USA - Blue Man Group, whose globally successful show is a performance art spectacle rooted in dynamic percussion, relies upon EV mics. Matt Koenig, audio director/designer for Blue Man Group, is responsible for specifying sound reinforcement equipment for all the Blue Man Group productions around the world. Drums and percussion are the driving force of every show and picking the right drum mics is a top priority to ensure consistently excellent sound quality. Koenig explained how he arrived at the Electro-Voice N/D468 and N/D868.

"We gathered a group of mics from various manufacturers, set them up in our studio rehearsal space in New York, and had a shootout," Koenig says. "We soon found the N/D468 and N/D868 to be the best-sounding mics for our application. They won fair and square, and were judged by people who really know drum sound, as that's such a huge part

RF News - The first ever Sennheiser RFX Series was a training event that gave Sennheiser's service and support engineers from around the globe the opportunity to experience RF issues that can affect live shows at first hand. Only by dealing with problems in real life pressure situations, Sennheiser believes, can engineers pick up the field experience needed to turn RF knowledge into operational RF expertise.

Putting theory into practice, the students ­ Sennheiser employees from the US, the UK, Denmark, India, Russia, China, Singapore and Germany ­ learnt the nuances of RF equipment and potential problems before spending a full day installing and troubleshooting RF mics and IEMs for a nine-piece band under the watchful and demanding eyes of two very experienced live sound engineers. Digico donated their new flagship SD7 console for front of house, and a D5 for monitors, and with Georg

UK - This summer has seen the busiest festival season yet for Chris Beale Associates (CBA), whose packages of wireless, site-wide communications have been adopted by many outdoor events including Glastonbury, Download Festival, the V Festivals, Reading and Leeds, Latitude, T in the Park and Radiohead's Glasgow outdoor show, while corporate events have included shows for the Royal Horticultural Society.

The objective of CBA Wireless Events, the networking operations part of CBA, founded by Chris Beale in 2005, is to transform communications between the myriad companies and people scattered across event sites spanning hundreds of acres - Glastonbury's Worthy Farm being a prime example.

Today, Beale says that wireless is in demand across major event sites to an unprecedented extent. "It was our second year at Glastonbury in an independent role, contracted to supply IT, netwo

France - Projection specialists E/T/C Paris supplied Christie video projectors, an Onlyview control system, an extensive video camera package and a digital outside broadcast van for the Unighted event, staged at the Stade de France stadium in Paris.

Hosted by club promoter, Cathy Guetta, the event 'unighted' five of the world's best known DJs - David Guetta, Carl Cox, Tiësto, Martin Solveig and Joachim Garraud - in a swirling, high energy multimedia mix of aesthetics and emotions enjoyed by 45,000 enthusiastic party people.

E/T/C Paris was asked onboard by long-time collaborators Skertzò, who were chosen to create the show's scenic elements and image design.

In addition to the video projection and Onlyview system, E/T/C provided equipment and crew for all the image capturing and relaying elements of the show.

A total of 23 cameras were used - five broadcast, two w

UK - fabric has added the Vestax PMC-580 4-Channel DJ Mixer with on-board digital effects and PDX-3000 turntables to its stock of premium DJ equipment. fabric is one of five clubs in the UK chosen to receive a PMC-580 Mixer sponsored by Vestax, organised by exclusive UK distributors Leisuretec Distribution.

Technical manager of fabric, Sanjeev Bhardwaj commented: "This is fabric, our reputation is everything and we have to have to have the best equipment available for our artists. Having road tested the Vestax PMC-580, this mixer is superb."

He continued: "The 580 is a very powerful, high level mixer, making it not just suitable for a large club like fabric, but smaller clubs too.The features are excellent, it's easy to work with and it's not cramped at the back. The 580 has every feature set you could want on a mixer; analogue and digital mode, MIDI, master out

USA - With sales of over 25 million albums, seven number-one hits, and eleven Grammys in less than a decade in the spotlight, Alicia Keys is at the top of her game. This summer will find her headlining shows and playing festivals throughout the world in support of her third studio album, As I Am.Keys sings into a Sennheiser SKM 5200 wireless mic with a dynamic MD 5235 capsule. Her backing singers use Sennheiser SKM 935 G2 wireless mics, and all of the mobile members of the band, including Keys, rely on evolution wireless ew 300 IEM G2 wireless personal monitor systems.

