USA - Audio-Technica has become a Diamond Level Corporate Sponsor of the Cinema Audio Society (CAS). Audio-Technica has long been a strong presence in the markets the Cinema Audio Society serves - film sound, television sound, sound for documentaries and other produced programs - and A-T's shotgun microphones and lavalier microphones have been increasingly used in the production of numerous major events and programmes.

The Cinema Audio Society, now in its 47th year, is "dedicated to the advancement of sound". It consists of sound mixers and associates from the film and television industries. The Society was founded to create a proper channel of communication between the related sound crafts and between those instrumental to the production and distribution of film and television soundtracks. The Corporate Sponsorship programme allows the CAS to expand their awards progr

France - The city of Orléans, some 130km south-west of Paris, is best known for being the city that was liberated from the English during the Hundred Years' War by Joan of Arc. To this day the city's inhabitants have continued to remain faithful and grateful to her, and the annual FΩtes de Jeanne d'Arc is held in honour of her victory.

Part of the programme this year, which included parades, medieval festivals, markets, concerts and exhibitions, was a late-night open-air DJ session which followed on from a spectacular son-et-lumiere show. Free entry and a stellar line-up including sets from Laurent Wolf, Greg Cerrone and Da Fresh guaranteed a big turn-out, and organisers weren't disappointed - over 21,000 revellers showed up to dance the night away.

AV rental company ACS, provided a powerful Uniline compact line array system from French loudspeaker company

USA - The 2010 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in southern California was once again an overwhelming success, drawing a record attendance of 225,000 people over a three-day span. At Coachella's Mojave Stage, Ian C. Charbonneau of Le Mobile Remote Recording relied on JBL LSR2328 studio monitors to mix a roster of top artists for live webcast.

During the Festival's three days, the Mojave Stage hosted performances by 30 acts, including Devo, Grizzly Bear, Imogen Heap, Julian Casablancas, Shooter Jennings and Les Claypool. In other words, rest was not an option for Charbonneau. "When you're mixing live from 10am to 1am for three days, it's a tough gig for the ears," Charbonneau said, "but it's such a great time doing it, especially when you love music and you love what you do."

Not only does the schedule itself pose a challenge, but Charbonneau

Turkey - L- Acoustics' Turkish distributor Elit Light&Sound Technologies has assisted the Christian & Missionary Alliance of Canada hold its biannual assembly in Antalya, Turkey, providing the requisite PA system and manpower.

Usually held in Canada, the organisation's proposal to hold it in Turkey posed an interesting situation for Scott Murley and Mark Lasebnik, technical director and FOH engineer respectively, who have been supporting the C&MA Assembly for more than 16 years.

The five-day event includes business sessions, break-out seminars and evening plenary events incorporating a live band, on-stage choir, string section, spoken-word teaching, dramatic elements, pre-produced video, all requiring production equipment and staffing.

The C&MA's assemblies in Canada is known for its quality of production, especially audio, so it was deemed that Murley and Lasebnik find a Tu

UK - London's Albany Theatre has invested in a new grandMA2 ultra-light console to replace their old lighting desk. The Albany in Deptford east London, is a busy producing and receiving house, and one of London's leading performing arts venues. The decision to go with grandMA2 was made by head of production Fiona Greenhill and technical manager Ben Wallace.

Hosting many one night theatre shows and a host of interesting music gigs, they wanted a multi-functional console that would be good for busking and fast programming 'on-the-fly' as well as for handling detailed pre-programmed shows.

grandMA was initially recommended to the Albany by lighting designer Lawrence Stromski, and originally they thought it would be beyond their budgets, but then Greenhill and Wallace took the opportunity to check out what MA had to offer at PLASA 2009. Here they saw grandMA2 in action and were se

Hong Kong - Sa DingDing, a Grammy nominee and winner of the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2008, performed two concerts at the Hong Kong Star Hall for the 38th Hong Kong Arts Festival. Shalom AV Technology provided a Meyer Sound Milo line array loudspeaker system for the event.

Named by The Times as the Asian Björk, Sa DingDing sings in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Mandarin. By mixing traditional Chinese melodies and Buddhist prayers with electronic instruments, she has inspired many with a spiritual musicality reproduced by a Meyer Sound system.

"Milo was used because it not only provides the power we needed for the size of venue but also gives us the dynamics," states Roland Chan, concert engineer of Shalom AV Technology.

