UK - Miley Cyrus' current tour is eclectic and outrageous, featuring a giant hot dog, a troupe of dancing furry animals and cartoon characters, foam fingers and some very skimpy costumes amongst other things. Critics have been largely positive, appreciating her vocal performance, audacity and charisma, with one critic from Time magazine calling her one of the "most dynamic performers of her generation". On this tour, and for the first time, Cyrus is performing with the new Digital 9000 microphone system from Sennheiser.

Despite the change of image and musical direction of recent years, Cyrus has remained faithful to key members of her technical team, in particular monitor engineer Vish Wadi and FoH engineer Paul David Hager. Both have been working with Cyrus (and Sennheiser) for a number of years. Wadi's relationship with Sennheiser goes back some 17 years, whil

USA - At InfoComm 2014, Shure Incorporated announced the availability of Wireless Workbench 6.10, available for download at www.shure.com/software. The next evolution of this software solution from Shure adds new product support, enhanced frequency analysis, and safeguards against unwanted setting changes.

Wireless Workbench 6.10 now supports the newly introduced QLX-D Digital Wireless System, a cost-effective solution that features networked control and Shure's intelligent rechargeable battery technology.

For greater insight into frequency compatibility, Wireless Workbench 6.10 introduces a re-designed Frequency Analysis view. Providing more transparency when troubleshooting, Frequency Analysis displays a detailed and interactive listing of conflicts discovered per frequency and enables users to filter conflicts by type.

After all desired settings are in place, the software

UK - Manchester-based dbn Lighting supplied lighting production and rigging for five out of the eight primary stages at the 2014 Parklife Weekender festival in the city's Heaton Park and LED screens for one of these five plus one other arena.

dbn has been the lighting supplier for the festival organised by Ground Control since it started five years ago, since when it has grown in stature, popularity and physical size. Last year, it moved from the original site in Platt Fields to Heaton Park to allow for expansion and this year the capacity was increased to 70,000.

dbn's project manager Pete Robinson created an individual production design for each area, all of which served as eye-catching backdrops for the heterogeneity of acts appearing over the two days.

He comments, "It was great to be involved again! We are all really excited to see the festival develop and to be ab

South Africa - ARX Systems, the Australian based designer and manufacturer of digital and analogue interface and signal processing products has announced the appointment of Johannesburg based Matrix Sound as their new distributor for South Africa.

ARX managing director Colin Park said, "Matrix Sound are a well known and long established Distribution, Sales & Rental Company in the South African Professional Audio Industry.

"Here at ARX we're looking forward to working with the Trevor Peters and his team at Matrix, they're very enthusiastic about the possibilities for the growing ARX product range amongst their extensive client base throughout South Africa."

(Jim Evans)

UK - The Britannia Stadium is the home of Premiership Football Club Stoke City. The stadium, which cost £15m, was opened in 1997 by Sir Stanley Matthews. As a top-flight arena with a capacity of 28,000 spectators, the need to clearly deliver information throughout the venue is of great importance.

From safety announcements and music, to team changes and minutes of added time, stadium announcer Steve Buxton is a busy man who carries great responsibility. On February 1st Stoke's heroes demonstrated their progress under manager Mark Hughes by putting Premiership giants Manchester United to the sword. On a memorable day for the club, Steve was putting into action some progress of his own.

Prior to that momentous day, Steve was to be found high above the pitch, behind glass and mixing his output from information received by walkie-talkie. This unsatisfactory state of affairs

UK - Singer songwriter Passenger (aka Mike from Brighton, as he introduces himself) may be one man busking with a guitar, but this is busking with a difference. Fans turn up in their droves to his impromptu gigs. Both they and production manager and FOH engineer Simon Kemp have discovered the benefits of Sennheiser's LSP 500 wireless loudspeakers.

Announced on his Facebook page only a matter of hours before each performance, and drawing crowds of up to a thousand at a time, Passenger's latest 'busks' have seen him perform in Manchester, Brighton and on London's South Bank outside the Tate Modern and they certainly haven't been disappointed in the quality of the audio.

Simon explains why he chose to use the LSP 500s. "I looked into this long and hard," he says. "The whole vibe of these gigs is that we need to be able to turn up anywhere and be completely self con

Israel - As the largest PA company in Israel, Sincopa Sound & Light has recently used its newly acquired Optocore digital returns racks to service major concerts by Justin Timberlake and the Rolling Stones in Tel Aviv's giant Park HaYarkon for up to 50,000 fans.

