UK - Supergrass frontman, Gaz Coombes, has just completed a UK tour with an Allen & Heath iLive digital system at FOH, ME personal mixers managing monitors, and Dante for recording.

Showcasing Gaz's new solo material, the tour took place in churches across the country. Engineer, Gavin McComb, selected an iLive modular system comprising an iLive-80 Control Surface and iDR10 MixRack to manage FOH, with iLive apps and PL controllers for additional remote control.

"Apart from being a very well designed piece of kit, iLive is also extremely compact, with a footprint of around 1m sq. so you can slot it into virtually any situation, even if you're going to a small venue that already has its own in-house stuff. As a system, the audio quality is fantastic, all the internal effects are very easy to use and sound great, whether it's a small, medium or large-sized venue."

Gavi

UK - January and February sees SSE Audio Group's Sales division hosting two separate, free training days which will be of special interest to users of Yamaha digital mixing consoles.

Hosted at the company's HQ in Redditch, one of the days will focus on using Dante networking with Yamaha CL Series digital mixing consoles and Nexo NXAMP amplification, while the other focuses on Waves plug-ins, including integration with Yamaha digital consoles via the WSG-Y16 SoundGrid interface.

Taking place on 12 February, the Dante networking course examines the close integration which is possible between CL series consoles and Nexo's NXAMP 4X1 and 4X4 Powered TDcontrollers, via Dante.

Jointly developed with engineers from Yamaha, Nexo TDcontrollers provide full integration of speaker and amplifier control, with output capacities that deliver a highly cost-effective solution for both instal

The Netherlands - With a larger presence than ever before, TC Group's install and tour brands - Tannoy, Lab.gruppen and Lake - are bringing their extensive range of commercial install and performance audio products to ISE 2014 in February, showcasing their integrated audio systems for the installation market.

ISE 2014 will see the first major European debut of Lab.gruppen's Lucia amplifier, which offers consultants and installers a decentralised solution without compromise, presented here alongside the complementary loudspeaker products from Tannoy.

Designed for low cost, low hassle commercial installations such as boardrooms, classrooms and retail outlets, the two-channel Lucia (Localized Utility Compact Intelligent Amplification) is a compact and versatile Energy Star compliant Class D platform.

The Lucia M model variants include ADLC (Automatic Dynamic Loudness Contouring

Italy - RCF's RDNet software enables users to remotely control and manage professional speakers and audio objects/devices. "Each single device, with its own built-in communication board, microcontroller and dsp, is an active part of the brain of the system, able to store presets, receive commands and continuously send status information," says RCF.

RDNet 2.0 is based on many years of research and development making the management of complex audio systems simple and intuitive. Version 2.0, entirely designed and developed by the RCF engineering team, includes several new functions as well as multiple improvements and adjustments.

RDNet 2.0 includes its control software, all supported devices (with new firmware updates) and

Control 2 and Control 8 devices.

"The software can be found as free download on RCF's website in the section: LOGIN. Once the customer has

USA/UK - Peavey Electronics has announced the immediate availability of the new Peavey FX2 Series mixers. With twice the processing power of the original FX Series, these mixers feature new, Peavey-exclusive technology to enhance live sound reproduction and project studio recording.

Stocked with all the features for pro mixing, the affordable FX2 series includes essentials like Silencer mic preamps, which allow very high gain with low noise and distortion for crystal-clear signal reproduction. The four pre-fader auxes per channel provide four monitor mixes, while the two post-fader auxes are designed for adding effects (built-in or outboard).

These mixers also include dual DSP engines that allow multiple simultaneous effects assignable to any channel via aux 5/6. Onboard effects include reverb, reverb enhanced, delay, compression, expander, de-esser, chorus, flanger, tube emul

The Netherlands - Based on Alcons' R-Ray design study from 2008, the RR12 extends Alcons' line-source technology into different applications. By implementing the features of Alcons' multiple-patented pro-ribbon technology in a modular concept, the RR12 has been developed as "building block" to create tight packed arrays for controlled sound coverage in the widest variety of audience areas.

The RR12 combines a linear, non-compressed crystal-clear response from the lowest to the highest SPL's with a very wide dynamic power output ratio. The distortion is in average only 1/10th of that of traditional compression-based systems, says the company.

