The Netherlands - L-Acoustics will present its latest installation solution to the market at ISE 2019 in Amsterdam (5-8 February). “ISE continues to grow year over year and attracts integration specialists from all over the world,” says Jeff Rocha, director of product management for L-Acoustics. “This makes it the perfect forum for us to showcase our latest innovations while highlighting the unique and targeted benefits our of existing product lines.” As well as revealing this new product, the company will be hosting a series of demonstrations and presentations each day, including L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound, a trailblazing multidimensional sound technology. “We look forward to the convenience of reconnecting face to face with so many of our customers at ISE, as well as catering to new demand and clienteles,” adds Jochen Frohn, L-Acoustics director
USA - For the past 15 years, the Infinite Energy Arena has served the greater Atlanta, Georgia area as a state-of-the-art venue for concerts, graduations, and sporting events of all types, from basketball to ice hockey to professional lacrosse. Depending on the nature of the event, the arena holds between 11,000 and 13,000 people. After its original sound reinforcement system fell out of date and beyond repair, the Infinite Energy Arena management chose AV integration firm Logic Systems Sound & Lighting, of St. Louis, Missouri, to install a cost-effective Danley Sound Labs system. The Danley system reuses existing wiring & rigging and far exceeds the design criteria for fidelity and sound pressure level, all while simultaneously slashing the system’s energy budget in half. “The old system relied on obsolete technology and discontinued products,” explains
Nigeria - Based in Port Harcourt, Chicoco Studios is housed in The Shed, a community space built by the young residents of the city’s waterfront slums. The studio was designed and installed by the Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform (CMAP) in conjunction with the musicians from Chicoco Collective and is home to both recording and radio broadcast spaces. Directed by ex-BBC engineer Ana Bonaldo, with technical mentoring and support from another ex-BBC engineer Colin Neal, Chicoco Radio is powered by a pair of Allen & Heath XB-14-2 compact broadcast mixers chosen, according to Neal for their “incomparable value and versatility. We found no other desk at this price point which features broadcast functions such as TELCO channels with clean feed, talkback and remote starts for playout channels.” While Chicoco Radio was devised to give the residents of Port Harc
UK - The West London demo room of Kinesys was home to a Green Hippo Automation Masterclass with an international flavour. Welcoming attendees from Finland and the Netherlands, as well as the United Kingdom, Green Hippo partnered with Kinesys to deliver Masterclass III - Automation. The two-day course, which took place earlier this month, enabled delegates to take a deep dive into integrating moving elements with Hippotizer and SHAPE 3D projection mapping. Occupying the Kinesys base, conveniently located 20 minutes from Heathrow, students benefited from a venue fully-equipped with chain motors, rotators, trolleys and truss - this was a true hands-on experience where participants experienced using actual hardware to practice key skills including object alignment, parenting and automation scripting. Both days saw students spending the mornings absorbing theory in the trai
UK - Swedish rapper Yung Lean has recently completed his biggest UK headline show to date - Wings of Desire at London’s O2 Academy in Brixton, accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive Wings set-up. The full audio set-up - owned by FOH engineer Gustav Brunn - is used for both FOH and Mon duties and features a dLive C1500 surface fitted with a Waves 3 card at FOH position in conjunction with a CDM32 MixRack, fitted with a Dante card, and an IP6 Controller at stage position. Brunn comments: “I was looking for a fly-in rig that we can take anywhere in the world when A&H released the new dLive series. It’s such a competent rig and really suits my needs - I can bring it with me anywhere on the planet.” On stage, a DJ performs alongside the artists using Ableton Live with the outputs sent to the CDM32 via Dante. The IP6 is used to allow the producti
Canada - SC Media Canada and Ivan’s Audio-Visual recently outfitted Moncton, New Brunswick’s new Avenir Centre arena with a complete Harman Professional Solutions audio system. Avenir Centre is an 8,800-seat multi-use arena that is home to the Moncton Wildcats hockey team and Moncton Magic and basketball team. Although it primarily serves as a sports arena, Avenir Centre also hosts performances by renowned acts like Keith Urban and Jerry Seinfeld in addition to speaking events, trade shows and more. To provide exceptional sound quality for a wide range of entertainment and events, the arena needed a powerful audio system that could deliver even and highly-controlled sound coverage. To meet these objectives, SC Media Canada and Ivan’s Audio-Visual designed and deployed an end-to-end Harman system featuring JBL VRX line arrays, Crown DriveCore amplifiers, BSS BLU
