The Netherlands - A Dutch language version of Wicked premièred recently at the Circustheater in Scheveningen, representing the third foreign language production that sound designer Tony Meola and associate sound designer Kai Harada have embarked on - tackling a tricky venue in the round. This production of Wicked saw Orbital Sound adding the show to its sound credentials for the first time.

Associated sound designer Kai Harada commented: "This is a really exciting production, with a very strong international cast that includes the original 'green witch' from the German show - Willemijn Verkaik. Although a fluent German speaker, Willemijn is Dutch and so the perfect choice to reprise her brilliant role as Elpheba - she is effectively coming home!

"The Circustheater is a challenge - with a circular seating area, it presents a number of acoustic difficult

UK - Since September, Yamaha Commercial Audio Europe has been offering the chance to win an LS9-32 digital mixing console in its 25th Anniversary Facebook photo competition. But time is now running out, as the competition closes for entries at midnight on 1 January.

2012marks the 25th Anniversary of Yamaha bringing the first digital mixer to the market and Yamaha Commercial Audio Europe is running the photo competition in celebration. To qualify for entry, photos must be of Yamaha digital consoles in interesting or entertaining settings in use over the past 25 years and posted to http://www.facebook.com/YamahaCommercialAudioEurope,where an entry form and complete terms and conditions are available.

The company has also revealed the celebrity judge who will choose the winning photographs in January. Radiohead bass guitarist Colin Greenwood is an accomplished photographer, whose

Turkey - This summer saw Istanbul's Cemil Topuzlu Harbiye Open Air Theatre stage its annual July Summer Concert Series, a three-week festival of music which culminated in a performance by disco diva and Grammy award winner Gloria Gaynor, accompanied by the ENBE Orchestra. Ensuring that the climax to the festival would live long in the memory of Turkish music fans was a DiGiCo SD9 console.

Organised by Pera Events and conducted by founder Behzat Gerçeker, the Istanbul-based ENBE Orchestra played a selection of its own material in the first half and accompanied Gaynor throughout the second.

The SD9 was supplied by DiGiCo's Turkish distributor Elit Light/Sound Technologies, who have found it to be a very popular choice at many events.

"DiGiCo is the first choice of many sound engineers, and the SD9 fits the bill for many events due to it's being both affordable and easy t

Angola - Situated in the southern suburbs of this prosperous West African sea port, midway between the city's main railway station and its home team football stadium, the Cathedral of Benguela , Angola, Sé Catedral de Nossa Senhora de Fátima to give its proper name, is an imposing piece of modernist architecture. Unadorned, the massive concrete structure has a pleasing symmetry, the walls sloping inward to form a towering triangular building; as well as a focus for Christianity it is also a cool haven from the oppressive heat for its burgeoning congregation.

Benguela Cathedral has a booming reverberant interior, "When I first made a detailed EASE model of the cathedral the calculated reverb' time was five seconds at 100 Hz," said Burton Reid from Event Technology (ET). "The reality was no different." Reid's company had been charged with finding an app

UK Adlib finished an outstandingly good year in the comedy - amongst other - sectors, supplying lighting , sound equipment and crew to the final leg of Russell Howard's successful Right Here Right Now UK arena tour.

Adlib first worked with the high profile funny man in 2008, and have followed his spectacular career trajectory encompassing a steadily increasing amount of live work in larger in larger venues.

The tour's lighting was designed by Adlib's award winning Ian Tomlinson, and was operated on the road by Andy Rowe, working with technicians Chris Neary, Shaun Moore and Mike Summerfield. FOH sound was engineered by James Neale, with Marc Peers on monitors, who was also crew chief, working alongside Adlib's systems tech Kenny Perrin and George Puttock.

Once again, Neale specified a Coda Audio Airline LA12 system, after achieving great results on the earlier leg of

France - The Django d'Or International Jazz Awards festival is now in its 20th year. A Europe-wide organization, Django d'Or was founded to honour the jazz greats of our times as well as promote new talent in the spirit of one of jazz's all-time greats, Django Reinhardt. The festival's future was threatened earlier this year when a massive warehouse fire destroyed nineteen years worth of archives. The organization decided to stage a massive benefit concert to ensure the continuation of the festival, and turned to rental specialists Alpha Audio to supply the sound system, which was APG throughout.

