Hungary - One of the largest contingents of pro audio professionals working across Eastern Europe assembled in Budapest recently for a Martin Audio MLA and MLA Compact system presentation.

Earlier this year the manufacturer had hosted a customer convention for MLA at Wembley Arena before formally launching the MLA Compact with an event at The Apollo, Hammersmith. And it was the success of these events that Martin Audio recaptured by rolling both events into a single day at the 17,000 capacity Papp László Budapest Sportaréna in Hungary for the benefit of the East European technical community.

The event was hosted by Martin Audio's territory distributors, RMS Audio, run by Tibor Kiss and Gergo Szentivanyi, and was supported by Martin Audio's top brass - headed by MD Anthony Taylor, and including Simon Bull, Jason Baird and export sales manager, Martin Kelly, who is resp

UK - The new Dolby Atmos implants cinema into a more natural and realistic sound field - providing total immersion for the audience and transporting them into the story with a lifelike sensory experience.

Supporting this dynamic shift in audio, which reinvents the traditional surround sound methodology by offering a new 'objects based' (rather than channel) concept have been Harman JBL Professional loudspeakers, Crown Audio amplification and network technologies, which are already declaring themselves Dolby Atmos ready.

Supplied by Bell Theatre Services Ltd, Dolby Atmos solutions, consisting of multiples of Harman's JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers, are already being installed at key sites in the UK with Dolby overseeing the installations.

Two of Dolby's own facilities have been equipped - Screen 1 at Royal Wootton Bassett and the Ray Dolby Theatre at the company's new

USA - Sinsinawa is a Native American term for 'rattlesnake' or 'home of the young eagle'. But Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin is better known as the home of the Congregation of Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. Since 1847, more than 3,200 women have ascended the Hill of Grace to take their vows as Sinsinawa Dominicans. Today the village is still home to their worldwide headquarters, including more than 600 current and retired sisters of the Order.

In 1964 the campus, with its 1850s-vintage fort, was expanded with the construction of an 800-seat crown chapel, replete with massive 45-foot dome and transept wings. The building's marble and plaster interior creates an acoustical environment that works magnificently to enhance the Order's celebrated pipe organ. But as their needs have changed over time, those same acoustics have created a whole new set of challenges.

"It's a beautiful f

Kuwait - Optocore network units played a key role in Kuwait's 50th Constitution Day celebration which took place recently along nearly 5km of beach in the heart of Kuwait City. The final act of the show lasted almost an hour, with a total of 77,282 fireworks, which broke the Guinness World Record for the largest fireworks display ever.

French-based rental company, Gilles Bouvard Events and Entertainment (GB4D) was contracted by the Kuwaiti government to deliver the audio and lighting system as well as video transport for one of the largest shows ever staged in the Middle East. The biggest challenge facing GB4D was the coverage distance along the beach and the associated problems posed by a sand and water environment.

Since production had stipulated that sound and light needed to be delivered to any point along the beach, the obvious solution was to use an Optocore redundant fi

Rolling On - The Rolling Stones returned to the London stage on Sunday night in the first of five concerts to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood were joined by their original bass player Bill Wyman at the 02 Arena. Music critics hailed the rockers' return a success. Reviews of the gig described the band as "still leading the pack" and "at the cutting edge of pop".

"They have a combined age of 273, but the four Stones remain an extraordinary live proposition," John Aizlewood wrote in the Evening Standard.

"Jagger, camp and louche, was a preening but energetic peacock; Richards was as cool as a man sporting a red hairband and turquoise jacket could possibly be; Ronnie Wood was a chirpy mascot and that ocean of serenity Charlie Watts showed the tiniest of drumkits can make the

USA - James River Assembly, Ozark, recently upgraded its aging sound system with Outline's GTO line array loudspeaker cabinets as the sonic centrepiece. The new system, designed and installed by Special Event Services (SES), literally blew away the competition by providing the clarity and punch necessary for sermons, a contemporary house band and concerts. The church seats approximately 3,400 congregants and everyone from the pastor to those sitting in the back row can feel the power of the word through the GTO cabinets.