USA - Pro AV solutions supplier Biamp has acquired sound masking specialist Cambridge Sound Management (CSM) from Gladstone Investment Corp. CSM joins as a product family within the Beaverton-based company’s portfolio, with business functions set to gradually blend into a single Biamp business. Rashid Skaf, Biamp president, comments: “It has been just one year since I led the acquisition of Biamp with Highlander Partners with the stated intent of leveraging it as a platform to build a respected provider of comprehensive AV solutions. This transaction is the first evidence of that strategy being implemented but far from the last. Biamp is on the move. “The acquisition of Cambridge Sound Management unites two great brands in the professional AV market.” The deal will enable Biamp, who provides AV solutions for conference rooms, lecture halls, auditor
USA - In its first major renovation since 1987, the PepsiCo Theatre at Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY), now has a precision L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo loudspeaker system integrated by Southington, Connecticut-based integrator North American Theatrix. Designed by set designer Ming Cho Lee, the mid-sized PepsiCo Theatre has a large stage allowing for exceptional adaptability. It also makes an ideal venue for film screenings, with comfortable seating, a rear screen projection bay, and fully digital projection capabilities. A $730,000 grant from locally-based beverage giant PepsiCo in 2016, combined with additional donations, allowed for the complete renovation of the theatre - from the seats and the carpeting to the sound, projection, and lighting systems to critical backstage infrastructure. The new PA setup for the Performing Arts Centre of
UK - The Maestra Group in London and Dubai have switched from their existing server-based equipment rental software to HireHop’s cloud-based rental equipment software to manage their productions, hires and inventory. Maestra is an international event production and AV rental company based out of London and Dubai, with a large portfolio of iclients and events under their belts. HireHop’s director Keith Jacobs says: “We are delighted to have such a prestigious and well-respected company on board, and we look forward to facilitating Maestra’s growth in the future.” Justin Hammond, managing director of Maestra London, adds: “We had encountered numerous limitations with our previous rental software and needed a replacement. We switched over to HireHop because it could do everything we needed and more, due to its speed and the wealth of functionality, ma
Europe - American blues rockers Welshly Arms have recently completed their European tour with an Allen & Heath dLive system handling FOH duties. The latest tour supports their newest album release No Place is Home. The band’s set-up consists of a dLive C3500 at FOH with a CDM32 fitted with a Dante card, placed centre stage. dLive’s Tie Lines patching option is utilised to provide a digital split over Dante to an additional console on monitors. Additionally, a DX168 expander is positioned stage-right for extra analogue I/O. FOH engineer David Sievers comments: “When it comes to deciding on which desk and gear to use on tour, there are so many options now, but dLive really stood out against the rest. I chose dLive due to its flexibility, its great sound and the fact I can add a Waves card to the surface and a Dante card to the MixRack.” Sievers a
A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has provided KCS Group with a Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Karst+ Media Server to make Honda UK’s live event content stand out from the crowd. KCS, an experiential marketing and events company, has worked with Honda exclusively for 15 years - providing them and their dealerships with the support to make every event a success. KCS were asked to procure a media server and all necessary hardware to give Honda the ability to display varying content across different areas of their show stands, whilst giving them the option to link the screens together as well, to broadcast live content simultaneously across them all. Gareth Coleman, project manager for KCS, visited PLASA earlier this year to research his options. He met Stuart Burdett, sales manager for AC-ET's specialist video sales division. Coleman says: “After speaking wit
France - La Seine Musicale is a venue in Paris that resides on a small island in the middle of the Seine. From its inception, there was a desire to have studio recording and rehearsing space facilities integrated as a permanent part of the building that hosts concerts, musicals, ballets, comedy and corporate events. It quickly became clear that the best way to ensure easy connectivity from every potential recording space to the control room would be to install a building-wide network of Ethernet cables and connection ports. It was simply the ideal way to route high counts of audio channels between locations. An IP Audio solution was a must - and following careful considerations, the team decided to go for Audinate’s Dante protocol. Arnaud Kalmes, the head engineer at the Riffx Studios in the La Seine Musicale building comments: “The implementation of a Dante Networ
