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UK - Plans for a National Skills Academy for the creative and cultural industries have been boosted with the addition of more influential supporters. PLASA - the Professional Lighting and Sound Association - is the latest organisation to join the unprecedented alliance of employers and industry bodies backing the project.

The Academy is designed to address shortages in offstage and technical skills for live music and the performing arts. Detailed plans being prepared by Creative & Cultural Skills, the employer-led Sector Skills Council, will be submitted to the government in April 2007.

"PLASA's support is hugely significant," says Tom Bewick, chief executive of Creative and Cultural Skills. "Its wide membership of leading specialists in professional audio, lighting, staging, rigging, communications and related disciplines fully understands what skills are neede

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Spain - Midas' Spanish distributor Auprosa has delivered two Heritage 3000 consoles with 16-channel extensions to L'Auditori de Barcelona, the city's leading cultural centre which houses several music halls. One of the H3000s is for mobile use and can be moved wherever it is needed, though mainly based in the 2,340-capacity Symphonic Hall, while the second has a permanent home in the 700-capacity Chamber Music Hall.

Spanish installation company Twin Cam were responsible for commissioning the new desks into the halls, together with a package of Klark Teknik equipment including 24 channels of Helix DN9340 dual digital EQ and Helix DN9331 Rapide graphic controller. Five DN360 graphic eqs and four DN1248 Plus mic splitters join the second H3000 in the Chamber Music Hall. The Helix EQs were configured as part of a Show Command system, with the H3000's Solo Tracking System (STS), Rapi

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Chile - Robbie Williams recently played the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile as part of his current Close Encounters world tour. A crowd of 50,000 people came to see and hear the English pop artist and songwriter, whose career began as a member of the highly successful band Take That. As part of the celebration of its 90 years in the nation, Citibank was the official sponsor of the concert in coordination with CIE Chile, one of Latin America's leading entertainment promotion companies.

Sound services for the Robbie Williams world tour are being coordinated through UK-based Britannia Row Productions. For the Santiago National Stadium show, local Chilean rental vendor Cristian Olavarria Ltd, a rental company with over 25 years of experience in sound reinforcement, supplied a total of 72 VT4888DP powered mid-size line array elements from JBL's Vertec DP Series, as part of the te

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UK - The Long standing PMC user Jon Astley, mastering engineer at Close to the Edge Studios, has recently taken delivery of AML1 active two way monitors for installation in the Twickenham studio, to supplement his current PMC 5.1 configuration.

Astley is one of the UK's leading mastering engineers and producers, and has worked with such eminent names as The Who, Abba and Eric Clapton. The AML1s were acquired for mastering of the recent release from Jools Holland - 'Moving out to the Country' - and is currently mastering the imminent album from John Mayall - 'In the Palace of the King'. Due to the AML1's diminutive proportions and ease of integration, Astley will be taking the AML1s to Martian Sound in the West Country for use in the on going project with Tori Amos. He commented: "The definition is superb and the imaging is perfect. I can identify and resolve problem areas i

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UK - Soundcraft's release of the Processing Card for the Soundcraft Vi6 adds "powerful industry-standard Lexicon effects and BSS Audio equalisation to this exceptional digital console", the company says. The card uses eight custom Lexicon DSP engines to provide eight mono or stereo effects units which may be patched to aux bus outputs and then back into a channel input, or inserted into input or output channels. The real flexibility comes from having control of these effects on the Vistonics II graphical screens so giving the engineer a comfortable and simple user interface, for which the Soundcraft Vi6 has already been highly praised.

The Lexicon devices give a choice of 14 types of reverb, including various plates, halls and spring types, seven delay settings (for example ping-pong and tape delays) plus eight other effects such as Chorus, Flanger, Tremelo and Pitch s

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UK - Kramer Electronics, the worldwide supplier of signal management products, has announced the availability of its new DXF Drawing Library of files for CAD and other industry drawing programs. These DXF (Data Exchange Format) files are available for download from the Kramer Electronics and Sierra Video websites and include every model in both the Kramer and Sierra Video product lines.

The DXF Drawing Library offers product line drawings (of the front and back panel) for use in rack elevation illustrations. It also offers CAD blocks for use in signal flow and wiring diagrams. Each drawing is provided in a standardized CAD format and depicts detailed product information including model number and description, indications of directional and bi-directional lines of communication, as well as input, output, and control connector types and wiring schemes.

