USA - The biggest stars in country music gathered at the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville on 9 June for Country Music Television's annual awards show. This year's show, which came on the heels of the May floods in Nashville that saw widespread damage and loss of life, gave a much needed boost to a devastated community.

Lighting design was by Tom Kenny, who has designed looks for some of the music industry's biggest names and events over the years. He commented, Nashville had just been through some terrible flooding and this show proved how strong a community the city is. The show celebrated the city's rich musical culture with great success and record-breaking ratings.

Compliments on the lighting design and the overall feel of the show (the stunning scenery was by Anne Brahic) have been many. The show was produced by Jesse Ignatovich and Chris Choun with direction by th

USA - BSUN Media Systems, a full service audio design, sales and installation provider, recently worked with GoVision, a Daktronics rental partner, to provide a Supersize Surprise for a series of special events at LuLu's restaurant at Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores, AL.

When tropical storm Alex forced the postponement of a Gulf Shores charity concert to benefit victims of the BP oil spill, LuLu's was left without an act to entertain the large crowds expected on 30 June 30 and 1 July. Fortunately, when your name is Lucy Buffett, you've got an ace up your sleeve. Lucy convinced her brother, Jimmy Buffett, to make an impromptu, surprise appearance with his Coral Reefer Band at her harbor-side restaurant and bar on 30 June.

Special accommodations for staging, video, sound and other logistics were made last minute to enable the legendary performer to do what he does best. BS

USA - Audio-Technica reports that its microphones are the choice of monitor engineer Kevin Glendinning, who recently wrapped a high-profile gig for Alicia Keys at London's O2 Arena. Glendinning, who has also worked with longtime Audio-Technica users Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani and Linkin Park, selected a quartet of wireless Audio-Technica Artist Elite AEW-T4100 microphones (in conjunction with 5000 Series receivers) for Keys and her three backing singers.

Alicia is a phenomenal singer, Glendinning says, and the power she has is quite incredible. So it's really important that we use microphones that not only deliver beautiful tone, but that can also cope with the volume that she puts out. I've used the AEW-T4100 mics for a long time and they've proven themselves over and over as being incredibly durable as well as awesome-sounding, so they're the perfect choice for her.

Gle

UK - Milton Keynes Dons' stadium has recently opened a luxury hotel, complete with pitchside views and high-specification event / conference facility. At the heart of it is a Yamaha audio system.

The stadium has been home to a Yamaha LS9-16 since it opened, used for announcements and background music, and club chairman Pete Winkelman is well aware of Yamaha being located nearby. So when the Doubletree Hotel was opened within the stadium, the company was the natural choice for the sound system installed in its Ballroom.

The 50m x 22m room can be used in a variety of ways, as a single space or divided in up to three separate rooms by the use of moveable acoustic screens. Winkelman approached Yamaha with a tough brief - to provide a system that was extremely versatile, could be controlled by novice users and would provide high quality audio for speech purposes, but could still de

Greece - In Platanias, a popular beach town located 10km from Chania on the island of Crete, a two century-old building greets you by the crashing waves. Outside banners and posters advertise A New Sound Experience at the historic locale, which has operated as the Mylos club since 1993. It's a popular stop for both locals and the thousands of annual visitors who venture in to hear internationally acclaimed DJ's.

The owners, brothers George and Stelios Varouxakis recently began looking for a new sound system and decided on Adamson.

"It is quite remarkable that a club has operated under the same name, ownership and philosophy for 18 solid years" comments Alexios Ganas, the club's technical consultant, and installations technician at DNA. "The previous system installed was an equally old used ElectroVoice MT-2 which partially replaced a system which caught f

UK - Karl Chapman has joined Midas Klark Teknik in the newly-created role of sales manager, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). The move continues the manufacturer's ongoing drive to provide dedicated sales support across all global territories.

Chapman, who has enjoyed a long career in pro audio, joins the company after 15 years in European sales at console manufacturer Soundcraft. Prior to this, he held positions at Amek and Mitsubishi Electric UK and Neve Electronics.

"I'm delighted to be joining Midas Klark Teknik," says Chapman. "It's clear that the company has been very active in the world of digital, and I am looking forward to working with John Oakley and the sales team to establish an even stronger presence in the markets of Europe, the Middle East and Africa."