Europe - FOH engineer Matt West (Motorhead, Snoop Dogg, The Cure, Eminem) has specified Solid State Logic L500 live mixing desk for the latest tour of French indie pop band Phoenix. The band's latest Album, Ti Amo, came out last year and has been the focus of their most recent world tour. While West has extensive experience on digital consoles, he says he has mostly used them for ergonomic reasons, rather than sound. "I'm an analogue engineer and I come out of that world,” admits West. “Perhaps it's semantics, but there's a warmth that you don't normally get with zeros and ones - at least that’s what I thought that until I came across the SSL. "On previous tours I had an outboard rack that I'd carry everywhere with me, with some nice compressors like DBX160s, Distressors, 901s. All that lovely sort of stuff. During
UK - SSE Audio Group’s JBL VTX system was specified by Enrique Iglesias’ FOH engineer Brad Divens for the Spanish singer’s UK autumn arena tour. Divens, already a seasoned JBL VTX user, fielded JBL’s flagship line array system for five arena shows in the UK and Ireland. All the shows were a complete success, due to careful preparation by SSE Audio Group, led by hire project manager Dan Bennett and system engineer Nick Lythgoe, with support from Stuart Strachan, application engineer at Harman UK distributor Sound Technology and Ed Jackson, senior application engineer at Harman EMEA. The tour is a Sound Image account in the USA, and thanks to the collaboration between Sound Image and SSE through the formation of United Audio Companies in 2015, both companies are able to service their clients on both sides of the Atlantic with each other’s support. The sys
USA - In February 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet. The spacecraft will be able to capture imagery and sound as the Mars 2020 vehicle descends through the Martian atmosphere and lands on the surface of Mars. To capture sounds from the Red Planet for the first time ever, the Mars 2020 Rover will be outfitted with a selection of equipment from DPA Microphones. The Mars 2020 spacecraft is currently being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena and the DPA products will be installed onto the vehicle in early 2019. DPA’s d:dicate 4006 Omnidirectional Microphone will capture the audio while the MMA-A Digital Audio Interface will be used to record and send audio to a computer through its USB connection. Both mics will be paired with MMP-G Modular Active Cables, which act as ultra-transparent preamplifiers.
USA - Audio Precision has introduced the APx555 B-Series analyser, part of their B-Series APx audio analysers. The second-generation APx555 offers improved sine generator frequency stability, lower system residual distortion, single-ended, balanced analogue output and an optional ADC test mode which provides VBias, a common mode DC Bias. The arrival of the B-Series APx555 audio analyser brings several enhancements to the analogue high-performance sine generator that will have broad appeal to developers of high-performance audio devices such as compressors, limiters, amplifiers, codecs and digital signal processors, says the company. This enhanced analogue generator (EAG) - standard with B Series APx555 analysers and available as an upgrade for Legacy APx555 systems - provides several improvements in its low distortion sine generator and high-precision sine analyser, i
Europe - Electro-Voice has introduced three new additions to its EVID family. The C4.2LP (4” low-profile ceiling), C6.2 (6.5” ceiling) and P6.2 (6.5” pendant) join the extensive EVID product line-up, which includes acoustically and aesthetically matched ceiling-mount, flush-mount, pendant-mount and surface-mount models suitable for installation in spaces of every shape and size, indoors or outdoors. The C4.2LP is a two-way full-range ceiling speaker with a 4” woofer and a 0.75” HF driver. Its low-profile design offers a mounting depth of just 3.75” - the shortest in its class and ideal for tighter spaces. The C6.2 is a two-way full-range ceiling speaker with a 6.5” woofer and a 1” HF driver. Both the new ceiling models have the same diameter as the existing EVID 8” ceiling speakers, ensuring consistent appearance across multi-model installatio
Italy - Loudspeaker manufacturer Outline has announced the launch and immediate availability of its new portable, competitively-priced systems, V10 and V15. Engineered for users and performers who transport and operate their own sound reinforcement systems, V10 and V15 are portable yet professional-grade products that will be sold at an affordable price. The enclosures are fabricated from top-quality birch ply, the same material used in Outline’s premium products compared to the moulded plastic favoured by many competitors. (Jim Evans)
