UK - DiGiCo has announced the acquisition of UK-based live sound software developer and manufacturer, Fourier Audio. Fourier Audio’s team of software engineers and sound designers are focused on delivering live audio solutions that ‘enhance an engineer’s ability to create superior sounding performances.’ Over the last 24 months they have been developing a new platform bringing the power of studio audio software plug-ins to live engineers, codenamed Project Core. The Fourier team will present their new platform on the DiGiCo booth #823 at the AES New York conference later this month, with product shipping Q1 2024. Austin Freshwater, DiGiCo MD, comments: “At DiGiCo we are always looking at how we can enhance our customers’ ability to provide new and exciting possibilities in live performance audio. With Fourier Audio, we are investing in a team that will soo
UK - Apogee Electronics and UK distributor Sound Technology have introduced the Duet 3 Limited Edition Set, including the Duet 3, the Duet Dock and three of the best-selling Apogee plugins. In 2007, the original Apogee Duet boosted the expectations of a home studio interface. The Duet revolutionised independent recording, empowering musicians, producers, and engineers with legendary Apogee sound quality, elegant design, and effortless ease of use. This new limited edition set pays homage to the standards set by the original Duet and offers customers the best value yet, says the company. Creators will receive the Duet 3, the Duet Dock and 3 of the best-selling Apogee plugins. Providing everything required to break through and fulfil their potential.
Spain - Equipson has expanded its Work Pro range with the launch of a new range of loudspeakers that deliver ‘a reliable, outdoor sound solution, whatever the weather’. Available in a range of sizes to suit different applications, the Arena Series has been carefully designed to ensure that these loudspeakers can withstand the most testing weather conditions. A key feature of the Arena Series is its ability to deliver high power in a small format. These compact coaxial full-range speakers are available in four sizes (6", 8", 10", and 12") and deliver between 300W and 600W or pure power depending on the model size selected. In all cases clear highs, efficient low-frequency performance and minimised distortion ensure a balanced audio experience. In addition, the ARENA Series features a Dual 8" 800W band-pass waterproof subwoofer that provides powerful low-frequency p
Switzerland - Merging Technologies has announced the much-anticipated launch of its Venue Mission software for Anubis, designed specifically for the brand’s popular audio interface. Created with live musicians in mind, Venue Mission promises to revolutionise the way users manage their workflows when using multiple Anubis units together. By focusing on the needs of both musicians and technicians, the software offers control over the entire audio ecosystem, providing a seamless and intuitive user interface for multiple users. At the heart of Venue Mission is its full 16-channel mixer, delivering comprehensive control across four monitors. The mission supports up to 16 mono or stereo inputs, accommodating any sampling rate and enabling users to work effortlessly with local analogue inputs or incoming audio over IP streams. The ability to show or hide mixer inputs on eac
USA - Medical software supplier Epic has upgraded the audio mixing console in the multi-purpose audio facility on its campus in Wisconsin’s rolling farm country to a Solid State Logic System T platform. The new system, comprising an S500 large-format modular mixing console and dual redundant TE2 Tempest Engines plus various Net I/O interfaces, including MADI Bridge units, that handles a variety of broadcast, music production and multi-media post-production projects at the studio. Audio-visual media team leader Paul Micksch, an audio engineer, composer and producer who has been with the company since 2006, explains: “This space is used as the broadcast facility for the meetings that take place in the auditorium. I record and broadcast to 15 countries. In addition to that, I run the media team here and do a lot of production and post-production for our video media, i
USA - For over 22 years, Techrep Marketing has provided audio solutions to the live sound and commercial AV markets in the Ohio Valley region. With a focus on representing respected brands within the industry, Techrep offers the entire suite of Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) products, including its ADAPTive line and its newest KF210 line array, to its customers. Together, the brands are proud to expand this partnership, with EAW products now available to the professional audio markets throughout Indiana. “Our sales team is elated to bring the EAW brand to our Indiana customers,” says Chris Bednar, Techrep’s vice president of sales. “Techrep has had the privilege of representing EAW in much of our Ohio Valley territory this past year, and we now look forward to helping EAW realise their goals in the Indiana region, which is home to many key players in the live sound, c
