USA - Spurred by growing student populations and a general shift toward high-tech teaching support systems, Becker High School in Becker, Minnesota and United South Central K-12 in Wells, Minnesota undertook new construction projects that were only recently completed. Becker added a swimming pool and a 900-seat auditorium, and USC erected a whole new school that includes a 600-seat auditorium, a primary gymnasium, an auxiliary gymnasium, and a commons area. David Peterson of Peterson AV designed the sound systems for both projects, and VSI, a Mankato-based integration firm, performed the installation. VSI specified Ashly Audio amplifiers for both projects, citing their uniquely high performance-to-price ratio.

"The original specification for both projects was for a much pricier brand of amplifier," explained Tim Suedbeck, design engineer with VSI. "We've worked wi

USA - Six years after installing a Meyer Sound system in its Littlefield Concert Hall, Mills College in Oakland, Calif. has again turned to Meyer Sound to add a UPQ-1P loudspeaker system. The new addition works seamlessly with the hall's existing Meyer Sound equipment to support an array of experimental and electronic music performances and recording sessions for the college's Center for Contemporary Music (CCM).

"Meyer Sound speakers are refined and silky in the high end, and I don't know of any better sounding speaker for this room than UPQ-1Ps," states Les Stuck, technical director for CCM. "You can hear each speaker clearly from every seat, thanks to Meyer Sound's outstanding design team and the MAPP XT™ system design tool. That combination of excellent sound quality, a great design team, and design software makes all the difference. I wouldn't go with an

UK - Over the past year, White Light has continued to expand both its services and expertise across a variety of entertainment fields. Whilst remaining the leading theatrical lighting supplier, the complete production solution specialist has recently supported touring concerts for artists such as 50 Cent and Frankie Valli, historic occasions such as the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary, as well as festivals such as the Winslow Hall Opera and Glastonbury. One of the most significant developments has been its expansion into audio and video. As a result, White Light now requires a team of freelancers who can help support the company as the demand for its services in both areas continues to grow.

At the start of 2015, White Light formed its very own audio department. Fronted by Head of Audio Lee Dennison, who formerly worked at Delta Sound/Sound by Design, the department was created to

UK - High Kirk Presbyterian Church in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, Ireland, recently installed Allen & Heath GLD digital mixers as part of a major refurbishment project.

The Church purchased two GLD-112 desks - one for live sound and one for recording - plus, an AR2412 and two AR84 IO expanders. The two desks were fitted with M-Dante network cards, providing simple to use multitrack recording capabilities.

The Church needed to satisfy a variety of operators with the choice of console. Some only use the desk one or two times a month, whilst others are professional sound engineers.

"During the demo, the more we looked at it, the more we realised how perfect the GLD was for our requirements - a single solution which totally eliminated our need for outboard equipment. Furthermore, all of our operators have their own preferred "layout" but with 28 faders and 4 layers, it

UK - JoeCo is celebrating seven years of BlackBox Recorder and BlackBox Player development with a worldwide Anniversary Sale. Starting 1 August, customers will have an opportunity to buy some of the manufacturer's most popular products at specially discounted prices. Products on offer include the 24-channel BlackBox BBR1-B balanced analogue recorder, the 64-channel BBR64-MADI Recorder and the new flagship BBR1MP Recorder.

JoeCo's founder, Joe Bull, began developing the 1U multi-channel BlackBox Recorder in 2008. The first 24-channel system, released the following year, was hailed as a revolutionary solution for live multi-channel audio capture. It offered live engineers a computer-free, high-quality solution for recording, virtual soundchecking and archiving performances. The recorder quickly gained the first in a series of awards for its groundbreaking technology. Over the year

UK - Roland has announced the global launch of the O.H.R.C.A M-5000C Digital Mixing Console. This console closely follows the launch of the award winning O.H.R.C.A M-5000 console earlier this year. Measuring under 30 inches (74 cm) in width and weighing just 70 pounds (32kg), the compact M-5000C offers all the flexibility and power of the M-5000 console but in a smaller footprint - making it suitable for touring, broadcast, theatre and live performance. The M-5000C will make its debut to the European market at the forthcoming IBC Exhibition (Amsterdam RAI, 11-15 September 2015).