FOH engineer Larry Mignona comments, "The 5235 has a warm sound without the unnatural high-end boost that's so prevalent in many wireless mics. In my opinion, that high-end boost is there to flatter singers who can't really sing. But Alicia can really sing. In addition, the rejection from a Sennheiser

UK - Avolites consoles were specified extensively for lighting control in the majority of arenas at Global Gathering 2008, one of the UK's leading dance festivals, staged at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire.

The visual design that united lighting, digital and video sources into one seamless atmospheric experience for all fivearenas and three terraces, was created by Nick Jevons and Phil Winward of Electric Fly Productions. Site wide lighting equipment was supplied by Blackburn-based HSL, and crew from both companies collaborated closely to ensure that it was one of the most visually memorable Global events to date.

The seven arena/terrace Avolites consoles included two Diamond 4s, two Pearls and three Tigers. Jevons says, "Avolites is the ultimate festival console - nothing else offers the flexibility or ease of use for the hands-on, live operati

France - L-Acoustics has announced the launch of the K1/KUDO Pilot Programme. This announcement follows the recent publication of an interview of Christian HEIL and Stéphane Ecalle at ProLight & Sound 2008 in which L-Acoustics unveiled the V-DOSC sequel and the future creation of a global DOSC Network.

The K1/KUDO Pilot Programme will be proposed primarily to existing members of the DOSC Network - V-DOSC and KUDO owners with an interest in advanced field proofing of the new K1/KUDO/LA8 system architecture for stadium and arena applications.

The K1/KUDO Pilot Programme is expected to last for a period of 24 months, a necessary time prior to the official launch of the future L-Acoustics Stadium line array system. K1/KUDO Pilot rental companies will closely collaborate with L-Acoustics R&D team and technical support. Emphasis will be put on preset validation, stadium syste

UK - Specialist supplier of audio visual, multimedia and videoconferencing technology, Saville Audio Visual has expanded its commitment to KV2 Audio - by adding to its existing inventory of KV2 Audio ES Series - in a number of the company's 14 locations across the UK.

Saville's Hull office has recently added 14 KV2 Audio EX10 two-way, full-range, active enclosures, all of which have joined Hull's existing four stacks of KV2 ES Series in time for the current 15-week, televised, Premier League tour for the Professional Darts Corporation.

The tour attracts live arena audiences of up to 8,000 per night and is transmitted live on Sky Sports channel. The KV2 Audio system provides the main sound requirement for each event, from the warm-ups, player walk-ons, referee decisions and TV announcements.

A double KV2 ES Series stack either side of the stage, each comprising of two flown E

USA - One of America's most iconic monuments, the 60ft high carvings of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt on Mt. Rushmore took the sculptor Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers nearly 14 years to complete in 1941. Since that time, millions of Americans and international visitors have travelled to the Black Hills of South Dakota to view this modern wonder and witness its nightly lighting ceremonies and other special events.

In 1998 a massive redevelopment project added an amphitheatre, museum, visitors' centre, gift shop, restaurant and other tourist facilities to the national park. In the decade since, the harsh Dakota winters have taken their toll on the facility's public address system, and Rapid City-based Haggerty's Audio Video was called in to design the system's upgrade and expansion.

"We actually created two separate systems," explains Haggarty's Mike Moo

Ukraine - D.A.S. Aero 48 units were recently deployed for rock singer and guitarist Vladimir Kuzmin's concert in Ukraine. This was the first of many concerts the singer will be offering as part of his tour which include events in the cities of Odessa, Nikolayev, Kherson, Krivoy, Rog, Poltava, Severo-Donetsk, Donetsk, Lugansk and Dnepropetrovsk.

The Aero equipment was supplied by Ukrainian rental company StormLine, partners of Indigo Music Company, D.A.S. distributor in Ukraine. The Aero 48 provided optimal performance at the concert, of which StormLine owner Yevgeny Shturmin, commented, "The sound was crystal clear and at the same time very powerful. I thought it was a large scale Hi Fi system." Eight Aero 48 units were flown per side and eight ST-32 units were employed as stage monitors. Signal processing was handled by the D.A.S. DSP-26 digital signal processors.

I

Sweden - Adlib Audio, one of the UK's leading audio rental companies with thriving sales and installation departments, has just invested in twenty of Lab.gruppen's flagship PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management systems to control, process, monitor and power their stage monitors.

According to Adlib director, Dave Kay, the company had been seeking to upgrade their monitor systems for quite some time. "We were looking for two things in particular," observed Kay. "Firstly, we wanted to upgrade our processing to a feature set capable of handling the ever-increasing demands made on our monitor systems. Major tours and stage shows are becoming more and more complex, and artists are more demanding than ever before, so monitor systems have to keep pace if you want to keep your artists happy on stage. We were reaching the limits of our current processing solution, so it

UK - Event security specialists Showsec played an integral safety role in the series of concerts and festivals staged at Hyde Park, this June and July.

