Czech Republic - Robe's Actor range of wash luminaires bring the flexibility of the award-winning LEDWash series to fixed position applications, says the company.

The 300, 600 and 1200 models deliver a small, easy-to-control static head that can be manually locked into position.

High power 15W RGBW LEDs combined with Robe's patented motorised zoom optical system result in a smooth, flat beam, ranging from eight to an impressive 63 degrees.

There is full DMX control over the zoom angle and colour mixing, including 237 preset colours, selectable whites, variable CTO and concentric ring-effect macros and full tungsten emulation.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Le Maitre unveiled two new machines at this year's LDI.

Le Maitre's HazeMaster has been engineered to withstand the rigours of the road when on tour.

Le Maitre have taken all their experience from HazeMaster's predecessors, the renowned Stadium Hazer and the MVS Hazer, and designed a completely new machine with a host of new features and benefits. Le Maitre's acquired knowledge and original investments have enabled them to produce a much more competitively priced unit, despite using higher quality, longer lasting parts, says the company.

The combination of an industrial grade air-pump, a two-stage heating process and a microprocessor controller, produce an output so powerful that the HazeMaster can convert up to 500cc of fluid per hour. Despite the huge output, the high efficiency design results in the power consumption of the HazeMaster being just 800W - less than hal

USA - High End Systems announced the Hog4 family at the LDI 2012 trade show in Las Vegas. This new range of control products includes four platforms, all running a new Hog4operating system (Hog4 OS). A Playback wing and a Master wing complete the lineup.

The Hog4 flagship console is joined by the all new Full Boar 4, Road Hog4, Nano Hog4 and Hog4PC, creating a broad range of control products suitable for any size show, from productions in a local theatre to the largest arena and stadium tours. All products are immediately available for order.

All of the consoles feature wide screen displays, solid state hard drives, all new User Keys, a unified Hog4OS and extremely fast boot and show load times. There are 43 new features currently shipping at launch time. High End Systems has retained the industry acclaimed layout of its console range, which allows users to move to the new pla

USA - Robe lighting went to the LDI 2012 exhibition in Las Vegas with a completely new booth design and six new products showing for the first time in the US, confirming its position as a market leader in bringing new technology on-stream.

All the new RobinSeries products - the award winning DLF Wash, DLX Spot, DLS Profile, MMX WashBeam, the LEDBeam 100 and the Actor range - are based on Robe's 'Think of the Future Consider Nature' philosophy of producing smaller, lighter, brighter and genuinely more eco-friendly products.

The new booth design by Nathan Wan from Robe UK featured a contemporary reception and lounge / chill area illuminated by the latest Anolis architectural LED products including the innovative ArcDot.

ArcDot displays were modelled into two stylish interactive coffee tables - which received several offers to purchase!

Behind this was the LightLab - an exhib

UK - Windshield manufacturer Rycote has announced a new Windshield Kit product, designed specifically for stereo recording with a matched pair of microphones in an ORTF configuration.

ORTF stereo recording was pioneered by the engineers at the French state broadcaster in the 1960s, and is defined as using a stereo pair of microphones with the capsules spaced 17cm apart, and at an angle of 110 degrees to each other. Rycote's new ORTF Windshield kit is designed for matched pairs of Schoeps CCM or Sennheiser MKH 8000 mics, and consists of a Lyre suspension, a cable clamp, and a 145mm Stereo Windshield & Windjammer large enough to comfortably accommodate the microphones.

A specially designed Rycote mounting adapter bar keeps the microphones at the correct spacing and angle for ORTF recording, and the Lyre suspension and shared windshield combine to provide a solution that is extre

USA - ELC Lighting received the Rock our World 2012 award for their innovative intercom system at the recent LDI 2012 show in Las Vegas.

For The Netherlands based ELC Lighting team that developed the Green-GO intercom system range of products, moving into full production in January following successful launches at PLASA and LDI in 2011, the Las Vegas win was an exciting climax to a busy 12 months.

ELC Lighting's 'Green-GO' digital show communications system designer Joost van Eenbergen and sales manager Silvio Cibien said that they were overwhelmed with the compliments from such an eminent group of judges that included Mike Wood who stated, "In all the years of the Rock our World Awards the Green-GO received the quickest agreement as an award winner that I can remember. The judges were universally enthusiastic in their praise."

ELC has built an enviable reputation

UK - PR Lighting has launched new white and RGB versions of the XRLED 300 Spot.