To cover 3,600 spectators in the four-level Star Hall measuring 30,000sq.ft, a Meyer Sound system with 16 Milo and four Milo 120 line array

UK - The first Mic to Master training weekend of 2010 attracted an enthusiastic audience when it took place earlier this month at Deep Blue Sound in Plymouth.

More than 40 students, engineers and producers attended the two-day event, which was organised as a joint initiative by high end recording and broadcast equipment manufacturer Prism Sound/SADiE and JAMES, the education arm of the Music Producers Guild (MPG), the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS), and the UK Screen Association.

Phil Harding, chairman of JAMES, said, "It was a fantastic weekend that attracted good support from the industry and delivered key insights into some very pertinent topics. Many of those who attended expressed their delight in being able to learn from professionals who were willing to share their expertise and impart some useful tricks of the trade."

Throughou

UK - Occupying the former Neve premises in Litlington, Cambridgeshire, Absolute Professional Audio offers a wide range of sound demonstration, design, installation, commissioning and training services. At the heart of the company's premises is a state-of-the-art studio, where a Yamaha 02R96VCM is providing much-needed versatility.

The company moved to the new, larger Litlington premises from nearby Melbourn because of ongoing expansion. A major attraction of the new building was a studio featuring a live room and two edit suite/control rooms, which had seen very little use and was in immaculate condition.

"It was a fantastic opportunity to create a high quality demonstration and training facility and also to set up a cutting edge recording studio," says Absolute Pro Audio's Phil Darke. "The first thing I did when everything was wired up was to mic up the new Yam

China - Community Professional Loudspeakers and its Chinese distributor, Sanecore Audio, recently hosted the first SynAudCon seminar to be presented in China. Christine Howze, vice president of Community and a big advocate of SynAudCon's audio education seminars, approached SynAudCon in 2009 with the concept of presenting Audio Principles & Applications to audio professionals in China. With SynAudCon on board, the event and seminar logistics were coordinated by Howze, Sanecore's Chinese sales president Jun Zhu and SynAudCon owners Pat and Brenda Brown.

The two and a half day training was held at the IAG Club in Shenzhen. More than 50 participants, consisting of Sanecore audio engineers and audio professionals from all over China, enjoyed the presentations by Pat Brown. The course was offered in English with Chinese translation provided by Tao Zhang, a US based technical a

UK - Summit Steel supplied a wide selection of its SmarTmast range to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, which were deployed around the main arena to provide an elegant solution for the flying of video displays and PA and lighting points.

Summit were working for equestrian event specialists and show producers Horse Power, and have supplied the show for the last five years, during which time its rigging requirements have steadily grown in scale.

This year, there were additional technical requirements, utilised for both the Horse Show and for the Windsor Tattoo, which was staged on four of the five evenings of the Horse Show.

Two 6 x 4m LED screens, each weighing approximately 1.2 tonnes were positioned at the ends of the arena - one straddling the warm up paddock entranceway, and the other at its opposite diagonal corner. These relayed competition and public information as well as

UK - The 2010 Classical BRIT Awards was broadcast live from Earls Court with a Midas XL8 handling front of house for the first time, provided by Britannia Row Productions. Sound designer and live sound coordinator Derrick Zieba specified the XL8 after using it for the 2010 BRIT Awards in January, demonstrating Midas digital mixing systems' rapid uptake for large televised events.

"This is a very exacting audience of industry professionals, who are used to hearing the best possible quality of recordings," says Zieba. "We wanted to match that quality, but also to lift their experience above that so that they know they're listening to a live orchestra. The XL8 does this imperceptibly; it effectively vanishes while delivering an incredibly complex mix to every corner.

"I've been doing the Classical BRITs here for six years, and the sound of

UK - Concept Audio, a technical event supplier based on the South coast and specialising in large scale events, concerts & tours has recently acquired an Allen & Heath iLive console from LMC Audio Systems.

Danny Schurer, company director at Concept Audio, comments, "Having worked with most digital desks on the market, we felt that the Allen & Heath was the best value for money whilst being the most intuitive to use in the environments we were going to employ it in."

