Albania - Loudspeakers from EAW have been chosen for three venues in the new 13,000sq.ft Diesel Hall complex in Tirana, Albania. Prosound Shpk, EAW's Albanian distributor, was approached to recommend sound system solutions for the facility's Botanik restaurant, Champagne Bar and Lounge Bar. Diesel Hall owner Ermal Gashi decided to go with Prosound's recommendations, which included EAW loudspeakers and subwoofers from their SMS and VR series, among others. The system was designed by Jeff Pratt.
The system in the Botanik restaurant includes six EAW SMS5 surface mount loudspeakers in a white finish and two EAW VRS18 high output subwoofers; the Champagne Bar features 12 EAW SMS3 surface mount loudspeakers, all in white finish; and the Lounge Bar's system includes 12 EAW VR62 compact full-range loudspeakers and two VRS18s.
The centerpiece of the complex's audio is the EAW DX1208 DS
USA - At a well-attended dinner in the Peabody Orlando, which took place during the recent LDI 2011 show, Martin Audio's MLA (Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array) system was awarded the Parnelli Indispensable Technology 'IT' Award in the audio category.
Hosted by comics Flo and Eddie, a.k.a. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, the 11th Annual Parnelli Awards Dinner honoured lifetime achievement award Winner Ed Wannebo, audio innovator Kenton Forsyth and Parnelli visionary Jim Fackert, along with 24 individuals, companies and products that made significant contributions to the growth and evolution of the live production industry in 2011.
Managing director Anthony Taylor and director of US operations Rob Hofkamp were on hand to accept the award for Martin Audio.
Taylor commented: "It was a real honour to be recognised by our peers in the industry and particularly with such a pres
UK - Sound Division was recently commissioned to install a background music system in the well known Hix restaurant in Brewer Street, Soho, London.
Hix is the third restaurant in the expanding chain of high-end eateries from chef and entrepreneur Mark Hix. Set in the heart of Soho it boasts an award winning restaurant on the ground floor and the celebrated Mark's in the basement, with its apothecary bar and an eccentric cocktail list.
Sound Division were asked to return to Hix to re-commission the music system that they had installed for the previous restaurant that traded on the site. In addition they were asked to upgrade the speaker system in Marks Bar, the basement bar lounge, to create a more vibrant atmosphere for the guests.
Having previously installed discreet JBL ceiling speakers in Marks Bar, a set of black JBL Control 25AV cabinet speakers were now specified and w
UK - Continuing a nine-year tradition, Stage Electrics recently staged a pair of successful regional exhibits showcasing its key distribution brands, at Newcastle Upon Tyne and Cardiff.
The one-day events were held at the Peter Sarah Theatre in the Performance Academy of Newcastle College, Newcastle Upon Tyne and the newly opened Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the grounds of Cardiff Castle, where Stage Electrics also recently completed a major sound, production lighting and communications installation in the concert hall and theatre.
Brands on show were Arri, Avolites, Chauvet, Clay Paky, DiGiCo, ETC, Highlite, MA Lighting, L-Acoustics, Lee Filters Le Maitre, Martin Professional, Panasonic, Philips Strand, Selecon and Vari-Lite, Pulsar, RCF, Rosco, Roland, Sennheiser, Shure, Yamaha and Zero 88.
Some 230 people attended on the day, with students from each venue for
Finland - The architecturally provoking Korundi House of Culture is a new cultural centre in the Lapland capital of Rovaniemi. Formed from the old 1930s redbrick building of the Rovaniemi mail-van depot, the building has been expanded with a box extension designed in weathered, patinated steel.
The renovated original building is occupied by the Rovaniemi Art Museum, whilst the new extension provides a multipurpose 340-seat concert auditorium for the Lapland Chamber Orchestra and the varied programme of events and concerts that the venue will host. In addition to the museum and concert hall, the building provides for the storage of artworks, meetings, offices and workrooms as well as a café-restaurant and music shop for visitors.
The aesthetic of Korundi's addition was designed by architect Juhani Pallasmaa. Inside the auditorium, painter and graphic artist Prof. Jorma H
USA - Point Source Audio (PSA), a manufacturer of professional audio equipment and the distributor for Digigram's broadcast equipment in the Americas, was selected by InfoGuys (IFG) Satellite Radio Network to bring cloud-based management features to Grand Canyon's Highway Advisory Satellite Radio System.
The Grand Canyon's broadcast system was recently upgraded with Digigram's PYKO IP Audio codec, and received a friendly custom remote interface - a collaboration between IFG and PSA - to give park officials the freedom to update and change message content on the PYKO at any time of day from any internet device.