The concert took place at the legendary Pavillon Balthard in Paris with international jazz artists of renown including Didier Lockwood, Rhoda Scott and David and Noé Reinhardt amongst many others. Alpha Audio supplied a significant Uniline system as the main PA comprised of six U

USA / Spain - In response to the increasing demand for Constellation acoustic systems around the world, Meyer Sound has added Mac Johnson and Ana Lorente to the Constellation team. Johnson has been named Constellation project manager, transferring from his prior position as education programmes coordinator for the company. Ana Lorente, formerly with the projects department of Meyer Sound Spain, will now serve as Constellation project designer.

"Both Mac and Ana already have extensive experience with Constellation," states John McMahon, Meyer Sound's executive director, digital products. "The success of the projects they worked on is a major factor in their appointments to the team. We are extremely pleased to have them fully on board to support our Constellation work, which is growing at a tremendous rate."

Johnson has served in Meyer Sound's industry-leadi

Olympic Countdown - The Olympics will cause "a bloodbath of a summer" for London theatres in 2012, Andrew Lloyd Webber has predicted. "Nobody's going to go to the theatre at all," the composer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, predicting that "most of the theatres in London will shut".

"It's going to be very tough," he said, revealing advance bookings were "about 10%" of their normal level. Three major musicals, he added, "are not going to play over the Olympics" - but he would not name them. Lord Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group owns seven London theatres which are currently hosting shows including War Horse, Matilda and The Wizard of Oz.

The impresario said "big, big, big hits" like his own The Phantom of the Opera would continue during The Olympics. But he said some of his

UK - Co-founded in 1863 by Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and Lord Leighton, and with Rodin, Churchill and Whistler amongst its former patrons, the Arts Club in Mayfair's Dover Street boasts a glamorous heritage.

Completely refurbished under the new management of Restaurateurs Arjun and Jai Waney, and property entrepreneur Gary Landesberg, they have sought to retain the heritage and charm of this authentic landmark whilst introducing the club as the hub of contemporary cultural life in London.

Designed by David D'Almada of Sagrada, the space consists of a series of individually furnished rooms, including a sophisticated Member's Library, and the Brasserie and Oyster Bar. kitchens are under the stewardship of chef director Raphael Duntoye of La Petite Maison.

With Mark Ronson at the helm as director of music, members are kept in tune with "cutting edge and stimulatin

USA - The Pig 'n' Whistle in midtown Manhattan is typical of many of the area's taverns. What the narrow storefront space lacks in width, it more than makes up for in depth and height, spanning two floors and extending far to the back of the building it occupies.

"It's only about 25ft wide, but it's more than 75ft deep, and there's an open veranda and dining area upstairs, with a high open ceiling," says Rich Trombitas of Cornwall-based Cardone Solomon & Associates Inc.

"It's a beautiful place," says Trombitas. "The architecture is just stunning, the finish and detail looks wonderful. But sonically it's very challenging. The stage is located on the second level, and particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when they have Irish bands and DJs in there, the noise level can be a real challenge."

The main floor is served by three wall-mounted TRX82

The Netherlands - Owned by Sander Krouwel, Road Productions is based in central Holland and operates in the corporate event, theatre, one-off events, and concert touring markets. The company is a loyal DiGiCo user, being the first rental company in Holland to purchase a dual D1 Live setup back in 2004. It is now adding to its console inventory with the purchase of a DiGiCo SD8 and SD11.

Road Productions is a key player in the Dutch rental market, working with singers such as Frans Bauer and his live band, and Trijntje.

As a satisfied DiGiCo user, Krouwel invested in a DiGiCo SD9 in 2010, but with the market expanding in the smaller and larger jobs, and seeing the range of consoles now available at TM Audio's seminars this year, he decided to make an additional investment in a DiGiCo SD8 and, for the smaller productions, an SD11.

"Our acts are very satisfied with this gu

Malaysia - The Vienna Boys Choir performed in the Plenary Hall of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in November, miked with DPA 2011C mics provided by Orange Events, a KL-based rental company.

Blurr Wong, owner of Orange Events, Blurr used two matched-pairs of DPA 2011C twin diaphragm compact cardioids from DPA's new Reference Standard series to mic the 30-piece choir. "These mics are special," says Blurr. "The twin diaphragm capsule design, combined with meticulous engineering, has resulted in the product being a good all-rounder mic. It sounds luscious."