USA - Bandit Lites lit country singer Emily Ann Roberts at her album release concert at her hometown Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre. Before she even graduated from high school, Roberts made a name for herself on Blake Shelton’s team on NBC’s The Voice. As the runner up for the entire season, she went on to amass 19m streams and 16 performances on the legendary Opry stage. She’s now stepping into her own with a new album entitled Can’t Hide Country. “Emily Ann is a natural talent, period,” stated Bandit Lites chair, Michael T. Strickland. “She shared with the audience her journey of the last few years and it ended with Emily simply being exactly who she is. Emily delivers every note from her heart and the emotion attached is stunning. She is well on the way to the top of the industry and her show is a refreshing family friendly event suitable for eve
UK - The Hangar at Milsoms Kesgrave Hall has recently undergone a major audio-visual upgrade with a DMT Alpha Series A3.9i screen and DAP Odin Audio Systems line array. The venue’s long-term supplier and production partner, the Dreamwave Group, designed, installed and commissioned the upgrade. The Hangar in Suffolk is a versatile venue and is renowned for hosting weddings, parties and corporate events throughout the year. The brief from the co-owners of Kesgrave Hall was to update The Hangar’s AV facilities after almost 10 years to enable the venue to deliver its own immersive event experience. The main requirements were a large LED screen to give guests a better visual experience, an upgrade to the audio system and a redesign of the entertainment lighting. The AV installation was designed and implemented using products from Showtec, Infinity, Odin AudioSystems by
USA - With the National Football League’s 2023-24 season underway, San Francisco 49ers fans have already enjoyed access to live Spanish language game broadcasts thanks in part to Audio over IP technology from Barix. The technology was embraced by 49ers Studios to create a simple remote broadcast workflow for away games, allowing engineers to plug in a Barix Instreamer device and return live gameday audio to studios in Mexico and San Francisco. The Instreamer is Barix’s ‘classic’ Audio over IP encoder and is used worldwide at origination points to encode and stream program audio to studios, transmitter sites and other end points where audio is received. In sports, the Instreamer is a popular choice for remote broadcasting, where the producer or engineer needs only an Instreamer, a microphone, and a laptop to reliably move high-quality audio back to the studio. Some cu
Portugal - World Youth Day is a celebrating event that Pope John Paul II initiated in 1985, every edition of which has been held in a different country; after repeated rescheduling due to Covid pandemic, 2023's finally happened last August in Lisbon, Portugal, before a 1.5m pilgrim audience. Ensuring live audio coverage to a gathering of such magnitude isn't a small technical achievement, in terms of event technology, over an area of 3-by-1km, pilgrims prayed and sang and danced at the sound of 109 PA towers hosting a total of 1,100 loudspeaker systems driven by 327 amplifiers, whose signal reached through 103km of optical fibre, across 300 network switches. In order to safeguard the signal being matrixed and transported to this plethora of audio systems, two Outline Newton FPGA-based signal processors had been specifically custom-modified by their very Italian manufac
USA - As the longest-running music television series in history, Austin City Limits is set to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. The PBS Austin production got its start in 1974, with Willie Nelson performing on the very first episode, and has since helped Austin, Texas establish itself as the “Live Music Capital of the World”. One of the most notable pieces of the show’s history is its connection to the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which takes place each October. Unlike the festival, which hosts thousands of attendees across eight stages over two consecutive weekends, the TV series presents up to 20 performances each year from Downtown Austin’s historic, 2,800-seat Moody Theatre. Among the most recent artists to take the stage was the Grammy-winning duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, who performed with the Austin Symphony to kick off Season 49 of the show.