"We needed to put in a system that conveyed the spoken word throughout the auditorium, as well as have enough horsepower to present the music in an effective way," says Jason Farah, vice president of SES. "The church members charged with the upgrade were very diligent about listening to various top-shelf systems to evaluate the sound characteristi

USA - Christian rock band Kutless is playing a variety of venues on its latest tour, from churches and civic auditoriums to an outdoor field and even a Minnesota casino. Regardless of the venue type or size, the band relies on a Meyer Sound MINA line array loudspeaker system supplied by Blackhawk Audio to deliver a consistent-sounding show.

"We pretty much cover the gamut on this tour, which is why I wanted to take the MINA system," says Tim O'Neill, production manager and FOH engineer for Kutless. "It is incredibly versatile."

Room layouts and acoustics vary drastically, though most venues are in the 1,500- to 2,000-seat range. For a typical configuration, main front arrays are 12- or 14-each MINA a side flown from the twin Applied Electronics mini line array towers carried on the tour. The remaining MINA loudspeakers are used for front-fill or out-fill, w

Europe - A Midas PRO1 proved to be the ideal compact console for Afro beat and Blufunk star Keziah Jones's central European tour.

Monitor sound engineer Mark Portlock says he specified the PRO1 for the tour - visiting Brussels, Geneva and Basel - because, "This is a very short run of dates in small 700-1000 capacity clubs and theatres. We needed a console that was compact enough to go in the bus bay but that would give us the same high sound quality sound as the larger Midas consoles. We recently completed a run of European festivals with a Heritage 2000 on stage and out front and we will be back on a worldwide full production tour schedule with a PRO6 FOH and PRO2 on monitors in the spring."

Portlock is a seasoned freelance engineer who has worked with many well-known and respected artists. He is also a regular feature FOH at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London.

"

UK - Sandbach School in Cheshire have found that the Roland VR-5 'all in one' AV mixer provides the solution for their streaming and recording requirements in different areas of the school. Supported in their initial training by UCan Play, who supplied the VR-5, the staff have been able to produce, stream and record several recent live events from the school via USTREAM.

UCan Play is part of UCan.tv, a not-for-profit educational consultancy company that works closely with Roland UK and the Roland Systems Group managing the Roland Champion Schools initiative on behalf of Roland UK.

The VR-5's 'all-in-one' solution greatly simplifies production, recording and streaming of any live event as the design incorporates a video switcher, audio mixer, video playback, recorder, RGB input from PC or Mac, preview monitors and output for web streaming all in a single unit. The reduction in

UK - Lowestoft's Marina Theatre, now a newly formed Charitable Trust, has refurbished its 800 seater Edwardian auditorium, choosing HK Audio's revolutionary Elements install system to provide crystal clear sound throughout the venue.

Marina Theatre technical manager Karl Dunnett said, "As part of the refurbishment process we wanted to replace our 20-year-old, wheelie bin-sized speaker cabinets. We wanted a system that not only sounded great but was small and compact enough that it would go almost unnoticed to the eye so as not to detract from the Edwardian features."

The budget for the system was very tight, amounting to less than £20,000 for a system that would cover both tiers of the auditorium, plus front-fills and delays for the back of the Circle.

The HK Audio Elements install system specified by Jeremy Munns and advised and supplied by Chameleon Pro Aud

China - TC Group International has appointed Timothy Chan to the team as sales & marketing supervisor in Hong Kong & Macau. He will be working closely with TC in China and will be chiefly responsible for overseeing TC's MI/Audio presence in Hong Kong and Macau.

Chan will act as first point of contact for Tom Lee Music Co., one of TC's newest and largest dealers in Hong Kong. Here he will overlook promotion and marketing activities, in addition to offering technical support. Chan has considerable experience in this field having worked with another Hong Kong TC dealer, Uni•Sound, since 2007.

"We are very happy to be working with Timothy in this new role and extend our warmest welcome to him" says Robin Hu, chief representative of TC China.

(Jim Evans)

UK - British singer songwriter Ed Sheeran is steadily conquering the world; travelling from continent to continent, his appeal seems unwaveringly universal. The speed of his acceptance is matched by the pace of his current tour, which has taken in Australia, the United States and is currently in the UK before heading off to cover the rest of Europe without a pause. With him every step of the way is a Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless microphone system.