"Creating this exhaus

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UK - Cadac reports on an interesting audio dynamic on the West End musical Daddy Cool, which has been running at the Shaftesbury Theatre as one of this season's only non-Broadway new productions. From an audio perspective, the show stands out from the crowd on a number of counts, with sound designer Richard Brooker establishing several technical firsts. Richard's design deploys a combination of Cadac analogue and digital mixing equipment, with an 82-input J-Type live production console and a Digital Series stage rack, comprising D16 digital mix matrices and M16 remote controlled microphone amplifiers. He is also using a large-scale Opus Audio PA system - the first time the rig has been specified for a major new West End show.

Directed by Andy Goldberg, with music from Boney M and Frank Farian Productions, Daddy Cool has a Romeo and Juliet-style plot set agai

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UK - Bedfordshire's Amalfi Suite, the adjacent Vesuvio Restaurant, and the overarching Sharnbrook Hotel are three separate entities, but under the ownership of the Ciampi family, an offer a conference facility, with accommodation on site.

The Ciampi family called in local installation company A.I.S (Audio Installation Services) of Bedford to devise an audio system that would enhance the environments. Luke Magliaro of A.I.S. in turn called in the services of David Howe of Shuttlesound, the projects support specialist for Electro-Voice in the UK.

"Initially, the design brief from the client was pretty straightforward," explains Howe, "they simply wanted to send any audio signal from any area into any other area of the hotel. Not an unreasonable request but managing all the local inputs from the function suite, conference rooms, bars, restaurant and the multiple sa

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Norway - Vamp is one of Norway's most successful bands, and has just completed a national tour, playing on stage with the Norwegian Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. The three-week tour of Norway's largest cities culminated in the Oslo Spektrum Arena, where VAMP delivered their unique blend of Norwegian folk, Celtic music and rock to a sell-out crowd of 8,000.

For the tour, the role of monitor engineer was filled by Espen Andersen, using one of Soundcraft's new Vi6 digital audio consoles. "A tour is the real test of a console, not what you see in the demo. The Vi6 performed perfectly on each of the 14 dates, and I thought that the sound quality was amazing."

The Vi6 is already making quite an impact in Norway, purchased by the National Theatre, and also by Oslo-based PA company Christiania Lyd. With a customer base that encompasses live music and corporate events, Chr

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UK - Shuttlesound has delivered a Midas Venice 160 audio mixing console to a rather unexpected customer, Air/Strongroom Studios. The desk is intended to service the growing clientele of Breathe Post-Production, the recently-formed joint venture between the two studios' post divisions.

The purchase comes as a result of a demo by Keith Malin of KMR Audio, requested by Air's technical manager Tim Vine-Lott. "I was looking for a desk with up to 16 channels, easy headphone monitor mixing, effects sends, stereo mix bus, which would work for Post and Music, and wouldn't cost more than £2.5k," he explains.

It took about an hour of research on the Internet to find the Midas Venice. "Although I know Midas and its reputation through live work, my main concern was the mic pre's, as we needed pre's that would work for ADR and band overdubs. We were very pleasantly surp

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New Zealand - dbx Professional Products, a Salt Lake City-based manufacturer of professional signal processing products and a division of Harman International, have provided a flexible routing solution at the heart of a new museum installation in New Zealand.

Jands (NZ) Ltd of Auckland and Deacons Retrovision of Taupo, have designed, supplied and commissioned a new audio system for the highly acclaimed Taupo Museum of History and Art, with a dbx ZonePRO 1260 digital zone processor at the hub.

The town of Taupo is situated in the central North Island of New Zealand, on the edge of the largest freshwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere. Lake Taupo is actually an active volcanic crater that was formed some 200 million years ago in what has been described as the world's largest explosion. Taupo is thus a tourist mecca and attracts thousands of visitors each year as it is the gatew

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UK - A&AG S.r.l., manufacturer of the Kind range of high quality professional power amplifiers, has expanded its DDX and DQX Digital ranges with the introduction of five new models. DDX 2-channel and DQX 4-channel amplifiers are designed to offer the very highest audio quality from a 2U lightweight design for touring and fixed installation applications.

The new DDX 3622, DDX 4022 and DDX 3842 join the DDX range, offering powers of 1200W, 1600W and 1900W into 4 Ohm respectively, with 2 Ohm/2-channel and bridge mono/4 Ohm capability. The new DQX amplifiers are the DQX 4844 and DQX 6044, which offer 4-channel output of 1200W and 1500W into 4 Ohm respectively and 8 Ohm bridge capability.

Both DDX and DQX amplifiers are based on Kind's patented TeoTon digital circuitry, which couples power efficiently to the load and provides low current drain.

