Italy / Australia - Announced at the NAMM exhibition in Anaheim, California, Italian manufacturer FBT says it has appointed Innovative Music Australia Pty Ltd as its Australian distributor for its full range of pro audio products including the company's wide offering of loudspeaker systems, Mixing Consoles and Audio Contractor products, effective January 15th, 2010. "This is a momentous occasion for Innovative Music," comments Steve Lincoln-Smith CEO of Innovative Music Australia. With more than 40 years' experience manufacturing some of the world's best pro audio products FBT is an incredible fit with our other product lines, and we are looking forward to expanding their sales into the Australian Market. Together with FBT, we are now able to offer the finest Pro Audio solutions in Australia."

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Mick Perrin Productions (MPP) - one of Europe's foremost promoters of comedy tours - has forged a closerelationship with Sennheiser.

Eddie Izzard, one of the UK's leading stand-up acts, is currently on a major tour of UK and Europe arenas with Sennheiser equipment, but the relationship between MPP and Sennheiser goes back much further, starting with George Glossop, Izzard's long term sound designer.

"The relationship started with Eddie's production via Sennheiser US and, separately, through rental company Delicate Productions and Scott Scherban, who used to mix Eddies arena shows," says Sennheiser artist relations manager Mark Saunders.

"George and Andy Lillywhite (Sennheiser UK's chief engineer) also go back a long way on the technical side of things and when Eddie's arena European arena tour was booked, that's when my phone rang and things have rolled o

The Netherlands - Bosch Security Systems will present the new CCS 900 Ultro Discussion System and the Vari-directional Array, a new active line array from Bosch at ISE next month.

The CCS 900 Ultro System offers new design features and extra functions, including a patent-pending 'Possible-To-Speak' indication. The design of the new CCS 900 Ultro Discussion units "delivers superior acoustical performance and reflects the attention to detail for which Bosch is famous". Designed for installation flexibility, the system is suitable for small- to medium-scale meeting areas.

The new Vari-directional Array boasts intelligent software for fast configuration. Additionally, the Vari-directional Array enables longer range coverage of up to 50m, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

UAE - The Burj Khalifa in Dubai - the tallest manmade structure ever built - was subject to sumptuous opening celebrations with sound, lighting and fireworks synchronised by Delta Sound.

Costing over $1.5 billion dollars and measuring an awe-inspiring 828m - over half a mile - from tip to toe, the eyes of the world were on the official opening ceremony which took place on 4 January. Delta Sound Dubai was tasked with the supply of the sound and communications for the event, with Andy Jackson designing the entire system. The company also claimed an unofficial record into the bargain.

Delta had been approached by Prisme International, a French-based event management company, which Delta has worked with on previous events. "This was the first time that Prisme had specifically requested that we do the sound for an event like this, so it was a definite feather in our cap,"

France / The Netherlands - Sennheisser Netherlands has resigned from its position as L-Acoustics distributor for Holland, effective 28 February 2010.

L-Acoustics sales manager Tim Mc Call comments: "Sennheiser Netherlands has always proved to be a professional and dedicated partner for L-Acoustics. Whilst we are sad to be parting company, we wish them well for the future. Meanwhile we are looking forward to building on the strong base L-Acoustics already enjoys in the Netherlands and to welcoming contacts old and new at the forthcoming ISE show in Amsterdam."

(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - Following last year's successful participation, Alcons Audio will again be exhibiting with its general product line and the AV / Digital Cinema product line at Integrated Systems Europe in Amsterdam. Main focus this year will be on two products.

As a result of the increasing interest in Alcons sound systems for sound with picture, Alcons will be introducing the CRMS system. The three-way reference system is designed for A/V projects, high quality screening rooms, but also for high quality home theatre installations. A special design feature is that the MHF section acts both as MHF section for the main/front system, as well as full-range surround system. This results in a uniform sound stage throughout the entire listening area.

In addition to the CRMS, the LR7 micro pro-ribbon line-array system will be on show. The smallest member of Alcons' successful pro-ri

UK - Scottish PA company, Ward Steedsy Associates employed its Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system to manage the recent People's Postcode Lottery Winners' Party in Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, where nearly £2m was handed out to prize winners.