The XRLED 300 Spot-W is equipped with 300W Butterfly white LED module, with a 13°-34° wide zoom, and its ultra quiet operation makes it an exceptional member of the product portfolio.

The fixture is also fully featured, boasting seven dichroic colour filters (plus white), seven indexable rotating gobos plus seven fixed gobos; a beam angle of 13°-34° (linearly adjustable); linearly adjustable focus, iris and dimmer (0-100%); electronic strobe (0.3-20fps); 1 x 3-facet prism (bi-directional, rotatable, indexable) and 540° (pan) and 270° (tit), with auto position correction, speed adjustable and lock mechanism. The product weighs 19kg.

The XRLED 300 Spot-RGB is equipped with high-power 300W Butterfly RGB LED module, with a 13°-34° wide zoom.

Also fully featured, this

UK - LED-based panel lighting is available in some exciting new form factors, but emergent technology cannot shine without commensurate advances in control. Ever comprehensive at the cutting edge, Artistic Licence Engineering will be demonstrating control of two very different planar lighting products that are newly available from Philips - luminous textile and organic LED (Lumiblade) at LuxLive 2012.

The luminous textile solution integrates multi-coloured LED modules within textile panels. These may be combined to produce a wall of mood lighting or dynamic content. Artistic Licence Engineering's dVnet driver is designed for such installations, allowing video to be directly rendered on the luminous textile panels. dVnet achieves this by converting digital video input to KiNet, the streaming protocol supported by Philips.

On a smaller spatial scale, organic LED (OLED) technolog

UK - POLARaudio has announced the availability of the Behringer Eurocom line in the UK. The Eurocom line is a series of state-of-the-art tools for modern systems integrators.

Commenting on this exclusive partnership, POLARaudio MD John Midgley was upbeat: "We're very pleased to now be able to bring the exciting new Eurocom products to market. The line-up comprises feature-rich, innovative, professional technologies for exceptional performance quality. Combine this with great aesthetics and extremely competitive pricing and it's easy to see how Eurocom will set new standards in the integrator market."

AX Series: These dual channel amplifiers epitomize power and control, offering contractors flexibility and efficiency in sound reinforcement and playback systems. The line includes models designed for low and high impedance speaker loads. The units are ready for immediat

China - Christie fascinated leading exhibitors from Asia Pacific with a demonstration of its prototype laser projector in Beijing. Short movie clips of 3D content projected on a 20m wide by 12m high screen were screened at typical 3D brightness levels of 3-4 ft-L and then using the laser projector at 14 ft at the theater of Wanda Shi Jin Shan Cinema, leaving the audiences in awe.

"Today's laser projection demo was fabulous! I'm impressed with the ultra brightness and life-like colours delivered onto the screen," said Ning Ye, general manager of Wanda Group.

"Christie is committed to creating new technology and maintaining our products at a high quality. We are continuously developing solutions to help exhibitors to project compelling, immersive images to their screens. Today we are pleased to demonstrate our first prototype laser projector to the exhibitors,&quo

USA - Martin Professional's M2GO and M2PC lighting controllers are selling strongly in the US.

With over 300 units sold in the US since June, and outstanding sales at the recent LDI exhibition in Las Vegas, Martin Professional's M2GO and M2PC lighting controllers are quickly establishing themselves as the lighting control choice for rental houses across the country, says the company.

"The success of the M1 console has really paved the way for these new M-Series consoles," states Scott O'Connor, product specialist - control at Martin Professional, Inc. "With the M2GO on its way to becoming the standard for rental houses, our M-Series consoles have not finished impressing. We will have more from the M-Series coming soon."

The M2GO is equipped with a fast, dual-core processor with no external computer required while the M2PC is the complementary control surf

UK - Following the successful launch of its Super2fer product at the PLASA Show in September, where it picked up a PLASA Award for Innovation, manufacturer Digital & Future Technologies has announced that it is now working on a new chipset upgrade, which will mean a delay to the shipping of the product.

Chris Crockford told LSi: "This is a blow to our original plans, but it will mean more bandwidth and more box connectivity. We have also found a couple of manufacturing errors with the original boxes when tested in the field, so we are working to correct them, along with integrating the feedback we received from people attending PLASA."

Designed for all aspects of the entertainment industry, the Super2fer allows users to modulate their video, audio, lighting, and IP data through standard 16A mains cable up to 500m from source.