Currently providing technical production for the Warner's 2010 Strictly Come Dancing tour,

Concept Audio are using the iLive for this as well as various other projects during tour breaks, including the upcoming Madehurst Festival in Sussex. Martin Daley, sales manager at Allen & Heath, who visited Concept Audio personally to demo the iLive comments, "Danny and the team responded enthu

New Zealand - Team Hybrid, a team of budding filmmakers, have used their DPA 4017mk2-R Shotgun Microphone at the regional finals of V48Hours, New Zealand's largest annual film contest.

Team Hybrid's boom operator, CJ Withey, recently purchased his 4017mk2-R from DPA's New Zealand distributor, Amber Technology NZ, taking advantage of the mic's new features. This includes improved RF immunity, a further reduction in perceived high frequency noise and low cut filter modification, with the lower -3 dB point changed from 300 to 120 Hz. Like its predecessor, the shotgun comes complete with a kit of Rycote weatherproof systems.

V48Hours attracts thousands of moviemakers, from experienced film directors to enthusiastic newcomers across New Zealand. This year, 700 teams pooled their talents to create a short film in just one weekend. Teams are assigned a genre at the star

Canada - Visual Productions has confirmed Montreal based Theatrixx as its distributor for the Canadian market. Theatrixx is known in Canada as both a distributor of lighting, video and audio equipment as well as an international manufacturer for its cable and AC distribution systems.

During Prolight+Sound, Theatrixx CEO Jacques Tessier began to envisage the potential for Cuelux - the platform independent software lighting controller - on the Canadian market and on his return to Canada placed his initial stock order, confirming the Distribution deal.

On Theatrixx' appointment as Visual Productions distributor, Tessier states, "This line of products is offering tremendous amount of possibilities for learning lighting programming for beginners as well as doing highly sophisticated programming for experienced designers; for both live and permanent installation. With the Visua

USA - Lee Rose was the innovative lighting designer for the second annual Revolver Golden Gods Awards; an event that celebrates the best in hard rock and heavy metal. Featuring artists such as Rob Zombie, Slash, Dave Grohol, Lemmy Kilimister of Motörhead, and many more, Rose had to create an environment that matched the vigour of performances. To generate a vibrant force of energy he chose to use the MAC 401 Dual by Martin Professional.

Rose has used the MAC 401's previously on both the ABC Disney Christmas Parade special and Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eveand stated, "For this show I had the concept of an updated 'wall of light,' like was done with PAR-64's in the heyday of heavy metal tours. I knew, from my previous experience, that I wanted to build this 'wall' with MAC 401's."

He created the spectacular look by hanging three rows of 14 fixtures

Italy - A blend of rock, folk, classical and Celtic music is reviving the legend of King Arthur under the Infinity S lights by Coemar.

Excalibur, the Celtic rock opera created by Alan Simon, boasts a cast comprising icons from the '70s and '80s. In fact, there are over 100 international stars in this show including Alan Parsons, founder of the Alan Parsons Project, John Helliwell of Supertramp and Martin Barre, guitarist with Jethro Tull.

After the success of 2009 at Kaltenberg Castle in Germany with an audience of over 17,000, the show is now on tour in 12of the most important cities in Germany and Switzerland and is already scheduled to be performed in other European countries in the summer of 2011.

Swordsmen, knights and dancers in medieval costume perform on a stage with central dais designed in the form of the legendary sword. A spectacular lighting installation

Portugal / Germany - During the recent visit of Pope Benedict XV1 to Portugal, approximately 220,000 people attended an open air mass held on 14 May in the northern city of Porto. Fohhn PT-9 Waveline line array and Linea Focus LF-220 electronically steerable loudspeaker systems were used to relay sound in the main stage and VIP areas during the mass.

In the large open space close to Porto's City Hall, two towers each with 12 PT-9 line array speakers were positioned approximately 30m from the sides of the main stage, providing coverage for between 60,000 and 80,000 people. In front of the stage, two Linea Focus LF-220 electronically controlled column speakers provided direct sound for approximately 1000 VIP guests. Such were the crowds that in neighbouring side streets additional loudspeakers were used to relay the mass to those unable to reach the main area.

Uli Haug, Fohhn Au

Qatar - Creative Events, a major rental firm based in Doha, Qatar has acquired a fourth Midas console for their inventory. The company already boasts a Heritage 3000, Legend 3000 and a Verona. The new purchase is their first Midas digital console in the form of the PRO6.

"Creative Events already owns more than one digital console but this is their first Midas console that is digital," commented Richie Hiranandani, marketing manager. "After they were able to compare the audio quality from their inventory of digital consoles, the conclusion is that the Midas PRO6 is significantly superior."