The amplifier's global power suppli

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South Africa - Gearhouse (PTY) Ltd and Ashraf Omar (AV Network) this month announced the launch of a new company, Inhouse Venue Technical Management (Pty) Ltd (IVTM). Part of the Gearhouse group of companies, Inhouse VTM was formed to facilitate the supply and management of technical equipment and personnel within key venues across the Western Cape. The service enables venues to rent in the latest equipment and technical expertise without incurring expensive capital outlay. Cutting edge lighting, audio, staging, audio visual, daylight screens, power and rigging equipment coupled with experienced technical staff ensure that the event is seamless and there is also the additional benefit of an onsite branch to resolve any last minute eventualities.

The joint venture is the culmination of years of discussion between Inhouse managing director Ashraf Omar and Gearhouse directors, whic

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USA - Since being founded by John and Helen Meyer in 1979, Meyer Sound's dedication to producing products of consistent quality has dictated that manufacturing be at the company's headquarters in Northern California, where it can be overseen and developed. The company's first years were spent at a location in San Leandro, but since 1984, manufacturing has been at the company's base in Berkeley, Calif.

In the beginning, Meyer Sound bought drivers and modified each one to meet the company's specs. By the mid-1990s, with the company growing and introducing self-powered systems, this was no longer a workable system. So, Meyer Sound made a commitment to fabricating its own loudspeaker drivers. Since the company was already bursting at the seams in its original building, the decision to make drivers meant making a major expansion and constructing an entirely new facility.

Meyer Soun

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USA - Crown International has announced that its CDi Series of professional power amplifiers for installed sound applications has been expanded with the addition of the CDi 4000.

"With the launch of the CDi 4000, systems integrators now have an even broader range of available power, which extends to 1200 watts per channel into four ohms and 1000 watts per channel for 70-volt distributed systems," says Stephen Morris, Crown International director of marketing for installed sound, touring and cinema. "With its advanced technologies and highly competitive price point, the CDi family truly represents an unmatched value in its class."

Like its siblings, the CDi 1000 and CDi 2000, the CDi 4000 is equipped with a host of sophisticated features, not the least of which is its ability to run both low-impedance two-, four- and eight-ohm loads as well as 70- and 140-vo

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UK - For the 12th successive year, Hawthorns were contracted by East Midlands based The Christmas Company to provide the technical solution for it's Christmas party events held at Marquee venues in Bracknell, Leicester and Nottingham.

The Christmas parties take place over 20 nights in December and attract up to 1200 guests per night at each venue.Each Marquee is individually themed for the parties, with Bracknell hosting One Night in Bangkok, Leicester with its Russian-themed Gatecrash the Kremlin and Plunder the Pyramids in Nottingham.

Hawthorn provided all lighting, sound (Bracknell only), power distribution, drapes, star cloths (not Bracknell) and rigging.

80 days of manpower and effort were required by the Hawthorn team to rig each marquee and 30 days for de-rigging once the party schedule has been completed. Furthermore, Hawthorn provided operating

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Russia - Moscow-based systems integrator and distribution specialists, MS Max, have recently been named EAW distributor for Russia. MS Max is one of the largest distributors and installers of professional audio and AV equipment in Russia, and also has offices in Beverly Hills, CA.

MS Max's managing director Katherine Shesternina is looking forward to the collaboration. "EAW is a prestigious international loudspeaker brand that both complements and adds value to our existing portfolio. It has just the sort of high-end, high-tech profile we were looking for, yet at the same time, offers a huge variety of products that will be of great interest to our installation wing. EAW is an excellent fit for us."

EAW's European sales manager, Sean Martin, agrees. "Furthermore, the timing was perfect for both if us," he explained. "MS Max were looking for a major pro

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UK - Sound professionals in Turkey can now purchase HM Electronics, Inc. (HME) wireless intercom systems directly from Nefan Ticaret Vesanayi, Ltd.

"We are excited to have a distributor with the industry stature of Nefan working with HME," said John Kowalski, sales manager of HME's Pro Audio Division. "In addition to delivering outstanding customer service, Nefan is a proven market leader. They have a solid understanding of our products and we're confident that they will brilliantly succeed in bringing HME solutions to the Turkish market."

Nefan will distribute the DX Series of Digital Wireless Intercom Systems and the award-winning PRO850 Wireless Intercom System to users throughout Turkey from its locations in Istanbul and Ankara.

HME's Digital DX Series Wireless Intercoms operate within the 2.4 GHz range, offers clear, hands-free communications, and is

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Dubai - Install Middle East, the AV installation and integration technology sector of the PALME Middle East show, has received a major boost with the confirmation of several major new exhibitors.

