Events

Strong

Details: 14 March 2016

Strong launched its new Radiance followspot, which has attracted praise for both appearance and operation. The SkyTracker: MiniTracker searchlight is also new and is an affordable option for those who want a lighter, lower power unit. Jack Schmidt said the company appreciated their close proximity to the Bandit Lites bar - which he says is a positive feature of PLASA and a great place to do business.

MDG Fog Generators

Details: 14 March 2016

MDG Fog Generators was attracting strong interest on the stand for its DMX-controlled Fogger and Hazer. The company has recently done a huge installation of them into MGM studios. The machines are auto filling and developed after the company designed some products for the US army to use on practice manoeuvres. The reliable and heavy-duty machines are also aimed at the theme park market.

Fuzion

Details: 14 March 2016

Aside from announcing the formation of new lighting distribution company Difuzion (see news this issue), Fuzion Plc featured many brands on its stand including Nexo and Camco. Brand new was the Radia Pro-Line range of architectural speakers, which offer equal sound anywhere in a room using planar technology: there are three speakers in the range - the Pro 1.0, the Pro 1.3 and the Pro 1.9. Finally from the Fuzion portfolio was the new Synergy series of amps from Australian Monitor.

Dynalite

Details: 14 March 2016

Dynalite was promoting its full integration packages for control of AV, sound, lighting, window coverings, blinds, etc. Aimed primarily at the high end residential market, featured products included the Dynalite Universe panel wall controller, with seven standard buttons, available in a variety of architectural finishes to match the interior.

Skyhigh FX Ltd

Details: 14 March 2016

Skyhigh FX Ltd launched its new compressed air 4&8 channel Air-Fetti cannons, which they see as a great alternative to pyrotechnics. They are proving popular with cruise shows that are unable to use pyros but still want great FX for their shows. The company conducted a prize draw on its stand during the show, with the prize of an 8-channel Air-Fetti system won by Mathew Jones, a freelance stage manager working at Butlins in Bognor Regis. Skyhigh's Tom Owen said: "PLASA 2004 was absolutely brilliant - we've confirmed new and serious relationships into Russia, Albania and The Canaries, along with smaller dealers around Europe."

LMC Audio

Details: 14 March 2016

The ever-cheerful Paul Hinkly of LMC Audio was looking content, saying "Business is good after a lean couple of years." No doubt his mood was improved by receiving an order for one of Soundcraft's new GB4 consoles, which debuted at PLASA. Other new product on display included the Soundcraft GB8 desk, Drawmer DSL424 2+2 compressor/gate and dbx ZonePro 640.

DiGiCo

Details: 14 March 2016

DiGiCo's new D1 digital audio mixing desk is based on its worthy forebear, the well-known D5. Being a smaller footprint desk - yet sporting 40 busses, 64 channel inputs (with expansion facilities up to 96) and all the familiar D5 high/low filters, 4-band EQ etc - this looks to be a product attractive to the theatre market and for smaller touring productions. It comes in three variants: 'DP' has 12 onboard graphics for possible dual FOH/Monitor role; 'DR' has two drive racks (onstage as a stage box and one local to the desk); and 'EX' is basically D5 specification, with optical snake etc, just physically smaller.

Alcons Audio

Details: 14 March 2016

The ribbon driver has yet to gain wide acceptance, but maybe the new QR Series from Alcons Audio is just the thing to do it. Designed for use in churches and large halls, this line source system utilizes an 18" ribbon driver and three 6.5" LF drivers, offering 120° by 19° dispersion. Available in two forms, Q36 and Q18, the former is merely a vertical doubling of the Q18. This two-way system has a frequency range from 70Hz - 20kHz with an SPL peak of 150dB (QR18: 144 dB - presumably at 1m).

Swefog Technology Group

Details: 14 March 2016

Jacelle Mattsson, marketing manager for Swefog Technology Group, said the company was showing its new Live T26 smoke machine. It features the new Swefog Merlin R.I.S.C. processor-based electronics and delivers as a minimum, a massive 1,800 cubic metres of clean, dry smoke.

Proel

Details: 14 March 2016

Proel was showing various new products, including its Next 8 and 15 speaker cabinets, the Axiom line array and the Edge series subs and stage monitors. New distributed products included the Alto AMX series mixers, powered PSH loudspeakers and digital loudspeaker management system, plus B&C loudspeakers and a wide range of JTS wired and wireless microphones.

HSL Production Services

Details: 14 March 2016

Blackburn's HSL Production Services provided the eye-catching focal point on the top deck, with a wide range of products on show to highlight its production hire, sales and design services. These included James Thomas LED products, Community loudspeakers, Martin Pro moving heads and various trussing and rigging solutions.

Canford Audio

Details: 14 March 2016

PLASA witnessed the first sight of the latest Canford Audio catalogue, now assuming telephone book proportions. The main new products on show were the Omnimount & Fastback, sturdy and adaptable mounting systems for a range of audio and video products, as well as the company's very handy new robust and flexible Cat 5 cable.

Logic System

Details: 14 March 2016

Rationalizing its range of speakers, Logic System now offers the B.5 and B1, install subs with a 12" and 15", 400W and 500W respectively, both with a frequency range between 40-150Hz, designed to complement the LS range. The existing range already offered a twin 12" and 15" which remain, but all other subs have now been discontinued, greatly simplifying end-user purchase decisions, and equipment utilization. Logic's Ethos line array is based on 120° by 10° dispersion and is lightweight (27kg per cabinet). The system requires just three boxes minimum to achieve linear characteristics, while the flyware allows up to 18 boxes in line. Sub cabinets are designed to be flown at the top of an array, or ground-stacked.

