UK - HHB Communications supplied Britain's Got Talent sound director Robert Edwards with a DK-Technologies DK2 Audio and Loudness Meter that was used for the show's semi-final and final episodes.

Watched by over 11m viewers, the Britain's Got Talent 2013 final was one of the UK's most-watched programmes of the year. Sound director Robert Edwards entrusted the compact DK2 meter to measure the live broadcast stream to check the programme's integrated LUFS level (the EBU loudness criteria). ITV maintains a dual acceptance policy for programme delivery, which means that programmes can be delivered with observance to the traditional +8dBm Peak level or to -23 LUFS (plus or minus 1 LUFS).

"It is vitally important to know where our programme sits in relation to these emerging standards," Robert Edwards says. "In the UK we have very strict delivery standar

UAE - Melody House, distributors of HK Audio have recently supplied Al Thuraya telecommunications company offices with the HK Audio IL 60-CT.

The HK Audio IL 60-CT is a compact two-way ceiling mount speaker designed for installation into ceilings.

Thuraya is a leading mobile satellite communications company that empowers people with tools to bring the organizations and communities they serve closer together. They offer "innovative, flexible and dependable technology that helps you overcome the toughest challenges and achieve the highest aspirations - facilitating reliable communications where and when it matters most".

"The IL 60-CT is a robust speaker solution for meeting rooms," commented Manivelu Saiprasad, HK Audio product specialist at Melody House. "It features a built-in 100V transformer offering selectable power taps, which may be activated o

Mexico - Playing to a crowd of more than 20,000, Seattle-based grunge band Soundgarden recently performed at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City during its international tour, running through summer 2013. The band's 26-song set list was highlighted with the band's extensive catalogue and was brought to life by a Harman Martin lighting system, deployed by OCESA PRG Mexico.

Throughout the stage, 34 Martin MAC Viper Profiles, 13 MAC 2000 Wash beams, 20 MAC Aura LED's, 12 Atomic Strobe 3000's and 12 Scroller 3000 lighting units were deployed, strategically designed to provide a spectacular visual landscape for the show.

Soundgarden's live production team ordered the Martin lighting solution specifically for the Palicio de los Deportes performance.

"We've been using Martin lighting for years and our inventory has been trustworthy and bright from the beginning," s

UK - Manchester city-centre entertainment hot spot, Gorilla recently upgraded their front-of-house (FOH) mixing desk to a new Midas PRO2 digital console courtesy of Mason's Games Ltd. The 700-seat venue offers a broad spectrum of live entertainment spanning every imaginable genre and has quickly become a favourite among the night set.

An essential element of the installation, the included DL251 stage box serves as the digital snake, providing 48 Midas mic/line inputs and 16 analogue XLR outputs at the stage end. MIDI (In, Out, Thru) plus three AES50 ports and one Ethernet connection round out the DL251 rear panel. Connectivity to the FOH console is via shielded, twisted-pair Cat 5e cable with a range of up to 100 metres/330 feet. Dual-redundant power supplies are standard.

Trof Group, which operates Gorilla, The Deaf Institute, Albert Hall Manchester and Trof Northern Quarter,

Czech Republic - Rental Pro is the first rental company in the Czech Republic to adopt the Nexo STM modular line array, debuting its newly-purchased 24-set system on the Vysocina Festival in Jihlava in front of 10,000 rock, hip-hop and pop music fans.

The three-day multi-genre event featured local stars including Golden Nightingale TomᚠKlus, Krystof, Nightwork, David Koller, Pražský výb?r, Monkey Business, and Wohnout, Rental Pro provided the main stage with a STM system using 12 sets of M46 Main and B112 Bass cabinets per side, with 12x S118 subs groundstacked each side.

"When we saw and heard STM for the first time, we were so surprised by the unique modular concept that now we can't imagine a future for our business without the system," says Roman Zezula of Rental Pro, which has owned Nexo loudspeakers since the company was started in 2000.

Zezula cites S

UK - In the week his debut album Long Way Down was released, Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter Tom Odell played a packed-out set on the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury. The crystal clear sound of a Yamaha CL5 digital console at front of house helped inspire many in the audience to buy the album afterwards... sending it straight to No.1 in the UK chart.

A longtime Yamaha user, Odell's front of house engineer Davy Ogilvy became acquainted with the CL5 in his previous full-time role as a project manager at Dimension Audio. "We were looking at new digital consoles and we liked the CL5 so much that we invested in it as soon as it came out," he says.