UK - 22live, the UK’s next generation pro-audio service provider, has been appointed an international dealer for Rational Acoustics in the UK. The move enhances Rational Acoustics’ presence in the UK, allowing 22live to actively promote and support all Rational Acoustics products and with a particular focus on Smaart measurement and real-time analysis software; largely regarded as the industry standard measurement tool for live events. 22live, upon launch, immediately invested in Smaart as a fundamental part of all of its proprietary drive systems. Simon Gladstone, 22live technical director comments: “22live drive racks use a number of standard components which we deploy alongside every PA system whether it’s d&b audiotechnik or Martin Audio which are our two core loudspeaker brands. We use the MIPRO ACT-800 series wireless system for deployment of analyser micro
USA - Renkus-Heinz will attend Church Facilities Expo (CFX) from 9-11 October at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Centre in Dallas, Texas. CFX 2023 attendees will have the opportunity to experience The Sound Solution in person at Booth E in Ballroom A3/A4, where Renkus-Heinz will exhibit the ICLive X Series of digitally steerable arrays, powered by their all-new, multi-award winning OmniBeam beam-steering software. Renkus-Heinz will participate in the CFX Loudspeaker Demo Experience, where attendees can hear Renkus-Heinz’s latest solutions for the house of worship market at any of the multiple round-robin demo sessions and individual Renkus-Heinz product demos. Renkus-Heinz will feature both a flown system consisting of six ICLX steerable array modules and six ICLX-118S subwoofers as well as a portable system comprising a single ICLX module pole mounted on an ICL
Germany - The Rockharz Festival, originally started under the name Rock gegen Rechts (Rock against the Right), has constantly evolved and adopted new, important values: sustainability, environmental awareness, regionality, and inclusion. At the beginning of July 2023, almost 24,000 music fans descended on the grounds of the Ballenstedt airfield for four days to enjoy the performances of Blind Guardian, In Flames, Arch Enemy, and many more for the festival’s 30th anniversary edition. To make this year’s Rochharz a great experience for all visitors, the organisers decided to use cable protectors from the Defender Midi 5 2D modular system. "When it comes to accessibility, most people only think of wheelchair users," says Marco Spiller, chairman of Lebenshilfe Braunschweig and organiser of Rock in Rautheim, a metal festival that was awarded the Lower Saxony Inclusion
Italy - 1 Sound has partnered with Mods Art for distribution in Italy. Earlier this year, Mods Art showcased 1 Sound products at their booth at the MIR Live Entertainment Expo in Rimini. 1 Sound EMEA sales executives Leonardo D’Andrea and Leonardo Dani joined them for brand support and the agreement was made official. Since making this partnership official, Mods Art represented 1 Sound’s sponsorship at the Meet Music Festival in Tuscany and has begun arranging 1 Sound audio demonstrations in Italy. Mods Art, established in 2010, was born with the intention of creating a point of connection between manufacturers and installers. They offer a wide range of pre- and post-sales services and support which aligns with 1 Sound brand values. “We are so excited to have Mods Art on our team. They are experts in their field and we are happy to have this partnership wi
Italy - The Mario Del Monaco Municipal Theatre in Treviso was an appropriate venue for the Angels for Angela charity concert, which took place on Saturday 24 June 2023 and featured Angel City Chorale. K Service provided audio and lighting products for the occasion, including eight Showtec Phantom Hybrid 12R moving light beams. The concert was organised by La Musica di Angel Onlus with proceeds going towards music therapy projects at a local hospital. Angel City Chorale is a choir that hails from Los Angeles and is perhaps best known for its performances on the 2018 edition of America’s Got Talent where it reached the semi-finals. With more than 180 members, the choir performs songs in a wide variety of music styles including classical, gospel, jazz, pop and world music. The programme for Angels for Angela included gems This Is Me from The Greatest Showman<
USA - Following the success of its open day in May this year, Martin Audio North America has moved the location of its next open day from Maryland to Texas, where it will adopt a similar formula on 3 October. The destination this time will be the Coppell Arts Centre in Dallas where a morning session at 10am will be followed by a later presentation at 2pm. Explaining the choice of venue, Lee Stein VP of sales, North America, says: “Texas is a key state for many influential system integrators, and it also has a thriving live sound community. We’ve also used this venue previously and it’s well suited to our demos.” The product demonstrations themselves will once again be led by UK-based presenter-in-chief Robin Dibble, supported by the entire US team. As with the recent UK open days, Martin Audio will line up many of its premier systems, including WPM,