Three high profile events took place on two consecutive weekends, starting with the star-studded 46664 charity concert celebrating Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday on the final Friday of June. Hard Rock Calling took place on the Saturday and Sunday immediately following, with a bill headlined by the Police and Eric Clapton, while, on the second weekend, O2 Wireless hosted Fat Boy Slim, Morrissey, Jay Z and Counting Crows. The same site and infrastructure was also used for an additional mid-week concert by Jack Johnson.

Showsec were at the heart of event planning, with the company's operations director Simon Battersby appointed Head of Security for all three events. The Mandela concert boasted the largest capacity of 46,664, while

Australia - With the current trend of outsourcing product manufacture to Asian countries, Australian Lighting Control System manufacturer, LSC Lighting Systems has bucked the trend and invested heavily in expanding manufacturing within its own home market.

LSC's managing director, Gary Pritchard, explains: "Although the perceived financial benefits of manufacturing in Asia are tempting, the stories of inferior quality products and lost Intellectual property experienced by other companies exploring this option, have convinced us to invest here in Australia. We are very protective of our intellectual property (designs) and we pride ourselves on the high quality and enduring products we build. Both of these qualities, we felt, could be at great risk if outsourced to areas that are hard to directly control from Australia."

To show their customer base that LSC products ar

UK - Entec Lighting helped the Larmer Tree Festival - the UK's original 'boutique' event - celebrate its colourful 18th Birthday at the weekend, supplying lighting to the Main Stage, Garden Stage and several other performance arenas, and also illuminating some of the flora, fauna and foliage around the site.

The Festival, run by J&J Events, is set in the heart of the beautiful Larmer Tree Gardens on the Wiltshire/Dorset borders. The Gardens were created by General Pitt Rivers in 1880 as pleasure grounds for "public enlightenment and entertainment" and are part of the outstanding landscape of Cranbourne Chase.

It's the third year that the west London based rental company has been involved with the event, which is limited to an intimate 5000 capacity and is renowned for it's very chilled vibes, quality international entertainment and amazing surroundings.

Ente

Poland - Home to a classical dance group and offering courses in competitive rumba, tango, and waltz, the local dance hall in the lower Silesian city of Bielawa attracts fans of many different dancing styles.

The venue's owner Waclaw Szwaczka has furnished his 300-capacity hall with lavish appointments. On the audio front, he has opted for two CTA 208 high-/midrange enclosures and two CTA 118 subwoofers from HK Audio. The Polish HK Audio dealer AMTEC installed the units after a live demo.

Waclaw Szwaczka comments: "I had several reasons for choosing the Contour Array. On the one hand, the system's dimensions are compact, yet it provides enough power for this relatively big dance hall. Its sound is articulate and good.

And because it is an active system that does not require a separate rack, amp, or controller, we don't have a mess of cables in the hall. What's more, the

UK - Editors, the Brit Award-nominated band who will be supporting REM across Europe and the UK later this August, will be taking to stadium stages armed with an array of microphones and monitor systems from Sennheiser.

Lead vocalist Tom Smith will be singing into a Sennheiser e840 for the entire tour. "The range of Tom's vocal is very large and rich throughout," explains FOH engineer Nick Ingram. "I needed a microphone that could capture this whilst at the same time as rejecting as much spill from the noisy stage as possible. The Sennheiser Evolution vocal mics have a fantastically smooth frequency response and the e840 in particular has a roll-off in the high frequencies which suits Tom as it counteracts the highly pronounced sibilance in his voice."

For the band's backline, Ingram has found that Sennheiser mics more than meet his requirements. "I ca

USA - When the ClearView Baptist Church wanted to ramp up its stage lighting for video production, designer Peter Vaque knew the project would be a challenge. His production company, Springtree Media Group LLC (Franklin, TN), had worked with ClearView just a few years before, and Vaque was aware of the Tennessee church's limited electrical load capacity.

"Several years ago, before video became a factor, ClearView wanted to improve its stage lighting, and they were told there was no way they could do this without spending a fortune on a new transformer," recalled Vaque. "We went in and showed them how they could do it on their existing circuitry, using intelligent lights. We installed several CMY colour-mixing intelligent lights, and the look was phenomenal."

But now with its membership passing 2,000, ClearView was growing into a need for quality video to cr

UK - UBM's Live Media business is delighted to announce the acquisition of Mondiale Publishing's Sleep and Arc Exhibitions, Conferences and The European Hotel Design Awards.

