USA - Every year, professional and aspiring classical musicians and technical personnel from around the world head to the mountains of Colorado for an eight-week summer intensive retreat at the Aspen Music Festival and School. As the country's premier classical music program, the festival presents more than 300 performances and music education events, including the Aspen Opera Theatre Centre (AOTC) programme at the historic Wheeler Opera House, where DPA Microphones had its chance to shine.

The AOTC relied on the d:dicate 4006C Omnidirectional, 4011A Cardioid and 4015C Wide Cardioid Microphones, as well as the d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphone 10-piece Classic Touring Kit for their pristine recording capabilities. Supplied by DPA, Inc. - the company's U.S. branch, these mics were used primarily to record and broadcast AOTC's Saturday morning opera master classes as well as its f

UK - Distributor POLARaudio, consistent with its recent internal restructuring, has promoted former business development manager Stuart Leader to the position of head of installation. The company recently re-aligned its operation into two distinct sectors - MI and Installation. Stuart Leader has been at POLARaudio for two and a half years and in heading up the Installation team brings to the table a wealth of experience gained from his time with Crestron and Sanyo, where he specialised in the corporate and higher education sectors.

Leader will be responsible for a team which is involved in large scale system solutions that comprise everything from system design and programming to commissioning. End-user engagement sits at the heart of the team's holistic approach to this area, whereby they are involved with assisting and advising the end-user and integrator from the outset to th

UK - An Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system recently managed FOH on a tour marking the 40th anniversary of the release of Rick Wakeman's landmark concept album, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth.

Based on the novel by Jules Verne, which also had its 150th anniversary in 2014, the album is one of the rock era's landmark achievements selling 15m copies.

The 14-date tour comprised performances across the UK, including two dates at the Royal Albert Hall. Each show was a live presentation of the album, performed by Rick Wakeman and The New World Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by The English Chamber Choir and the English Rock Ensemble.

Long time FOH engineer, Ian Barfoot, specified an iLive modular system comprising twin iDR10 MixRacks and his preferred iLive-112 surface linked by a fibre optical link, along with a Lenovo tablet running iLive Editor control software

South Korea - This year's Ultra Music Festival (UMF) Korea took place in Seoul, South Korea with more than 100,000 EDM fans and music lovers in attendance. The event, which took place at the Olympic Stadium Sports Complex, featured heart-thumping beats produced by the world's top DJs reinforced by Adamson Energia loudspeakers.

The ground floor of the Olympic arena was converted into the nation's largest outdoor club for the two day event. Electronic music was delivered by a number of big-name DJs including Steve Angelo, Above & Beyond, Steve Aoki and Paul Van Dyk. Empire of the Sun, Infected Mushroom, Far East Movement and M.I.A. were a few of the bands that performed live.

Blue Noise and AMG Korea (Alpha Sound), two prominent South Korean sound companies, provided Adamson sound systems deployed at the Live and Main stages. Sun Kim, technical support manager for Sound Solution

Germany - As in recent years, sound engineer Carsten Kümmel handled classical production duties at the 2014 Thurn & Taxis Classic Festival (Schlossfestspiele) in Regensburg. Among the performances he mixed were Guiseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, Operas in Bavarian and the gala performance of star soprano Angela Gheorghiu and the Symphonic Orchestra from Hof/Germany - all on a Lawo mc²56 console.

The most testing production for Kümmel was Rigoletto, where more than 60 microphones were in use. As previously, he took a two-level approach to the console setup - one level was used for inputs and outputs that did not change during the festival (including feeds to the stage manager, the interval bell and communication with the stage) with a second level dedicated to the various performances. These included, for example, the levels of singers' mics, the band and orchestra.

Belgium - The Benelux countries are rapidly making a name for themselves as a hotbed of musicals produced on a giant scale. As Soldaat van Oranje continues to wow Dutch audiences in a former aircraft hangar, a new production, 14-18, is now doing the same in a similarly vast Belgian venue - De Nekkerhal in Mechelen.

The production brings the grim reality of Flanders fields to life with a high level of intensity and immediacy for the audience, a spectacle helped greatly by Sennheiser's flagship Digital 9000 wireless microphone system.

Set in Western Flanders during the Great War, 14-18 traces the fortunes of three young soldiers caught up in one of the most ruthless and bloody struggles in European history.