Sheeran's front of house engineer is Chris Marsh from Major Tom, the tour's audio provider. "I first got involved with Ed last October when he was doing a club sized tour," explains Marsh. "I had met him previously at the Latitude Festival when I was there with Rumer. He was opening the festival that day and we got talking about the level of work that I was doing and where he wanted to be. Shortly after that, I got a

USA - With the installation of 40 CAL column array loudspeakers, Memorial Stadium at the University of California, Berkeley has become the world's first sports facility to use Meyer Sound's advanced beam steering technology. The slender 10ft high columns, discreetly mounted around the stadium's outer rim, provide an elegant solution that preserves the architectural integrity of the historic structure - inspired by Rome's Coliseum - while also providing extraordinarily high speech intelligibility despite the crowd noise in the 63,000-capacity seating bowl.

As part of the $321m, two-year upgrade project, Dallas-based acoustical consultants Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams, Inc. (WJHW) was given the challenge to improve the audio clarity for the audience in the bowl and minimize noise concerns for the nearest residences that are only about 200 feet away. WJHW also had to make

The Netherlands - For the third year in a row, InfoComm International will host a one-day Future Trends Summit the day before the Integrated Systems Europe 2013 tradeshow.

Running from 11.00am to 5.30pm on Monday 28 January, the Summit programme will be moderated by Clive Couldwell, Editor of AV Magazine.

In a departure from tradition, the day will be divided into three fresh and distinct segments. Part 1, Future Customer Needs, will comprise an end-user panel including AV users from a number of market sectors including corporate, education and healthcare. Part 2, Future of the AV Business and Market, will offer a glimpse into how the world of systems integration will look in 2015 and beyond. And Part 3, Future of AV Technologies, will provide an overview of the cutting-edge developments likely to impact on integration businesses in the years to com

France - Nexo has just conducted the first 'official' audio demo of a full STM Series PA, its new flagship sound reinforcement system. Joining forces with Yamaha Music Europe, the sister companies used the JTSE Live trade show event in Paris to demo Nexo's latest concert sound loudspeakers on a Dante network with Yamaha CL Series digital control.

For the first time, the Nexo team put its STM Series sound reinforcement system into action in a public arena, with front of house control provided by the Yamaha CL5 console over a Dante network - another first for both Nexo and the team from Yamaha Music Europe in Paris.

STM is the first scalable modular line array on the market. Standing for Scale Through Modularity, the STM Series for touring use offers a wide variety of design options using four loudspeaker modules - main, bass and sub cabinets, with an 'omni-purpose' down-fill. F

UK - Orbital Sound has just completed a major installation at one of the UK's premier concert halls, Fairfield Halls, in Croydon, south London.

Forming the first part of a technical upgrade, Orbital has installed a new sound reinforcement system into the Concert Hall, with the principal components comprising d&b audiotechnik Q1 line arrays, augmented by flown 27A cardioid subs, ground-stacked B2 subs, and a Yamaha M7CL console with DME64 mix engine. The Q1 array is complemented by a T-series centre-fill cluster, using three Ti10L d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers.

Fairfield Halls' 1800-seat Concert Hall is ranked as one of the very best orchestral performance spaces in Europe, with an acoustic quality particularly favoured by chamber orchestras, as well as hosting a varied programme of musical styles and events since the early 1960s - from rock bands to stand-up comedy. The invest

France - Innovason has announced the signing of an important partnership with Sennheiser France for the distribution of all Innovason products throughout France with effect from 1 December 2012. Announced at JTSE 2012 in Paris, the move further strengthens Sennheiser France's presence in the live digital technologies market, taking advantage of the existing synergies between Innovason digital consoles and Sennheiser's digital microphones by Neumann.

In order to fully optimize the opportunities presented by this new partnership, Sennheiser France has taken on Axel Brisard, an expert in digital audio mixing and sound capture. Brisard, who worked as a sound engineer at Radio France for many years, is fully versed in the use of Sennheiser Group digital microphones with Innovason's Eclipse consoles, currently the only consoles on the market to offer complete control of all Sennheiser

UK - Studiomaster is now shipping its new high performance, ultra-portable XPX Series PA. Shown earlier this year at both NAMM and Prolight+Sound, the injection-molded PA is the company's most advanced, powerful portable reinforcement series ever; a product category in which the famous British marque is a long time market leader.

Available in both active and passive variants, The XPX Series employs the company's latest design and engineering innovations in an ultra-lightweight, high performance portable PA cabinet, offering unrivalled standards of quality, performance and cost competitiveness.

