Europe - Meyer Sound reports that European sound hire companies are "working overtime to keep up with an increasing demand for Meyer Sound systems at festival sites from the Baltic to the Mediterranean".

For Sweden's annual Hultsfred Festival, Starlight AB is powering the four main stages. M3D line arrays anchor the Hawaii and Pampas stages (25,000 and 12,000 capacity respectively), while MILO curvilinear arrays cover 5,000 at the Atlantis stage and M2D compact curvilinear arrays service the indoor theatre.

In Spain, major festivals that are scheduled to use Meyer systems include Metro Rock in Madrid, Festimad Sur between Madrid and Toledo, and the Festival International Benicassim (FIB) on the Mediterranean Coast near Valencia.

Meanwhile, on the shore of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, Meyer is about to notch up its 19th consecutive year as a sponsor of and official sou

USA - The newly-opened Club Pure in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas features wall-to-wall Turbosound loudspeakers. The 36,000sq.ft club boasts four distinctly different nightlife areas, each with its own audio system, installed by Scott Fisher, owner of The Wave Sound in Las Vegas.

The main dance floor at Pure is a rectangular room flanked on two sides by raised VIP platforms. There are eight Turbosound TQ-315 loudspeakers, four TQ-425 dual 15" subwoofers, and two TSW-718 dual 18" subwoofers covering the dance floor. In addition, Turbosound manufactured six custom horn clusters with four drivers each that hang over the dance floor. An additional four TQ-308 loudspeakers cover the VIP platforms. Surrounding the main dance floor are two more TQ-308s, eight TCS-59s and three TQ-115 subwoofers.

The VIP facility, the Red Room, has a system comprising eight TQ-308s, three TCS

USA - Road Ready Cases has launched its world exclusive Cool Cases line, featuring built-in electric cooling and venting fans. Plugged in for power, the cases cool live gear by an average of 12°F (7°C - cooling tested at 20°C / 68°F ambient temperature). "We're constantly looking for new ways to further the life of our customers' gear," says Mike Gerutto, Road Ready Cases president. "With this new built-in safeguard against overheating, we have taken the next step in protecting gear both inside and out."

The first five cases in this new line, specifically designed to hold and cool some of the most popular DJ gear in the market today, including popular equipment from Pioneer, Denon, Technics and Stanton.

(Lee Baldock)

Worldwide - Kylie's Showgirl tour may have come to a premature close for reasons we are all well aware of, but those that experienced the show will be eagerly awaiting her return. DiGiCo's D5 Live digital mixing consoles sat at both front-of-house and monitors throughout the tour, alongside a Martin W8L line array loudspeaker system controlled by XTA processing.

Kylie's front-of-house engineer Chris Pyne and system technician Tony Szabo have been with the singer for some considerable time. They have used a variety of equipment along the way, but Chris says he would opt for DiGiCo consoles any time. "I've been mixing Kylie for nine years now and she's one of the best live pop acts you could ever see," says Pyne. "I like mixing her on the D5. My personal opinion is, as an engineer, that you want as much information in front of you at any one time as you can possibly

UK - Soundcraft has added a further model, the MH2, to its range of VCA-grouped performance consoles. It is aimed at "touring companies and installations of all sizes".

Alongside its bigger brothers the MH3 and MH4, the MH2 is also capable of dual-mode (FOH/Monitor) applications, and features eight sub-groups, ten auxiliary busses, eight VCA groups and six mute groups, as well as an integral 11x4 matrix. It is available in frame sizes of 24, 32, 40 and 48 mono channels, all with four comprehensive, full function stereo inputs as standard.

As with the the other desks in the series, the MH2 can be switched to a front-of-house or monitor mode, whereby ten 60mm faders can be switched to control the auxiliary outputs instead of the groups for monitor use. In FOH mode, these faders normally control the eight group outputs plus two of the auxiliary sends.

"Our custom

UK - Northamptonshire Magistrates Courts Committee has invested in 15 Shure ConferenceONE discussion systems for use in every one of the county's magistrate's courts.ConferenceONE with its innovative, fold-out telescoping Microflex microphone and integrated IntelliMix automatic mixing technology is virtually effortless to set-up and operate and delivers consistently natural, feedback-free audio and speech intelligibility automatically and is ideal for meetings and discussions for up to sixty participants, say Shure.