This latest production from global entertainment company Studio 100, Frank Van Laecke, Dirk Brossé and Allard Blom takes place in a venue measur

USA - Sound designer Tim O'Heir has chosen a Meyer Sound system built around M'elodie line array loudspeakers to reinforce the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of the musical comedy Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The production entertains audiences with a high energy that Time Out New York says "makes Broadway rock harder than it ever has before".

"The M'elodie centre array is working out perfectly for the vocals," says O'Heir. "It's a rock concert sound, but we also needed great intelligibility along with vocal punch, because the lyrics carry the story line. On both counts, the M'elodies deliver every time."

The main Meyer Sound system is anchored by dual front-hangs of eight-each M2D line array loudspeakers flanking a center hang of 11 M'elodie loudspeakers, while a cardioid array of three flown 600-HP subwoofers provides low end. T

Denmark - Sune Snellman Jakobsen is a live mix engineer stationed in Copenhagen whose credits include world tours with The Raveonettes, Mew, Mercury Rev from NY, Kashmir from Denmark, and, most recently, Trentem°ller.

An avid Metric Halo user, Jakobsen owns a ULN-8 interface and a LIO-8 interface and regularly uses their SpectraFoo sound analysis software to set up shows and to help identify and solve problems while mixing. His interfaces carry Metric Halo's optional +DSP, which allows him to run their powerful plug-ins on critical live channels (including the whole mix!).

"As a FOH engineer, I think it's important to embrace the sonic ideals of the artist," Jakobsen says. "I don't see any point in applying my own favorite flavor if it doesn't appeal to the artist. Along those lines, it's critical to build a relationship of trust so the artist feels I have a

USA - The 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention (9-12 October, 2014, at the Los Angeles Convention Centre in downtown Los Angeles) will feature a High Resolution Audio (HRA) programme Friday, 10 October.

The direct result of a collaborative effort between the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, the HRA programme will include a number of panels and sessions that address the current and future direction of HRA from various perspectives, including content creation, digital distribution, licensing of hi-res music files, archiving, subscription models, marketing/promotion of hi-res music, compatibility of playback devices and more.

These panels and sessions will feature some of the brightest minds in the business as they discuss some of the most current and controversial issues concerning the rapid adoption of high-resolution audio across

Australia - DPA Microphones' d:facto Vocal Microphone provided significant vocal improvements to the live broadcast of Australia's The Voice, ensuring an even more enjoyable experience for TV viewers. In similar fashion to other TV singing/talent shows, The Voice Australia relied on wireless microphone technology to ensure that contestants could move freely about the stage. DPA's award-winning d:facto fitted the bill for the show's finale.

The decision to try the DPA d:facto Vocal Mics on the show was on suggestion from Australian rental company JPJ Audio. "JPJ's Brad Adamson told me he had DPA d:factos and we were keen to try them on a couple of TV shows we were working on," explains John Simpson, senior audio director of The Voice Australia. "DPA has a great reputation for high-quality mics and this interested me because I hadn't been happy

Germany - In Berlin, they call it the Fanmeile - a 1.5km stretch of avenue which serves as the main theatre for Germany's national celebrations. Where else would more than 1m people gather to celebrate the return of the World Cup, after an astonishing summer of football in Brazil!

Rental company auvisign GmbH was called upon to provide the PA for the huge crowds, from the main stage in front of the Brandenburg Gate to the 10 big TV screens spaced down the length of the fan mile and beyond to other stages. This massive task was supervised by sound designer Johannes Raack, who has worked many times here at Europe's biggest public viewing space.

A Nexo Geo D10 line array system was used on the main stage, together with Geo Sub and CD18 subbass cabinets, and a large number of Nexo PS Series. Elsewhere on the fanmeile, nearly 270 Nexo cabinets were deployed; Geo S12, Geo S8, Nexo A

USA - Ray LaMontagne recently kicked off his North American tour with an Adamson Energia PA powered by Lab.gruppen PLM series amplifiers with Lake Processing.

Fourteen PLM 20000Q amplifiers power the system that consists of Adamson E15 and E12 line arrays enclosures as well as E218 subwoofers. Integrated Lake Processing provides speaker processing, monitoring and control. The amplifiers were provided by Eighth Day Sound, the production company behind the tour.

"It's great to see the Lab.gruppen amplifiers packaged with the Energia system," explains Jon Lemon, FOH engineer for the tour. "Lab.gruppen amps are absolute workhorses, I never have any concerns when I know they are powering the PA."