Hosted by Scottish presenter, Angus Purden, the Big Postcode Rollover Party included an exclusive live performance from chart-topping rapper, Chipmunk. Ward Steedsy's iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-112 Control Surface, managed FOH audio for the event.

"This was the fourth time we have used our iLive system for a Postcode Lottery Party and we have previous event settings saved on a USB stick, so the set-up time was greatly reduced," says joint MD, Steven Ward. "We provided all the FOH kit, including separate feeds for the video tape, the camera crew's headphone mixes and the

USA - Sting is to lend his support to the Hear the World initiative, a global hearing loss campaign that helps raise awareness about the importance of hearing and the consequences of hearing loss.

Sting joins a host of other celebrity ambassadors including Jude Law, Elle Macpherson, Annie Lennox, Jerry Hall and Peter Gabriel. Each supporter has been photographed by musician and photographer Bryan Adams holding the Hear the World pose - with one hand cupped behind their ear to convey conscious hearing.

Over 800 million people worldwide, more than 16 percent of the world's population, have hearing loss and experts predict this will to increase to 1.1 billion by 2015. In the UK an estimated 8.5 million people have hearing loss and struggle for up to 15 years before seeking advice. Studies have shown that this has a significantly negative effect on a person's social, emotional and

India - New Mumbai-based rental company Omkar Audio has chosen Proel amplifiers to drive its line array loudspeaker systems, and has taken delivery of eight Proel PSW2600 for mid-range duties and eight HPD1500 for HF. In addition to these amplifiers, Omkar Audio has added Proel's ASP48 active splitter,EZ-Curve equaliser and a DSO480 crossover to its stock.

The system was supplied by Global Marketing, Proel's distributor for India. Mr Pandarinath founder of Omkar Audio said, "We are very excited by the sonic quality of these Italian products, and are planning to increase our inventory with more Proel sound reinforcement equipment."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Dominating the late night high street retail bars for the last two decades, Newcastle-based integrators Sound Power has standardised on PR Lighting moving spot and wash lights for its rig dynamics.

Over the years, the company has delivered literally hundreds of sites for leading high street brands, one of them being Yates's - who have an established culture for high-specification technical interiors.

"In fact we have been using Pilot 150s regularly since around 1996. It's a totally failsafe product and we also use them in Yates' bars all the time," said Sound Power director, David Ridout.

When clients require more ambient FX than strident pulsed strobe lighting, Sound Power turn to the Pilot Wash 250 to provide a gentle wash to colour change the walls "When trading patterns change to the evening the constant wash of colour from floor to ceiling is exactly

UK - Allen & Heath has created a one-off special edition of its Xone:4D mixer controller for DJ endorser, Paul van Dyk.

"The 4D is the centrepiece of my set up and is based on the way I DJ. I have two computers on stage that are synced to each other: one has the synths, keyboards and controllers hooked up to it and the other is full of the audio material. The Xone:4D gives me control of everything I am using," explains van Dyk. "I wanted rotary knobs instead of faders to give me finer control of the volume, and the feel is more precise."

Used for the first time at ADE, Paul's modified version includes VCA rotary faders rather than the standard linear faders. There is also custom-designed silk screening for the faceplate with Paul's name in UV paint.

"One of the great things about the 4D is the great sound and the fact that everything on the mixer can

Ireland - Located 30 miles from Dublin, the Riverbank Arts Centre in the picturesque town of Newbridge, County Kildare, has a catchment area that is as wide and varied as the productions it stages. And when the venue needed to upgrade its audio system, a complete Yamaha solution fitted the bill.

The Riverbank Arts Centre was able to secure funding to invest in a Yamaha audio system, to replace a system which wasn't performing up to the standards required.

"We put on everything from films to live bands and a wide range of theatre productions, everything from local to internationally-renowned shows," says the Riverbank's technical coordinator Damien Dollard.

"The system needed to be very flexible, deliver surround sound and we also felt it was the right time to 'go digital', in order to maximise that flexibility. We looked at a number of systems, tested a lot of

USA - Adamson Systems Engineering supplied Waves Audio with their sound reinforcement needs at NAMM 2010. All though Adamson did not have a booth at NAMM in Anaheim, a couple of their latest Point Series boxes were placed in the Waves booth to give them the necessary volume boost during their presentations and training programme at the infamously loud show floor.

