USA - Ashly Audio has hired Ed Czarnecki as its applications engineer. Czarnecki will report to Scott Leslie, Ashly's executive vice president, and will wear many hats in his new position. Among his duties, Czarnecki will work with consultants, integrators, and distributors to provide information and training about Ashly products, both pre- and post-sale, as well as solutions to design challenges.

He will convey the evolving needs of Ashly's customers to the various divisions that maintain Ashly's reputation for building affordable, reliable solutions. Czarnecki is based at Ashly's headquarters in Webster, NY and will visit consultants, integrators and installation sites for training, consultation and assistance.

"Ed has been working on the integration side of A/V for over a decade," said Leslie. "He has worked in every aspect of the industry. He has pulled wire

USA - Momentum Audio Sales, the exclusive distributor of Audient consoles for the US market, has partnered with Kate Cardwell of Cardwell Creative Services to provide business development and support for Audient consoles.

"Besides having great sounding consoles, Audient has a great story and legacy," said Cardwell on working with Audient. "Their collective passion for music and engineering gives them a unique understanding of their market, and makes it a true pleasure to champion their products."

Cardwell will engage both the current sales force and dealer network and provide product training and customer support. Due to the custom installation nature of the audio console business, she will work with customers directly as the first point of contact for recording and mastering studios, broadcast facilities, colleges and universities.

"I enjoy talking

USA - The AES139 Convention at the Jacob Javits Centrein New York City (29 October - 1 November 2015), is slated to host "the most in-depth technical programme of the year for audio professionals". The event offers attendees four full days of comprehensive Technical Programme presentations including Workshops, Tutorials, Paper Sessions, Student & Career Development Events, Special Events and more.

Paper topics this year include timely subjects ranging from Audio Education and Forensic Audio, to Cinema Sound, Sound Reinforcement, Spatial Audio and more. Tutorial topics are slated to include Interactive Music: Past, Present and Future, Main Microphone Techniques for 2.0 and 5.1, Listening Tests - Understanding the Basic Concepts and other in-depth topics of interest. Additional topics in the Workshop series will include Low Frequency Behaviour in

UK - DJ, producer and musician Danny Byrd has recently upgraded his creative space at home with a new monitoring set up that features Genelec 8351s.

"I've been working with the 8351s for about four months now and I'm delighted with how things are going," comments Danny. "I do my creative work in my writing studio at home which is not kitted out like a conventional studio - this can present some monitoring challenges, especially when comparing mixes that I might have done elsewhere. When setting up the 8351s, the use of AutoCal software proved invaluable in ironing out any room response anomalies and allowing the accurate soundstage of the Genelecs to shine through."

The 8351s were supplied by The Studio Shop, a London-based audio recording equipment specialist. The Highgate-based outlet is run by proprietor, Niki Melville-Rogers, who has worked with Danny b

UK - The newest RedNet devices announced last year - RedNet MP8R, RedNet D16R, RedNet HD32R and RedNet D64R - are now available, Focusrite has announced. All new models feature redundant power supplies, primary and secondary etherCON connections and occupy a single rack space. "Perfect for live sound and broadcast, this marks another forward step for the Focusrite brand into broader pro audio applications," the company says.

The four new models join the RedNet range of Dante-based interfaces, which offer a high quality audio-over-IP. In addition to a 1U form factor, they incorporate several features aimed squarely at the live sound market, including power- and network-redundancy.

The four new products are the MP8R 8-channel remote-controlled mic pre; D16R AES/EBU interface; HD32R Pro Tools bridge; and the D64R MADI bridge. Dual Ethernet ports, fitted with locking eth

USA - Named by Variety as "the rarest jewel in the crown of the festival-going experience", the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado will once again showcase a complete Meyer Sound 7.1 cinema sound system in its Werner Herzog Theatre.

Custom designed for the Herzog, the Meyer Sound system is anchored by Acheron screen channel loudspeakers featuring a sonic linearity and accuracy that defines CEO John Meyer's philosophy of sound reproduction. Scheduled for 4-7 September, the 2015 festival will be the fifth year that the two renowned Bay Area organizations have partnered to create the best venue for film.