The PLM 20000Q (Powered Loudspeaker Management) system seamlessly integrates a four-channel amplifier with the Lake Processing platform, Dante networked signal distri

USA - Growing with the community since its founding in 1972, Hosanna Lutheran Church is now a cornerstone of religious life in Mankato, Minnesota. With four contemporary services a week, plus one traditional service and plenty of high-SPL youth events, its sanctuary sound and video systems were tapped to provide a wide range of content.

Despite having loudspeakers made by a respected manufacturer, intelligibility and low-end extension were poor and a regular source of complaints until recently, when Audio Video Electronics (AVE) (Maple Grove, Minnesota) renovated the system. Citing their excellent fidelity and intelligibility, AVE installed a pair of Danley Sound Labs SH-60 loudspeakers. To give Hosanna Lutheran Church plenty of bass when needed, AVE also gave the church a beefy Danley DBH-218 subwoofer.

"Before AVE's renovation, we always had complaints," said Matt

Switzerland - This was year 48 for the Montreux Festival and the event attracted the usual spread of artists including Pharrell Williams who had the crowd begging for more during week one.

All the leading DiGiCo models are in play at Montreux, from the flagship SD7, which holds fort in the Stravinski, to the ultra-compact SD11, which sits in the same venue providing talkback, alongside the house SD5 in monitor world. Furthermore, SD8s, SD10s, and SD9s all have their part to play, in the Jazz Lab, the Jazz Club, the Rock Cave, and Montreux Palace.

"My relationship with DiGiCo has always been strong, not only because of the quality of product, but because of the personal service we always get from their team," says sound coordinator at Montreux, David Weber. Incidentally, Weber made his Montreux debut the same year as DiGiCo, in 2009.

"I was brought in here as t

USA - DPA Inc., the U.S. branch of DPA Microphones, has announced the appointment of Christopher Spahr, Pedro Rocha and Leonardo Romero as area sales managers for the Eastern US, Western US and Southern US/Latin America, respectively. The company has also promoted Shan Siebert to general manager of the Longmont, Colorado-based office.

"This announcement comes at a very exciting time for DPA Microphones' US operations," says Eric Mayer, president of DPA, Inc. "Not only does this serve as an example of how our brand recognition has expanded, but it also means that we'll be able to further grow our fan base throughout the Americas. In addition, these appointments will allow me to perform my day-to-day strategy, sales and marketing responsibilities more effectively, giving us the opportunity for even greater success. Welcome aboard, Pedro, Leonardo and Chris, and cong

Germany / USA - Lawo has appointed Karl Kussmaul as product support manager. He brings with him a wealth of pro audio and video experience from his many years in product management and support roles with Sony.

In his new post, Kussmaul will coordinate the Lawo service force in North America from his New York base, and will provide assistance to the constantly growing number of Lawo customers and installations using his advanced technical knowledge and long experience.

"I am delighted to be part of this innovative company," says Kussmaul. "Lawo's consistent focus on quality, performance and engineering of its products, combined with their dedication to creating and delivering complete solutions for customers were key factors in my decision to join Lawo."

CEO Philipp Lawo agrees, "We are very excited to have Karl join our team. His broad knowledge of t

Germany - With nearly 500 Meyer Sound loudspeakers already installed aboard its ships, Aida Cruises of Rostock, Germany has recently added Meyer Sound UPA-1P loudspeaker systems in four performance rehearsal spaces in Hamburg. In addition to sound quality and reliability, the design team has named accurate sonic translation as a primary reason for the system choice.

"Since Meyer Sound's goal with all products is neutrality, performers will hear the same sound on the shipboard stage as they hear in rehearsals," says system designer Malte Polli-Holstein of Hamburg-based Three-in-One Entertainment & Consulting. "Also, all of Aida's ships have Meyer Sound systems in their theatres, so it only makes sense to build the rehearsal systems to offer the same high level of sound quality."

The largest rehearsal room, Aida 1, features four UPA-1P loudspeakers, two CQ-1

Camera Shy - Kate Bush has asked fans not to film her 22 Before The Dawn shows at Hammersmith Apollo which start tonight. The Wuthering Heights singer has said it would "mean a great deal to me" if people did not use their phones or tablets during the concerts, which mark her return to live performance after 35 years. Mobile phone technology and home computing were in their infancy when she last performed live in 1979.