Adds John Oakley, general manager of Midas Klark Teknik, "Karl is one of the best

USA - MediaMatrix by Peavey has announced the new Nion nE, a powerful DSP platform in the tradition of the legacy Nion products designed for cost-efficiency and mid-market applications. At a lower entry cost, the NION nE brings the power and flexibility of nWare to a broader array of designers and contractors, says the company.

"We are thrilled with the prospect of bringing the depth and flexibility of nWare to the broadest scope of the contracting market," said Kevin Ivey, general manager of Peavey Commercial Audio. "The new Nion nE provides all of the core capabilities of the Nion platform at a new lower price point, opening the capabilities of the Nion and nWare to a new and larger range of consultants and contractors."

The nE will support up to 32 channels of analogue audio, and up to 64 channels of AES digital audio via four Nio card slots in the nE fr

UK - Void Acoustics has announced the launch of its new range of four-channel amplifiers, The Infinite QX.

The range, based on the Infinite X architecture features three models - Infinite QX4 with 4 x 600W at 4ohms, Infinite QX5 with 4 x 1000W at 4ohms and Infinite QX6 with 4 x 1200W at 4 ohms.

The QX series makes use of a newly developed advanced mosfet output stage, which allows the highest fidelity and gives maximum reliability, says the company.

To further enhance the flexibility of the QX series of amplifiers every channel also features a fully adjustable crossover filter. Each 24dB/oct L-R crossover can be configured as either Hi Pass or Lo Pass at any frequency between 70 Hz to 5Hs.

(Jim Evans)

USA - ETLive, the forum for presenting live audio products in a real-world concert staged setting, will once again be presented 22-24 October in Las Vegas during the annual LDI show, in parking lot Silver 1, directly in front of the Las Vegas Convention Centre.

ETLive, will feature two types of demonstration formats. The first format will present up to six stages of live performance demonstrations in a round-robin format. Each stage will have a band performance of multiple genres presenting the full capabilities of a complete sound system as would be presented in a real-world concert environment.

The second format, new this year, is a seventh stage, presenting a Compact Solution loudspeaker demonstration. This stage is designed to present loudspeaker choices for the smaller listening environment for the House of Worship, corporate or music venue environmen

The Netherlands - Void Acoustics reports a major new club installation in Amsterdam, involving its signature Air Motion triple horns and the new Trinity X sub. The brainchild of successful Dutch event organiser and promoter Sander Groet, AIR is located on the former site of iT club and is packed with the latest audio visual technologies and innovative systems. The club features an interior design by Marcel Wanders, and can accommodate audiences of up to 1300.

Finding the right sound system involved a major search. as Sjoerd Wynia - one of the three directors behind AIR, comments, "We started out with a bare shell that fortunately already had a thick layer of sound isolation already in place - the architect obviously knew of the site's history. The sound system is the very heart of the club, and we looked at lots of different options. Void invited us to check out the sound a

Chile - dBTechnologies reports that Chilean distributor Audiomusica has now extended its coverage into Bolivia and Peru, after considerable success in the Chilean market.

Armando Gotelli, founder of Audiomusica says, "We are very proud and honoured to announce the new alliance formed by Audiomusica and dBTechnologies to distribute dB products in the Bolivian and Peruvian markets.

"Audiomusica is an international company specialising in the retail and distribution of professional audio equipment and musical instruments. For over 20 years we have developed this business, becoming one of South America's leaders in the industry."

A demo tour of dBTechnologies' top lines will kick off at the end of September, incorporating Chile as well as key areas in Bolivia & Peru. This will give Audiomusica's current and future customers the chance to hear dBTechnologies in sit

USA - Audio-Technica has introduced the AT2021 Cardioid Condenser Microphone. Designed for home studio and live applications, the low-profile AT2021 offers an extended frequency response, high maximum SPL and wide dynamic range.

he microphone's condenser design provides studio-quality performance for vocal and instrument applications, and is "outstanding for acoustic guitar, overheads, piano and group vocals". The AT2021 is also available packaged with the AT2020 in the AT2041SP Studio Pack.

Corrosion-resistant contacts from the microphone's gold-plated XLRM-type connector, in addition to the mic's rugged design and construction, ensure consistent, reliable performance and durability for the user, says the company. The unit's cardioid polar pattern rejects pickup of sounds from the sides and rear, improving isolation of the desired sound source.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Evadale TX's High School's drama department had to wait a long time for the resources to replace their auditorium's ageing sound system, but now the school has taken a major leap forward with the installation of a new Entasys column line array system from Community Professional Loudspeakers.