"Since then I've used it at a number of shows. I love the way it instantly sounds great as soon as it's plugged in. You are immediately in a good place, which is the ideal position to start."

Complementing

USA - Audio-Technica has recognized Los Alamitos, California-based Alliance Audio Visual Group as its Rep of the Year for the 2012/2013 fiscal year. The award was presented to Alliance's Matthew Jensen, principal, and Jim Chase, account executive, by Philip Cajka, Audio-Technica U.S. president and CEO, and Michael Edwards, A-T V.P. professional products..

Jensen and Chase accepted the award on behalf of other Alliance personnel not in attendance, including Kenny Andrews and Karen Lopez. Alliance represents Audio-Technica in the region of Southern California and Southern Nevada.

Audio-Technica held the awards ceremony to honour its dedicated force of manufacturer's representatives during the InfoComm Expo 2013, in Orlando, Florida. The A-T Rep of the Year recipient was congratulated for outstanding sales performance and bestowed with Audio-Technica's Samurai doll award. Allianc

USA - Mike West is a California-based acoustic guitarist and vocalist who plays well over 200 shows per year. His current solo show, The Beatles Down To Earth - A Magical History Tour is drawing rave reviews and ever-growing audiences. Recently, West upgraded to the Line 6 StageSource loudspeaker system.

"I own an L3t and an L3m and use them as my house PA system," says West. "I've found them to be a fantastic addition to my stage. In terms of power, sound quality, and set-up time, they are a big upgrade from the articulated linear array I was using before."

With the growth of his show leading to more gigs at bigger venues, West began to realise the limitations of his old system. "Basically, it didn't play well with others," he says. "Introducing another speaker required all these weird extra connections and adapters. It wasn't easy. S

UK - Following the sustained year on year business growth, Sennheiser UK has moved its operation to new premises in Marlow, Buckinghamshire for the first time in 20 years.

Having set up the first formalised office with just six staff in 1990, Sennheiser UK is one of the UK audio industry's true success stories. In 1996, when the company moved to its former office at Century Point in High Wycombe, it had already grown to 26 employees and a turnover of £7.5m.

Now at 72 staff and grossing £45m, Century Point's 6,000 sq.ft of office more than reached capacity therefore the move to its new 15,000sq.ft home in Marlow has provided much needed space for the team as well as the new service facility.

"We have come a long way since our first foray into the UK market," says Sennheiser UK general manager, Phil Massey. "We are very proud of our achievements and

USA - Chauvet Professional COLORado fixtures coloured a dramatic rainbow on the Civil Courts Building for a PrideFest initiative in downtown Saint Louis. Ironman Sound Industries production company of Brentwood, Mo., specified 36 COLORado 4 IP wash battens and 24 COLORado 1 Tour PAR-style wash fixtures, which uplit in saturated colours the top of the Civil Courts edifice.

"We used 36 COLORado 4 IP luminaires to light up the outward face of each of the columns that wrap the building," said Stace Napper with Ironman Sound Industries.

"The columns are about 40ft tall, plus our mounting position was an additional 15ft below them for a total throw of over 55ft. The mounting position was a small ledge, only about 2ft deep; but thanks to the slim profile of the COLORado 4 IP we were able to mount each light to the buildings existing lighting hardware, which also ensure

USA - The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is holding its 50th International Conference, dedicated specifically to audio education, 25-27 July, 2013, at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The three-day conference will focus on teaching methods, instructional resources, learning outcomes, technical operations, industry relations and related topics that impact the theoretical and practical aspects of professional audio education. The conference will bring together leading educators and professional audio industry representatives to exchange ideas and knowledge that will contribute to improving quality and effectiveness for students and faculty alike.

The event will also for the first time include a significant focus on live sound as a component of a pro audio education curriculum, a fact underscored by the event's keynote address delivered by Bob

Austria - Every year since 2000, the most successful national and international musicians in Austria have received Amadeus Austrian Music Awards in different categories. It is the most important pop music award in Austria. MA Lighting and Clay Paky products were among those used during the recording of the ceremony this year at the Volkstheater in Vienna.

The lighting designer Matthias Frank, the show light operator Matthias Schöffmann, the white light operator and MA system technician Jürgen Erntl and the media server manager Stefan Kürzel counted - among other things - on two grandMA2 light consoles, a grandMA2 fader wing, an MA Network Processing Unit (NPU) and 80 Clay Paky Sharpys.