Using the same O.H.R.C.A (Open High Resolution Configurable Architecture) platform that has made the M-5000 so popular with engineers, the M-5000C brings a new dimension of user configurability to consoles of this size at an affordable price-point, says the company. The O.H.R.C.A. platform delivers 128 f

UK - Staff from Martin Audio subjected themselves to a real endurance test recently when they took up the Grand Union 50K Challenge, organized by Action Challenge. That's 31 miles in old money!

Encouraged by team captain Sophie McCurdy, strongly supported by Simon Bull, the team - which also included David Morbey, Maureen Hayes, Nigel Meddemmen, Debbie Moore, Andy Baldwin, Lydia Blackwood and Russell Lee - set out at 9am from Watford's Cassiobury Park and finished at 10.30pm. The total walking time was nine and a half hours (plus rest stops) and the route took them along the Grand Union Canal through Hemel Hempstead (11k), Tring (26k), Leighton Buzzard (40k) and finishing in Stoke Hammond.

"We finished together as a team and showed great morale and camaraderie throughout the walk - although we were very tired afterwards," admits Sophie. "It was an excellent team

UK - With a major roster of artists on its books - and one of its long-term charges Ed Sheeran recently undertaking a stadium tour, UK-based rental company Major Tom Ltd was eager to keep its digital audio systems constantly evolving.

"We had been looking at investing in an Optocore system for a while, admits Major Tom's Andy Banks. "We have been massive DiGiCo users since they started out, and as such have always used the Optocore products within the DiGiCo set up."

But recently they purchased their own independent system, comprising multiple X6R and V3R converters with Mic In, Line Out and AES boards. Banks explained that this was a co-ordinated move from both analogue and AES copper to fibre: "We knew it would make FOH runs smaller and lighter and give greater efficiencies, with the requirement for far greater channel capacity over far less cable."<

Italy - At the beginning of the summer, Rome's San Giovanni (St John Lateran) Square hosted a reported crowd of a million people of all ages from all over Italy, gathered in support of the family, in favour of children's rights to have a mother and a father, and making an apolitical and non-denominational protest against the introduction of "gender ideology" in schools.

The company with the task of ensuring that such a large crowd managed to follow every word of the speakers alternating on stage was Cipiesse (Centro di Programmazione Spettacoli) Srl, founded in 1979 and headquartered in Rezzato (Brescia).

Cipiesse partner Marco Riva, responsible for meeting the event's demanding requirements as far as sonic quality and intelligibility were concerned, explains, "As well as the event's sound reinforcement, our company also supplied the stage and backdrop, support

France - Over 16,000 people attended the 40th anniversary concert of the Orchestre Nationale de Lille (ONL) in July. It was the first time the orchestra had performed in the impressive Pierre-Mauroy stadium just outside Lille, usually reserved for premiership football matches. However, the stadium's extraordinary design in which the northern half of the pitch lifts up and slides over the southern half to reveal a 'showcase' arena for concerts and indoor sporting competitions complete with terraced seating below pitch level, provided the perfect venue for this momentous occasion. Indeed, the event ticked off a number of 'firsts'; the first time for the ONL in the venue which is the first of its kind in Europe, and the first time that a full RAVENNA digital network has been deployed on a live event of this scale.

"It was an impressive setup," recalled digital audio speci

UK - Studiomaster has had its best consecutive sales months in more than three years, in June and July. Record sales, in particular for its latest PA speaker and compact mixing desk series - DRIVE, Venture and ClubXS - are on course to give the brand its record third quarter in recent times. The run of successful new products marks a return to form for Studiomaster, in conjunction with the re-establishment of its European self-distribution, its joint HQ, distribution and logistics centre with partner brand Carlsbro.

General manager Patrick Almond emphasizes it is the conjunction of both of these developments that has created the perfect storm. "Precisely when the benefits of re-establishing our own European distribution and logistics are coming to fruition, we have introduced a number of new products, at the most competitive end of the market, which have really hit the spot

USA - Community has added R Series to its growing library of manufacturer-authorized EASE Focus 2 GLL data files, allowing system designers to quickly create accurate 3D models of complex R Series arrays using the EASE Focus 2 software application from AFMG.

Dave Howden, Community's director of technical services, commented, "Because EASE Focus 2 makes it easy to see the direct-field coverage of a loudspeaker array, it's a great prototyping tool. Community is pleased to support system designers by providing manufacturer-authorized EASE Focus 2 GLL files for a wide range of our products."