Writing on her website, the singer said, "I have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows. I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras. I know it's a lot to ask but it would a

Spain - Nexo's STM M28 compact line array has proved a great success for new owners BTM Sound S.L., debuting at the Porta Ferrada International Festival in Sant Feliu de Guixols on the sunny Costa Brava.

This international festival, first held in 1958 and now one of the most important summer cultural events in Catalonia, has seen a high-quality and eclectic programme of performers throughout July and August. In its picturesque location beside Sant Feliu's town harbour, the purpose-built stage has hosted local and international artists such as Belle & Sebastian, Silvia Perez Cruz and Raul Fernandez, the Crystal Fighters and American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater.

For the 12 live concerts of the festival, BTM installed a Nexo STM Series concert sound system featuring the new M28 main line array cabinets with S118 sub bass. Just six main cabinets per side, with six subs on the

Switzerland - A new Nexo Geo S8 compact line array system has enhanced the ambient environment of the multipurpose l'Amphimax hall at Lausanne University.

The hall, used for exams, meetings, assemblies, lectures and the occasional celebrity visitor such as the Dalai Lama, is the largest space on the university campus. It can seat more than 1,000 students for examination: 650 in the primary space and a further 400 in an extension behind a moveable wall. The university was looking for a system with clear intelligibility as it will mainly be used for speech applications.

The system was designed and installed by a team of local Swiss specialists, who have since collaborated on projects such as the recent Nexo upgrade at Lausanne's Stade Olympique de la Pontaise. Acoustic consultant AER specified the system which was installed by Auditech, while Nexo's Swiss distributor ZAP Audio,

UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises (NMK), distributor of Midas in the United Arab Emirates for the live sound market segment, is offering demo sessions on the manufacturer's M32 console to all audio professionals in the region.

"Since the publication of our demo sessions, we have been getting the inquiries from UAE, Qatar and Bahrain," commented Pramod Manerikar, Midas and Klark Teknik product specialist at NMK. "The advantage of ongoing demo sessions is that client has the opportunity to keep a console for a few days at his warehouse in order to test all the amazing features of the mixer. During demo session the client gets familiar with the console experiencing the quality of preamplifiers and Midas build. The desk itself is very simplified and it takes a few minutes to gain knowledge of the basics. It has an incredible weight of 25kg.

"In t

UK - Young Scottish-born violinist, Nicola Benedetti, is one of the UK's rising stars. Currently enjoying a top 20 position in the UK pop charts - the first time a British violinist has scored a top 20 album since Vanessa Mae in 1995 and Nigel Kennedy in in 1989 - Benedetti is a sought-after performer.She recently played a sold-out concert at the Guildhall in London as part of the City of London's Curtain Raiser programme for the Commonwealth Games. Audio production was supplied by Scottish audio specialists, The Warehouse who opted for a Halo Compact line array system from EM Acoustics."I'd been really impressed with the performance of Halo-C at a recent open day at our premises in Glasgow," recounted Warehouse sound hire manager and sound engineer, Pete Harris. "By coincidence I was also in the process of sourcing a suitable system for Nicola's show at the

UK - In conjunction with live sound equipment company Tour Supply, Shure Distribution UK has been supplying equipment and technical support services at a number of the UK's biggest festivals during the summer period.

Tour Supply's distinctive cabin could be found backstage at the Radio 1 Big Weekend, Parklife, Wireless, Sonisphere, Bloodstock, Download, London Calling, Lovebox, and the V Festivals. Shure UK technical experts were on hand at select festivals with Tour Supply providing technical assistance to engineers and crew members offering trials of new products such as Shure's new Beta instrument microphones and the SE846 quad driver earphones.

A range of Shure products was available for purchase from the Tour Supply cabin at all of these festivals, including wired and wireless microphone systems and supplementary RF antennas and accessories. A large selection of Radial En

UK - Biodiesel specialist Midas will power the first Technopop Festival this autumn, a four-week pop-up science, technology and innovation experience in London's East End.

Caroline Johnson, Technopop's production manager, comments, "Environmental and social considerations run through the core of the Technopop concept and the Midas team identifies with that. Midas has proved itself in all sorts of environments over the years, so getting them on board to support our approach was one of the easier decisions."

Held in a Neptunus structure, Technopop, a partnership with Oxley International Holdings, will highlight the breadth of opportunity, and intrigue, in the world of science and technology to young people, with a focus on some of the capital's less affluent areas.

(Jim Evans)

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