Brent Thornhill of Silsbee, Texas-based Southwest Building Systems (SBS) reports, "Their old sound system was a set of horn loudspeakers that had been in place for nearly 50 years. Coverage was pretty much non-existent anywhere off-axis of the horns, which meant most of the seats, suffered from poor intelligibility. It was pretty frustrating for them."

The original goal was to replace the horns with a distributed system of in-ceiling loudspeakers. But the age of the building resulted in an unforeseen snag. "When we had a look at the ceiling we realised it was made of a

UK - A 'condemned' Victorian Grade II-listed church in Wales has been saved from destruction, renovated, and installed with a JBL sound system.

The Diocese of St Asaph, serving the Anglican churches in North-east Wales, had been looking to close Holy Trinity Church in Holywell, Flintshire. However, newly appointed Rev Canon John Lomas was confident the church still had an important role to fill within the community. And so it received a stay of execution leading to a complete quarter of a million refurbishment project.

The 200-seat church, with its vaulted roof, was originally built in 1871 to a design by Ewan Christian and extended in 1910. When Richard Hughes of Richard King Systems of Oswestry was brought in, he knew just how he was going to treat it.

"We have fitted out around 40 churches in this diocese; mostly using loudspeakers from the JBL range and recently the

USA - The sanctuary at Davidson College Presbyterian Church in Davidson, North Carolina, has been fitted with a new sound system utilising high-performance, low-profile Renkus-Heinz Iconyx loudspeaker systems.

"The sanctuary is a really reverberant space, and we've always had trouble with people being able to hear spoken word clearly," says Rick Cardenas, the Church's technical director.

"It's a beautiful space, and the idea of putting a big speaker system in the middle of it just wasn't an option." The solution was found in a pair of Renkus-Heinz's Iconyx IC24-R digitally steerable line array loudspeakers. The steerable arrays are configured to provide focused coverage to every seat.

Working around the sanctuary's full calendar, Cardenas got together with college staff members to install the IC24-R systems into soffits on either side of the proscenium. T

South Africa - The newest jewel in VDP's global crown, Clapham Gold, opened earlier this year in Johannesburg. The sound system, designed and installed by Johannesburg-based Surgesound, is the fourth of VDP's South African locations to use the same Avalon Series components in the same system configuration. Other VDP Clubs include the Manhattan Club in Johannesburg and the Clapham Grand in Durban.

The sound system consists of four EAW Avalon Series DCS2 Bent Horn Dance Subwoofers and four Avalon Series DC4 Medium-Format Dance Club Loudspeakers in the dance floor area, powered by Lab.gruppen C-Series and FP+ Series amplifiers with all processing handled by EAW's UX8800. Four CIS400 Ceiling Loudspeakers serve the club's reception area, and four Avalon Series SMS5 Surface Mount Loudspeakers provide sound for the outdoor bar are and are controlled by an EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Proc

UK Blackbox Recorder manufacturer JoeCo has announced that the new digital Lightpipe variant of the 24-track live recorder is now shipping. The BBR-1A enables capture of multi-channel audio from a digital mixing console that supports Lightpipe (TOSlink) inputs and outputs.

Three eight-channel Lightpipe inputs can be connected from the console to the recorder, with the signal returned to the console via three Lightpipe outputs. This particular i/o format limits 24-channel recording to either 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, although it can record 12 channels at higher sample rates using the SMUX2 protocol. However, the unit still has the complete analogue i/o functionality of the unbalanced BBR-1 version for situations where use of a Lightpipe interface is not possible. This makes the full 96 kHz facility available in the analogue domain.

All other standard Blackbox Recorder features such a

Serbia - Production company Studio Berar deployed a full JBL VerTec line array system for the 2010 Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. The festival, which is one of Europe's largest and most popular every summer, took place 8-11 July at the historic and picturesque Petrovaradin fortress near the Danube River, drawing 165,000 music fans from around the world over four days. Studio Berar was awarded contracts to support three of the largest stages of the festival.

More than 500 artists performed on 20 different stages during the event, which was recently voted 'Best European Festival' by UK Festival Awards according to Yourope, the European Association of the continent's 40 largest festivals. This year's Exit performance line-up included Faith No More, Chemical Brothers, David Guetta, Missy Elliott, Placebo, Mika, LCD Soundsystem, Royksopp and Crystal Casteles.