Each of the court discussions systems consisted of a single chairman unit with varying number of delegate units. The systems also included a Shure Microflex MX412 gooseneck mic at the witness stand and a boundary mic in the secure dock. In order to effectively manage each of the said mics, a Shure SCM410 automatic 4-channel mixer with Intellimix was utilized to incre

UK - Difuzion - the lighting division of Fuzion plc - have designed and supplied the lighting for a major new club on Blackpool's Promenade based around Futurelight fixtures. Graham Barron, who heads up Difuzion (which distributes Futurelight in the UK), renewed his acquaintance with Over Audio's Mike Boylan, who won the contract to provide the complete sound and lighting package for Peter Bowden's 2300-capacity Club Sanuk.

The building - formerly The Waterfront when it was operated by Luminar Leisure - has been completely refurbished at the hands of Bowden - one of the industry's most experienced professionals, and also a long-term acquaintance of Graham Barron. Bowden was previously operations director for Luminar before moving to the Far East as project director for Ministry of Sound, Bangkok, Taipei and then Singapore. He has divided his new venue into four distinct areas (i

UK - Set within acres of rolling countryside and heritage-listed gardens, the luxurious new Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire (near Hook) has tasked its sound system contractor, Onyx Media, with providing a system to play back a wide programme of ambient, tranquility music through its many zones.

The content is key to setting the right mood to boost the wellbeing of guests in the retreat hotel, and Onyx Media director Richard Studerus turned to familiar audio brands. One of these was Denon - a mainstay over the past 10 years. In the latest Four Seasons - which Onyx fitted out over a three-year period - they have used Denon's DCM-280 five-disc CD-player exclusively.

With its digital output, the player offers excellent performance at an unbelievable price point - while still containing Denon's traditional build quality. It is ideal for delivering the new age music which is central to

UK - Reading-based Skan PA Hire has acquired a third Midas XL4 console, which left directly for a two-month tour of European dates and festivals with US metal band Slayer.

Skan took the decision to buy a third XL4 following "overwhelming demand" for its existing boards, which are fully committed to the company's busy summer of events. This includes the Chemical Brothers tour, the Download festival, Keane's summer dates and a series of concerts for the National Trust.

"All three purchases have been driven by customer demand, as the XL4 is still the desk of choice for a lot of FOH and monitor engineers, who are adamant it is the best sounding board available," says Skan director Abby Llewellyn. "Despite the increasing acceptance of digital consoles a lot of our clients prefer the sound of an XL4."

The new console is being operated by Slayer's fron

Germany - Klangschmiede, one of Germany's largest PA rental companies, has added a Cohedra Compact rig to its already extensive inventory of HK Audio products.

The rig comprises 32 CDR 108 C mid/high units and eight CDR 210 C Sub units and made its debut at a corporate birthday party, 60 Years WÜRTH, which took place over a week and featured performances from Jose Carreras plus an appearance by the President of Germany. It has since been used in the Cologne Arena for a traditional German folk music concert.

"The Cohedra Compact gives us a huge amount of flexibility since the system is perfectly suitable for small events due to its compact dimensions, but also offers good opportunities to scale up if sufficient cabinets are used," says Michael Frank, co-owner of Klangschmiede. "The sound characteristics and enormous power capability in relation to its size fully

France -Swiss Acoustic design company Studio Equipment, run by industry veteran Terry Nelson, was recently contracted to provide the sound, staging and screen for the presentation of the new Sony 4K digital cinema projector. The launch was held at the Château de la Napoule during this year's Cannes Film Festival, and Nelson chose a Telex Communications setup based around a Midas Venice console, Klark Teknik Helix digital equalisers and Electro-Voice surround sound system for the event.

Studio Equipment, which was commissioned for the project by Anna Valley (UK), treated the room acoustically to give it the characteristics of a proper screening room before setting up an Electro-Voice Plasma surround speaker system. At the centre of this, Nelson used a Midas Venice 160 as his monitor controller plus a processing rack of three Klark Teknik Helix DN9340 equalisers run by V3.7 Elgar

UK - Turbosound has announced the availability of two new powerful and compact DSP-based loudspeaker management systems. The Turbosound LMS-D26 and LMS-D24 digital systems both incorporate pre-set programmes for Turbosound's Aspect, QLight, HiLight, TFM and TCS series enclosures.

Designed for touring and fixed-install applications, the LMS series controllers combine the functions of multiple conventional crossover products in a compact 1U high, 19" rack unit. The LMS-D26 offers a 2-in/6-out format, while the LMS-D24 provides a 2-in/4-out configuration. Both systems offer quick set-up and adjustment via an easy-to-use menu structure accessed by front panel buttons and rotary encoders. They provide full control over crossover frequency, filter slope, gain and polarity, and have integral, fast-acting limiters.