Soundking Group Europe marketing manager Patrick Almond says, "We have had very positive feedback regarding the quality and reliability of the XPX. This is backed up by the regular substantial orders we are receiving from most of our worldwide distributors; one far east customer ord

USA - Meyer Sound Laboratories Incorporated, a Berkeley, Calif.-based professional audio equipment manufacturer, announced that it has settled the lawsuit it filed last June against VUE Audiotechnik, LLC of Escondido, Calif.

The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California. In its suit, Meyer Sound alleged VUE infringed Meyer Sound's iconic wave trademark, and asserted other claims against VUE and a former Meyer Sound employee currently working for VUE.

"This legal action was necessary to protect Meyer Sound's intellectual property rights and to prevent confusion in the marketplace," says Helen Meyer, co-founder and executive vice president of Meyer Sound. "We are pleased with the settlement. It resolves issues related to our company's valuable trade secrets, and eliminates the possibility that people might be misled in

UK - Researchers at the University of Salford have been awarded £249,719 to develop new technology which will greatly improve the modeling of the acoustic performance of buildings and open spaces.

The grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will enable the Salford team work with global design and engineering firm, Arup, the University of Reading and BBC R&D. Together they hope to solve the problems associated with demonstrating to clients how building designs for large spaces like concert halls, sound once they've been built.

In practice, designers programme the designs of a building or room into a computer model which calculates how the structure affects the sound sources which inhabit it, such as musicians in an orchestra. The modified sound of the sources is then reproduced through a special loudspeaker system, allowing the client to hear wha

USA - Since its Amsterdam debut in 2000, Sensation has grown to become one of the world's most successful and respected indoor electronic dance music (EDM) festivals. After producing more than 70 events for over two million people in two dozen countries, creator ID&T recently teamed up with promoter Live Nation to bring Sensation to North America for the very first time. As with all of its other productions, ID&T specified the deployment of a full L-Acoustics system to keep the high-tech party hopping well into the night.

Quickly selling out Brooklyn's stunning new Barclays Center on both 26 and 27 October, the two-night event - dubbed 'Innerspace' - attracted over 30,000 house and techno music fans dressed entirely in white according to the festival's tradition. A roster of renowned DJs - including Dennis Ferrer, Fedde Le Grand, New York's own Danny Tenaglia, and the show's hos

UK - Roland Systems Group (RSG) is joining with some of its biggest dealers to put on a series of video training events across the UK with the next scheduled for 12th December at Wigwam Acoustics. The afternoon event will be free to attend and will cover web streaming, HD video switching, conversion and much more - showcasing the RSG video product line up including the V-800, V-1600HD, VR-5 and VR-3 - as well as the brand new V-40HD released earlier this month.

The informal event will be packed with information, expert tips and real world advice, says the company, and registrants will get the opportunity in advance to request specific questions and subjects to be covered on the day.

To register visit the web address below.

(Claire Beeson)

Japan - Located in the lively Shibuya Ward near the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, the Toho Gakuen Performing Arts College has recently been visited by one of its old Alumni; Shinichiro 'Yone' Yonekura. Yonekura is better known to the professional audio community as the head of d&b audiotechnik Japan, but it was in 1990 that he graduated from Toho Gakuen and he has carried the reputation of that college with him ever since.

"Toho Gakuen was originally established as the Tokyo Broadcast School in 1979 and was approved as an educational foundation establishment a year later," he explained. "Today four colleges comprise the campus: TG Media Training, TG Film Techniques, TG Performing Arts and TG Sound Technicians."

The purpose of Yonekura's visit was twofold; the school purchased a d&b Q-Series system from him a year earlier and he was keen to learn of the experi

South Africa - 18 August saw some of South Africa's highest profile musicians come together in Johannesburg's Botanical Gardens to play at Talk Radio 702's Concert In The Park. A Coda Audio PA system and DiGiCo mixing consoles ensured that the large audience enjoyed a day to remember.

The concert drew on the heritage of the original Concert in the Park, which saw 125,000 South Africans pack out the city's Ellis Park Stadium in 1985. This year's event drew a more modest crowd, but all enjoyed a bill including Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Steve Kekana, PJ Powers and Hotline, Dr Victor and the Rasta Rebels, Mango Groove and Clint & Co.

The show's technical infrastructure was supplied by Sound Stylists, one of South Africa's leading production companies, which is this year celebrating its landmark 25th birthday.

The main audio system comprised 12 flown Coda Airline

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