Sweden was put in charge of the technical production for the inauguration ceremony, and brought in 36 SGM P-5 wash lights to create the right atmosphere and colour large outdoor spaces for this opening winter weekend of the cultural year. This incorporated the shows, Burning Snow and Lit City.

Burning Snow was performed on the ice of the Umeå River and involved a team of 70 people from Lumination of Sweden, PRG, Lunatx, Groundfloor Production and ARS Electronica along with local volunteers and performers. Meanwhile, Lit City took place at a central location in the city, for a weekend of art and lighting in a snowy and icy environment. This project called upon 30 technicians from Lumination of Sweden.

Lighting designer, T

UK - Three of Universal's newest signings, Sons & Lovers, Eliza & The Bear and Fred Page, have just completed The Satellite Tour with an SSL Live console, supplied by HD Pro Audio.

Production for the 14 date UK tour was handled by Cato Music. Cato's FOH engineer, Jim King, needed a console to meet the tours specific requirements, which included a large number of outputs. He discussed the options with HD Pro's Andy Huffer and decided the SSL Live more than met all the tour's needs. Although new, its ease of operation also required only half a day's training for King to operate with confidence. "When new consoles go on tour we expect a few phone calls regarding operation," commented Huffer, "But we didn't get any on this tour thanks to a good engineer and the logic of the interface that SSL has designed for the Live

"It's a truly suburb console," said Ki

UK - Lighting designer Nick Gray once again brought his imagination and flair to the mix for London Fashion Week AW14, designing lighting for the main BFC showspace at Somerset house which featured up to eight premium shows per day plus a number of interesting and high profile 'offsite' shows.

These included Jasper Conran at the Saatchi Gallery, Julien Macdonald at the Royal Courts of Justice, Roksanda at the Old Sorting Office, New Oxford Street and Anya Hindmarch at Old Billingsgate Market.

Gray brings his distinctive crossover style to the world of fashion show - a dynamic mix of rock 'n roll attitude, industrial chic and a hint of adventure! He particularly enjoys the challenges of working in found spaces 'offsite' and lighting shows in new and different ways that still ensure everyone gets the results they need.

In the main showspace, Marios Schwab and Vivienne Westwood

Russia - Within the newly constructed 42,500 capacity Fisht Olympic Stadium in the developing Russian city of Sochi, the XXII Olympic Winter Games drew to an end with the spectacular closing ceremony.

Just as he had done at the Opening extravaganza 16 days earlier, audio director Scott Willsallen (of Auditoria) designed the technological infrastructure, placing all the transmission on a 24-node Optocore dual redundant ring and working with two different creative teams to fulfil different objectives.

The formal operatic and cultural Opening Ceremony display, creatively designed by Konstantin Ernst and directed by Andrei Boltenko, made way for the more party atmosphere of the Closing Ceremony, directed by Italian Daniele Finzi Pasca. Featuring nearly 800 performers and representing hundreds of years of Russian history, it was an exacting task.

Italy had played a key role this

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