The system features the Alcons-proprietary RBN602rsr 6" pro-ribbon driver and a custom-designed 12" woofer with 4" voice coil, dual-spider suspension with forced-venting; while both transducers have Neodymium motor

USA - Solid State Logic is continuing to add to its US reseller network for SSL Live consoles with the appointment of professional touring and contracting company Sound Image. Headquartered in Escondido, California, Sound Image also has offices in Arizona and Tennessee, and has been providing sound reinforcement services to the industry's biggest rock, country and pop acts for over 40 years.

"It's about time Solid State Logic got out of the house!'' says Dave Shadoan, president of Sound Image. "Everyone here at Sound Image is looking forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with SSL through the sales, service and use of the new SSL Live."

"Sound Image is a well-established leader in the live market and its extensive customer base offers an unparalleled opportunity for the SSL Live to gain exposure in North America," says Jay Easley, SSL's

France - Keziah Jones, the acclaimed jazz-blues-funk guitarist and singer-songwriter, has been touring with Nexo's radical line monitors. Both Keziah and monitor engineer Daniel Paine were agreed that the Nexo 45°N-12 wedges were perfect for the four-week tour of France and Switzerland, launching the new Captain Rugged album. Although travelling light, the musicians insisted on carrying their monitor rig with them, including 6x 45°N-12 monitors, Nexo PS15-R2s and a couple of LS18 subs for sidefills.

Describing the usual routine of the three-piece band, engineer Daniel Paine explains that "it's mainly vocal and guitar through the wedges, and it's extremely loud, one of the loudest mixes on stage for monitoring that I've ever come across, which was partly the reason for going with the N-12s; they're so stable and have so much headroom. We did a measurement at 1

UK - Clear-Com has expanded its distribution agreement with Tyrell CCT, enabling the infrastructure and media solutions provider to develop the live performance market and manage the Clear-Com resellers in the UK.

As part of this change, Tyrell and Clear-Com have announced the appointment of three authorised reseller partners that are already signed up and established in the live performance market: Amber Sound, Autograph Sales and Orbital Sales. By working with these known resellers, Tyrell is in a good position to start the Clear-Com distribution.

Martin Bennett, commercial director at Tyrell Group, said, "The opportunity for Tyrell to expand the Clear-Com distribution into Live Performance and Install market allows us to build on the success we have developed in the Broadcast market, and we are excited about the challenges of developing new business in this market with

USA / Russia - Calrec Audio has been selected to provide five Artemis Consoles to NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, during its production of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, from Feb. 6-23. The announcement was made by David Mazza, senior vice-president, engineering, NBC Olympics, and Henry Goodman, head of sales and marketing, Calrec Audio.

NBC Olympics has purchased two 64-fader Artemis Shine consoles and augmented its arsenal by renting a further 40-fader and two 24-fader Artemis Beam consoles from Calrec.

"We are extremely proud to be the mixing console manufacturer selected once again by NBC Olympics during the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi," said Goodman. "After the success of the Summer Games in 2012, we are delighted to continue working with NBC Olympics and thank them for their belief in Calrec by choosing our desks."

USA - For the first time in its six-year history, tradition was laid aside at PLASA's annual Rock Our World Awards - presented at their Cocktail & Awards Reception in the Las Vegas Hotel during LDI 2013 - by including an Honourable Mention for TiMax SoundHub and TiMax Tracker, from Out Board.

Following the announcement of the very high profile winning entries, Judge Sebastian Frost took the opportunity to highlight Finalist TiMax as "The go to product of my choice for any live reinforcement application."

It was the revolutionary sound design and large-scale automation implementation by Robin Whittaker of Out Board and Sven Waldheim of POOLGroup GmbH, that propelled Out Board's TiMax2 SoundHub audio showcontrol and TiMax Tracker performer tracking automation into the final round of the awards.

The winning entries comprised the stunning London2012 Olympics Opening Ce

UK - Capital FM's annual Jingle Bell Ball got music fans into the festive mood as it took over London's O2 Arena for two nights in early December. With nine main and two warm up acts, plus presenters and a number of special guests each night, demand on the wireless spectrum was high. Sennheiser equipment and staff helped to ensure that every signal in the crowded airwaves remained clear.

Taking place over the weekend of 7-8 December, the event's sound equipment was supplied by Adlib Audio, including a large Sennheiser inventory. Sennheiser UK's Mark Saunders and Tim Sherratt were on site to provide additional equipment and any required assistance to Adlib's Dave Kay and Marc Peers, as well as Andy 'Baggy' Robinson, who was handling the audio side of things for production company Production North.