The Grand Canyon's Highway Advisory Radio System grew legs in 2008 as part of a programme to support the introduction of a pilot shuttle bus route from Grand Canyon's visitor centre to the gateway town of Tusayan. The goal was to provide information to visitors approachi
UK - To give full justice to Kafka's Joseph K - produced within Eton College's Farrer Theatre - a sophisticated immersive soundscape was called for.
To assist the students in finding a way through the 'involved' sound track, Eton's theatre tutor and production manager for the play, Matt Evered, contacted sound designer Rick Sarson, who specified TiMax.
"There were several reasons for wanting to use TiMax. It is by far and away the coolest sound toy ever and is the only product that utilises the Haas effect to broaden the soundfield to cover the majority of the audience with moving sound effects. It is one of the very few ways of triggering multi channel moving sounds and, once set up, it is amazingly simple to use."
TiMax enabled Sarson to trigger sophisticated, multi layered effects at the click of a mouse. This was necessitated from the very start of the s
UAE - Launching at IFSEC Arabia in November, Baldwin Boxall's new CARE2 range will be demonstrated to visitors at INTERSEC, Dubai (15-17January 2012).
CARE2 is an Emergency Voice Communication System which includes firefighter telephones, roaming telephones, disabled refuge points and disabled toilet alarms on one system. The new radial wired system is simple to install and operate.
Also on the stand will be the popular CallCare Assistance Call System and the well established VIGIL EVAS voice evacuation rack system.
UAE - Dubai-based NMK Electronics, Midas distributor of the year and distributor of Midas and Klark Teknik products in the United Arab Emirates, has seen a surge in sales on the back of a year-long programme of training and support initiatives. This culminated in last month's bi-annual Midas Academy event held at the inaugural InfoComm Middle East and Africa (IFMEA) trade show.
NMK has long supported clients with one-to-one training and demo sessions at its headquarters or on location. But the Academy event, launched two years ago, allows for a number of pro audio professionals to compare multiple Midas offerings in one space.
"The Middle East is a market where there is real demand for the latest technology but a limited number of professionals with the relevant experience," explain NMK's business development manager Chicco Hiranandani. "One of our core strength
Czech Republic - There were in two stages for the Brutal Assault heavy metal festival at Josefov Castle, the Metalshopand the Jaegermeister - and both sported identical d&b audiotechnik J-Series systems provided by leading Czech rental house TD Promo.
"The international reputation of d&b systems was one of the main aspects that we took into account when choosing a new system for our company," said Tomas Dvorak director of TD Promo. "We find d&b is one of the most preferred systems in technical riders and we are the only company in the Czech Republic with the J-Series, giving us an undisputed advantage."
"The local audio guys from TD Promo were very helpful," said Arnie Annables from Motorhead. "When I arrived they had the PA system set up as just a left right system. So with no fuss they quickly changed it to left right and subs, it is very i
UK - BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) has announced a partnership with JAMES (Joint Audio Media Education Support), the organisation which accredits higher and further education music and audio-related courses. BASCA will be joining the Association of Professional Recording Services, The Music Producers Guild and the UK Screen Association, who are already represented by JAMES.
JAMES will be expanding its scheme to music performance courses throughout late 2011/12 and BASCA will assist this process by providing professional songwriters to help with the assessment of song writing modules.
It has been confirmed that professional songwriters/composers Tim Fraser, Megg Nicol and David Stoll - all of whom sit on BASCA executive boards - will take part in the scheme.
BASCA COO Vick Bain says, "Working with JAMES on accreditation is just the sort of
UK - The Institute of Broadcast Sound (IBS), the industry body founded in 1977 to represent professionals working in the field of audio for broadcast, is to rename itself The Institute of Professional Sound. The change will take effect from 1 January, 2012.
The new name for the IBS reflects the shifts in the audio and broadcast industries over the last 34 years, and also the changes in the Institute's own membership and working practices, says the organisation. Where once sound people working in broadcast had staff jobs with the BBC, ITV or independent local radio, most IBS members are now freelancers. Of necessity, the Institute's members also now tend to operate in more than one field in the audio industry; for example, they may work on radio ads one day and a TV sound dub the next, while a location sound recordist might work on TV dramas, documentaries, corporate video or liv
USA - When composer Joseph Bertolozzi and sound engineer Ron Kuhnke chose Tannoy Di 8DCs for an outdoor, site-specific art installation on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge, they knew the speakers were going to take some punishment from the elements.
