UK - FeONIC is to unveil its latest generation of loudspeaker driver systems, which it says can turn any resonant panel or surface into a loudspeaker. The sounders can be placed onto the hidden side, say the company, so no wiring, speaker grilles or boxes are visible.

Currently aimed at domestic applications, but also likely to attract attention from designers of retail and leisure spaces, FeONIC technology can be used with any audio system with sufficient power rating, replacing conventional speakers in 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 and even 9.1 systems, the company says.

FeONIC says its audio systems can be created from standard plasterboard, MDF, plywood or blockboard, and hardwood floorings, creating a truly integrated, hidden sound system. It also offers the benefits of an even dispersion, rather than the 'sweet spots' associated with conventional loudspeaker technology.

(Lee Baldock)

Australia / Germany - This year's ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt promises to be LSC's biggest and best, the company says. What they have in store for the show is "top secret", with the only clues a teaser advertisement campaign in the run-up to the show.

All they'll say about the new product release is: "It has legs, it's powerful, it's built well, and more importantly it's want you've been asking for."

Alongside the new product release will be the full LSC catalogue including: the maXim control consoles with built in Capture Visualisation Software allowing the user to fully integrate with their programming, and the complete range of dimming and power distribution products.

(Lee Baldock)

USA - Aviom debuted its AV-M8 Mic Input Module at NSCA 2007. Promoted as "ideal for distributing audio in boardrooms and conference rooms", the Aviom AV-M8 Mic Input Module saves contractors time, money, and labour, says the company.

The AV-M8 converts 8 analogue audio channels to a digital stream and provides eight mic-level inputs. It offers plug-and-play simplicity that runs over an easy-to-install Cat 5e cable, requiring no drilling of conduit.

Two channels include a 30dB switchable pad, allowing line-level signals to be connected. Eight channels of digital audio may also be input via ADAT, from a second AV-M8 module. Analogue audio is input via eight latching 5.0mm Euroblock connectors. Each analogue input channel features a set of configuration DIP switches for individually selectable gain settings, +48V phantom power, and low cut filter.

Analogue input chann

USA - Blues System's North American debut at USITT, Phoenix was a great success, according to the company. The product range, manufactured in the UK by Global Design Solutions and specifically designed for backstage lighting applications in the working theatre, won the PLASA 2006 Innovations Award at its European launch last year and Blues System has already been installed at various venues in Europe.

TMB has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Blues System in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. Said Chris Curran, TMB's architectural sales director: "Blues System is truly one of those 'why didn't I think of that?' new products. It solves many backstage lighting problems as well as offering options that were previously impractical. We were almost overwhelmed by the positive response at USITT and also by the various possible new applications that arose during con

USA - Shortly after Sharon Osbourne made the announcement that this year's Ozzfest is free, organisers turned to sponsors to provide added support for the festival's new incarnation as a FREEfest. In stepped Jägermeister, offering its own state-of- the art mobile stage as a secondary stage for the summer's biggest heavy metal festival. And it enlisted Chauvet as a lighting sponsor.

Dubbed "revolutionary" by Osbourne, the Jägermeister stage is a 34ft long, fully self-contained stage complete with a full audio sound system provided by JVC Mobile. The entire PA system, provided by Peavey Electronics and Schecter Guitars, will be hung for optimum sound. Lighting consists mostly of LED-fitted fixtures (COLORpalette and LEDrain 56 washes, LED white Technostrobes) and 10mW Scorpion lasers. All lights are controlled via Chauvet ShowXpress software.

"We are incr

UK / Germany - Visitor registration for PLASA07 (which runs from 9-12 September at Earls Court in London) will be officially launched at the forthcoming Pro Light+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt.

Industry professionals visiting Frankfurt can take advantage of free registration to PLASA07 by visiting the PLASA Stand (J80) in Hall 8.0 where special registration forms will be available.