Technics

Details: 14 March 2016

Turntable wizards and style-conscious DJs will love the new Technics SLD21200 turntable, a feature-packed attractive machine, with sample button, Q-Pad position buttons, rotating platter and many more. Effectively it's creating a turntable with a CD player, using the same platters as the industry standard Technics 1200.

Sound Directions

Details: 14 March 2016

Launching its new RS range of installation speakers was Sound Directions. The RS is a flat box prototype with highly directional sound, currently installed at the Tate Modern for mixed media installation artist Bruce Nauman's fifth Unilever Series of commissions.

Color Kinetics

Details: 14 March 2016

Color Kinetics showed several new products. With colour temperature of white being one of the big issues in LED lighting today, perhaps most notable were the two prototypes of dimmable white fixtures, each with different colour temperature.

Marquee Audio

Details: 14 March 2016

A new card from Auvitran designed to plug directly into the back of Yamaha digital consoles, giving full access to the Digigram-developed EtherSound network, was on display at the Marquee Audio stand. 16 channels per card (the network will support up to 64 channels bi-directionally) can be assigned within the software. Extremely fast - Marquee say under a millisecond - this makes feeding to/from multiple sources and destinations feasible in live applications. To demonstrate this low latency and high quality audio performance, Marquee provided multi-channel audio to five other stands around EC1 - Yamaha and InnovaSon on the Top Deck and Fuzion, Sennheiser and Stardraw downstairs - via Cat 5 cable. Marquee also had a prototype product from Garwood that finally solves the after-dinner speaker problem - a radio networked self-powered (rechargeable battery) speaker with a 360° throw. The siz

Compulite/Stagetec Distribution

Details: 14 March 2016

The Compulite/Stagetec Distribution stand was as busy as ever. The Dlite range of consoles was launched, featuring a touchscreen and external monitor, 20 playbacks and interfaces for Ethernet, SMPTE, MIDI, audio and DMX input. The latest addition to the Vector series of consoles, the Vector Green, was on display along with Vector iControl, which uses a Compaq iPAQ pocket PC as the control surface for a Vector console. New for the CompuDIM range of digital dimmers was the CompuSINE module.

Harman Group

Details: 14 March 2016

An abundance of new products on the Harman Group stand: from BSS comes Soundweb London, a CobraNet DSP matrix operating at 48 or 96kHz, with latency down to 1.333 millisecs. Configurable in/out channels, improved DSP efficiency (up to twice the ability of the old green Soundweb, thanks to improved algorithms) and plug-and-play TCP, DHCP and Auto IP. The software also allows integration with Crown PIP modules so you can address, monitor and control individual Crown amplifiers.

AKG presented the WMS 400 - a new wireless mic unit in a 1U package. It's fully compatible with the 4000 series but comes at a lower price point; features include the smallest belt pack in its class, and eight-hour operation from two AA batteries (re-charger unit available). No programming is done on the belt pack, just the rack unit; the only real compromise is the fixed mic heads (no interchangeable capsules) so

Lycian

Details: 14 March 2016

The newest followspot from Lycian is the Midget II. Aimed at schools, churches and small theatres it features a new dichroic glass reflector, six-colour boomerang, new cam-operated brake plus an easy, no-tool lamp change. It is available in the UK with an 800W halogen lamp.

RoscoLab

Details: 14 March 2016

RoscoLab launched 'Light Relief Yellow 313', designed by LD Rick Fisher on behalf of the Light Relief Charity. This will offer additional exposure to the charity and profits from sales of 313 will be donated Light Relief. Stan Miller, Rosco's president, commented: "We see this as an opportunity to give something back and support those who have supported us so well for more than 30 years in Europe."

ShowMagic

Details: 14 March 2016

ShowMagic featured its latest Vista V8 version integration software for the control of sound, lighting and video sources via DMX or RS232. This can all be sequenced, pre-programmed and scheduled to run at specific times of the day as 'Mood control', easily overseen by non-technical staff.

Peavey

Details: 14 March 2016

The new Nion (Network Input Output Node), part of the MediaMatrix tool kit, is Peavey's latest advance on the existing system. Effectively, Nion allows centralized or distributed processing. Available in two variants - n6 with six DSP engines and n3 with three - both are enclosed in 2U rack packs. The PVDJ DAI is the inevitable latest approach to the DJ programme source music interface, a hardware/software package that allows intuitive access to digital audio files, in arguably an even better form than the traditional disk spinning method. The DAI (Digital Audio Interface) allows real-time re-mixing from MP3, cda and wav files.

Specialz

Details: 14 March 2016

From Specialz, AtLast - a good name for a long-awaited product - is a DMX-controlled fully dimmable ballast for fluorescents. The ballast is integral, does not require a dummy load, works with all makes of tube, and besides providing smooth dimming from 0-100% also features mains in/out, allowing up to 20 units to be linked together from a single 16A feed. Also from Specialz, fully legal festoon lighting running on three-core 4mm² cable (most such commercially available lighting is unearthed) complete with inbuilt bulb guards.

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