The

Bulgaria TV station Nova TV, part of the Swedish group MTG, has transformed its audio capabilities in live news and sports applications, thanks to two Studer OnAir 3000 consoles.

According to Vesselin Todorov, president of Bulgarian music company Factor TC, Bulgarian television has always been notorious for its poor sound quality, but the installation of two Studer OnAir 3000 broadcast consoles into Nova TV has broken that conception; it is now the best-equipped TV station in Bulgaria.

More often than not, the OnAir 3000 is utilised in radio stations, but Dobromir Georgiev, systems support engineer at Nova TV, believes it to be the perfect choice for live TV broadcast. "The 'Touch'n'Action' user interface is what makes Studer the best, because it's just so easy to use," he said. "Having the touch screen there in front of you means you can access all of the funct

UK - Three and a half years since Leona Lewis won television talent show The X Factor, the summer of 2010 saw her embark on her first headline tour, themed after the singer's favourite film, Labyrinth. A DiGiCo SD8 features at the monitor position.

Alongside Lewis, the tour features a four-piece band and two backing vocalists. Monitor engineer Ant Carr chose the SD8 after a lot of deliberation. "I'd used D5s from when they first came out, back when I worked for Skan PA Hire. I'd gone away from them for a bit as newer consoles hit the market, but when this tour came up I spent a long time evaluating and listening to the SD8 at the tour's rental company Wigwam with Alex Hadjigeorgiou's help," he says.

"The SD8 was the right choice because its preamps are such high quality compared to other consoles capable of the same I/O, which was an important cons

Turkey - Altincizme Sound & Light, the oldest and most established production hire company in Istanbul, recently provided system solutions for Grup Yorum's 25th Anniversary concert to a record-breaking audience of 55,180 people at the city's Inonu Stadium--according to Biletix, the local subsidiary for Ticketmaster.

The system consisted of a variety of Harman products including a Soundcraft Vi6 large-format console for the front-of-house position - which was purchased in 2009 by Altincizme - and JBL VerTec line arrays.

A 96-channel expansion to the Vi6 handled the Philharmonic Orchestra's addition to Grup Yorum's band for this special event. "The soft Soundcraft sound, which is superior to most other digital consoles I use, along with the analogue feel of the console and the superiority of the Studer core left little doubt about the wisdom of purchasing the Vi6," com

UK - Arcola Theatre launched seven of its new HyLight fuel cell powered lighting systems across the Latitude Festival site; providing lighting for everything from marquees, to forest performances to toilets, as well as powering laptops, phone chargers and ticket machines.

HyLight is the first fuel cell product to be developed specifically for the events industry and offers the high reliability demanded through an onboard 'brain' which monitors performance and seamlessly switches to battery back-up in case of fault or user error.

Running on hydrogen, with a run time of 50 hours between refills, the system produces zero emissions and is almost silent. Carbon emission reductions of up to 60% are likely in performance settings through use of the latest LED lighting. The system is also suitable for safety and security lighting where emission reductions of up to 90% are possible by

Brazil - A Midas PRO6 has been installed into one of Brazil's newest venues, the SESC Gama theatre in capital city Brasilia, by AV company Projesom which has been supplying the industry for over 30 years. The 400-seat venue, which opened in April this year, hosts a variety of productions from plays to rock concerts.

"Three years ago we installed a Midas Verona 480 for the same client in another theatre," says Ruslan Viana, Projesom's chief audio engineer, "but it was time to take the step forward to Midas digital. It has been a great success."

Amos Miranda, Projesom's chief electrician on the project, says, "Everyone has been impressed with the user-friendly controls, the flexibility and durability of the system, and, of course, the Midas sound. The PRO6 stands head and shoulders above everything else. There is no doubt that the theatre has the audio w

World - Joan Armatrading has chosen a DPA 4088 cardioid headband mic for vocals on her current world tour, which began in Germany in March.

"It was Joan's intention at the end of her last tour in 2008 to switch to a headworn system so she could be free of the mic stand," says her regular front of house engineer Mike Hogg. "Although I had not tried the 4088 before, previous experience with other DPA microphones gave me the confidence to recommend it for her.

"We have now done over 80 shows with it this year and I love it. The clarity and definition is astounding; even in some of the smaller venues with lower roof heights and tighter stages it performs well with ample gain before feedback. The headband also holds its position well during the show. It's safe to say that we are all very happy with it."

Armatrading's tour has continued across Europe befor

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