"Part of the Telluride magic is that we offer extraordinarily special film experiences on all fronts-from the initial curation, to the visual projection, to the experience of sound," says Julie Huntsinger, Telluride Film Festival executive director. &q

UK - The WOMAD Festival at Malmesbury in Wiltshire is succinctly described by Britannia Row Productions' crew chief for the event, Colin Pink: "The WOMAD Festival is just a wonderful, four day 'family' festival, with an eclectic mix of music from around the globe and great food. Britrow provided the audio equipment and crew for all six of the main stages, including the Taste The World Stage, which featured cookery demonstrations and the best crew food in the South West!"

Two of the stages served by Britannia Row deliver a fair illustration of the diversity on offer. The big Open Air Stage featured a miscellany of acts from the Molotov Jukebox to Atomic Bomb! and Mahmoud Ahmed, attracting the biggest audiences of the weekend and served by a sizeable L'Acoustic K1 system. At the helm was FoH engineer Richard Sharrat: "Having both the Midas H3000 and the SSL Live at

UK - Soundscapes at the National Gallery, London - exhibiting until 6 September 2015 - showcases the sonic interpretation by contemporary sound artists, composers and musicians of six individual artworks of their choice from within the National Gallery.

Jon Sheldon, the National Gallery's senior AV engineer, specified TiMax SoundHub matrix server systems to provide playback, scheduling, signal distribution, dsp and spatialisation across the multiple zones of distributed Bowes & Wilkins loudspeakers. Out Board's Dave Haydon provided TiMax design, programming and commissioning support prior to the installation and also on-site, including spatial mix sessions with musician/producer Jamie xx and composer Nico Muhly's sound designer Jethro Cooke.

These two exhibits fully exploited the object-based TiMax 3D audio capabilities to help render their sonic interpretation of the a

Azerbaijan - The European Games made its debut this year. Held in the brand new, 68,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and organised by the European Olympic Committee, its opening and closing ceremonies were on a scale akin to already established sporting spectaculars. An experienced team was assembled to deliver sound requirements, with DiGiCo SD7s and SD11s being their consoles of choice.

In charge of audio design and delivery for both live and broadcast was Scott Willsallen. "There's a bit of a travelling family for most big sporting events," he says. "It's a group of people who are very experienced in their own roles and at working together. I'm lucky enough to be part of it.

"These events are primarily about the television pictures. However, as they take place in the round, the audience is in the background of most camera s

Germany / UK - Absen Optoelectronic Co., Ltd., a global manufacturer of LED displays, has expanded its ever widening European market presence by entering into a relationship with one of the UK's major rental houses, Adlib.

After having demoed several A3 Pro panels at official UK distributor PSCo's HQ in Reading, UK, Adlib's Andy Dockerty and Ian Tomlinson decided upon the purchase of 250 Absen A3 Pro panels, launched at ISE 2015 in Amsterdam back in February.

"After seeing the Absen LED panels at a trade show we were naturally curious about obtaining some LED panels for our own inventory," comments Tomlinson. "We were really impressed by the A3 Pro, and decided to place an order.

"Although the quality of the product is second to none, we were convinced by the exceptional after sales care and service offered here in the UK for Absen customers. We have a gr

UK - Matthew Griffiths is to step down as PLASA CEO. A statement from PLASA reads: Over the past few months it has become clear to the boards and executive management of PLASA that a fundamental redesign of our business model and structures are necessary due to the increasingly difficult trading conditions currently being experienced. For the organisation to remain of service & benefit to the membership we represent, it is imperative that our expenditure can be funded by an affordable and sustainable income. To that end, the PLASA Governing Body has decided that there needs to be complete review of its businesses.

In light of the above and after 17 years as PLASA's chief executive officer, Matthew Griffiths has decided that now is the right time to step aside which would help kick start and facilitate a fresh set of ideas and approaches needed for the next chapter in PLASA's dev

Austria - For the sound engineers of Rental Pro Austria, the Stadthalle in Graz presents a well-known acoustic challenge. For the sell-out performance of the Grazer Philharmonic Orchester, bringing Mahler's 8th to a sell-out crowd of more than 4,000, the solution was a Nexo Geo S12 system using RS15 subs and PS cabinets for fill.

Mario Held, system engineer for Rental Pro Austria worked with FOH engineer Andreas Putz to design a Geo S12 line array that would provide balanced and transparent sound reinforcement appropriate for the classical performance, featuring the 200-piece orchestra, numerous solo singers and a choir of 300.