In the case of Timberlake they were able to meet the spec by deploying Optocore's sophisticated fibre distribution system comprising four XR6-FX interfaces at the FOH, stage and delay tower ends. One device was configured 8AE/8MI and the other three 8AE/8LO.

Transmission to the L-Acoustics PA and delay towers was via Optocore AES, Analogue and Ethernet on a redundant loop, with two AES lines from the DiGiCo SD-7, through a routing/summing Lake LM-44 to a total of five AES lines on the Optocore rack. These were configured for AES and analogue, while an analogue line was connected for backup.

The two Optocore stage rac

Angola - Doo.Bahr Nightclub, in the Angolan capital of Luanda, recently took delivery of the largest Martin Audio sound system ever shipped to the Portuguese speaking African country.

The work was carried out by Phil Clark and Neil Kavanagh of UK-based Old Barn Audio. They were commissioned by the owners, who also operate the Oon.Dah Restaurant below it in the Edifício Escom, Luanda's tallest tower.

Phil Clark takes up the story. "We had already designed the original system 18 months ago, with assistance from Nigel Meddemmen at Martin Audio, but it was such a roaring success that we were asked to return and make the system louder to satisfy the DJs. This we did by upgrading the nightclub with more subs, bigger amps and processing."

Doo.Bahr is one of Luanda's chicest cocktail bar/lounges with an outdoor terrace offering spectacular views. It was originally designe

Brazil - Allen & Heath is playing an important role in the playback, broadcast and transmission of the 2014 FIFA World Cup taking place in Brazil. Supplied by distribution partner, Teleponto. multiple Allen & Heath consoles are being used at several stadiums, in various remote broadcast trucks, and in the master control rooms.

Fox Sports Brazil, a key broadcaster of the games, is using a GLD-80 digital mixer connected via Dante to 3 LAWO consoles and 3 RTS matrixes for broadcasts from Rio de Janeiro. Broadcaster, Sigma, is using a Qu-16 and a Qu-24 compact digital mixer, plus two iDR-16 and an iDR-48 iLive MixRacks.

Fox Sports' Sao Paulo studio installed a GLD-80 earlier this year. As part of the system, an AR2412 remote I/O rack was selected as a master unit, with two AR84 expander racks installed in the Fox studio with the mixer. This system is being used to provide audio fe

USA - The CBS broadcast of the 2014 Tony Awards, which aired 8 June, was one of the most complex in the event's history. From host Hugh Jackman's sprawling, bouncing, opening number to the on-stage gathering of all winners for a closing rendition of On Broadway viewers were treated to a fast-paced production that included a record 17 musical acts and a live orchestra in Radio City Music Hall.

Managing RF system design and frequency coordination for Firehouse Productions was Vinny Siniscal. "With so much real estate to cover, so many frequencies to manage and so many live bands, I specified Shure UHF-R systems again this year," he states. "When I'm doing a live network broadcast, that's my preference. Even though the product has been around ten years or so, I know there's nothing else out there that I trust to be robust enough to survive in such a crowded RF

UK - Orbital's new Nemesis distribution line of audio playback and control solutions took centre stage at last week's ABTT 2014 Show, with the Nemesis UMT-2D Multi-Button & MIDI to USB Converter being judged the Sound Product of the Year by the ABTT panel of peers and industry experts.

The award was presented to Orbital Sound's Richard Carter, part of the Nemesis design team, at a joint ceremony hosted by The Association of British Theatre Technicians and The Stage Management Association, at the end of the first day of the show.

Orbital MD Chris Headlam commented, "This is a great achievement for the team behind Nemesis - representing two years' research and development to create something that has long been missing in the theatre market. The objective is to remove the complexity and often random nature of computer playback systems - something that has plagued us all at s

USA - In a significant development for users of Audinate's Dante audio networking technology, Symetrix has announced that the latest version of its popular SymNet Composer software will support native configuration of select Dante-enabled Attero Tech and Stewart Audio products.

Settings affecting I/O levels, routing, and more may be defined with SymNet Composer 2.0, which gives customers the ability to consolidate design on a single software platform where previously multiple platforms were required.

"As of this release, integrators will no longer need Audinate's Dante Controller as well as separate software packages for each manufacturer's products," comments Trent Wagner, senior product manager at Symetrix. "Supported Attero Tech and Stewart Audio Dante-enabled products can now be configured and managed right alongside to SymNet hardware. Integrators who have

UK - Long-time ambassador for Optocore fibre signal interfaces, HD Pro Audio's sales director, Andy Huffer has strengthened his relationship with the Munich based network specialists - by placing the focus on sister company, BroaMan.