The new controllers are also equipped with electronically balance

UK - A.C. Lighting's Audio division has sold a Mackie TT24 digital audio console to Nolan Sound, one of Ireland's top sound rental companies.

Nolan Sound's Alan Nolan and business partner Jim Fox had recently invested in a digital console from A.C. and decided digital was now the way to go since the latest generation combined built-in digital processing capabilities with the ability to transfer show data between like-for-like consoles, and were much easier to use live.

They opted for the Mackie TT24 desk because it was designed to be as user-friendly as possible for live sound engineers to operate - sharing its look and feel with the traditionally easier to use analogue console. At the same time it featured all the benefits of a digital console, including a built in effects library, which made set-up very quick and easy.

The Mackie TT24 is a 56 x 45, 24-bit, 96kHz capable di

UK - The coming months see Britannia Row Productions at its busiest, though resources are not quite in their usual deployment patterns, according to Britrow's Roly Oliver.

"We are providing an enormous amount of self contained control and monitor systems to our clients for the festival season; the list is huge, Foo Fighters, Robbie Williams, Will Young, Faithless, Jamiroquai, Oasis, Robert Plant, Marilyn Manson, and Simply Red."

He continues, "Our EV X-line systems are all out for the REM outdoor shows, the Wireless festival, Glastonbury, and now the Live8 event in Hyde Park. V-dosc is being used for a tour by The Kings of Leon, and for delays on several of the bigger festivals.

"With our paced acquisition of Yamaha and Digico digital desks over the past couple of years, and our extensive inventory of Midas and other analogue desks, we actually have enoug

UK - Wigwam Hire were able to give a full run to their Martin Audio line array systems on the recent Girls Aloud theatre tour, the wide variation of venue capacities enabling the set-up to be easily reconfigurable between the Compact and Mini enclosures.

The W8LC had already proved its worth on sidehang duties with Westlife, and once again production duties were in the hands of Production North - owned by Steve Levitt and Iain Whitehead - with the latter taking production responsibility for this set of dates.

While 24 Martin W8LC Compact Line Arrays and 12 x WLX subs were provided as the core system, two dollies of six W8LM Mini Line Arrays gave the FOH team of Mark Littlewood (sound engineer) and Sid Rogerson (system tech) options of groundstacking or flying depending on available rigging points and weightload restrictions.

The largest show was at the 12,000-capacity Sheffi

Spain / The Netherlands - Vieta Pro, the Barcelona-based manufacturer of compact and portable sound reinforcement products, has announced that Ampco and TM Audio are to distribute all of Vieta Pro's loudspeaker and electronic processing products in Belgium and the Netherlands. As a bonus, Vieta also get a distribution presence in Romania, where Ampco's partner Paradigma Production will represent the line. Karel de Piere of Ampco Belgium has spent the past 6 months researching Vieta Pro's corporate credentials and product prospects, to ensure a perfect match with Ampco and TM Audio's extensive distribution portfolio.

"The package from Vieta is really well thought-out," says de Piere, "with all the qualities that you'd expect from a company that has a long and reputable history in the consumer market. The team at Vieta share our philosophy on critical issues such as

Bob Doyle was there for DiGiCo's third PALME; he said that take-up of digital technology seems to be slower in this region than elsewhere, again reflecting the need for technical knowledge out here. DiGiCo is investing in training and seminars, and emphasising its 100% back-up philosophy, to move things forward. Coincidentally, both Destiny's Child and Mariah Carey were performing in Dubai that week, and both with DiGiCo D5 consoles. Doyle added that 2005 has seen a marked shift in acceptance of the digital domain.

Japan - Fresh from its part in making the Queen-inspired musical We Will Rock You such a success in Australia, the Formula Sound Que-18 units which have been supplying foldback mixes for the show's musicians are repeating their success now that the show has moved on to Japan. "We have 11 Que-18's on the show in Australia, and they have performed flawlessly right from the moment they were first commissioned," says Peter Grubb of Victoria-based System Sound Pty which supplies the show's audio equipment. "Like the various other Formula Sound Que series foldback mixers we have these have been absolutely invaluable and a real hit with the musicians."