Blurr also used a sensitivity-selected pair of DPA 4099P instrument clip mics for miking the grand piano, with one mic positioned at each end of the strings and the lid half open. "The 4099's small but packs lot of punches, allowing you to achieve studio-like quality in a live environment," con

UK - Clockaudio has introduced the CW-200 dual channel wireless conferencing system.

The CW-200 provides an affordable, easy to deploy and operate solution for elementary, occasional or portable conferencing applications, says the company. The system comprises two boundary microphone transmitter units and a dual channel UHF receiver.

Receiver and transmitter are operable over 32 selectable frequencies for each channel, and feature auto scan and lock to provide transmission on an available interference-free frequency. Adjustable 'Noise-Lock' squelch and RFI shielding technology negate environmental RF noise and signal interference.

Commenting on the addition of the CW-200 to the Clockaudio range, sales and marketing manager Rod Geary stated, "The CW-200 offers a highly cost effective and versatile solution for a part of the market we have not previously addressed, where

Italy - Designed as a speaker solution for indoor installations where the critical acoustic environment is an issue and where moderate visual impact is required, the RCF VSA is now available in three models - VSA 2050, VSA 1250 & VSA 850.

VSA aims to address the audio signal exactly to the listening area, avoiding sending the acoustic energy to ceilings and empty floors, thus not introducing bad reflections that would affect speech intelligibility, mainly in critical environments with high reverberation time, says the company.

"The target we aimed at when designing the VSA was to offer voice directivity and control over all the voice range, to give high intelligibility performance with wide frequency response and high dynamics and coherence at distance," says a spokesman. "We've been able to reach this goal thanks to the length of the column, the number and size

USA - Renkus-Heinz has announced its EASE Level 1 Training Class schedule for 2012. The classes, conducted by Renkus-Heinz application engineers Jonas Domkus and Jim Mobley, cover the basics of using EASE 4.3 and EASE JR 4.3, with specific focus on room modelling techniques and basic electro-acoustic analysis.

Each three-day session is held at the EASE Learning Lab, located at the Renkus-Heinz headquarters in Foothill Ranch, California, with classes offered quarterly throughout the year.

All classes are based on EASE 4.3 for Windows. Ownership of and basic familiarity with EASE 4.3 is a prerequisite, and students are encouraged to bring their own laptops. Classes are scheduled on 20-22 February, 14-16 May, 20-22 August 20-22 and 12-14 November 2012.

(Jim Evans)

USA - The restoration of Omaha's Greater Beth-El Temple is complete after a June 2008 arson attack that nearly destroyed the Apostolic Christian church, popular among Omaha's African-American community. The congregation was forced to relocate while the temple underwent a complete renovation. Left virtually an empty shell after the fire, the building required new floors, a ceiling, a stage, seating, and numerous other necessities including a sound system.

Greater Beth-El services include a full musical ensemble playing contemporary Christian and gospel music. Theatrical performances and concerts are also regular events at the temple. According to John Manhart of Direct Pro Audio LLC, the contractor who designed and installed Greater Beth-El's new audio system, low profile looks combined with large sound capability were paramount in selecting the new system.

"Greater Beth-E

USA - At Winter NAMM 2012, American Audio will be unveiling a new series of "concert-quality German-engineered professional speakers", the SenSeries, as well as a lightweight and affordable power amplifier line, the XLT Series, the company says.

"Both our new SenSeries speakers and XLT amps fill niches in the pro sound marketplace, and offer solutions that end-users have told us they're looking for," said Tom Freret, national sales manager for American Audio. "That's why we are so excited about introducing these products at NAMM."

The company will also be taking the wraps off the long-anticipated Traktor version of its popular VMS4 MIDI Workstation, which features four selectable MIDILOG (MIDI or analogue) channels, and has been billed is "the ultimate DJ performance tool". The new VMS4 Traktor comes bundled with the popular Traktor DJ s

Australia - The inaugural Equitana Sydney event was an extraordinary success with 45,000 attendees over the four days. Sydney Showgrounds was turned into an equine paradise with over 300 horses, five indoor demonstration arenas, two large outdoor competition arenas, 200 education presentations and demonstrations and 280 trade stands in the exhibition.

The key venue, The Dome, was transformed into a 5,000 seat international venue with concert lighting, sound and visuals supplied by Audio Visual Dynamics.

