Sound

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14 March 2016

The one-year foundation degree, which is the only one of its kind in the UK, focuses on the artistic, creative and practical use of technology for live events.

According to Creative & Cultural Skills, the Sector Skills Council for creative and cultural industries, by 2017 there will be a need for 30,000 skilled backstage and offstage technical theatre staff to support live events. The Backstage Academy is aiming to train students who can help meet this demand.

Students will gain hands-on experience at the Backstage Academy thanks to its base at the LS-Live Studios in South Kirkby, Wakefield. LS-Live is one of the largest purpose-built rehearsal facilities in Europe and has hosted some of the world's biggest music stars, including Lady Gaga,

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14 March 2016

"We designed the system installation in house," explained production manager Kevin 'Kenny' Taylor. "We have three venues here, the Pavillion Theatre, Corn Exchange, and the Dome concert hall; and effectively we're a d&b audiotechnik house having our own selection of C4s, C7s and some MAX cabinets. For the Foyer the d&b E-Series looked ideal and so it has proved."

Occupying the Concert Hall frontage, the foyer bar is a wide but shallow room, 25m across, 10m deep, with a 12m ceiling height. "The roof is glass, hence the light airy feel," said Taylor, "and has quite a bouncy f

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14 March 2016

One of the VeniceFs has been supplied to Coldplay, providing audio splits for recording throughout their summer festival run. Two of the consoles are being used at the Hampton Court Festival and a further two at the Isle of Wight, both in June. After using the VeniceF for Bryan Adams' solo performance at the Hampton Court Festival, the artist's FOH engineer Jody Perpick, a long time Midas user, said, "I was very happy with the sound and features of this small console; it's nice to know you don't have to take out an XL4 to mix only a couple of inputs."

"We bought the VeniceF's as they offer great sonic quality, affordable prices and great packaging, as well as providing flexibility for our dry hire customers," says Wigwam's

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14 March 2016

Seth Jackson has designed tours for two decades for Don Henley, Jason Mraz, Hilary Duff, Melissa Etheridge, American Idols Live, Barry Manilow, Carrie Underwood, and Toby Keith, to name a few. He's also a two-time Parnelli Award winner, and has received the Illuminating Engineering Society?s Award of Distinction.

Derek McLane is one of today's most sought after designers, with designs seen on Broadway in this year's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Anything Goes revivals on Broadway. His design for 33 Variations won him a Tony Award, and his Ragtime and Pajama Game revivals each earned Tony nominations.

Jim Youmans has design

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14 March 2016

Perez joins TC Group International (TCGI) - the sales organisation of the brands' parent company TC Group - after a long and varied career in pro-audio, having worked with some of the leading distributors and companies in the industry. In 1989, he worked with national manufacturer Audio Stars, before moving to EARPRO as area sales manager in the mid-90s. He then became electroacoustics systems designer and audio consultant at Pyramid Audio, sister service company to EARPRO.

Most recently, Perez has helped build the Lab.gruppen, Lake and Tannoy brands in Spain through long-time regional distributor Pro3.

"I am e

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14 March 2016

"Backline Rentals have had their digital console for a while and although digital consoles are convenient, the lack of a digital snake can sometimes hamper the overall production of the show," commented Moswain Antao, Roland video specialist.

"With the new system, Backline can ensure their signal quality is protected and the best part is that the snake can be used with any console, analogue or digital. So truly an investment with long term returns.&quo

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14 March 2016

The Palacio de los Deportes is one of the reference fields of Spanish basketball. It is the home of Unicaja Málaga Team (League Champion in 2006, Cup Champion in 2005 and 3rd in Euroliga in 2007).

The stadium owners decided that whilst expanding the stadium to more than 11,000 seats, which is an audience area of over 5,500m2, they would resolve the historic issue of poor intelligibility (0.44 STI) with the PA system.

Genuix Audio's technical team supported by Duran Audio Iberia, opted for a centralised sound system, one focussed around the score board. Using four AXYS DS1608 which not only have the ability to offer over 98dB (continuous) evenly ac

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14 March 2016

Markus Portworsnick has joined as DE market national sales manager for install products, while Jürgen Bachthaler has been appointed DE market national sales manager for touring products.