While he knew the speakers would have to function in some fairly nasty weather, he never expected they'd have to stand up to a storm like Irene. "It rains, it gets cold, but we actually take the speakers down from 31 October to 1 April," he says, "because conditions on the bridge in winter are like being in the North Atlantic."
First conceived in 2004, Bertolozzi's Bridge Music is composed exclusively from sounds created using a variety of mallets to strike the bridge's guardrails, girders, spindles and ropes - virtually every possible surface with the exception of the road - essentially transf
UK - In the fifth annual International Series match at Wembley Stadium in, the Chicago Bears enjoyed a successful trip back to the UK by beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-18. A crowd of almost 77,000 enjoyed all the traditional glitz and glamour of American football, including pre-game shows from the GooGoo Dolls, Noah Stewart and Katherine Jenkins.
Britannia Row Productions deployed an extensive Outline loudspeaker system, comprising 12 arrays of Butterfly, each stacked four high on a pair of Outline Subtech subwoofers, to handle sound reinforcement for both the various entertainments and the in-match commentary.
The project was headed up by Britannia Row's Dan Orchard, with Kieran Walsh supervising radio, Sergiy Zitnikov handling speaker technician duties and Stefan Krista managing the stage audio for the pre-match entertainment. An additional four BRP technicians dealt wi
China - UK-based Studiomaster and Carlsbro exhibited at Music China this year, unveiling several new and improved product ranges. Immediately after the exhibition, both companies hosted a joint international distributor conference at the Ningbo HQ of their Soundking Group parent company, south of Shanghai.
Studiomaster and Carlsbro exhibited together with their national distributor Highsun Audio, showing new products, including first sight of the new Carlsbro VAC series valve guitar combo and an electronic drum kit, as well as newly revamped and uprated Stingray, Sherwood and Colt amplifier series.
International sales director Andrew Bishop stated, "Carlsbro VAC is the first series in a range of amplification which meets requirements, advised to us by our international distributors, for affordable, high performance backline amps. The styling, specification and tone of the
Europe - Eclectic British musician, Patrick Wolf, has embarked on another European tour with a Dante-enabled Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system managing both FOH and monitors, supported by PA company, Britannia Row.
FOH Engineer, Fabrizio Piazzini, selected an iDR10 MixRack for monitors, digitally split using Dante to an iDR-16 for FOH, with an iLive-144 Control Surface at FOH and iLive-80 for monitors. A third MixRack, an iDR0, will provide the I/O for live recording via the Dante network, controlled from FOH. No additional hardware is required as Audinate's Dante virtual soundcard is installed on laptops to run multi-track recording software, Reaper.
"Patrick has a very elaborate style, so it's great the iLive system has a lot of headroom and you can really drive the inputs. Even if he goes nuts and plays really hard, it's not going to start distorting. With othe
UK - Liverpool-based Adlib's audio division supplied an L-Acoustics K1 sound system and crew for The Specials most recent tour.
It was Adlib's second Specials tour and the first for monitor systems engineer Marc Peers who jumped at the opportunity to be onboard. "It's an absolute privilege to get to work with one of the best and most original bands of that era," he enthuses.
With up to 13 musicians and performers onstage at peak times, monitor world was quite frenetic. Peers was working alongside Specials monitor engineer Pete Abbott, who has been with them since 2009, like Adlib, coming onboard via tour manager Mike Darling.
Adlib supplied 16 d&b M2 wedges, powered by D12 amplifiers, which handled a total of 12 mixes. Lynval Golding, Neville Staple and the flute player used IEMs, together with the string section so a mix of Sennheiser G3 supplied by ADLIB and G2 o
France - Adamson Systems Engineering has announced the addition of MPM France to the list of Project Energia beta partners. France is a key European territory for Adamson, with more than 30 vendors carrying the Y-Axis and SpekTrix series.
Brock Adamson, president and CEO of Adamson Systems Engineering, comments, "MPM has been a strong partner for many years. They are a dynamic organisation working on regional and international work. With more than 500 Adamson cabinets in their inventory, we could not ask of a better partner to lead the way with Project Energia in France. We look forward to their input as Energia progresses."
Marc Morosini, director general of MPM visited Canada last autumn to listen to one of the first finished prototypes of the E15 system. Morosini comments on Project Energia, "This system offers more power than any other cabinet, in a smaller
USA - PLASA Focus: Austin welcomes a raft of new exhibitors as the two-day event expands its floor plan yet again. The new style of regional event, to be held 22-23 February 22-23, 2012 at the Renaissance Austin, Texas, has doubled its footprint in the past week, with over 25 companies committed to taking part and as many applications being processed.