12,852 (ABC audited) trade buyers attended PLASA06 and the 2007 event - which has been extensively redesigned - is set to draw much bigger numbers. Re-bookings for exhibition space at Earls Court 1 and 2 are strong, ensuring that PLASA07 will be the key exhibition this year for emerging technologies and innovative ideas.

Online registration will be available from Monday 2 April enabling potential visitors to sign up via the newly redesigned and user-friendly website which will serve as the Informa

USA - Aviom introduced its new AV-P2 Output Module at NSCA 2007. It is designed for use in a wide variety of applications. The AV-P2 offers simple plug-and-play installation and secure 'set-and-forget' channel configuration.

Audio is distributed to the AV-P2 over standard Cat 5e cables, using Aviom's A-Net digital audio protocol. A-Net supports realtime distribution with sub-millisecond latency, and long cable runs up to 500ft/150m.

There is no limit to the number of devices that can be daisy chained, or to the number of parallel splits in a single system, says the company.

Power can be supplied to the AV-P2 with an external DC power supply or over the Cat 5e cable (with an A-Net Distributor). Additionally, Pro16 A-Net audio streams can be transmitted over single- or multi-mode fibre optics using certain standard third-party media converters.

The AV-P2 has reversible mount

USA - APT will introduce its new coding technology apt-X Live, to US Broadcasters at this year's NAB show in Las Vegas. "apt-X Live sets a new benchmark of audio quality, low latency and error resilience," explains APT's commercial director, Jon McClintock. "The industry is demanding ever greater bandwidth efficiency and we sought to provide a solution which meets these demands without compromising on the core competencies associated with apt-X."

apt-X Live has already proven its audio quality in a series of independent listening tests where participants were unable to discern any difference between 24bit, 48kHz PCM Audio and apt-X Live, says the company. Shure Inc has signed a licensing agreement to incorporate the technology into its wireless live performance products.

(Jim Evans)

Sweden - The 2007 W-DMX product catalogue is now available for download at the Wireless Solution website www.wirelessdmx.com. The company will also have full colour print editions at Prolight & Sound in Frankfurt.

The new catalogue features the entire W-DMX Generation 3 line, the newest feature-packed product range for Wireless DMX. Generation 3 includes new and improved features such as easy overview of signal strength and battery power, plus full implementation of DMX over Ethernet.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Visual Productions, the makers of VisualDMX and Matrix Mania! will be presenting the Canvix dedicated Matrix Server at ProLight + Sound.

Visual Productions has "decided to allow their future generation of lighting control software to be led by the current market developments in lighting: namely LED technology". Canvix has been designed for the exclusive use with LED matrixes.

Working with the established hardware available from Visual Productions, Canvix tackles the control of matrixes with "a unique concept": instead of controlling the LEDs individually, Canvix bundles together all fixtures to form one whole canvas; a 2-dimensional area on which effects and graphics can be applied. This powerful approach allows for sophisticated video-alike visuals, as well as fast pixel painting for the easy creation of graphics, says the company.

By reusing c

USA The FogScreen projection screen has been recognised for its innovative design at the 3rd annual Bottom Line Design Awards, sponsored by creative consultancy frog design and Business 2.0 magazine.

"For us, good design is about good business," says Doreen Lorenzo, president and CEO of frog design. "The Bottom Line Design Awards celebrate innovations that not only appeal to us visually, but grow businesses, stimulate markets and change the societies in which we operate."

Mika Kolvula, CEO FogScreen Inc, states, "If you are looking to draw attention to your brand at trade shows, in retail stores, night clubs, or entrances to any event, you should contact us. FogScreen projection screens create a dry thin fog wall onto which video-quality images can be projected, creating the world's only walkthrough screen."

(Jim Evans)

UK - PRG has bought a 30-way Kinesys automation system which has gone straight out on the Lionel Richie tour, for which PRG is the lighting contractor.

The Kinesys system was specified for the lengthy UK and European leg of the tour by show designer and LD Chris Medvitz. PRG's account handler Carol Croft says, "We had been looking at buying a system for some time, and then this came up - so the time was absolutely right."

