Japan - Two major QSC system installations in Japan have been reported by distributors, Tokyo-based ComodoMattina.

At Iruma Municipal Hall, QSC Installation Line Array (ILA) and Modular Design (MD) components were specified for the refurbishment of this 1,100-seat auditorium, located in the Saitama Prefecture. Whereas the pre-existing system had been installed inside the proscenium arch, this time the main sound reinforcement system has been designed in front of the arch in order to generate a higher SPL and better coverage, with improved clarity.

While this acoustical solution would generally be favoured it is seldom permitted in general civic halls as it interferes with the architectural aesthetic. That the ILA system was permitted to adopt such a position outside the pros arch in this instance was completely unprecedented, believes ComodoMattina's Takafumi Asahina.

The ma

UK - Sunderland-based High Fidelity Studios has just completed the building of a fully-equipped pre-touring rehearsal suite, installing Allen & Heath's new dedicated monitor console, the GL2800M, to complement the studio's existing GL2400 FOH desk.

"The aim of the new studio is to provide a facility for up-and-coming musicians to take their music to the next level," explains High Fidelity Studios MD, David Dorn. "The suite offers bands the experience of a full blown gig, providing quality equipment they would find at a top line event. The space is set up like a venue with a fully furnished stage including drum rises, a valve back line, and top quality 32 channel monitor and FOH desks."

"We are very familiar with A&H mixers as we have GL2200's and GL2400's in our hire stock, and we come across them in most of the venues we engineer," continues dire

UK - Christie has introduced Christie ACT, a new theatre automation controller purpose-built to interface with the latest generation Digital Cinema technology. The system makes it easy to automate presentations by translating cues from connected devices to control most theatre equipment including lighting, curtains, sound, masking and projectors, says the company. The system offers a solution, enabling customisable control to suit the needs of a single screen, a multiplex facility or an entire theatre chain.

Manageable through a web interface, Christie ACT allows the user control and flexibility. It can be accessed from any web browser on a networked computer making it accessible from a portable handheld computer or laptop.

With an intuitive graphical user interface, even the novice can easily customise tasks and events to suit specific needs, says the company. Featuring pre-d

Switzerland - Soundweb London digital signal processing from BSS Audio was recently specified in the fourth biggest ice hockey stadium in the country, with a capacity of 8,000. Built in 1995 the Resega Ice Arena in Lugano is home to the Hockey Club Lugano HCL, which has won the Swiss National Hockey Championship seven times within the last 20 years.

As a result, their home games are packed, with all matches accompanied by a continuous cacophony of crowd noise. This, coupled with a critical reverberation, explains why two different installed sound systems have both been replaced within the last ten years after being deemed unsatisfactory.

In spring last year, the town of Lugano issued a tender for a new sound system which needed to fulfil the sound reinforcement requirements of a wide range of events and also meet the EN 60849 regulation for evacuation purposes.

The concept o

Singapore - Singapore's growing infrastructure - requiring the need for ever more professional staging services - is already having a positive effect on this year's Event 360º show, which makes its debut under the wing of the umbrella PALME Asia expo in July.

Some 1,000sq.m, a quarter of the overall capacity at Singapore Expo, will be set aside for Event 360º Asia. Heartened by the initial response, Davin Er, who is responsible for developing this sector, believes that interest has not only been stimulated by the support from the Singapore Tourism Board, but the building of the S$3.85bn Marina Bay Sands complex, housing casino, hotel and convention centre.

Event 360º Asia will also be working closely alongside Singapore-based UnUsUal Productions, who are among an increasing number of local companies that have the capability of offering world-renowned ev

USA - Los Angeles night club, the Temple Bar in Santa Monica, has installed Allen & Heath's iLive Digital Console, now providing mixing duties for the club's nightly live music schedule.