Once Optocore had decided to set up Broadcast Manufactur (BroaMan) to extend the Optocore infrastructure (and distribution options) into broadcast applications such as studios, OB vans and sport events, Huffer admits "it all clicked into place."

When he first saw MUX-22, the latest addition to the BroaMan portfolio of routing and repeating devices at this year's Frankfurt Prolight+Sound Show, and sensed its full I/O capacity and configurability, it really ignited his interest.

Consequently, his company - which specialises in the sales and distribution of a range of premium pro audio brands - gave BroaMan's MUX-22 device a prime spot on

UK - SSE Audio Group has been appointed a Soundcraft Vi Select dealer, and with the company's established reputation as a Vi User, wasted no time in securing one of the first Soundcraft Vi3000 digital consoles off the production line.

SSE sales director, Alex Penn, confirms: "We have a long history with Soundcraft's Vi Series." He continued "We saw the new console for the first time at Frankfurt Prolight+Sound; it sits neatly between the Vi1 and Vi4 and offers many new features which will secure the longevity of this series, which has always been popular with engineers."

Marking a massive technological upgrade to the Vi series, Vi3000 offers many advantages, including the much requested access to Universal Audio's plug-ins and Soundcraft Realtime Rack plug-in engine - both points picked up on by Penn.

"The Realtime rack can also be used with our exis

The Netherlands - With the start of the new Formula One Grand Prix season Dutch satellite uplink specialists, Multi-Link Holland and BP Satellite Solutions, have again been brought in to provide broadcast facilities to their clients at all GP circuits worldwide.

Both companies have a history of collaboration on a number of projects. Multi-Link Holland, founded by Bob Snieder, and BP Satellite Solutions, under Patrick Hendriks, provide satellite uplink and downlink facilities, wireless cameras, multi-camera and edit facilities. They also provide data and DVB-T transmissions - single and multiplexed-channel - for their own respective broadcast clients.

In order to enable fibre distribution over long distances in a more efficient and economical way than previously, for this season they have adopted BroaMan's new MUX-22 video, audio and intercom module. MUX-22 is part of BroaMan's

UK - The Ambassadors Theatre Group has revived Irving Berlin's classic musical Annie Get Your Gun. The show premiered at the Manchester Opera House on 12 May before embarking on a 20-week national UK tour due to culminate at Torquay's Princess theatre on 4 October.

Ian Talbot's production starring Jason Donovan as Frank Butler and the effervescent Emma Williams as Annie Oakley has so far enjoyed a raft of positive reviews. Award-winning British sound designer, Gregory Clarke, specified EM Acoustics systems throughout including a new Halo Compact system as the main PA. All of the PA equipment for the tour has been supplied by Stage Sound Services.

Clarke, who received the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design for Journey's End in 2007 and who won the Tony Award for his sound design on Equus in 2009, was delighted to be able to use Halo-C on

Belarus - Art Ramos Studio a.l.c., Community's partner in Belarus, has recently overseen the installation of the audio systems at the Chizhovka-Arena in Minsk, featuring Community loudspeakers. The arena, one of the largest sports facilities in Belarus, is a multipurpose complex for ice hockey, sports, leisure and entertainment and is the home ground of HC Yunost-Minsk.

Chizhovka-Arena was built for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Ice Hockey World Championship that took place in Minsk in May 2014. In addition to the tens of thousands of fans that travelled to see the event live, the IIHF's flagship event was televised to 115 countries with television audience around the 1,000 million mark.

Chizhovka-Arena is located in the southeastern part of Minsk in a picturesque nook of a park named after the 900th anniversary of the city. Designed by Marat Grodnikov, the ar

UK - Loose HDMI cable connections can now become a thing of the past with the new HDMiGrip cable range available from CIE-Group. Featuring the 'friction lock' connectors the high quality HDMI cables can prevent the cable from falling out of an AV device socket.

Available from CIE-Group, one of the audio visual industry's longest established providers of equipment for professional audio visual integration and PA sectors, the HDMiGrip cable connector's lock ensures that it holds securely in place, but will detach simply by pulling the connector out (without the need for pressing / releasing any locking switches or buttons).

