UK - The reactivated Radiophonic Workshop (RWS) has enlisted Behringer's X32 Digital Mixing Console and Eurolive Active loudspeakers for a series of upcoming high-profile electronic music events.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of BBC Television's Doctor Who - an institution that the Radiophonic Workshop's extraordinary music helped propel into the consciousness of the British public. To celebrate both the return of RWS and the anniversary of Doctor Who, the RWS joined a 200-strong cast of musicians for the BBC Doctor Who Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall in July. The concert, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, will also be shown on BBC television in November as part of the Doctor Who anniversary celebrations.

The RWS will also be curating and headlining a mini-festival celebrating the Workshop's legacy and their return to the stage at the London Roundhouse in

USA - Austin's Circuit of the Americas (COTA) is America's first purpose-built Formula One racing track. Completed in late 2012, COTA's campus includes the main grandstand with VIP lounge, the Grand Plaza with food court and shops, a 251ft (77m) observation tower and the pit building with an adjacent media centre. The track includes bleachers at several locations to supplement the grandstand seating.

Although the Formula One and other races are the site's main attractions, A/V systems play major supporting roles. Architect Tilke's Formula One designs include race control systems and basic audio and video systems but Circuit of the Americas chose to upgrade and/or supplement the A/V systems in many areas.

Circuit of the Americas retained consultant Acoustic Dimensions for many of the venue's networks and for the audio and video system upgrades. Acoustic Dimensions value enginee

Lebanon - Martin Audio has changed distributor in Lebanon, appointing Beirut-based Technosound with effect from 1 July.

Founded in 1969, and with a large portfolio of sole agencies in the high end pro audio sector, the company made its first approach to the British loudspeaker manufacturer at the ISE 2012 show in Amsterdam.

According to Technosound director of sales and marketing, Pierre Fahed, the company will be focusing on all core markets - from high end concert touring systems through to discreet boutique installation speakers.

"Martin Audio already has good brand awareness in our local market but we want to improve on the distribution strategies," he said. "We have been receiving excellent support from [director of sales] Simon Bull and [export sales manager] Dominic Jacobson and plan to set up product presentation and local training for all Martin Audio

Belgium - Audio rental house Studio Haifax is the first Belgium company to take delivery of a Coda Audio ViRAY system. Purchased from Coda's Belgium distributor Apex Audio, the company has made this significant investment, says Studio Haifax Audio/System and Studio Engineer Yves Van Moerbeke, "because it sounds incredibly real".

Established over a decade ago, Studio Haifax has experienced a period of rapid growth over the last few years. "This has everything to do with the professionalism that every single one of Haifax's technicians brings to the job every single day," says Yves. "But with good intentions only, you don't perform a single show."

After the success of Belgium rock band Zornik's Less > More theatre tour, for which Studio Haifax supplied a Coda Airline LA8 system, the company became better known within the Belgian live entertai

UK - Capital Sound Hire packed up its Nexo STM system in late June and headed down to Cornwall for the Eden Sessions, a series of outdoor concerts held in the beautiful grounds of the Eden Project. During the course of two weeks, artists including the Kaiser Chiefs, Tom Tom Club, Sigur Ros, Daughter, Willy Mason, the xx, Chic featuring Nile Rogers, Jessie J and A*M*E*, were part of what's been described in the UK press as "The most sublime summer music festival you could ever hope to experience," and "Magical... half Glastonbury, half Glyndebourne."

Capital configured the STM system in L/R arrays of 12x M46 Main cabinets and 12x B112 Bass units, with the M46s on the outside of the hangs, and 8x S118 Subs ground stacked per side. The main hang configuration remained the same for the duration of the event. "We thought this was the best option as the covera

USA - Students rooting for the home team at Excelsior Springs High School in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, can now enjoy vibrant, crystal-clear sound as they take in football games and other events at their school's outdoor stadium. As part of a long-overdue audio upgrade, the school has installed two Technomad PowerChiton 500 modules at the stadium to drive its loudspeakers, significantly improving sound quality.

Kansas City, Missouri-based systems integrator Harvest Productions, which performed the upgrade, housed the new PowerChiton modules inside the stadium's scoreboard. The compact PowerChiton design enabled the unusual installation, ensuring they are not visible to spectators. The PowerChiton amplifiers now deliver 1100 watts at four ohms, with excellent sound quality across the stadium.