Matthias Frank commented on his use of the MA system, "It was critical in this production for more than one operator to work in a network. However only the systems needed for the console

Spain - A few weeks ago Equipson organised its first open days. About 70 people in the trade came during two days (19 and 20 of June 2013). It was something the company had wanted to do for some time, in order to give the opportunity for clients to visit Equipson headquarters and see the new WORK developments.

Equipson prepared an extensive programme with many training courses for devices like Blueline system, Digiline or LM 5. The 150m2 showroom was specially prepared to receive people in the trade and engineers were available to answer technical questions.

The visit to the acoustic laboratory allowed people to understand how new loudspeakers are designed, using tools like the anechoic chamber. Proceedings concluded with the live demo of Arion 10, the ultra compact line array system of from WORK.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Patrick Almond has been appointed assistant general manager for Carlsbro and Studiomaster with the move of the two l MI and pro audio brands to a new HQ, warehousing and distribution centre in Milton Keynes in southern England.

Almond has been with Studiomaster since 1986 and has most recently held the position of marketing manager for Carlsbro, Studiomaster and Cadac, following their acquisition by the Soundking Group. With the move of Carlsbro and Studiomaster operations to the new Milton Keynes joint facility, and the re-establishment of a joint distribution operation for the UK and Eire, Almond takes a lead operational role for both brands, across the MI and professional audio market sectors. His new role includes continued responsibility for the international marketing of both brands.

"All of these changes," states Almond, "are in line with the strateg

UK - It is with great sadness that we report the death of Steven Brown. Steve died on Friday 7July 2013, from lung cancer.

Steve's work as a sound designer was well known, he was head of sound at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester for over 21 years where he designed over 80 shows. He designed countless other shows across the country.

Gareth Fry writes, "Steve was dedicated to advancing the art and perception of theatre sound. To this end he served as a founding board member of the Association of Sound Designers, was the head of the sound working group for OISTAT, and was key to organising the sound element of many national and international design events and exhibitions, including the forthcoming World Stage Design conference.

"Well known for his passionate and often contentious views, Steve was a driving force in the short history of modern sound design.&quo

UK - RG Jones' busy summer season with Martin Audio premier PA systems continued in July, with the 2013 Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace. This followed the Glastonbury Festival, held a few weeks previously, with the simultaneous Henley Festival also placing further demands on their Martin Audio inventory.

Such congestion with very different environments was always going to be a challenge, but with careful planning and deployment, the Coronation Festival proved once again that RG Jones and Martin Audio were capable of uniting the audience experience.

RG Jones are themselves Royal Warrant Holders and participated at an exhibition in Buckingham Palace Gardens (along with 200 others) while simultaneously providing sound reinforcement for the gala concerts. The RG Jones stand comprised an original Morris J-type, as the one used by the original founder Ronald Geoffrey Jones

UK - The famous gothic St. Michael's Cathedral (better known as Coventry Cathedral), reduced to a ruined shell after its bombing during the Second World War, and subsequently rebuilt in a celebration of 20th century architecture, has been a place of Christian worship for over 1,000 years.

However, it had long found that the quality of its audio fell short of its majestic interior. Recently RaceTech's head of audio engineering, Robin Dibble, returned 20 years after implementing a revolutionary analogue solution, known as the Coventry Reciprocating Delay and devised by his acoustician father, Ken Dibble. This time it was to lead the cathedral into the digital age via BSS Soundweb London signal distribution architecture, which will future-proof it for years to come.

Notes Dibble Jr, "Coventry Cathedral is a vast open space with huge air volume, many hard sonically reflective

US - "We've never really had a sound system that worked for our church. Since 1982, when the worship space was built, it has always been a challenge to provide full, consistent audio," admits Charles Malmede, media services director for Whitesburg Baptist Church of Huntsville, Alabama.

Twenty five hundred seats wrap 180 degrees around the sanctuary, including a full balcony. Embracing a wide variety of both traditional and contemporary music, an average service demands versatility from any sound system. Malmede spent most Sundays dealing with unsatisfied parishioners, "There were complaints every week. Our goal is always +/- 3 dB, which was hard enough; but the real problem has always been the frequency. It was clear we needed to fix our sound, but we have never had any particular success in the past."