"The biggest challenges for us were the size of the arena that we had to cov

USA - Whether it's a special celebration event, a night filled with a DJ's pulsating sounds, performances by local or regional acts, or just a great place to enjoy one another's company with some good eatin', the Coliseum Tallahassee is the place to be when in Florida's capital city.

Based upon a positive experience with their previous D.A.S. Audio sound reinforcement (SR) system, the Coliseum Tallahassee elected to keep the sound in the D.A.S. family when it came time to upgrade to a larger setup. These days, the popular night spot is the proud owner of a system based upon D.A.S. Audio's flagship line array system: the Aero 40A.

Tallahassee, FL-based Ultimate Sound and Light was contracted to design and deploy the Coliseum's new SR system. Pete Barbaree, the person responsible for the D.A.S. Audio system's sale, design, and installation, elected to deploy a setup that include

USA - Whether the staff at Hume Lake Christian Camp are performing services at home or on the road, one thing is certain, they will be using DPA Microphones' d:fine Miniature Headset Microphones. With services held at four camps situated on 360 acres in Sequoia National Park, its campus in San Diego and its 400-acre camp in Connecticut, as well as during outreach trips to locations such as Hawaii, South Africa and Papua New Guinea, Hume Lake needs high-quality headset microphones that will stand up to the rigors of repeated use.

A popular Christian Camp, Hume Lake is not just active during the summer. Throughout the year, the facility hosts as many as 35,000 people between its 10-week winter camp, off-site trips and a variety of weekend retreats - such as those for mothers/daughters, marriages and firefighters.

During Hume Lake's 10-week summer series, as many as 3,000 student

USA - Home of the American Hockey League's Providence Bruins and Providence College Men's Basketball, The Dunkin' Donuts Centre is the major sports and entertainment venue of the Providence, Rhode Island metro area. Seating approximately 13,000 depending on configuration, the arena hosts not only games, including NCAA Men's Division I Basketball, but also corporate events, trade shows, commencements and concerts from artists including hit-makers such as U2 and Elton John.

The facility, which was extensively remodelled in 2008, benefits from solid acoustic design and good interior treatment. Even so, the sound during games was lacking until a recent sound-system upgrade featuring loudspeakers, power amplifiers and digital routing systems from Electro-Voice.

"The two main issues with the old system were lack of coverage and lack of intelligibility," says Tom Barrett, p

Foundation Funding - Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation has announced six grants, totalling more than £150,000, which will support apprenticeships within professional arts organisations.

Five theatre organisations and one music festival will receive funding. Shared Experience will receive £105,000 over three years to support one trainee director and producer per year via paid six-month apprenticeships; Tangled Feet will receive £14,000 over two years to help fund its participation programme for young people; Manchester Royal Exchange's Young Company will receive £10,000; Chickenshed will receive £15,000 towards its Young Creators Programme; Icon Theatre in Medway will receive £9,000; and the Lake District International Summer Music Festival will receive £10,000.

Since the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation was re-launched in 2011,

Greece - The leading AV turnkey installation and theatre sound specialist in Greece, Telmaco S.A., has installed the last ever Cadac R-type console in the landmark Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

The R-type was installed by the Athens based company in the main 500 seat Amphitheatron Hall, in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall's new M2 building, as part of a major turnkey project that included sound reinforcement, projection, conference and interpretation, video and audio relay, intercom and stage management systems. "The client requirement was for a console of the highest audio quality and reliability that was quick to install. The Cadac R-type fulfilled these demands better than any other comparable console," says Telmaco sales engineer, George Regginiotis.

Telmaco previously installed a Cadac S-type console in the central control room in the M2 building when it opened in 201

UK - Stage Electrics' popular regional exhibition, hosted by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, heads to the city of Cardiff on Friday 21 February. The one-day event aimed at schools, colleges, theatres, the arts, broadcast and entertainment includes over 25 industry leading manufacturers exhibiting their latest products in audio, lighting, video and staging in an intimate friendly environment.

The 2014 event welcomes new exhibitors, Allen & Heath, Chroma-Q, 5 Star Cases, Doughty and Robert Juliat, alongside Prolyte, Martin Professional by Harman, ETC, Avolites & Avolites Media, Le Maitre, Rosco, Philips Entertainment brands Selecon, Strand, & Vari-Lite, EM Acoustics, DiGiCo, Lee Filters, Sennheiser, Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Yamaha, ELC, Analog Way, Chauvet, Zero 88, Roland Systems Group, Pulsar, Swisson & Magic FX.