Sleep and Arc were both launched in 2005. Sleep, comprising a design-led exhibition, high-level conference and prestigious awards ceremony; has rapidly established itself as Europe's leading event for all those involved in the creation of new hotels. Now in its third year, the show is bigger than ever and has moved to a new venue; the Business Design Centre, Islington, to accommodate the increasing participation demand.

Arc exhibition and conference, is the UK's leading event for Architectural, Retail and Commercial lighting. UK architects, designers and lighting designers are creating stunning high profile projects across the world as emerging economies transform their cityscapes. With such an influential

Korea - This year, Shure Incorporated's channel partner in Korea, Sama ProSound, is celebrating its 40th year as a Shure distributor. Mr. Joong S. Inn established the firm and began its partnership with Shure in 1968.

"In today's marketplace, it has become increasingly rare to find the kind of long-lasting, productive, and cooperative partnership that we have enjoyed with Sama ProSound over the past 40 years," said Sandy LaMantia, president and CEO of Shure. "We recognize that our own growth and reputation in Korea is directly impacted by Sama ProSound's interactions with our customers, and we truly appreciate the relationship that we have with Mr. Inn and his staff. They have played a vital role in our success in Asia."

Sama ProSound Company is one of the most successful distributors in the pro-audio industry in Korea. The company currently represents/dist

Italy - Within a short space of time, Brescia's Piazza Paolo VI was the spectacular setting for two shows - concerts by Giovanni Allevi and Loreena McKennitt.

As well as being a pianist and orchestra conductor, Giovanni Allevi is also one of the top composers on the current international scene. At the Brescia event, a stop on his Evolution Tour (named after his latest album), Allevi was accompanied by the 36-member Symphony Orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani.

Canadian singer/songwriter Loreena McKennitt only played in two Italian towns (Brescia and Udine) on her 2008 European Summer Tour.

Both concerts were reinforced through an Outline Butterfly-based system. Cipiesse Produzioni per lo Spettacolo was the Brescia rental firm responsible for the project. In May, the company purchased a Butterfly rig comprising 16 CDH 483 Hi-Packs, eight Subtech 218, Genius 26 processors an

Germany - In the recent past, ChainMaster Bühnentechnik of Eilenburg has provided chain hoists and chain-hoist controllers for a variety of projects in Eastern Europe. One notable venue to be equipped was the Luzhniki Olympic Complex in Moscow - a stadium associated primarily today with football. ChainMaster supplied 120 D8 Plus 500kg chain hoists for the stadium. The equipment was used for the European Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester Unioted.

The Lomonosov Moscow State University has also invested in equipment from ChainMaster, including four D8 Jumbo Lifts (the 6-tonne model) to manoeuvre the university's heavyweight video cube into position and a D8 manual control for installation work also involving the video cube.

Also in Moscow, four VarioLift 500 hoists and four VarioTrolleys - electric running gear with integrated frequency converters and positioning units -

USA - Touring in support of his Everything is Fine album, Josh Turner relies on Shure UHF-R wireless for his vocals and guitars well as a Shure PSM personal in-ear monitor system.

"I like to get as close to what you hear on my records as possible," he says of the mix he listens to through his PSM system. "My vocal should be out front to the extent that I can really hear every little nuance in my voice. I've found that helps me sing better in any situation. The rhythm section should be prominent too, but not overbearing. I love hearing all the fills from the steel, fiddle, and guitar."

Covering a wide range, Turner's voice is captured on the road with a UHF-R handheld transmitter equipped with a SM58 capsule. Cutting the cord on his guitar was a feat managed by the Shure UR14D Dual Bodypack Wireless System.

"My wireless stuff has been great,&qu

UK - HHB Communications has supplied a significant number of RSS Digital Snake multicore systems to BBC English Regions, which have been allocated to local radio stations across the UK. 17 stations will each receive a pair of Roland's new S-1608 Digital Snake multicore systems, teamed with a Yamaha LS9 digital console, to update their multi-mic outside broadcast capabilities.

Martin O'Donnell, HHB broadcast sales manager explains: "The Corporation's engineers first saw and discussed the possible applications for the new small-format RSS Digital Snakes on the HHB stand at IBC last year. Further talks took place at SBES and, with other Corporation OB vehicles using the 32-Ch systems (S4000), the new 16-In/8-Out configuration offered many of the same facilities in an even more compact and lightweight package. With connection options via rugged Neutrik Ethercon on 80-metre CAT5

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