The weatherproof design also ensures better outdoor protection than the school's pre

Switzerland - Reggaeton pioneer Daddy Yankee recently gave a well-received performance in Lausanne, his signature sound backed by D.A.S. Aero Series 2 professional sound systems. The concert was part of the I Love Reggaeton Festival held at Lausanne's Malley indoor arena, where over 6,000 fans converged to revel in the sounds of some of the biggest acts in the industry. The Puerto Rican artist headlined the festival, sharing the stage with a variety of world-renowned names in reggaeton like Prince Royce, Papa London and Rodri-go.

After weighing a number options event promoter Pro Sound & Light, with Paulo Martins at the helm, decided to roll out D.A.S. Aero Series 2 systems for the Daddy Yankee concert.

Led by sound technician Ricardo Peláez, the Pro Sound & Light team deployed 16 large-format D.A.S. Aero 50 line arrays for the main system in a typical left-right set-u

UK - An integrated JBL / BSS Soundweb audio solution has been deployed by Sound Division Group - in London's most iconic building.

On the 31st and 33rd floors of the spectacular Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, David Yeo, founder of Aqua Restaurant Group, has opened two diverse restaurants - aqua shard (31st floor) and Hutong (33rd floor). Situated halfway up the building, they offer panoramic views over the London skyline.

Having earlier worked at Aqua London in Regent Street, David Graham's AV integration company was awarded the contract to provide sound reinforcement and control at the new venues - along with a full CCTV package. They have designed elaborate background music systems, with facility for a punchier system at the 31st floor atrium bar, while Soundweb London devices, located in the central comms room on the 31st floor, distribute feeds over an exte

UK - Folkfest is London's only folk festival and centres around The Bedford in Balham, one of the city's premiere music venues. It is the brainchild of the venue's promoter, Tony Moore, who drew inspiration from a trip to Tennessee's Folk Alliance convention back in 2009.

"Folk Alliance takes place in one hotel in Memphis, which is booked out just for the music; after 10pm, every room becomes a showcase, and over three floors, all the rooms are buzzing with live music," Moore explains. "It's an amazing adrenaline-fuelled event, and because what the US regard as folk music is a lot broader than how we traditionally define the genre in the UK, I realised that over the last 10 years, The Bedford has actually been very 'folk' under those terms: we've always encouraged organic performance; we don't like playback; and we have a number of bluegrass, Americana, and singer

UK - dbn once again supplied stage and architectural lighting plus LED screen to the latest Live At Jodrell Bank shows, which featured two nights of performance headlined by the Australian Pink Floyd and New Order at the Jodrell Bank Observatory site, in the shadow of the charismatic Lovell Telescope.

A sunny weekend welcomed around 6000 music fans per day to the first of two 'Live' weekender events staged by Ear To The Ground.

Nick Buckley, dbn's project manager comments, "It was great to be back working on this really special site. The atmosphere was fantastic and it's an event with a real difference of which we are very proud to be a part."

The stage was a 16m wide Serious Stages' Orbit, three bays deep, into which dbn installed three lighting trusses - front, mid and back - all fitted to the curvature of the roof to make the most of the height. A fourth

UK - One of the most popular theatres in Scotland, Pitlochry Festival Theatre (PFT)'s demanding summer rep season is complemented by an increasingly busy winter programme. More complex productions have meant that an improved audio mixing system was required, so the venue has invested in a Yamaha CL5.

For several years a Yamaha LS9 served the theatre at front of house. But the 2009 decision to stage musicals, with an annual pantomime added from the following year, meant that in due course a higher channel count and greater flexibility was needed. Following the venue's successful grant application to the Foyle Foundation, Edinburgh-based The Warehouse supplied a Yamaha CL5 and three R-series i/o units in time for the 2013 summer season, along with 24 channels of Shure ULX-D digital wireless microphones.

The Warehouse also supplied three Dante-MY16-AUD interface cards, allowing t

USA - An L-Acoustics' Kara/SB18 combination was specified by Audiotek for MGM Grand Hotel & Casino's two newest venues: Wet Republic Ultra Pool and Hakkasan Las Vegas.

In early April Audiotek purchased and installed six Kara loudspeaker enclosures and four SB18 subs in the DJ mix area of Hakkasan for its client, Angel Management Group (AMG), which operates the venue. Later that same month, an identical monitoring setup was installed at the AMG-owned 53,000sq.ft, adults-only pool club, Wet Republic. Solotech's Las Vegas office facilitated the sale of both systems.