"We are looking forward to welcoming visitors to

Israel - Waves Audio has announced the availability of its new Dugan Automixer plugin. Developed in association with sound engineering legend Dan Dugan, the Waves Dugan Automixer is a software version of the popular Dugan Speech System Automatic Mixing Controllers used the world over. Available for every console, the Dugan Automixer is MultiRack SoundGrid- and MultiRack Native-compatible and works on 32 or 64 channels.

Using Dugan's proprietary voice-activated process, the Waves Dugan Automatic Mixing Controller plugin automatically controls the gains of multiple live microphones in real time while preventing feedback and excessive noise pickup. Maintaining the gain of one mic in the room even when multiple speakers are talking simultaneously, it makes "perfectly matched transparent cross-fades".

Dugan notes, "People have been asking for a Dugan plugin for a lon

Austria - One of Austria's Leading recording studio complexes, Prime Studios, tucked away in Mils near Innsbruck, has added a third control room, C , and a fourth live area to house its latest addition; a classic EMI TG12345 MkIV console, built originally for Abbey Road Studios. One of only two in the world, the console's twin is owned by producer Mike Hedges. Prime Studios opened in 2008 and is favoured by such producers and engineers as Chuck Ainlay, George Massenburg, Christian Seitz and Alfons Weindorf.

Studio C is acoustically separated from the main building and features a customised 5.1 surround reference sound system by Surrountec. All the cabling and connectors for the new installation is by Van Damme, specified and ordered from VDC Trading using their new online YouSpec system, now an integral part of the VDC website.

The cabling included 24 pairs of 7m Blue EDAC90 c

UK - Nexo has just a few places left on its forthcoming ETC1 training seminar, to be held in London 28-29 January. The venue is the youthful and dynamic Soho Theatre in Dean Street, making this seminar a particularly interesting one for theatre sound technicians.

Nexo's ETC programme offers convenient and affordable education, training and certification in general electroacoustic principles, and real-world practical operation of Nexo line array and point-source systems in the live production environment.

The foundation module, ETC1, has been designed for sound designers, engineers and technicians working with Nexo equipment. Taught by Nexo instructors, this two-day event progresses from theoretical classes in general acoustics, line array concepts and the case for point source systems, to practical hands-on training with Geo S12 line arrays.

Technical overviews of Nexo's pro

UK - Source Distribution has announced a further expansion of its salesforce through the appointment of Tim Gray as commercial audio sales manager.

This newly created position is in direct response to Source's growing presence in the commercial audio market sector, and will have particular emphasis on the PreSonus StudioLive AI range of digital mixers and active PA loudspeakers, Genelec's AV Install series of loudspeakers, RØDE's live sound and headset microphones, Eventide digital effects processors and outboard products from Universal Audio, API and Lynx. Based in the field and covering the whole of the UK, Tim's role will be to develop and manage a growing network of live sound dealers, rental companies and AV installers.

Gray started his career in technical sales at Shuttlesound, progressed to the role of sound reinforcement manager at Arbiter (with responsibility f

UK - Yamaha has announced new firmware and application software for its MTX Series matrix processors - a core component of the Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) range - a key benefit of which is making the MTX-5D seamlessly compatible with the MY4-AEC echo cancelling and Dugan-MY16 auto microphone mixing interface cards.

Designed specifically for the commercial installation market, the CIS series comprises an expanding range of loudspeakers, multi-channel power amplifiers and the MTX matrix processors.

Previously available for use primarily with Yamaha's DME Series digital mixing engines, the Dugan-MY16 optimises the gain distribution of multiple faders simultaneously, allowing sound engineers to focus on their mix rather than being preoccupied with microphone levels. The MY4-AEC Echo Canceller eliminates unwanted acoustic echo caused by secondary signals of speaker outp

USA - The Music Group has announced the appointment of Greg McLagan as AVP, Business Development Professional Division, who will be in charge of developing business strategy and action plans to grow the Pro Division's global footprint. The appointment is effective 13 January 2014.

Prior to joining Music Group, McLagan held top management positions at QSC, Renkus Heinz and Mark IV.

"I am honoured to have Greg join the Music Group team," said Shawn Watts, VP of global sales Professional Division. "We are making preparations to launch the largest and most comprehensive line of products in the history of our Pro Division. Greg's knowledge and expertise will be instrumental in the continued development of our global market presence."

Greg McLagan commented, "I am very excited to take this new responsibility to grow Music Group sales from a global perspect

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