The Que-18s have been part of the Queen production since it opened in Melbourne in August 2003, and have moved with the show as it played Perth, Brisbane and Sydney. They have now moved on to Japan where the sh

UK - Cambridgeshire based 5 Star Cases Limited have recently invested in 3D modelling software by Solid Edge. The Wisbech company, purchased the software from Cutting Edge Solutions Limited of Witney - Oxfordshire, having evaluated various other systems on the market. 5 Star is one of Europe's leading specialist case manufacturers and supplies some of the biggest names in the Entertainment and Audio Visual sectors as well as many blue chip companies including Alstom Energy, Martin Audio, Lighthouse and Rolls Royce.

CES, UK's leading supplier of the renowned Solid Edge from UGS had previously demonstrated the system at a 'Customer Day' back in 2003. Although 5 Star Cases had been using 2D drafting for a number of years, the move to 3D modelling was considered just prior to the demo at UGS.

Works Director Keith Sykes explained "Although three packages were evaluated, Solid

Cadac's Mark Reay and Tony Waldron were at their second PALME, and in hindsight would have liked it to be their third, although generally things are very positive for this UK manufacturer. There are now Cadac desks in such prestigious locations as the Kremlin, Athens Concert Hall and China's State Parliament, adding to an already long list of prestige installations. They also reported that 2003 was the company's busiest ever year, and that plenty of tenders are coming up in the near future. Reay, a passionate advocate of clean sound in all parts of the audio chain, also commented on the "world's worst sound system" - otherwise known as the seminar room PA.

UAE - During the PALME exhibition in Dubai, L&SI was invited to visit the premises of Production Technology LLC - better known as Protec. Protec is a world class event production company and the region's largest supplier of sound, lighting, AV, hydraulic and motor control equipment.

The latter elements are a particular area of Protec's strength, as a tour around its facilities reveals. Everywhere are the remnants of large-scale motorized set pieces, waiting to be called upon. There are set pieces purchased from the selling off of the Millennium Dome's contents; there are large, customized, articulated truss sections, huge spheres and steel and aluminium forms of all kinds of construction; it's like a giant's Meccano kit, with lots of bits that you can't get from the shops. There's enormous potential for creativity here.

Protec is owned by Stephen Lakin, the industry veteran wh

UK - The assets of Solid State Logic have been acquired by a joint venture established by musician and technologist, Peter Gabriel, and broadcast industry entrepreneur, David Engelke. The company, which will trade as Solid State Logic, will continue to design and manufacture mixing consoles and related audio technology at its Begbroke, Oxford headquarters. The principal investors bring considerable experience of both the company's main markets: music recording and broadcast.

Peter Gabriel's background as an artist is well known, but he has had a long involvement with technology. Syco Systems, which he co-founded, developed the 'Tablet', one of the world's first purpose-built digital audio workstations. Real World Multi Media, part of Peter's Real World Group, won awards for both technological and creative innovation. More recently, he has had success with OD2 (On Demand Distribu

UK - One of the latest compact line array products to hit the market, the X-Line Very Compact (XLVC) from Electro-Voice, has found its first UK home at the historic Café de Paris venue near London's Leicester Square. Following trials of the XLVC (straight off the production line in the US) and other systems during February and March, the Café de Paris' technical manager George 'Blu' Deakin finally opted for the Electro-Voice system, which was supplied via UK distributor Shuttlesound.

The system joins X-Line and XLC (X-Line Compact) systems in EV's line array family, and comes in two sizes - the XLD281 and XLE181. The former is a full-bandwidth 3-way line array cabinet (2 x 8" + 2 x 2"), which measures 9.9" (251mm) high by 28.58" (726mm) wide by 14.52" (369mm) in depth. The latter is a full-bandwidth 2-way version (1 x 8" + 2 x 2") which measu

Italy - Since February, veteran Italian artist Antonello Venditti has been touring Italy with the supergroup he assembled to record his latest album, 'Campus Live'. The show will visit indoor sports arenas on its first leg before moving outdoors for the summer. Rental firm RMS is supplying the production with Meyer Sound FOH and monitor loudspeaker systems.

From behind the show's Cadac R-type console, FOH engineer Piercarlo Penta explained that Venditti's recent tours have been just him on piano, and a sax player, but to tour with this 'supergroup', "we needed a system able to handle the group's energy, and the Meyer Sound set-up chosen [12 MILO high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers per side and 12 M3D-Subs] has proved a winner. As well as being compact, the MILO enclosures have a really beautiful sound and are very efficient."

While the majority of the indoor ar

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