Portworsnick comes to TCGI from Dekom Mietcenter in Hamburg, where he was department manager for corporate AV systems and events rentals. He has also been a managing partner at Medientechnik Engelhardt in Hannover. He comments: "This position gives me the opportunity to work with some of the most highly regarded and respected products from some of the leading brands in pro audio."

Doug Green, VP for international sales - install, says: "Markus is the person to push us forwa

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14 March 2016

The BTR-240 system operates in the licence-free 2.4GHz frequency band and delivers full-duplex operation for up to 8 beltpacks with an almost unlimited number of half-duplex beltpacks. The system offers two separate audio channels allowing users to communicate on either or both channels. Talk and listen and listen-only modes are selectable on individual or both channels.

The BTR-240 wireless intercom system is suitable for stand-alone operation or can be directly interfaced to wired systems including RTS, Tecpro and Clearcom.

TR-240 beltpacks can be configured in one of three operating modes: wireless, wired or master wireless. In wireless

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14 March 2016

Based in the village of Eversley near Reading, Wavelength service productions throughout the UK (and into Europe) - and thus transportation becomes a major factor. The weight and economy advantages of an active, matched system, with all the processing onboard, was too good to resist, according to Tom Chennells.

The Wavelength MD has been an RCF customer for nearly two years, having been introduced to the brand through the retail shop in which he has an interest, RSD Music. The company already runs RCF 905ASs and ART 722As - and on smaller corporate jobs know they can use their 905 active 15" bass bins with TT08 tops.

The decision to back the brand followed the recent merger of Wavelength Entertainments with Yes Events Ltd. "This produc

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14 March 2016

The Rocket Man's 2011 touring schedule is taking in the UK, Europe, Asia, Canada and the US, before settling in Las Vegas for a month-long residency, after which it's off to Russia, the Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand and Asia again.

The shows feature Elton's five-piece backing band plus backing vocalists. In addition, a pair of cellists - Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser - have been added for the current run of dates and percussionist Ray Cooper joins the ensemble for the Vegas shows.

One thing that has not changed from previous tours is the Yamaha mixing consoles at the front of house and monitor positions, a PM5000 and PM1D, manned by M

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14 March 2016

Gary Maguire of StudioSpares commented: "Studiospares deals with a large number of installation companies on a daily basis. We wanted a premium speaker line to complement our value range, so we can offer our installer base a solution based on budget. Having looked at many different brands, the Ohm speaker range ticked all the right boxes". Gareth Coleman of Ohm, who has been instrumental in setting up the partnership, said: "Studiospares has a long-standing reputation in the industry for providing great customer service as well as having a great team of technically

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14 March 2016

The spotlight of last year's event was focused on the Ambra Night location in San Teodoro, whose technical setup was designed by Quadra Luce & Design, the same company that installed its resident sound reinforcement system featuring Proel Edge speakers.

Sunandbass confirmed the quality and the versatility of Ambra Night's sound systems which adjusted well to the percussive musical genre. Quadra Luce & Design were asked by the festival's organizers and influential to provide an additional, higher SPL sound system for a second dance floor and decided to specify a Turbosound Aspect system.

The system features four Turbosound Aspect TA-500tpoint source 3-way tri-amped full range loudspeakers, four T

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14 March 2016

Newsboys FOH mixer John O'Neal comments: "We are pretty particular about sound, right down to the microphones in our workbox. [Monitor engineer] Jeff Nolte and I began discussing our desire for some new microphones. Primarily, we wanted to go in a different direction with our drum kit - we had been using the same cardioid dynamic instrument mics on our toms and snare drum for the last six or seven years. The old mics weren't broken, so it wasn't like we had to ma

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14 March 2016

One Big Weekend saw 51 live bands and 25 DJ sets play across four stages to 40,000 people on each day. Sennheiser UK's support team of Andy Lillywhite and Mark Saunders - a familiar sight at festivals throughout the UK - were on hand to lend technical assistance and expertise to Britannia Row and Adlib Audio, who respectively provided the audio equipment for the Main and In New Music We Trust (INMWT) stages.

The event saw a key milestone in the run up to the Channel 69 to 38 frequency switchover - the

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14 March 2016

It will become a meeting place where educational and training programs can be held on a regular basis, complementing the existing workshops, seminars and training courses that the d&b partners frequently run throughout the country.