However, after Spectrum Sound's Ken DeBelius began cons

UK - Lancelyn Theatre Supplies have recently purchased the Roland M-300 and M-480 Digital Mixing Consoles from SSE Audio Group for two separate projects at Oxford University. The Oxford based theatre and lighting systems integrator specified the Roland consoles for their intuitive user interface, compact footprint and comprehensive range of effects.

The first project, a new-build lecture theatre and conference facility at Wolfson College, Oxford, required an audio solution with the ability to cope with a variety of uses from simple conference setups to live bands and performances. After looking at a number of consoles, design engineer Marcus Boyton from Lancelyn Theatre Supplies selected the Roland M-300 after trying it out at a Roland Training Day held at SSE Audio Group.

"We chose the M-300 because it is user friendly, has good utilities and effects and is flexible enou

UK - Allen & Heath has launched GLD OneMix, an iPad app that gives musicians wireless control of their personal monitor mix. GLD OneMix locks control to a single Aux mix, providing instant access to a customised easy-to-use monitor mix environment.

Multiple iPads can be set up by an admin user to give numerous musicians personalised monitor control without affecting each other or the FoH main mix. A musician's own aux monitor mix is assigned and locked into the 'My Mix' layer, and a selection of input splits dedicated to the individual musician can be added. Similarly, all other instrument send levels can be assigned to any of the three extra layers, allowing unique personal monitoring configuration. The range of accessible settings is defined by custom permissions for each layer.

When in User mode, the musician is presented with simple-to-use access and control of their aux m

UK - An Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system has been installed in the live studio of top UK radio station, XFM. Comprising an iLive-T112 and iDR-64 MixRack, the system is used to record visiting artists for pre-recorded sessions.

The MixRack is mounted in the studio's equipment rack so it can easily be patched to the studio tie lines and building's technical network. The iDR-64 is fitted with an M-DANTE module, and connected to a Mac which has Dante Virtual Soundcard and runs Apple Logic for recording. Mic preamp signals are sent pre-processing to the DAW. Additional Dante channels are used via the iLive patchbay inserts to access plug-ins in the DAW. The choice of Dante networking permitted the stage box to be taken to the roof terrace on occasions to record a session upstairs whilst mixing downstairs in isolation but with full control over Cat 5.

"The studio is bu

France - At the recent Main Square Festival in Arras, France, Paris-based rental house Dushow supplied Meyer Sound systems for both festival stages, including a Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system, and a Milo line array loudspeaker system. The three-day festival attracted a total crowd of approximately 100,000.

The Leo system on the festival's Main Stage supported headliners including Sting, Green Day, The Prodigy, and Indochine. With a maximum capacity of 30,000, the Main Stage field was fully covered by the LEO system's long-throw capabilities.

"This system's consistency of coverage and high output allowed us to avoid the need for delay towers, and to maintain sound integrity over the required distance of 110 meters," says Marc de Fouquières, general manager of Dushow. "Leo's excellent directivity also prevented conflict with audio from the seco

Switzerland - The Neuenburgersee in Estavayer-le-Lac in Switzerland is the all-year location for the Swatch Free4Style festival where the international elite of Freestyle-Motorcross (FMX), Wakeboard and Jetski come together.

The spectacular shows of the extreme athletes together with after show parties of distinguished DJs attract more than 25.000 visitors every year from Switzerland and France to the contemplative small town.

This year the native Mat Rebeaud, Levi Sherwood from New Zealand, Josh Sheehan and others performed exceptional, breath-taking FMX shows. The hazardous tricks require highest concentration and an absolute control of their bodies and machines. Also the disciplines Jetskiing and Wakeboarding with the award-winning Red Bull Team guaranteed drama.

The after-race parties belong to the stars of the Electro scene. Quentin Mosimann, Lucas Monème and Bad Nelso

UK - Producing over 100 shows each year, P&O Cruises' Headliners Theatre Company is a major player in the UK's performing arts industry. Its new Southampton training and rehearsal facility - The Academy - opened in June, with Yamaha DXR12 loudspeakers chosen to overcome the challenging acoustics of the large dance studios.

Headliners recruits over 200 new performers every year to sing and dance their way around the world onboard P&O Cruises ships. Before sailing, each cast rehearses for nine weeks, six days a week, a process which has been markedly improved by the opening of The Academy.

With a floor area of 1258m2 it is one of the largest dance rehearsal facilities in the country, but overcoming the acoustic challenges of the large, hard, flat surfaces was a key requirement for its audio system. Production executive Darren Harvey had been previously impressed by Yamaha's acti

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