To see Crockford's PLASA Show presentat

The Netherlands - The BC332 from Alcons Audio is a self-contained, high-output cardioid subwoofer system for both permanent and portable ground-stacked applications. Following the footsteps of its bigger brother, the BC543, the BC332 is designed to offer a directivity controlled, high output, tight and accurate sub-bass response, for low-frequency extension of any Alcons pro-ribbon system.

By means of a front and rear located woofer configuration, in combination with dedicated processing, the BC332 enables selectable cardioid low-frequency pattern control and excellent rear rejection (up to 18dB), without the need for additional cabinets.

On the front side, one 18" long-excursion woofer with 4-in. voice-coil with double-spider and demodulation ring frame, is mounted in a front-loaded configuration, with X-Venting; This newly designed reflex port takes more than 20% of the

UK - Right Structures has introduced three new models to its Geo Stage range, now available to the live events industry across Europe, October 2012.

The curved roof of Right Structures Geo Stage has been made available in 20m, 30m and 45m spans. Right Structures officially launched to the industry earlier this year and has continued to develop its range to offer festival and event organisers a flexible, structurally sound staging system.

Ruben Caruana, Right Structure's business development director, explains, "The creativity and flexibility of our modular Geo Structure System allows for a design-led alternative to the traditional stage set up and we have continued to invest in equipment and develop our product line in recent months to meet client's needs. Our new standard stage models, Geo20, Geo30 and Geo45, provide organisers with a cost effective, attractive solution

UK - ETC's latest lighting control console, Gio, has seen a surge in sales since it was introduced just a few months ago, with many of the company's UK-based dealers buying them for sales and hire stocks.

The first Scottish delivery was to the Dundee Rep Theatre, supplied by Blacklight, where deputy chief LX Alastair Phillips specified a Gio for their 450 seat performance space. "We were looking to upgrade our existing desk," he explains, "and decided we wanted more hands on control than an Ion offered out of the box. An Eos, on the other hand, was too big to bring out of the control room each time we wanted to program. So, when Gio was introduced, it seemed like the obvious choice."

Gio is one of four current lighting consoles in the Eos family - each with the same application software and operational syntax but with different packaging and physical contro

USA - CAST is pulling out all the stops for PLASA Focus Stamford with not one, but four new products, plus an educational seminar. PLASA Focus will be held 12-13 November at the Stamford Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut where CAST will be exhibiting in Booth 121 and will demonstrate their newest products, BlackTrax, wysiwyg R29, Vivien 2012 and Vivien Online.

Jim Hutchison, product manager wysiwyg and Vivien, will present the seminar entitled, The Birth, Childhood, and Apparent Adolescence of Lighting Design Technology as part of the PLASA Focus Professional Development Programme. The seminar will be held on Monday, 12 November from 1:30-2:30pm and again on Tuesday, 13 November from 12:30-1:30pm in the Massachusetts Room.

Hutchison's session will take trip through the last 75 years or so of lighting Design technology, from its birth with paper and pencil through the ab

UK - Martin Audio has announced the launch of the latest version of its VU-NET control software for the MLA and MLA Compact Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array systems.

The new release (VU-NET 1.2.0) represents a major upgrade to the real time control of MLA systems and adds a number of features developed in conjunction with feedback from MLA partners. Added features improve connectivity and a number of key processes including the firmware updater; it also contains bug fixes and a large number of improvements.

With its intuitive graphical interface, VU-NET control software enables MLA arrays to be remotely controlled from a PC or wireless tablet.

U-NET itself is a low latency, redundant ring, fault-tolerant protocol for control and monitoring of data. Up to 254 devices can be linked and controlled by VU-NET and - for even more ambitious systems - VU-NET can control multiple U-N

France - Wireless Solution Sweden has confirmed French manufacturer United Light as its newest OEM partner, with its latest product, WiPLUG, using W-DMX technology.

United Light says: "The frequency hopping technology (AFHSS) used automatically adapts the band and the transmission channel in relation to the detected radio traffic, allowing interference-free coexistence with other systems like WiFi, wireless microphones, or intercom. It's easy to use and easy to implement."

"United Light has a very innovative range which aims to make your job easier," says Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless Solution, "When we first met regarding the implementation of W-DMX into the WiPLUG, we both knew we were on a path to success."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Following the success of Broadcast Video Expo's (BVE) inaugural Manchester event, Sennheiser UK heads back to the Manchester Central Arena, where stand E35 will see the company exhibiting its microphones, wireless systems, headphones and monitoring products as well as highlights from its distributed partners including Nagra and new addition Avalon.