"The combination of three Kara enclosures and two SB18 subs per side has truly become the EDM festival standard as well as an artist rider staple for all tours and clubbing events," says Audiotek managing director Frank Murray. "With Wet Republic and Hakkasan being two of the EDM world's highest-profile

UK - When Divas, the on-campus nightclub at Swansea University, was in need of a sound system upgrade, local sales and rental company Total Sound Solutions were brought in to advise.

Chris Hooke's company has enjoyed a long relationship with the Students Union, providing hire systems for special events and carrying out general maintenance at their other bars and leisure facilities over a number of years.

The Uni was already a fan of JBL's PRX loudspeaker series as Hooke explained. "They have used our [active] PRX 612 enclosures for events in the past and absolutely love the sound. However, as we had only fitted Crown XTi 4000 amplifiers as part of a technical upgrade last year, we went the passive route and specified four of JBL's PRX 412M's."

The configuration needed to be switchable depending on whether Divas was hosting a band night (when a conventional stage PA

UK - Citronic has introduced a medium-size active line array - CLA-1460 - for concert halls, night clubs, houses of worship and other medium to large size venues.

Each array comprises an active sub unit and a set of 4 full range active wide dispersion enclosures. The entire system can be tailored to the venue or application via a PC link, editing the internal DSP controller for crossover, filtering and gain characteristics.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Shure Distribution UK (SDUK) supplied 12 channels of Axient, Shure's flagship RF microphone system, and 18 channels of PSM1000 in-ear monitoring to PA and sound services company Britannia Row Productions for use at Live Nation's recent Wireless Festival, which this year featured acts including Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Nas, will.i.am, Calvin Harris, Tinie Tempah and A Tribe Called Quest at London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

"All UK summer festivals are busy, but Wireless is one of the busiest, with over 190 acts taking to the stages over three days this year," explains SDUK's Tuomo Tolonen. "Different acts are on different stages simultaneously all weekend; it's the very definition of a crowded RF environment, and this against the background of generalised spectrum scarcity thanks to the recent Digital Switchover. Fortunately, Axient is design

India - A QSC Q Sys audio management system, based around a Core 250i integrated processor, has been installed at the Tezpur centre of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Assam, north-east India, as part of a conference room refurbishment designed to provide improved audio input to an existing video conferencing system.

The new system, supplied by Pro Visual Audio, the QSC distributor in India, and installed by the Assam-based QSC System Integration Partner Cineworth Sales and Services, now offers ISI staff clear, echo-free conferencing facilities thanks to the inclusion of AEC, the Acoustic Echo Cancellation algorithm.

A standard feature in Q-Sys Designer Release 3.0 (and subsequent releases) and available for all Q-Sys Cores, AEC ensures that audio feedback is not introduced into the system to the detriment of speech quality and comprehensibility, says the company.

A

UK - Britannia Row Productions Training has been granted the status of Approved Candidate for Accreditation by the British Accreditation Council for Independent Further and Higher Education (BAC) as a Short Course Provider. This is the outcome of an inspection carried out by the BAC prior to Britannia Row Productions Training's opening.

This status allows applicants from outside the EU/EEA for the Live Sound Technology course to apply for Student Visitor Visa in order to attend the course at the company's Training Centre in London, UK.

In July 2013 Britannia Row Productions Training started its first 12-week Live Sound Technology course. The intensive full-time course is the first of its kind and is based on full integration of theoretical and practical training made possible by the dedicated training centre.

The BAC's inspection as the next step in Britannia Row Productions

USA - Sensaphonics has added Dr. Heather Malyuk as the company's new audiologist. Dr. Malyuk has worked at Sensaphonics as a clinical extern for the past year, earning doctoral student of the year honours in audiology from Kent State University. She is also an accomplished fiddle and guitar player who still gigs and teaches professionally, specialising in Old Time Appalachian music.

"During her year as a doctoral candidate here at Sensaphonics, Heather has shown exceptional audiology skills in our Musicians Hearing Clinic," said Dr. Michael Santucci, Sensaphonics founder and president. "She also has great ideas for growing our business and, as a performing musician, totally understands the unique needs and concerns of our clients. We're very excited to add Heather to our team."