On the Richie tour, the Kinesys system's Elevation 1+ motor drives are working in conjunction with 28 tonne Lodestar JJ vari-speed motors, being controlled by Kinesys Vector software, operated by Blaine Dracup.

The Motors are suspending nine lighting pods, eight of them each contain six Vari*Lites, and the ninth has ten 5K Skypan fixtures. All are hung over the stage, with the Skypan pod right above the piano riser.

The pods are static for most

Germany - Sunlite is showing a broad spread of its products at ProLight + Sound and reports that all the company's software products are 100% compatible with the new Microsoft operating system, Windows VISTA. All software have been successfully tested and work perfectly on this system, says Sunlite.

"As it is expected, all of our software will take advantage of the new Windows VISTA features in the future. Our engineers are already working on new releases that use these features, which will be launched throughout the year," adds the company.

(Jim Evans)

UK - XL Video is supplying video projection and cameras to the Faithless To All New Arrivals tour, forming an integral element of LD and visual designer Ivan Morandi's provocative live show aesthetics. Morandi has worked with the band for seven years and has always seen lighting and moving images as a potentially symbiotic phenomenon, however this is the first time that Faithless have gone really large on the video.

XL Video's Des Fallon is project manager. He says, "Ivan is highly talented, knows exactly what he wants and his work always looks incredible. It's great to be part of the equation again following last year's Placebo tour."

Morandi wanted the Faithless show to look 'contemporary psychedelic' to match the pumping, dance energy of the band. Onstage are five 10 x 7 ft landscape format screens arranged in two staggered rows, three on the top, two on th

UK - Hawthorn were contracted by SML Events to supply a self-standing truss tower and screen for The Big Art Project for Comic Relief, sponsored by Muller and Visit London, held in Trafalgar Square last week. 54 small 1 sq.m canvasses were assembled to create one giant piece of art 6m wide and 9m tall.

Celebrities and VIP's painted the majority of the canvasses, however a few were painted by members of the public in Trafalgar Square on the morning of the event itself. Afterwards the canvasses were auctioned off to raise money for Red Nose Day 2007.

Hawthorn's specialist rigging team used a Prolyte ST self-climbing truss tower, complete with two one-ton double breaked Verlinde motors, and over 12 tons of ballast to secure the structure.

Hawthorn's senior rigger, Jono Toon commented, "it was a pleasure to be doing something to support such a worthwhile charity, and

UK - K-Klass, the award-winning DJ and Dance remix consortium, is celebrating its latest No.1 in the UK's Dance charts with its 2007 version of Rhythm Is A Mystery.The single, which originally entered the charts in 1990 when it went to No. 3, marks K-Klass' first hit since acquiring a pair of JBL Professional LSR4300 studio monitors, supplied by Harman Pro UK dealer, Liverpool-based Studiocare Professional Audio.

Andy Williams, who founded K-Klass in 1989 with Paul Roberts, Russell Morgan and Carl Thomas, says: "We recently started work in our new pre-production studio in Wrexham, but the small monitors we were using were not giving us the sound we wanted. After looking at a number of alternatives, we chose the LSR4300s because their low frequency correction tool gave us such a fantastic sound. This is particularly important with Dance music where you really need to

Germany - High End Systems chose ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt to launch the newest member of the Wholehog family: the Road Hog, billed as a new breed of lighting console designed for speed and affordability.

Brad Schiller, HES Director of control systems development, says, "The Road Hog console has been developed as a lower cost alternative, allowing a wide range of users to experience the benefits of the Wholehog operating software. Its compact size and fast operating speed provide a sleek package that will fit nicely into various markets including corporate events, houses of worship, smaller touring shows and rental applications. We are pleased to strengthen the Wholehog family with another superb lighting console."

The Road Hog console provides 2048 DMX channels of control, offering fast performance speed. Two internal touch screens display data and allow quick a

Germany - Novation, the UK-based manufacturers of synthesisers and software control solutions, announced at ProLight + Sound the signing of a partnership with Italian software company and Almateq brand, Overloud,experts in the field of accurate Guitar Amp simulation.