"The venue, like many big halls of this size, has some problem frequencies in the sub and bass area," says Held. "Rental Pro Austria has nearly all the varieties of Nexo subs in its inventory, but I decided to use four RS15 subs per side

UK - Through the extraordinary vision of a dedicated group of people to make a dream a reality, the Jubilee Sailing Trust regularly takes both disabled and able bodied people to sea on two square rigged sailing ships in the fleet, Lord Nelson and Tenacious.

The Jubilee Sailing Trust brings together disabled and able bodied crew members, accepting all degrees of disability including wheelchair users, visually or hearing impaired, stroke victims and more recently regularly welcoming Help for Heroes military veterans.

Having recently updated the general audio broadcast systems on the Lord Nelson ship, a similar upgrade is about to occur with Tenacious on its return to port. Using a number of Cloud paging microphones, with automatic messaging functionality, the audio broadcast system is an essential tool for keeping ships' crews informed of daily routines and emergency situations

Estonia - Founded in 2007 as a sound and lighting rental, sales and installation company, Heliart's guiding principle as a full service provider was to deliver best quality service to every client.

The experience gained from daily rental work enabled them to undertake installations, while as a distributor "we have an input from the great technical support engineers of the manufacturers", according to owner Priit Kivimägi.

Among their suppliers is Powersoft, with whom they started working a little over a year ago, after placing an order for K Series amplifiers. They have gone further and invested in the Italian company's new X Series platform.

Kivimagi explains out how the relationship developed. "We had used another premier amplifier brand for a long time but had a chance to do a side-by-side comparison. Powersoft's wide model range covered our needs better a

Korea Move - Slovenian band Laibach claim to be the first western rock group to play inside North Korea. Photographs seem to show that the audience at the Ponghwa Theatre was appreciative, if not completely sure of what to make of their concert last week. Laibach describe themselves as "a music and cross-media group" and are known for playing eclectic cover versions of famous songs. The songs were accompanied by images styled from North Korean propaganda posters projected on to a screen, with translations in Korean. The programme included a number of songs from The Sound of Music, including Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi and The Hills Are Alive. The 1965 musical is one of the few western films people are allowed to watch in the secretive state.

Posthumous Hit - Cilla Black landed her first ever number one album, with her Very Best Of comp

Italy - Sound designer Mike Bedford from consulting engineers Hoare Lea called upon Out Board's Robin Whittaker and TiMax SoundHub for immersive live 3D audio spatialisation and playback for the UK Pavilion at this year's Milan World Expo. Running until October 31st, Milan's Expo is focussed on sustainability, technology and food, with its theme entitled "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life". The UK pavilion is designed to resemble a giant beehive at the centre of a wildflower meadow created by Nottingham-based artist Wolfgang Buttress with engineer Tristan Simmonds.

Visitors traverse the meadow via sunken pathways so that they experience the bees' natural environment at head-height, and end up in the 14 metre high abstract beehive structure which hosts a multi-sensory immersive experience. TiMax propels a constantly changing composition of music and bee sounds around

Italy - Hoare Lea carried out the design of AV systems for the UK Pavilion at the World Expo 2015, which takes place in Milan from 1 May to 31 October 2015. With more than 140 countries represented and the theme of: 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life', Milan Expo 2015 is a platform for the exchange of ideas about food, stimulating creativity and promoting innovation for a sustainable future.

Under the title 'Grown in Britain & Northern Ireland', the UK's response is a stand-out Pavilion, designed by award-winning British artist Wolfgang Buttress. Inspired by pollination and by scientific research developed to monitor the health of beehives by physicist and bee expert Dr. Martin Bencsik, the UK Pavilion highlights the crucial role of pollination in our food supply, drawing attention to issues such as food security and biodiversity.

The UK Pavilion has been developed around th

USA - The legendary Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas recently upgraded several of its lounges and bars including what is now the new Vista Lounge, a unique immersive experience featuring the latest in video technology along with a sophisticated Martin Audio sound system.

SenovvA, an American-based design and management group specialising in the entertainment, special event, architectural-construction and media services industries, was tasked with the design and integration of this one-of-a-kind multimedia project.

Bill Sage, SenovvA Account Executive for the project, explains: "We worked with the Rockwell Architectural Group in New York and Bergman Walls and Associates in Las Vegas. They came up with this immersion concept for the Vista Lounge that makes you feel like you're at the top of a skyscraper looking out of the windows down at panoramic skylines of cities like Dubai,

USA - Constructed in 1964, UW-Stout's Johnson Fieldhouse has undergone numerous updates over time the most recent, a new audio system that depends almost exclusively on self-powered Tannoy VQNET loudspeakers for reinforcement of speech and music.