"The production challenges were enormous and the event could not have succeeded to the degree it did without a very skilled, dedicated - and patient - production crew," commented Colleen Lethbridge, production and media manager for Equitana. "The AVD team worked with us from the beginning to develop The Dome venue, offering advice and design ideas, so that we got

USA - Clear-Com has named Bob Boster, previously vice president of worldwide sales, as the company's new president. Boster succeeds Matt Danilowicz, formerly company president, whose last day with Clear-Com was 31 December 2011.

"Matt's extraordinary vision and leadership turned around Clear-Com and guided it to its position as the most technologically advanced intercom company in the industry," says Chuck Miyahira, CEO of HM Electronics. "Matt has made enormous contributions to the Clear-Com business and built a strong organisation that is poised for long-term success. We thank Matt for all he has done and wish him all the best in his future endeavours."

Boster will be based in the Clear-Com office in Alameda, California, and will report to Mitzi Dominguez, president of HME.

"We are confident that Bob is the right person to lead the Clear-Com busine

UK - Electrosonic has successfully upgraded some of the key audio-visual components in the Scottish Government's Media Centre at St. Andrew's House in Edinburgh. The Centre has the facility to run presentations, record proceedings and relay images to an adjacent room.

Electrosonic's Edinburgh office refreshed the essential presentation equipment in Media 1 (seating 70), Media 2 (a small briefing/meeting or overflow room), a preparatory Green Room supporting Media 1 & 2, a back projection room (for main control and video routing equipment), and a control room (housing video preview and audio equipment). The original equipment was installed around 12 years ago and overdue a refresh.

Carolyne Thomson, Scottish Government project manager, was very happy with the work carried out by the Electrosonic team. "They listened carefully to what we wanted to achieve and they came up w

UK - It all makes perfect sense, conduct an experiment for the Noise Abatement Society and what's the first thing you do? Rent in a PA system. It does make sense in one way, how else can you investigate the suppression of noise without first creating it, "but this was something completely different," said John Tinline of Encore who provided the system.

"This was another Martyn Ware Illustrious Production 3D sound installation", he continued. "The event was sponsored by the City of Brighton Council. We put 18 d&b audiotechnikQ1 loudspeakers in various places around West Street in Brighton. This is the main shopping street, the installation was part of the Brighton Festival, but the purpose was not to give people something to listen to, quite the opposite."

What Ware had designed was a six point sound field, a 3D image formed by Ware's signature eth

UK - Audio-Technica Ltd has announced it has entered into an agreement with Allen & Heath Ltd to act as exclusive distributor for the mixer manufacturer in the UK.

The strategic move mirrors a similar arrangement in Germany, where Audio-Technica has been Allen & Heath distributor since 2005, seeing a significant growth in sales over the last six years in the territory.

Allen & Heath's sales and marketing manager, Debbie Maxted said: "Providing outstanding service to our UK customers is extremely important to us, so we are particularly delighted to be working with Audio-Technica, which has already demonstrated its commitment to the brand and to our dealers and end users in Germany. Allen & Heath has enjoyed strong growth in recent years and we have some exciting new products due for release in the near future, so we feel that this partnership comes at just the right time f

UK - Bradford-based installation company TMC Ltd has announced the death of the company's co-founder, Paul Smith.

The company's statement said: "It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Paul Smith, co founder of TMC Ltd. Paul passed away on New Year's Day after a courageous battle with cancer. His family were by his side at his home in Haworth, Yorkshire."

A service will be held at Haworth Parish Church at 2pm on Wednesday 11 January 2012. The company says all are welcome, but requests no black suits, please. More information is available from TMC on 01274 370966.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - W E Audio, based in North Oxfordshire, has taken delivery of two Midas Pro 2 consoles, purchased from LMC Audio.

With a pair of 'always-in-demand' Heritage H3000s already in stock, which have been used on all of the festivals they have supplied this year, Wayne Barker, MD of W E Audio, and his team are familiar with the audio quality of Midas products.

"We have always loved what Midas put into their consoles, especially the XL3 & XL4 and of course the H3000", explains Rylan Machin, project manager at W E Audio. "So when we saw what Midas had done with the Pro 2, bringing out a console with a small footprint, a respectable channel count, and the same Midas quality and attention to detail, we knew there would be high demand for hire on this console again."

Barker and Machin made the decision to invest in Pro 2 at this year's PLASA Show, where they took

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