Show organisers IIR Entertainment & Installation Technology Group says that the addition of companies such as Bose, Crestron and Opus Technologies to the exhibition roster will have implications not only for residential/lifestyle enhancement, but also in the commercial world.

These are joined by Visionaire, which supplies advanced audio visual and communication solutions to major commercial projects, and architectural lighting giants, Lumasense.

Said Lumasense's Mike Kanaan, "PALME Middle East has matured into an important show. We look forward to using it as a showcase to expose our premium lighting products to both the architectural and entertainment sectors, and to becoming

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Italy - Outline Professional Audio has opened its training academy in Brescia. The company says that the growing popularity of its Butterfly line array has meant that opening the academy and giving a formal qualification for students that pass the informative and rigourous modules is now part of the sale.

Sales director Giorgio Biffi comments, "Following sales to a number of high profile clients, we realised that it was a good idea to open a training facility here in Italy as we have all the engineers available to convey and answer any technical questions that our customers may ask, we can also show them our manufacturing process from start to finish."

The course which lasts for two days contains theory and practical modules and culminates in a formal qualification allowing the engineer to use Outline's propriety software (VIP) and gain an accreditation known as VIPA

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Germany - The Bangaluu club in Berlin, housed in the former city centre post office, has been transformed into a sprawling complex that houses a lounge, a dance floor on stage, and a VIP dinner club where the guests literally recline while they dine on a sea of white beds.

The company responsible for the technical design of Bangaluu's sound and light systems was Atlantis Sound of Berlin. Managers Andreas Seeringer and Benjamin Preuß had already had very positive experiences with HK Audio products on earlier projects, and so for their new project they again contacted the sound specialists from southwest Germany.

HK Audio Installation Line speakers were selected for all areas of Bangaluu. The bed-filled restaurant, an area of 220 square metres, was equipped with four IL 12.1 loudspeaker cabinets, four IL 12.2 cabinets, and two IL 218 subwoofers, all in white, driven by a DSM 20

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Taiwan/USA - JTS Professional of Taiwan has appointed speaker manufacturer FBT Elettronica, of Recanati, Italy and its US. division, FBT Inc. as its exclusive distributor of its Wireless Systems and Wired Microphones for the US FBT Italy will also be the exclusive JTS distributor in Italy.

The extensive JTS product line encompasses wired microphones for performance and studio applications as well as wired gooseneck, choir, lavalier, boundary mics for system integrators with installed sound applications and a broad selection of UHF wireless microphone systems and In Ear monitoring systems.

"We at FBT USA are very excited to introduce the JTS product line in the US. JTS products have become very popular throughout Europe, Australia, and Asia offering superb quality performance and reliability equalling offerings from many major microphone brands," states Tom Concorde,

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USA - Dolby Laboratories' live sound applications engineer Miguel Hadelich recently completed set up of four wirelessly-controlled Dolby Lake processors installed to manage the L-Acoustics PA speaker and Clair Brothers audio monitor systems at Yahoo! Music's Nissan-sponsored Live Sets venue in Los Angeles.

Ian Dittbrenner, audio director, senior original content producer and production systems analyst, Yahoo! Music, designed the Digidesign Venue-based performance sound and audio recording systems with the aid of Delta H Design, headed by Hanson Hsu , who also acoustically designed the performance space set.

The Live Sets soundstage, located at the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles, made its debut in late 2006 with a performance by Christina Aguilera and has since hosted artists such as Tony Bennett, Incubus, Beck and John Legend. The live music performances, interspersed wit

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USA - The Oriental Mission Church located in Los Angeles, California, has upgraded its sound system with the Adamson SpekTrix Line.

The design consists of two left & right main arrays of four SpekTrix 5 degrees boxes, with a single 15 degree SpekTrix Wave box at the bottom of each hang. A centre cluster of two Adamson SpekTrix and two SpekTrix Waves fills the centre of the seating area and the extreme front rows in front of the stage.

The Speakers are powered with QSC PLX 1104 and PLX 2502 amplifiers and processed with XTA Dp448 processors. The system design was executed by Rutherford Design, a consulting firm based in Northridge, California; using Adamson's Shooter Software. The Mission Church's house sound Engineer is Mr. Duho Kang.

(Jim Evans)

  1. ARX appoints new Spanish Distributor
  2. Allen & Heath installed in HK Jockey Club
  3. CP Sound at Beirut Express
  4. A.C. appointed as UK dealer for KV2
  5. Audio-Technica introduces AT2010
  6. ARX appoints French distributor
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