Highlights from the Sennheiser stable will be the new MKE 600 shotgun mic, MKH 8090 wide cardioid condenser microphone and its Digital 9000 system, as well as the KH120 studio monitor from sister company, Neumann.

Launched at IBC 2012, Digital 9000 is a digital wireless system that can transmit completely uncompressed audio, artefact-free. Targeting broadcasting professionals, (musical) theatres and high-profile live audio events, Digital 9000 sets a new benchmark in digital wireless transmission. The system, which includes the

USA - Behringer has announced a major collaboration with sister-company Klark Teknik in the development of its new XENYX QX Series mixers. The eight new models feature custom-designed FX engines from Klark Teknik with 32 studio-grade presets, dual addressable parameters, Tap function and storable user settings, plus "wireless-ready" integration with Behringer's upcoming ULM Series digital wireless microphones.

With configurations ranging from 10 to 24 inputs, QX Series mixers feature Behringer's XENYX mic preamps, 'one-knob' mono channel compressors, built-in USB/audio interfaces, +48 V phantom power and 'British' three-band EQs, which provide warm and musical sound shaping across a broad tonal spectrum.

XENYX QX Series USB mixers are designed for all live sound, recording and podcasting applications and "are affordable even for those on a tight budget". As

UK - It would be difficult to imagine a more high profile launch for a new loudspeaker system than a highly prestigious event at London's Royal Albert Hall, in front of over 10,000 paying guests across two performances. This was exactly what UK loudspeaker manufacturer EM Acoustics did when they debuted their HALO Compact line array for the UK premiere of Disney's Fantasia live in concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sound By Design is the preferred audio supplier for the Royal Albert Hall and a company that enjoys a long-standing relationship with EM Acoustics. As the company responsible for the live sound for the BBC Proms season, along with countless orchestral shows in the venue, they brought in renowned classical sound engineer Phil Wright, who specialises in mixing large scale classical events and musical theatre, and who mixed this event on a DiGiCo SD5.

UK - Tascam has introduced the DP-32 - a 32-track digital Portastudio with solid-state recording, a colour LCD display and channel strip controls to make recordings simple and easy so that the user can remain creative.

Designed for either individuals or bands, up to eight tracks can be recorded at a time through its combination XLR andquarter-inch combo jacks on a standard SD/SDHC memory card. Input processing like compression and limiting, an internal send effect with reverb, delay and chorus, guitar amp simulation and multi-effects for use with the instrument-level input as well as an external effects send are available during recording.

For mixdown, the DP-32 offers 20 channel faders and 12 rotary controls for EQ, Pan and effects including reverb and chorus. During the mastering process, the material can be further optimised with EQ, compression and normalisation. Once fini

USA - Aphex has recently debuted its new 500 Series modules. The 500 Series now includes six models: J PRE 500 Mic Pre; EQF 500 Parametric Equalizer; DUAL RPA 500 Mic Pre; A PRE 500 Mic Pre; the COMP 500 Optical Compressor; and the acclaimed, previously unveiled EX•BB 500 Aural Exciter/Big Bottom module. All benefit from the portable and convenient 500 Series format and Aphex sound.

The J PRE 500 mic pre is inspired by the flagship Aphex 1788A remote controlled preamp. They both have the same Jensen JT11K8 nickel input Transformer and Aphex patented Mic Limiter technology. Designed to provide no-compromise audio quality in the convenient 500 series format, the J PRE 500 also features a Jensen JT-11DL nickel output-balancing transformer.

The EQF 500 reissue is a modern take on the classic Aphex EQF-2 500 series three-band equalizer, originally introduced in the 1980s. With

USA - Audio-Technica is launching its flagship 50 Series of elite studio microphones with the AT5040 Cardioid Condenser Microphone. A-T's "ultimate studio vocal microphone", the hand-built AT5040 side-address condenser offers "remarkably musical high-fidelity performance, with profound realism and depth, presence and purity of sound".

Featuring a proprietary breakthrough element design, the AT5040 employs four ultra-thin (2 micron) rectangular diaphragms that function together providing combined surface area unachievable in a standard round diaphragm. Designed as a first-choice vocal microphone with smooth top end and controlled sibilance, the AT5040's large-diaphragm characteristics and fast transient response also make it ideal for recording acoustic instruments such as piano, guitar, strings, and saxophone, says the company.

The first of A-T's design cri

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