Gaelle Poullavec who runs the office, Juanma da Cassus who is in charge of the support and service and manager David Roselló say they are looking forward to having this new facility where they can not only extend a bigger w

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14 March 2016

Held for the past few years at the Bercy in Paris, this year the Nuit de la Saint-Patrick show moved to the Musikhall in Rennes. The5000-capacity venue witnessed performances by over 100 artists in a show that lasted for over three hours, the concert being so popular that the Saturday evening show was repeated the following afternoon.

Combining traditional and contemporary performers, both amateur and professional, changeover

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14 March 2016

"In July we record our new album and then after that we will tour solidly until the end of the year on trains, buses and planes," said Troy Kemp. "Whatever we have to do to get our band all over Australia - it never stops. So we're really stoked that Jands are helping us out with our audio gear, in fact we couldn't be happier."

The duo was delighted to receive Shure ULX wireless guitar systems which have allowed them much more freedom onstage - something that is a huge benefit for such dynamic and active performers.

"The freedom to move onstage is amazing as you're not stuck with a 20ft guitar lead," commented Kemp. "We jump around quite a bit and I spin around every now and then so if I h

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14 March 2016

On-Off, a long time Midas analogue customer, was chosen to provide both the sound system and the engineers. The18 bands played for just five and half hours, making the timing of the whole evening crucial, and this was a large factor in selecting the Midas digital technology. The setup was manned by On-Off's team of professionals, who managed to achieve an impressive changeover time of just three minutes between acts.

"It was an obvious choice to use our PRO6s as in addition to being able to cope with an event of this complexity,

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14 March 2016

This year's seminars took place in early June at Ashton Court, near Bristol and (most appropriately for the live music industry) Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. With a bare minimum of advertising, news of the events was so well-received that Sennheiser UK had to freeze the online registration site several days before the first one.

"Hosting last year's event at an attractive venue which people would remember worked very well," says Ken Morrison, business area manager at Sennheiser UK. "We wanted to reach a

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14 March 2016

The 5000m2 Copenhagen venue has been a focus of Denmark's quest to become one of the leading lights in Scandinavian music, the 1800-capacity main hall playing host to some of the city's highest profile concerts, with the smaller three allowing a wide range of performances.

Already equipped with three DiGiCo D5s, the addition of an SD7 to the Koncerthuset has allowed more complex productions to be staged.

"Although the D5s have been performing very well, we needed a console with a lot more outputs for in-ear monitors, Aviom systems and Roland M-48 personal

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14 March 2016

Last year, SSE used digital systems exclusively for monitors for the first time at many of the UK's top festivals. PM5D-RH consoles were deployed at the monitor positions of Download, High Voltage, Lovebox, Oxegen, Global Gathering, T4 On the Beach, Field Day, Summer Sundae and at both V Festival sites.

So successful was the change that SSE Hire is doing the same this year and has invested in five additional PM5D-RHs, bringing SSE's total inventory to 10, plus several rackmount DSP5Ds.

"The all-digital setups were a real success story last year," says SSE sales manager Alex Penn. "It was an easy decision to invest in further PM5D-RHs as our festival and touring commitments grow ever bigg

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14 March 2016

This is part of a planned expansion strategy to have Penn-Elcom sales and distribution outlets in all of the major South American markets, and also in direct response to an increased demand for its products and services in these territories, says the company.

Both of the new sales offices have showroom and warehousing facilities offering a full range of Penn-Elcom products including flight case, racking and loudspeaker hardware, accessories and solutions to the professional audio industry, plus selected complimentary lines, including Fane speakers and Amphenol & Neutrik connectors.

Penn Elcom Argentina is located in Buenos Aires. The office is headed by Adriana Gallo and Diego Sot

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14 March 2016

The multi-room facility includes an outdoor deck and Tiki Bar, both of which are quite popular during warmer months. But as design consultant Mike Rapp of Bear, DE-based Sound Solutions explains, sonic issues arose even with many of the more reserved parties.

"For the most part, they only had smaller two and three piece combos playing outside, while the larger and louder bands played indoors, with the music pi