This collaboration falls in line with the future direction of Novation, in creating a broader group of products for all musicians, including today's guitarists, says the company.

Rob Jenkins, Focusite/Novation's director of product strategy, said, "I look forward to a future developing products with Overloud, and as a guitarist myself, I especially look forward to working with Thomas Serafini. His expertise in guitar amp simulation technology is beyond compare."

Thomas Serafini, VP R&D Manager of Overloud, added, "I'm really excited about this partnership. It will be a pleasure to work with the No

Germany - This week's ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt saw the release of Liquid Mix V2.0, a new software release for Liquid Mix, Focusrite's DSP-powered dynamic convolution mix solution, delivering 32 channels of EQ and Compression simultaneously

The new software release will be available for free to download early in April 2007 and delivers a number of improvements over the original software. The new release makes Liquid Mix a no-brainer for producers and engineers wanting classic vintage processing, but with the flexibility of the digital world, says the company.

Liquid Mix v2.0 now features an EQ side-chain on the compressor, providing an additional one-band EQ to be fed into the side-chain of any classic compressor emulation. Combined with the existing 'Listen' feature, this provides a solution for high quality de-essing and more creative compression.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Biamp announced at ProLight + Sound the appointment of Claudio Berstein as its newest product application specialist. Berstein will report to Kiley Henner, Biamp's technical support manager, and joins Chris Flanagan, Michael Erwin, Kevin Jacobson, Martin Bonsoir and Antoine Rouget to provide Biamp customers with worldwide support.

"With the addition of Claudio, we continue to expand the level of support that we are capable of providing," said Henner. "Claudio brings a great deal of experience with him, in addition to a love for audio that we knew would make him a great fit for Biamp. We welcome Claudio to the team and are looking forward to great things with him, both on our team and with our customers."

Berstein comes to Biamp from Shure Incorporated, where he worked as both an application engineer and, most recently, as a product specialist in t

Germany - Steinberg Media Technologies launched a new entry-level music studio at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt this week. Sequel features studio-grade technologies within a "one-window" user interface that promises to "open up music creation and performance to anyone with a computer", and requires no knowledge of music or recording to produce great-sounding songs and mixes in just a few minutes, says the company.

"Sequel is a brand-new and exciting way to experience making music on a computer," states Arnd Kaiser, senior product manager for music technology at Steinberg. "Combining intuitive tools to record, edit, mix and perform music with great-sounding loops, instruments and effects, Sequel is the perfect first step into music production and performance."

(Jim Evans)

UK - US rock band Nine Inch Nails is currently touring the UK and Europe with a JBL Professional Vertec line array sound system, distributed by Harman Pro UK and supplied by Liverpool-based Adlib Audio.

The tour, which kicked off in Portugal in February, will see the band playing a variety of venues in the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Scandinavia before it moves to Australia and the Far East over the Summer.

Andy Dockerty, head of Adlib Audio, says: "The JBL Vertec line array was specified by the band's front of house sound engineer, Pete Keppler, who wanted to replicate the system he'd been using for their US tour. We have worked with Pete on several occasions in the past and he is always happy with the service he receives from us."

As the long-time front of house engineer for artists such as David Bowie, Keppler is

UK - Harman Pro UK has confirmed the venues for its 2007 product roadshows, which are taking place in mid-May at three different locations around the British Isles: at the Temple Bar Music Centre in Dublin on Monday, 14 May, at the Stanley Theatre at Liverpool University on Wednesday, 16 May, and at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford on Friday, 18 May.

The roadshows allow UK and Irish dealers and end-users the opportunity to check out the latest products from the companies in the Harman Group, including AKG mics, Crown amps, dbx DSP and BSS venue-management systems, JBL loudspeakers, Soundcraft digital consoles, and Lexicon signal processing. Harman will also have some of their product specialists on hand to give presentations on how to get the best out of the new equipment, and to engage in detailed question-and-answer sessions afterwards.

This year, AKG specialis

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