UK - Choose Love, a charitable movement that provides humanitarian aid to refugees, opened a pop-up store in London to operate in the four-week run up to Christmas. Pioneer Pro Audio was selected to donate a sound system. The store works on the principle that visitors ‘shop their hearts out’ but leave with nothing, having bought essentials like solar lamps, blankets, bags and women’s products to enable similar items to be given to refugees. As a way of attracting attention and driving further footfall to the store, it hosts a variety of DJ sets from luminaries such as Jarvis Cocker and even has a Banksy artwork on display. Pioneer Pro Audio was happy to supply two XPRS 10 tops complemented by two XPRS 115s subs, to provide crisp, punchy audio for the store’s generous customers. Mark Grotefeld, general marketing manager at Pioneer Pro Audio, comment
UK - Some Voices, a 500 strong London choir hosted three consecutive seasonal Speakeasy nights of choral performances at Troxy last week. The 1925 dress and theming were accentuated perfectly by Troxy’s art decor architecture, but when it came to production the events were firmly rooted in the present day. Troxy’s head of sound Ben Ellis was on hand, from Monday’s 7am load-in to Wednesday’s show close to assist the choir’s technical production – in particular the incoming sound and lighting engineers. “In terms of the PA system we used our in-house front-of-house, the new JBL VTX A12 speaker system installed this Autumn by SSE. Their engineer brought in his own Alan and Heath dLive console that he had built his show on and was familiar with, which we ran FOH and monitors from. “A show with this many singers generates a fair amount of
UK - The Young Vic recently hosted a different take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The tale received a shake-up as soulful melodies and R&B beats weaved through an enchanting musical adaptation with sound reinforcement courtesy of KV2 Audio products. It was the latest in a long line of successful KV2 theatre productions featuring sound design by Richard Brooker – who once again chose to use KV2’s EX products to transfer every detail of the performance and energetic musical arrangements from the stage to the audience. Twelfth Night follows in the footsteps of Dream Girls, Annie, Sister Act and Funny Girl in successfully deploying KV2’s range of True Point Source loudspeakers and Richard has been instrumental in the rapid rise in profile of KV2 in UK theatres – a trend that has now been emulated on Broadway and in
UK - disguise has expanded its global reach by opening two new offices, in Shanghai and Los Angeles. This is in addition to their bases in London, New York and Hong Kong. Fernando Kufer, CEO at disguise, comments: “The decision to expand into China and open a second office in America was a logical step in our business growth strategy. We are seeing rapid growth across the globe and some of the most talented visual designers are in these regions, so it is critical that we can work with them effectively and offer culturally relevant support.” disguise have also hired multiple new team members across different regions. Bill Collis has joined disguise as chairman of the board, bringing his leadership experience within the film and video industry. The company has also appointed a new executive team including: Tom Rockhill as chief sales officer, Paul Hunt as chief finan
UK - The comprehensive range of useful features offered by Sony’s DWX Generation 3 Digital Wireless system has inspired Stage Sound Services to invest in a further 24 channels of DWX, bringing its overall channel count to more than 150. Stage Sound Services was an early adopter of Sony’s DWX 3 technology, seeing its toughness and durability as ideally suited to the rigours of theatre productions, particularly touring productions. Its DWX channels were supplied by Sound Network, which distributes Sony audio equipment in the UK. Phil Hurley, managing director of Stage Sound Services, says: “In terms of price, reliability and sound quality, Sony’s DWX Generation 3 is an outstanding digital wireless system and, in our opinion, the best on the market. We supply equipment to numerous West End theatre productions and many of the sound designers we deal with are now sp
Europe - Capital Sound recently completed one of their more unusual mini-tours when they provided sound reinforcement, including Martin Audio’s MLA, for three shows by Japanese ‘android diva’ Hatsune Miku. The ‘Vocaloid’ music sensation uses a computer generated voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media. This virtual persona is actually a 16-year-old blue haired girl, who is seen onstage as a 3D hologram projection. Her repertoire is entirely original and she has over 2.5 million followers on social media. The Expo 2018 Europe tour came to Capital via Jamal Chalabi of Proper Productions, with whom they work frequently. Since the London date was the densely populated Kensington Olympia, a hugely noise sensitive site, it was obvious that only MLA would offer the level of containment necessary while reaching the considerable levels required by the Japanese pro