Joining confirmed exhibitors ETC, Barbizon, Philips Color Kinetics, Doug Fleenor Design, Strong Entertainment Lighting, Chauvet, A.C.T Lighting, Global Design Solutions, CommuniLux Productions, GLP German Light Products, Daktronics Rigging, Total Structures, Arri, Rosco, Rose Brand, Robe, High End Systems, Secoa and Clay Paky, amongst others, are new exhibitors; Elation, White Light, LSC, James Thomas Engineering, Creative Stage Lighting, Inlight Gobos, Mainstage Theatrical Supply, Martin Professional and TMB.
UK - With the live music industry heading indoors for the winter, Yamaha UK has had time to reflect on the company's most successful summer yet. As well as the major events like Glastonbury, T In The Park and many others, Yamaha technology allows many smaller productions to take place outdoors. Christchurch-based CPS Group used the company's equipment to provide a highly innovative audio system at a series of orchestral shows.CPS Group and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra spent several weekends staging seven outdoor shows at Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight, Mercedes Benz World in Weybridge, Meyrick Park in Bournemouth and Broadlands House, Romsey. All featured a Classical Prom, with the latter three venues adding a second night titled Symphonic Disco, featuring West End artists performing numbers from shows such as Mamma Mia and Saturday Night Fever.&quo
UK - Powered by the Roland V-Mixing System and billed as A Night of Power and Romance, the recent performance at the Birmingham Symphony Hall by The Enid promised to be both technically and musically challenging for the musicians and audience alike.
Taking on the task of providing the audio equipment for a show which included more than 80 instruments, Simon Kenning and Phil Palmer from Roland Systems Group took full advantage of the flexibility of the V-Mixing System.
For the performance, which needed to be recorded as well as having many live considerations, they chose two M-480 Live Mixing Consoles in cascade mode, one S-4000 Rack with 40 inputs, 10 M-48 Live Personal Mixers for the band, conductor and organist and two of the new R-1000 Audio Recorders to do synchronized 80 track recording in 24bit 48kHz. Abbey Road provided a digital split from their recording truck
Germany - IOSONO, a provider of spatial audio systems and Berlin-based AFMG, creators of EASE, the industry-standard for simulation of room acoustics, recently teamed up to develop a new approach to making virtual acoustical environments audible.
"Architects, their clients, engineers or even movie sound designers will enter into a new world of possibilities to engulf listeners in the sound of a virtual surrounding," says Frank Melchior, CTO at IOSONO.
"Just imagine that a number of listeners can all enjoy an identical acoustical experience at the same time, no matter where in the room they are sitting," adds Stefan Feistel, manager of AFMG. "Architects will hold their presentations not only with a slideshow of photo-realistic pictures but talking live within the acoustical situation of the room simulated in EASE. Designs of concert halls, cinemas, soun
USA - Audica Professional has announced that it has gained UL approval for its MICROseries loudspeakers. The approvals include UL1480 and UL2043 for the MICROdot ceiling loudspeaker and UL1480 for the MICROpoint and MICROline on-wall loudspeakers. The MICROzone and MICROplus electronics are cTUVus approved.
"At this year's Infocomm the interest in Audica Professional from contractors was excellent," commented Audica Professional's sales director, Derek West, "They appreciated the styling and audio quality, but it was clear that UL approvals were needed before the product was going to be specified on a larger scale and in most public buildings. We have a great distributor, with TC Group Americas, and now with North American approvals we are confident that we will see significant growth in the American markets".
USA - This year's WFX Worship Facilities Show, from 9-11 November in Dallas, is shaping up to be the biggest in the event's history. Renkus-Heinz will be showcasing some of its latest loudspeaker products, including IC2 (IC Squared), the first digitally steerable array that combines the power and focus of point source loudspeaker technology with the control and flexibility of a digitally steerable line array.
Also on display will also be the newest iteration of Renkus-Heinz's Iconyx low-profile digitally steerable arrays, the IC8-R MkII and IC16-R MkII, featuring triple tweeter technology. Along with demonstrations of Renkus-Heinz technologies including RHAON Renkus-Heinz Audio Operations Network and BeamWare Iconyx digital beam steering and configuration software, the company will also be exhibiting their CF-101LA modular point source array loudspeakers.