Based in LA's fashionable Santa Monica area, the Temple Bar is a unique music venue hosting local, national and international artists performing a spectrum of music covering the genres of jazz, electronica, indie, hip hop, soul, latin, reggae, and world music. There is also a house DJ performing between acts, and the venue regularly organises film screenings and poetry nights.

The Temple Bar's music director and chief mixing engineer, Swan, commented, "The sound of the console is magnificent, I've been mixing at the Temple Bar for five years, I have never hear the room sound like this before. It brought our sound system alive! Its compact footprint fit perfectly in our sound booth, and ou

UK - Summit Steel supplied four SmarTmasts to Britannia Row which were utilised to emulate a concert style set up for sound tests in the new Wembley Stadium. Two SmarTmast 4s were used to suspend speaker arrays that mimicked the height and positioning of PA wing hangs on a typical concert stage set up in the end-on position. The masts were picked for their 15m height, quick buildability and neat footprint.

The main object of the exercise was to integrate a show PA system with Wembley's house PA to provide full audio coverage throughout the stadium. They also took the opportunity to ensure that Emergency announcements could be heard in all locations around the venue.

Summit's Jon Bray was contacted by Brit Row's Bryan Grant to supply the necessary support structures for the tests. Bray and a team of three riggers erected a total of five masts, which stayed up for a two-day peri

UK - Located in Plaistow, east London, Glory House is a family-based, multi-racial and multi-cultural church where audio and visual technologies have been embraced to broadcast the church's message in the most effective way possible.Music is an integral part of Glory House: up to a 100-strong Gospel choir and musical director being complemented by an in-house technical sound team.

The venue now has a new sound system supplied and installed by South London-based Subfrantic Production Services. The Turbosound system comprises four TA-500 Aspect Wide mid-highs, four TSB-118 subs and six TXD-15M wedge monitors, all controlled by two LMS-D24s. Subfrantic also supplied amplifiers, mixing consoles, outboard equipment, microphones, a custom-designed multicore and an ASL communications system.

"The main factor dictating the specification was to get the best sound we could on a rea

USA - Two public institutions in the USA have recently been the recipient of new Merging digital audio workstations. The Washington-based Library of Congress has recently acquired several Pyramix DAWs, each built around a Merging Mykerinos MB5 card with an AES-EBU digital output daughterboard.

The DAWs are being installed in the Library's new facilities at the National Audio Visual Conservation Centre in Culpeper, Virginia, where staff will be using them primarily to digitise the Library's audio collections, creating high-quality preservation files. The Pyramix systems were assembled by Merging Technologies' US distributor Independent Audio and supplied to the Library of Congress by Massachusetts dealer Parsons Audio.

In a separate sale, Washington's National Gallery of Art has also installed a Pyramix for use by the Gallery's audio-visual staff.

(Jim Evans)

Spain / Portugal - Quercus Equity has invested 60 million euros in the acquisition of the Spanish group Stonex and the Portuguese audio-visual group Alfasom - owner of the Spanish companies Aysav and Congress Rental Ibérica - creating the largest audio-visual group in the Iberian Peninsular.

The Stonex group, founded in Madrid in 1980, specializes in engineering and turnkey stage equipment projects for theatres, auditoriums, congress centres, casinos and theme parks, encompassing stage engineering, show lighting, architectural lighting and audio-visual installations. The company has offices in Madrid and La Coruña, and boasts more than 300 reference projects in the Iberian market, such as WB Madrid theme park, Pamplona Auditorium and congress centre (Baluarte), Colon Theatre in La Coruña, Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo, Expo 98's Lisboa Camoens Theatre and Gran Casino de A

UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT), is sponsoring Performing Theatres, part of The Theatres' Trust Conference 07. Performing Theatres follows on from the successful 2006 ABTT Theatre, Architecture and Engineering Conference and develops the need for there to be a stronger profile for users in setting out requirements for building and refurbishing theatres.