USA - Hip hop artist Nate Feuerstein, known as NF, is out on the Hope Tour, his first headlining arena trek in support of his new album of the same name. Visiting 47 venues across North America, Europe, and UK this year, the recent US leg of the trek featured special guest Cordae. But there’s another pair of talent that’s critical to the tour’s success: FOH engineer Travis Stoker and monitor engineer Murphy Johnson, both of whom are piloting DiGiCo SD5 consoles provided by tour vendor PRG. The desks were reportedly chosen for a number of factors: sound quality, as well as programmability and flexibility - critical capabilities for a tour so heavily dependent upon tracks and a thunderous drum kit that takes up as much as half of the production’s 60-plus inputs. “The biggest thing for me with the SD5 is that the amount of programming you can do on these
Denmark - The function room of the Community Centre in Assentoft is used for a wide variety of events, with meetings, formal dinners, parties and screenings of sports events all taking place in the venue. The facility’s management team recently decided to invest in a new audio system as they felt an upgrade of their facilities was necessary to improve the experience of the different groups using the facility. The system in place was more than 25 years old and site manager Steffen Larsen engaged installer Simon Voigt Laursen of Avdeo to supply a solution. The project’s aim was to deliver audio quality from an easy to operate, zoned system. Simon designed a complete Optimal Audio solution based on the Zone 4P 4-zone audio controller with DSP, amplification and WebApp. He comments: “It is an absolute pleasure to work with this product. The Zone 4P DSP is the e
USA - An investigation led by L-Acoustics late last year resulted in the seizure of an extraordinary 136 counterfeit products from Tampa-based rental company Se7ven Sounds Music, Inc. Along with the seizure, L-Acoustics filed a complaint against Se7ven Sounds for trademark infringement, counterfeiting and unfair competition. This month, the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division ordered Se7ven Sounds Music to pay damages of $5m to L-Acoustics, a significant achievement in the professional audio industry. L-Acoustics also won the right to destroy the 136 counterfeit products confiscated during the investigation. The final judgment holds that the "defendants infringed the L-Acoustics Trademarks by intentionally and willfully engaging in the unauthorized manufacturing, importation, offering for sale and/or rental, and sale and/or rental o
France - Digigram has appointed Laurence Fornari as head of sales. Fornari, who has more than 25 years of experience as sales executive in data protection, telecom, broadcast, and artificial intelligence, joins the Grenoble-based audio specialist where she will supervise global sales operations in Montbonnot and Singapore, and spearhead the company’s growth policy. Digigram recently announced the acquisition of networking audio specialist AuviTran as a move toward growth, and the nomination of Fornari underlines the company’s intention to deploy its strategic efforts to increase its market share in critical communications. “With an extensive engineering and sales background, Laurence has an immediate comprehension of our clients’ needs and stakes. She brings new perspectives and innovation insights to Digigram and we are lucky to have her onboard. Her field e
Canada - Adamson has released the latest version of its loudspeaker design and deploy software - ArrayIntelligence V1.1. The update reflects the Adamson development team’s focus on encouraging user-generated feedback and quickly including it in the available software. Brian Fraser, head of product and technology says: “We sincerely appreciate the feedback generously shared by the dedicated our user community. It plays a pivotal role in refining our software.” ArrayIntelligence V1.1 revolves around an overarching goal: enhancing the user experience and optimising software performance. The new Header Bar graphical layout brings clarity to the user interface, indicating which pages are available online, simplifying navigation and enhancing workflow. The Global Assign feature, a cornerstone of system management, has undergone a comprehensive update. This
UK - Electric Bay is an open-air dance music festival that takes place over two days in the Torre Abbey meadows on the Torquay seafront. Following a completely sold-out first edition last year, the 2023 event promised to be ‘bigger and better’ at every level, with a bigger production, a larger stage, an even more powerful sound system and increased facilities and food and drink options. The 2023 line-up featured some of the biggest names in electronic music, including Hedex, Pendulum LIVE, Dave Rodigan, Andy C, Gardna Live, Sub Focus, and many more. Festival organisers and electronic music promoters, Louder Events, once again turned to local AV rental experts, Future Technical Solutions (FTS) who supplied a KV2 sound system. “FTS has a working relationship with Louder in other venues for both live and DJ sets, so it was natural that they asked us to quote for la
Belgium - STUK is an international arts centre in the Belgian University city of Leuven. Driven by an open view of the world, the centre seeks to connect its patrons with contemporary dance, visual and audio-visual arts, sound art and adventurous music. Housed in a large building, parts of which date back more than a century, and comprising multiple rooms including a main performance space, the centre recently underwent a refurbishment to improve its sustainability and upgrade its facilities. The STUKcafé is an important hub within the building, and as well as being a popular eaterie for visitors and students, also hosts a wide range of events. Part of the refurb included provision for a new audio system in the café, the project for which was awarded to production specialist Stresske BVBA. Stresske has been in business since 2005, providing trusted technical support