EASE Focus 2 is a free application available directly from AFMG. Manufacturer-authorized EASE and EASE Focus 2 GLL files for Community loudspeakers may be downloaded from Community's website.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Revolution Hall in southeast Portland, Oregon is the reincarnation of the auditorium of former George Washington High School. The high school closed in 1981 due to low enrolment, and the 113,500sq.ft brick building has been unoccupied since that time.

Investors purchased the former school in 2013 and quickly began remodelling it as a mixed-use space. Old classrooms are now inspired offices, the roof is now a deck suitable for weddings and other events, and the old auditorium at the heart of the building is now Revolution Hall, capable of accommodating 800-plus music fans. Rose City Sound, a local audio rental, engineering, and installation firm, designed and installed Revolution Hall's sound reinforcement system using a Meyer Sound FOH rig and an Ashly/Fulcrum monitoring system, both of which are tied together by a FOH Midas console.

"They've got 12 Fulcrum loudspea

USA - The Ranch Concert Hall and Saloon is Fort Myers' newest and largest event centre and live concert venue featuring many of the country's leading performers. In recent months, the venue - more commonly known as The Ranch - was host to country music artists Josh Turner, Joe Nichols, and Tanya Tucker. The venue is a leading attraction in the area and, to ensure both the performers and the customers are happy, management wanted a sound system that was best in class. This is why they selected components drawn from the Aero Series 2 catalogue of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Ft. Meyers, FL-based Tech-Tronics Sound, Lighting, and Staging was contracted to provide sound for The Ranch. In addition to being a design / build firm for the AV installation market, Tech-Tronics is also a full service production company that provides turnkey concert and events solutions including sou

UK - Seven years after the grandeur of Harrogate's iconic Royal Hall was restored following an £8m grant-assisted investment, the theatre has installed a digitally steerable RCF column PA system.

With its spectacular décor, the Grade II*-listed 1000 seat multipurpose theatre not only forms part of the large Harrogate International Conference Centre (HIC) but significantly is one of the few surviving Frank Matcham designed theatres from the Edwardian era. Among its many technological breakthroughs, it remains the last surviving Kursaal, a genre which was particularly popular in spa towns, offering a 360° ambulatory for visitors.

Originally designed 115 years ago, the venue is focused on a wide range of performance, from the three-week International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival to a myriad of community activities. Therefore, the new sound system needed to be vers

USA - At North Carolina's Elon University, a steerable Meyer Sound CAL column array loudspeaker system provides clear speech and music in the Great Hall, a large common room with acoustically reflective architectural elements typically found in centuries-old European institutions.

"The plan was to use the room for everything from video game tournaments and movies to graduation-related ceremonies, and CAL has proven ideal on all counts," says Joe Davis, assistant director of campus technology support and solutions architect for Elon University. "The vast expanse of windows on three sides, plus one largely flat, sheetrock wall create a highly reverberant space that could be over-excited by amplified sound. And any permanent system had to be practically invisible while still providing high-level, full bandwidth sound. The CALs disappear into the décor and real

UK - Stage Audio Service is a long established L-Acoustics user, having taken delivery of its first system some 20 years ago. Its most recent acquisition is an L-Acoustics K2 system, purchased via SSE Sales, which is proving as successful as its existing 300 plus cabinets.

Investing in the L-Acoustics brand has, says owner Kevin Mobberley, been very good for the company. "We were the first company in the country to buy L-Acoustics. We were very small back then and it was a good decision. It's a product that people want, we were lucky to get on board early and we've done well from it. Now we have pretty much every cabinet they've ever made, plus 50 or 60 of their new LA8 amps," he says.

"We bought the K2 system because it's a natural progression from V-DOSC and DV-DOSC, and we wanted to be at the forefront of the new technology. It's a great 'polite' sounding sys

Germany - The German Broadcast Archive (Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, DRA) has carried out extensive technical upgrades to three copy and production facilities at its Potsdam-Babelsberg location using Lawo technology. Integration of the Lawo equipment into the company's production environment was carried out by Swiss systems integrator, SLG Broadcast.

Now completed, the centrepiece of each copy suite is a 12-fader Lawo sapphire console, comprising one central unit and three fader modules. All audio sources (inputs and outputs) are connected to a DALLIS mainframe fitted with a GPIO board that allows control of tape decks, CD players and DAT machines from the sapphire console surface.