Raising issues about how best to maximise theatre design in the 21st Century, the Performing Theatres Conference is chaired by Ian Brown, artistic director, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Genista McIntosh and Venu Dhupa, director of creative innovation, Southbank Centre. The one day event promises to offer a lively and wide-ranging debate on how the design of theatres will meet our needs in the 21st Century.

Complementing ABTT's annual Theatre Show, which highlights technological innovation a

UK - The concrete is dry, the first crowds have walked the terraces, and just after Easter it was time to test the sound. "When we were approached to test the house sound facilities at the new Wembley Stadium in conjunction with a concert system set-up, we were of course delighted," said Mike Lowe of Britannia Row Productions Ltd. "We expect to be servicing many shows here over the coming months and years, so the opportunity to be the first to get a real feel for the building was not to be missed."

Over three days (11-13 April) Britannia Row crews rigged the stadium for 'end on' and 'side on' concert configurations. "We rigged an EV Xline system off 15 metre SmarTmasts from Summit Steel as for a main stage system, and then added Outline Butterfly delays off 11 metre masts out in the field. The system was then linked into the house EAW installed system an

UK - Sitting quietly in Bristol harbour, one of the UK's most quirky - and in some ways historic - venues has recently had a sound and lighting makeover, including the installation of a major Turbosound loudspeaker system.

Owned by DHP, the Motor Vessel (MV) Thekla gained notoriety in the 1980s as The Old Profanity Showboat, run by well-known eccentric and former Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band main man Vivian Stanshall.

The makeover includes a complete new lighting and sound rig, supplied by Stage Electrics. The hold is still the main performance area, which sees six Turbosound QLight TQ-445 full range enclosures, four TQ-425 bass units and two TSB-118 subs installed, controlled by two LMS-D24 digital controllers and driven by Turbosound-badged MC amplifiers.

On stage six Turbosound TXD-15M wedges are used for foldback, while the bar area in the main room also sports four QLight TQ-

UK - Leisuretec Distribution and Global Design Solutions (GDS) are coming together at ABTT to showcase the Blues System.

GDS will also be showcasing its new i Stage Managers Desk which was manufactured for the Royal Welsh College of Music Drama and Art in 2006, since then the company has supplied three more desks for major UK venues and are working closely with both the British and Irish Stage Managers Association for both consultation and advice.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Christie's working relationship with the Harrods brand has been extended with the installation of an LX66A 6500 ANSI lumen digital projector in the Harrods Estates office in Mayfair.

The system integrators were London-based Handy AV, who in just five years have built up an extensive portfolio of clients in their specialist areas of providing a complete systems approach to corporate and retail. Their product supply ranges from their specialist own-branded HandySCREEN and interactive HandyTOUCH displays (such as those showcased at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank) as well as mainstream A/V utilities.

Christie's long association with Harrods extends back to the Peter Pan window display during Christmas 2003, which was followed up with the permanent installation of two Christie S+16K 16,0000 lumen DLP projectors, firing onto a vast 4.7 x 3.5m portrait canvas

UK - Leading names in the history of music production joined forces recently to help launch Studio Sonic, a state of the art demo studio facility for Sonic Distribution based at Canalot Studios, London.

Marking Sonic Distribution's fifth anniversary, Rupert Neve, one of the most important figures in the development of pro audio equipment, gave a speech to mark the occasion and demoed some of the latest products from Rupert Neve Designs. Famed producer Bob Clearmountain (Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and many others) and the head of sE Electronics, Siwei Zou, were also on hand to mark the occasion.

The facility boasts cutting edge studio and live rooms kitted out with the latest hardware and software, with users being able to demo the latest releases from Apogee, sE, Ghost Acoustics, Waves, Rupert Neve Designs and iLok.

James Young, MD of Sonic Distributio

UK - Byblos, in the rejuvenated area of Merchant City, Glasgow, hosts the debut of the Flashlite Dance Array, shocking-pink groundstacks of Electro-Voice cabinets that, according to installer Andy O'Neill, "exploit the EV range far beyond the manufacturer's recommendation!"