(Jim Evans)

Denmark - Hasseris Kirke in Aalborg, Denmark has an established reputation as a centre for re-invigorating the Protestant Church through music. "Our church is interested in developing new rhythmic music for services, so we invite composers from all over Europe to come and visit the church with their compositions," says Mogens Jensen, organist and musical director at Hasseris Kirke. "We are concerned with nurturing a creative environment. By finding new music through folk songs or contemporary composition we are creating music that relates to people today, making the path to church smaller, shorter, easier."

Smaller, shorter, easier is a suitable mantra for Jensen's path to achieving that special musical environment. "The church is barely 50 years old and is stone built in the traditional style for this part of Northern Jutland. I chose a d&b audiotechnik

Korea - Christie reports that South Korea based D-Cinema Korea Co. Ltd. (DCK) has committed to installing Christie 4K-ready Solaria™ Series DLP Cinema projectors in the second phase of their digital cinema deployments, countrywide. After a successful first phase of installations, DCK selected Christie's Series 2 projectors, based on their reliability, low cost of ownership and upgradeability to 4K.

In the initial deployment plan, DCK, the joint-venture company of Lotte Cinema and CJ CGV, installed Christie CP2000 Series projectors in the majority of cinemas across the country. The agreement for the second phase of installations strengthens DCK's leadership in digital cinema and introduces a new era in content distribution for Korea. With this second phase installation, South Korea is expected to be the first, completely digitized country in the world.

(Jim Evans)

White Light reports that, following the recent changes at E/T/C UK and projection designer Ross Ashton's launch of his new company, The Projection Studio, White Light is now the sole supplier of the PIGI large-format projection system in the UK.

The PIGI system of high-output projectors and automated double rotating film scrollers has powered the dramatic projections seen at many of the most memorable public events of recent years, including the Queen's Golden Jubilee and the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War 2 (both projects involving projection onto the front of Buckingham Palace), the Edinburgh Military Tattoo every year since 2005, the 800th Anniversary of Cambridge University, and New Year's Eve in London. The projectors have also been behind countless other shows in the fields of advertising, concerts, corporate events, theatre, television and more.

These shows have been

UK - White Light recently hosted the industry's first seminar on the application of the recent British Standard covering temporary power systems by Avitas Global. The 16-strong audience consisted of a diverse range of delegates including broadcasters, production managers, event electricians, video rental companies and even an engineer from a power station. The seminar covered the important aspects of the interaction between legislation and standards and went on to look at how the electrical industry's 'bible' - otherwise known as the IEE Wiring Regulations - and the new temporary power standard BS 7909 are entwined.

It explored a range of other issues such as the testing and certification requirements of BS 7909 and in particular showed how it is easy to complete if equipment delivered to site is all PAT tested. The seminar also exampled how current industry practice was

UK - With a stage set of neon strip lights and art deco lines, and a sound that harks back to the 80s, electronic pop duo, La Roux, have just completed their successful Gold Tour, taking in academy-sized venues around Europe, finishing in the UK. Forming part of their substantial audio system was a Sennheiser G3 500-945 radio mic and a complete G3 EW 300 in-ear system.

Front of House engineer, Dave Swallow, has been with the band for just over a year and has a long history of working with Sennheiser products. "Pretty much every tour I've ever been on has had Sennheiser product on it, so using it here was a natural choice," says Swallow. "I opted for this particular system because I've always liked the e 935 and e 945 mics. Using the SKM 500-945 on this tour, I found there are some lovely frequencies in the low end and you can really warm vocals up with them

UK - The Fareham Folk Festival is one of the biggest events of its kind in the UK. For the last 15 years, Salisbury-based sales and rental company, MIDAS ProSound, has been supplying the sound system. This year, the company went for a complete change, from the main PA all the way through to the monitor system. The new package included two Eclipse consoles from Innovason, SMX15 stage monitors from APG and the VQ Live loudspeaker system from Tannoy.

According to MIDAS ProSound's Paul Nicholson (who also heads up the distribution company Red Square Audio) the event was a complete success. "We've been handling the audio for the Fareham Folk Festival for the last 15 years and we've always achieved great sound," noted Nicholson, "but this year was truly exceptional. In addition to our usual festival regulars who are always kind enough to comment on the gre

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