As the home of UW-Stout's men's and women's basketball, gymnastics and volleyball teams, the arena is primarily used for athletics, but it's also the site of the campus' annual commencement ceremonies and required an audio system to provide high intelligibility and even coverage regardless of whether the venue is set up for games, competitions, practice sessions, or commencement.

"The old system was installed roughly 25-years ago," says Lori Anda, Director, Recreation and Sports Complexes at UW-Stout, "but it wasn't efficient for events that weren't athletics. The speaker cluster was above the centre of the court so dur

Belgium - Back in the glam rock-ness of the 1970s, a small village in the middle of Belgium called Werchter decided to put on a one-day music festival. Over four decades on, Rock Wercher has become one of the largest events in the country's musical calendar. This year, it took a new direction, in terms of mixing console choice, with head of sound Patrick Demoustier making the decision for the house system to go completely digital with DiGiCo.

This was a milestone for the festival and Patrick Demoustier explains the reasoning behind making such a fundamental change. "We had talked a lot about moving Rock Werchter's house system from analogue to digital consoles and how we were going to do it," he says. "We didn't want to take any risks; if it went wrong and the experience was bad, our reputation would be bad too.

"We decided we could only do it using DiGiCo

UK - Launched in 2004 as an alternative to the established mainstream music festivals, Secret Garden Party is about music, people, places and stories coming together in the most hedonistic, magical, and out-of-this world experience one could ever hope for.

Originally created by Freddie Fellowes on his family's 6000-acre farm in Huntingdon, the festival has grown from a single stage, with a few thousand people, to around 32,000 spread over at least 15 stages.

This eclectic music and arts event surrounds a river and a lake (bearing a different eye popping sculpture each year) - and this year featured for the first time a Martin Audio MLA system on its premier stage (The Great Stage) - courtesy of Capital Sound.

Capital were introduced to the event five years ago to mitigate the site's historic sound problems and worked again alongside environmental sound specialists, CBA. The

China - Audinate has announced the opening of a new Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. The office will provide business development, technical sales and customer support in the greater Asia Pacific region.

The decision to open an Asia-Pacific headquarters was fuelled by the overall growth of the AV industry in Asia and the widespread adoption of Audinate's Dante media networking technology in the region. According to InfoComm, Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing market in the professional AV industry, and that holds true for Audinate as well. Audinate now has 44 Dante licensees in Asia, and 47% of those manufacturers have signed in just the last 12 months.

"This expansion reflects Audinate's success in this important market," states David Myers, COO of Audinate. "The new office will focus on business development and support activities for customers in China

Denmark - Rock band Volbeat's recent homecoming show broke records as the largest concert ever played in Denmark by a local act. With a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system, the show was heard by more than 37,000 in the Tusindarsskoven forest of Odense.

"I was blown away by the coverage," reports Mads Mikkelsen, long-time FOH engineer for Volbeat. "It's great to know that fans in the back hear the same thing as I do when mixing the show. That's really what I'm aiming for. The band should translate perfectly to every corner of the audience, and the last seat in the house should enjoy the same feeling that I get when I hear the guitars kick in."

Providing pristine coverage across the 160m deep audience area, the main system arrays comprised 14 Leo-M, two LyonN-M main, and two Lyon-W wide-coverage line array loudspeakers each. Two arra

UK - In an effort to support the future growth and success of the live events industry, Production Resource Group (PRG) in the UK has announced its participation in the UK Government's Apprenticeship Trailblazer scheme.

The UK Government has committed to delivering three million apprenticeships by 2020, and is giving employers a greater say in designing high quality apprenticeships which meet the needs of their respective industries.

Trailblazer groups create the Standards which become the blueprints for apprenticeships.

PRG has taken the lead on the Standard for the new Live Event Technician apprenticeship, and has been supported by AdLib Solutions, Britannia Row Productions, Entec Sound & Light, Fineline Lighting, Hawthorn, HSL Group, LS Live, Neg Earth Lighting, Nitelites, Skan PA, SSE Audio, XL Video, Wigwam Acoustics, and White Light in creating the Standards for this n

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