The newly-built, newly-opened club is located beneath Merchant Square in the heart of Glasgow. Owned by private entrepreneur company Springbrisk, Byblos has the capacity for 900 people, spread out through three lavishly designed rooms, and aims to be the biggest thing on Glasgow's busy club scene.

O'Neill's company, Flashlite, was contracted to Byblos on the basis of his reputation. O'Neill likes to work with Electro-Voice, and with its UK distributor Shuttlesound, so much so that the equipment list at Byblos reads like an EV catalogue, and features some notable 'firsts' in terms of installation.

UK - Brighton-based out post sound has opened for business in what many have described as the south coast's most vibrant and culturally diverse city. The company, based in the quiet area of Five Ways, is owned by Rob Speight, and ably assisted by a host of well-known engineers and designers. "What we are trying to do here is create a new way of running a studio by combining it with the ever increasing desire of bands, promoters, managers and labels to digitally multi-track live events," he explained.

Based around a Digidesign Pro Tools HD | 2 Accel system, the company aims to work in two main areas. At its base, out post will concentrate on utilising its vocal booth and 5.1 Genelec surround monitoring to record and mix voice overs, audio for film, television and gaming as well as supporting podcast creation and hosting in-house. Additionally, out post's extensive sound

Dubai - CEDIA, the global trade association representing designers, manufacturers, installers and distributors of home electronics, is lending its support to Install Middle East, which forms a developing sector in this year's PALME Middle East show in Dubai.

CEDIA will be staging a full educational programme which commences on the opening day (May 20) with a three-hour presentation on Home Cinema Designby Peter Aylett.

The schedule also includes: Introduction To Systems Integration (presented by Simon Buddle), Residential Audio and Video Multi-Room Systems (Steve Martin), IP In Residential Custom Installation (Peter Aylett), and Project Management Workshop (Simon Buddle and Steve Martin).

(Jim Evans)

UK - Blitz has completed a contract providing AV refurbishment for Associated Newspapers' offices in Kensington, London. Blitz has worked with Associated and its various divisions for the last eight years. Most recently, it was commissioned to undertake the AV refurbishment of its reception area. This involved the installation of equipment that enables the display of breaking news.

For the new reception area, Blitz designed and programmed a system that employs a combination of nine Mitsubishi 67" DLP cubes and the Folsom Encore product. This enabled the creation of one singlebranded background 4.2m x 3.1m into which various windows could be inserted showing current front pages, websites, breaking news stories as well as the corporate videos.

Custom software applications were written by Blitz to enable the manipulation of incoming news feeds and data. The daily operation o

Spain - As part of a major refurbishment, the Catalan Parliament in Barcelona recently replaced the conference system in its main conference hall with a Bosch DCN Next Generation system. Bosch also developed custom made units with respect to colours and shapes complementing the classical architecture of the historic parliament building.

Installed in November 2006, the new system provides every delegate's position with a microphone, voting panel and connection for a laptop PC. Extra facilities such as loudspeakers, LCD screens for viewing voting results and presentations are provided for senior government positions, while the president's position is also equipped with a touch-screen LCD for controlling voting sessions. The system also features extra-large plasma displays for screening voting results and videos to the general assembly.

The time frame for installing the new syste

USA - In October 2006, St. Louis' new Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals, went on record as one of very few ballparks whose baseball team won the World Series in the facility's inaugural season. Construction for the $365 million, 44,000-seat Busch Stadium began back in January 2004. Dallas-based design and consulting firm Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams (WJHW) was charged with the audio system design portion of the project.

WJHW specified Crown, opting for CTs Series amplifiers equipped with PIP-Lite network control modules. "On this go-round, the nature of the system was certainly far more robust," says WJHW Principal Ron Baker. "One of the things that we do as a matter of course on any of these major sports projects is to use amps that are capable of being networked, operated and monitored from a central control point because there are so many channels i

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