"The HDMiGrip Cable is such a simple, yet great upgrade for the common HDMI cable," comments Chris Edwards, marketing director at CIE-Group. The 'friction lock' ensures that there will be no worry of loose connections or pulled out cables which remo

USA - Audio industry veteran Michael Reeves passed away of injuries sustained in an accident when an automobile collided with him while riding his road bike in Monterey, California on June 21, 2014.

Michael's wife Mary and daughter Katy were close by, at home and many family and friends were able to assemble quickly to support and comfort them during the tragedy.

Michael was a well-known, larger-than-life character who loved to take everything to the extreme. Whether it was his work in the pro-audio business, his skill as a waterman, in cycling, in aviation, scuba diving, woodworking, photography or in music he would engage each one with great zeal. He was an avid cyclist who rode every week and loved to participate in long range cycling events known as Century Rides.

Michael MacDonald, President of ATK Audiotek, recalls Reeves as "the consummate salesman who loved to t

USA - Lab.gruppen has unveiled its D Series, a new flagship install-dedicated four-channel DSP amplifier platform, which debuted at InfoComm in Las Vegas.

Drawing upon experiences and new technologies developed recently as the company's flagship, and TEC Award-winning, PLM 20000Q - built primarily for the high-end touring market - increasingly became the preferred choice for consultants in demanding stadia and arena installations, D Series represents the most advanced and capable install-dedicated platform ever conceived by Lab.gruppen, says the company.

Total integration is the core ethos behind D Series, delivering what Lab.gruppen engineers describe as an amplifier platform that offers 'genuinely open interoperability' - a product that can integrate seamlessly with a wide range of digital audio and control protocols - bringing unique features and performance capabilities to

UK - Sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference. Many people believe that covering audiences of 1,000 people with just one Point Source mid/hi enclosure per side can't happen. KV2 Audio's ES Systems have been dispelling this myth for over a decade and allowing rental houses, venues and audio professionals to do this with incredible clarity and performance.

The idea of covering 5,000 people with the same system would normally be laughable. How about covering 50,000 people with one mid/hi per side? Impossible? Not quite.

Essex based Maple Pro Audio were tasked with providing sound and staging for a march to mark the first anniversary of the Peoples' Assembly being established. The march ended up in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament and featured speeches by comedians Russell Brand and Mark Steel, MP Caroline Lucas and journalist Owen Jones as well as live

Brazil - GloboSat's new TV OB truck is producing live broadcasts from World Cup matches played in the Maracana stadium, in Rio de Janeiro. The vehicle, which was completed just in time for this year's event, is Brazil's first 4k OB truck, and is fitted with audio equipment from Lawo and state-of-the-art Ravenna IP networking technology.

At the heart of the audio control room is a latest-generation 48-fader Lawo mc²56 - which is both compact and powerful. The interfacing to the outside world is taken care of by a DALLIS I/O system in the truck and two DALLIS stageboxes (with port redundancy) that are linked via Ravenna. The console's integrated Lawo Plugin Server allows seamless integration of plugin effects that can be recalled with stored snapshots.

Gabriel Thomazini, sound engineer in Rio on the GloboSat OB truck, reports on his work with Lawo, "We have had good result

Sweden - Audio Concept, a Stockholm based audio retailer, has recently opened the doors to its newly refurbished showroom in the centre of the city. At 456sq.m this remarkable showroom is not only one of the largest specialist shops in Europe devoted to high end audio, but also one of the most original and creative. Amongst the range of audio equipment showcased is a 15.2 surround sound demo system that features Genelec G Series loudspeakers and an Illusonic IAP 16 processor.

Audio Concept offers a complete audio system service from initial consultation and planning, through to installation. Robert Grubstad of Audio Concept has been working with Genelec monitors for many years and was well aware of their potential as residential loudspeakers as well as for multichannel purposes:

"When we chose the Illusonic IAP 16, a unique multichannel processor, we knew we would need a

UK - The Professional Footballer's Association got its celebrations of this year's World Cup off to a great start by hosting a charity dinner on London's South Bank. Sennheiser UK - the PFA's official audio supplier - provided a Digital 9000 Series wireless microphone system for an evening that raised thousands of pounds for charity.

The dinner, which took place at the Riverbank Park Plaza, was attended by a number of World Cup legends, including 1966 winner George Cohen and other former England players, as well as the evening's host Alan Shearer. Featuring Brazilian-themed entertainment and a silent auction, in all the evening raised over £54,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Sennheiser UK supplied eight channels of Digital 9000 Series microphones to the event, including six handheld and two lapel mics, which were used by Shearer and for the silent auction.

Sennheiser

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