At Sensaphonics, Malyuk will be running the Musicians Hearing Clinic, seeing mus

USA - Located in the heart of Los Angeles, the Icon Ultra Lounge has been a nightlife hotspot since its doors opened in 2011.

The venue features popular DJs that perform in the 4,000sq.ft lounge and also on a similarly sized rooftop. Customers expect an immersive, high quality, audio experience.

Until recently the lounge and rooftop used a rented sound reinforcement system. After Arthur Guzman, general manager at ACI Pro Audio, put on an event at the Lounge he left with ideas on how different systems might fit the venues needs better.

After sharing those ideas with Icon's owners, it was decided that he was right; it was time to install something permanent and hard hitting for both dance areas.

"Right off the bat I knew a RCF system would fit their budget and their system requirements," explains Guzman. "We did a demo of HDL 20-A line array boxes with the SUB

UK - Event production and rental company OneBigStar once again chose Roland Systems Group (RSG) for the Glastonbudget tribute festival with the entire audio solution managed by RSG products including mixing, splitting, dropboxes and monitors. The Roland M-480 and M-300 Digital Consoles, the S-1608 Stage Box and M-48 Personal Monitors all played a key role in the setup which catered for live bands and acoustic sets.

Taking place in Wymeswold, Leicestershire, the festival which has grown in size and popularity year on year, presents the best in tribute bands and local music with over 100 performances on four stages over the May Bank Holiday weekend. For the first time the 2013 event added an 80's theme on the Saturday night including performances by Howard Jones, ABC, The Christians and Heaven 17.

"Having used RSG products for the past few years at Glastonbudget and also us

USA - The Audio Engineering Society (AES) recently wrapped its 50th International Conference, its first dedicated specifically to audio education. The conference took place 25-27 July, at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where more than 140 educators and industry representatives met to exchange ideas and experiences.

Attendance far surpassed the organisers' initial expectations, with attendees travelling to Murfreesboro from 25 U.S. states and 12 countries, including Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The event also for the first time included 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 McCarthy, senior education consultant at Meyer Sound, who gave an informative and entertaining presentation on the history of the live sound indus

USA - Over the past five years, the Free Press Summer Festival (FPSF), staged at Eleanor Tinsley Park just west of downtown Houston, has quickly grown into one of Texas' most eagerly anticipated music festivals. This year notably marked the first time that the event completely sold out in advance, ultimately drawing nearly 100,000 concertgoers to enjoy 90 national and local artists performing on six stages over two days.

Houston's LD Systems once again served as the primary audio, video and lighting provider for FPSF 2013 and supplied production gear and services for the festival's four primary stages. This year, however, the company chose to deploy L-Acoustics K1 systems on the two largest stages, Mars and Saturn.

FPSF' Mars stage featured night-closing performances from EDM superstars Bassnectar and Calvin Harris preceded by a broad spectrum of musical artists like Of Monste

UK - Damon Crisp's DAC Pro-Media Ltd has proved that even in recessionary times expansion is possible when the portfolio of products - and the markets they are aimed at - are carefully considered.

Following a period of sustained growth in the Audio Visual, Installation, Education and Commercial sectors - as well as his traditional heartland of MI/DJ - Crisp has announced a relocation of his operation to a new 3600 sq. ft warehouse in Surrey, the recruitment of a further sales rep and addition of a key brand to his burgeoning portfolio.

Explaining the underlying reasons, he states, "Over the past two years DAC Pro-Media has seen growth running at over 50% and now has 'Sole UK Distributor' status with many high profile manufacturers." These brands include Mono DJ Bags, Odyssey Cases, Symphony Acoustics, Panoramic Lasers, Laser Science and Newhank AV products.

In addi

Japan - Turbosound has selected Sound House to handle distribution, customer support and service for its loudspeaker systems in Japan. The two companies already have a well-established relationship, with Sound House serving as a major distributor of parent Music Group's Behringer-branded MI products.

Sound House sales manager Kotaro Suzuki commented, "We are proud to become an official distributor for Turbosound in Japan. We will put all our effort into making Turbosound a well known name in music circles throughout Japan."

"We are delighted to be working with Japan's foremost distributor of music products," said Nigel Beaumont, head of Music Groups's Professional Division. "We are convinced that our live sound and installed sound products - including the new Milan series of portable powered loudspeakers - will fit perfectly within the Sound House port

Latest Issue. . .