Waves required a solid reinforcement solution for their NAMM exhibit booth, where they had some of the world's top mixing engineers including Chris Lord-Alge, Eddie Kramer, Jack Joseph Puig, and Tony Maserati, talk about their work with various Waves tools. Adamson's assignment was simple: to deliver clear and coherent speech and audio over the noise floor of the show, without shouting or disturbing other exhibitors.

The set-up at NAMM could not have been simpler.The plug-and-play package incorporated two of Adamson's

UAE - The seven star Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, with its grand marble entrance and gold leaf atrium overlooking the Persian Gulf, is one of the world's most spectacular buildings.

Operated by the Kempinski Hotel Group, among its many corporate conference and meeting room facilities is a giant ballroom. Measuring a massive 80m x 25m it can accommodate up to 2,800 people.

AV system integrators, Bond Communications, were recently tasked with replacing and retro-fitting a new sound system that would not only serve the ballroom space as a complete unit, or in its three separate, divisible modes, but do so discreetly, aesthetically and with simple control and operation.

The system also had to be sufficiently flexible to deliver high spec intelligibility across the frequency spectrum for presentations but also be capable of concert style reinforcement from a conventional L

UK - PLASA Focus: Leeds 2010, which takes place on Tuesday 27 - Wednesday 28 April 2010, has already surpassed last year's record breaking event - not only selling out all its exhibition space by the New Year, but adding no fewer than 15 new exhibitors in the process.

As the venue reaches full capacity and with 1,000 visitors already registered to attend, the demand for a high quality show for the North of England's entertainment and installation technology community is self-evident. PLASA Focus is once again on track to bring the latest products from around the industry to a region that looks set to become the location for an annual creative forum for the North.

Since the show and its website were launched in early December, both exhibition halls have completely sold out. New exhibitors Adam Hall, Chauvet Lighting, Cloud Electronics, GDS, Hi-Lights, Le Mark, Lumen Radio, Pola

The Netherlands - The New Year's event Top 2000 In Concert was not only an appropriate end of the year 2009, It was also the closing ceremony of the eleventh edition of the annual music marathon on Radio 2.

The closing concert took place in Amsterdam's Heineken Music Hall and was broadcast on Radio 2 and the second Dutch television channel on 1 January 2010, immediately after the clock struck 0:00 marking the end of 2009.

This eleventh edition saw national and international artists performing their own song plus one personal favourite from the Top2000. The artists included Acda en de Munnik, Ruth Jacot, Spandau Ballet, Jamie Cullum, Björn Again, Lee Towers, Rowwen Hèze and Jeroen van der Boom.

The live-sound was engineered by The Ribbon Network member Hof Audio from Haren, the Netherlands, supplying FOH and stage monitoring. The system was designed by Bart Hof. The

The Netherlands - Sheffield, UK-based Cloud Electronics is launching the MA60MEDIA at ISE. A simplified version, the MA60, is also available without on-board digital music player.

The MA60MEDIA is billed as "an exciting new development which combines the reliability and proven versatility of Cloud mixer-amplifiers with the convenience of an on-board media player in a single, compact (2U, half-rack width) unit".

The unit plays MP3 or WMA files directly from a USB device or SD memory card plugged into the front panel of the unit, via a simple set of playback controls. Optionally, music source selection and level may be controlled remotely. All standard data rates and sampling frequencies are supported.

The MA60MEDIA may be configured to suit most paging systems. The balanced mic input (phantom power available), can be mixed with one of four music inputs; one of these

USA - In a metropolis obsessed with the biggest, best and costliest, CityCenter Las Vegas moves to the front of the class. At a price tag approaching $11 billion, CityCenter is the largest privately funded development in the United States. This vast 76-acre, mixed-use complex encompasses not only a mega-size resort and casino (the 61-story Aria), but also three somewhat smaller boutique hotel/residential towers as well the sprawling, upscale Crystals retail and entertainment district.

CityCenter also deploys fully networked AV technology on an unprecedented scale, with the core network technologies for audio systems - as well as the lion's share of all connected audio equipment - supplied by the Harman Professional Group.

"This is rumored to be the largest consolidated AV system design in history," reports Darren Smith, who has lived and breathed CityCenter for three

The Netherlands - Barix will introduce Store and Play, a new FTP/HTTP download and playback application for in-store audio programming at the upcoming ISE show in Amsterdam.