Technically, the Potsdam Broadcast Archive comprises three copy and production suites with sapphire consoles - two of the suites were built in 2014, also by SLG Broadcast - which are connected to a Law

UK - Rob Baldock, owner of Re:live Recordings zips around the UK recording live performances and interviews by acts such as One Direction, Foo Fighters, Kasabian and Labrinth for video production company, LiveFi. He has been perfecting his gear set-up, and is currently testing out six ASP880s, the eight channel mic pre from Audient.

He describes his recording kit: "It's based around two RME FireFace UFX and a MacBook Pro running Reaper for recording. The Audients fit in great - D-SUB out of the first one to analogue in on the FireFace and then ADAT out for the other two - repeat for the second rack/FireFace.

"I did a live EP with The Shires at The Green Note in Camden, this was the first time I decided to go out with just the Audients and the RME," he continues. "The brilliant thing for me was that it ended up being such a portable rack that I could take th

USA - Currently touring the US with a Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker system provided by SES (Special Event Services) of Winston Salem, NC and Nashville, TN, the Avett Brothers recently sold out three nights at the challenging Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado.

An eclectic mix of bluegrass, country, punk, pop melodies, folk, rock, honky-tonk and ragtime, the Avett Brothers are generally defined as 'Americana', their music encompassing an unusually wide dynamic range.

As SES system engineer Andrew Steelman points out, "They're not a highly compressed band that lives in a pocket during the show. They go from very loud, aggressive, in your face rock, to acoustic guitars, banjos, a cello, violin and small high fidelity stringed ensembles. In terms of dynamics, it's a constant rise and a fall."

Because MLA has smaller format compression drivers, the system offer

UK - Minerva Hearing, the specialist British manufacturer of in-ear hearing protection technology, has appointed Sue Harris to the position of business development manager.

With over 20 years experience in healthcare services and associated industries, Sue Harris will now be working on further expanding the UK client-base of Minerva which was founded in 1930.

The company provides custom-made In-Ear Monitors (IEMs) for musicians and broadcast presenters, as well as hearing protection used throughout industry and sport, including Formula 1 racing, motorcycling, gun clubs, swimming and surfing. The company also provides sleep plugs for people kept awake by their partner's snoring or neighbourhood noise.

Minerva Hearing is also one of the leading suppliers of earmolds for hearing aids to NHS hearing clinics.

Kevin Davies, operations director of Minerva Hearing said, "Sue

UK - CIE-Group has announced the launch of the Inter-M AOE212N audio-over-IP distribution system. With its AoIP (Audio-overIP) capabilities, the AOE212N is designed for transmission of voice, music or audio advertising content, either throughout multi-zone buildings or across campus-wide, multi-sites, or globally.

Suitable for retail outlets, banks, university campuses and other large-scale PA / BGM applications, the system connects via standard TCP/IP to a LAN or WAN, and is simple to operate and offers compatibility with a wide range of audio sources.

"Being IP-enabled, the new AOE212N brings PA systems right up to date," comments Chris Edwards, marketing director of CIE-Group. "The AOE212N device can distribute content locally and globally, whatever the requirement. It is extremely versatile and can be used as a full-on Audio-over-IP public address system or

USA - A popular choice for conventions and exhibitions with nearly 190,000sq.ft of space, Wisconsin Centre in Milwaukee remains one of the state's most popular destinations for large-scale business gatherings. But times and technologies change, and in recent years there had been a growing recognition that the original audio processing infrastructure was approaching the end of its natural lifespan.

The need to prevent potentially costly downtime due to equipment failure was the final prompt for venue owner and operator Wisconsin CentreDistrict (WCD) to enlist locally-based Metro Sound & Video to specify and install a replacement for the existing DSP and paging set-up, as well as some ageing amplifiers and mixers. "Both WCD and we felt that it would be best to replace the entire system head-end now as opposed to when disaster strikes," says Metro Sound & Video director o

UK - "The DiGiCo SD7 has been my companion for the last 18 months and I wouldn't change it for anything," says Chris Marsh, Front of House engineer for Ed Sheeran.

A pretty strong statement, but with Ed just completing a short, but hugely successful, run of gigs at London's Wembley Stadium and Croke Park in Dublin, selling out every date and playing to a total audience of over 400,000, Chris had to be sure he was working with the best tools for the job. For him, an essential element is his SD7.

Chris has been a DiGiCo advocate for many years, but the SD7, used in conjunction with an SD-Mini Rack on stage, is now his favourite. "The pre amps are incredibly natural, they really sound musical," he says. "There's so much you can do with Dynamic EQ and Compression; the need for additional outboard is negated by the power within the console itself. As long a

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