"While digital signage and out-of-home networks remain the big buzz for in-store entertainment and advertising, many businesses continue to rely on audio as their main resource for reaching customers at the point of purchase," said Johannes G. Rietschel, CEO and founder of Barix AG.

"Recent studies have proven that the right mix of music and advertising can have a significant influence on brand perception and in-store atmosphere, de-stressing both customers and employees to respectively increase purchasing and raise productivity. The Barix Store and Play application can deliver these benefits to retailers and hospitality businesses that need a less expensive, premium-quality alternative to p

USA - dbx Professional Products has announced the launch of the newly redesigned dbx Professional Products website (www.dbxpro.com). The site features improved navigation, and more targeted resources geared toward the markets dbx serves.

Featuring individual areas on the website focused on the installed, portable, tour, and studio sound markets, website visitors can now more easily navigate through the site to find dbx products that are most appropriate for their specific applications, says the company.

"We developed our new website with the goal of giving our customers and dealers a greater resource to information about our full product range and the continued support and service they have come to expect from dbx. In addition to increased functionality, we have created a better resource for communicating new information that will allow us to better serve our customers,&q

India - Soundcraft's new Si3 digital desk is receiving high exposure on the Indian sub-continent, thanks to the support of New-Delhi based rental company, Dhawan Electricals Pvt.

Having already used the board to mix one of India's leading rock bands Agnee this autumn, sound engineer Yogesh Dhawan, says that the Si3 has subsequently enjoyed a heavy tour of duty. "Pathways World School went crazy when I told them that we were going digital for this year's Annual Day," he said.

The two-day Founders Weekend at the exclusive school in early December featured non-stop entertainment on its 30-acre campus, under the theme of the school's motto, Learn, Work, Play, Think, LIVE!.

Over the weekend of festivities Dhawan ended up making around 25 cues for each event and used almost 37 channels on the board as a programme of Indian classical music, orchestras, theatre (inv

USA - Meyer Sound has announced CAL, a new series of self-powered steerable column array loudspeakers that offer "unprecedented control and low-profile aesthetics". The Meyer Sound CAL steerable column array loudspeakers feature vertical coverage control and low-distortion sound. Without sacrificing any power, the vertical beam can be angled up or down 30 degrees and can be configured with vertical beam widths from five to 60 degrees. Multiple or split beams can be used as needed to fit the application.

Using a range of vertical control presets programmed for the steerable column array loudspeakers, system integrators can choose the angle and dispersion to accurately project sound where needed while avoiding surfaces that interfere with speech signal transmissions. For acoustically challenging spaces such as churches, mosques, airports, cruise ships, stadiums, and them

UK - Llanelli- based AV integration specialists PAI recently completed the roll-out of bespoke narrow bezel LCD panel technology for a series of the Reiss mens and womenswear retail stores in central London.

The locations - Barrett Street; Kings Road, Chelsea; Kent House, Oxford Circus and Selfridges in Oxford Street - are some of the busiest locations for the popular high street brand.

PAI was contacted by Reiss's design team who were seeking a technical solution to deliver their concept for a new in-store promotion system requiring an anamorphic screen measuring approximately 1.8M high and 0.6M wide.

PAI won the contract for offering design realisation at the right price and the ability to deliver a fully working end product within the client's demanding programme.

"We reviewed the brief and came up with a simple cost-effective approach," reports PAI's technica

The Netherlands - Duran Audio will be showing two new products at ISE in Amsterdam. On display will be the AXYS Octadrive DSP and the AXYS PB400.

The PB400 is the latest product in the AXYS IndustryAmp range, which was first introduced to complement the AXYS ADC and ABF loudspeaker ranges. The PB400 is a 4 channel 250W per channel power amplifier, with built in DSP, which is available with either low impedance or 70V/100V line output stages. The 100V unit has a CobraNet interface and a wide range of features as standard.

The Octadrive DSP is designed for use as a high performance line driver that can be used for a variety of situations and forms an interface between third party systems and AXYS products. The unit has eight analogue line level outputs (all with pilot tone generators and individual processing) and on board DSP. The unit also comes complete with a CobraNet inter

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