Pro Sound News Europe by Ed Miller

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November 2008 UK £4 €7 www.prosoundnewseurope.com

The business of professional audio WORLD

Avid streamlines business but audio R&D is secure Digidesign parent sheds 500 jobs in order to support core product lines Mel Lambert With a new management team and revised corporative focus for 2008, Avid Technology – parent of Digidesign, M-Audio and Sibelius – has moved into the next phase of restructuring its audio and video divisions. But recent financial results indicate a persistent slide in sales revenue; Q3 results released in late October show a 4% decline over the previous quarter. Major job losses and the sale of two product lines have been announced; however, company sources stress that R&D and customer support will not suffer from the planned staff reductions. Instead, economies will be made within duplicate sales operations and other areas that will now operate with increased efficiency. “We’ve made solid progress in transforming Avid by organising around our customers, delivering solutions that will help our customers

Avid/Digidesign’s launch of Pro Tools version 8 drew crowds at AES in San Francisco

succeed and taking necessary steps to align our cost structure to support our core product lines,” says Gary Greenfield, Avid’s chairman and CEO

who took up the post in December 2007. “We plan to leverage Avid’s collective audio and video strengths, from the consumer to the enterprise, in ways that will deliver sustainable value to customers and prospects.” For the three-month period ending 30 September, Avid reported revenue of $217.1 million, compared to Q3 2007’s $226.8 million. These results follow a Q2 2008 revenue of $222.9 million. Also announced during a recent conference call were 500 staff losses – 18.5% of the company’s workforce – the sale of its Softimage 3D product line to Autodesk for $35 million, and the sale of the Pinnacle PCTV line to Hauppauge Digital. The Pinnacle division and its line of products will remain in the Avid portfolio. Financial terms of the Pinnacle PCTV sale were not disclosed. story continued on page 10

UNITED KINGDOM "We've had an extremely good year, with sales of D Series and SD7 being up on last year, and the order intake is phenomenal on the SD8." So marketing director Dave Webster told PSN-e, our email newsletter, last month. On a recent visit to the factory near Edinburgh, Scotland, Webster revealed to PSNE the full scope of that intake: 298 orders. He demonstrated how DiGiCo has upscaled its production to cope with demand, and stated that the first 75 desks (right) were due to ship as PSNE went to press. “It’s surprised even us,” he said. “It’s really great to have this many orders so quickly, and to be able to continue to build the complete range of DiGiCo console in the UK.” The SD8 made its touring debut with Art Garfunkel, mixing monitors on a European trek in venues with a capacity of circa 2,000.

www.digiconsoles.com

See Mick Anderson feature, p42

Matt Danilowicz, Clear-Com

US/EUROPE

Clear-Com IP buy will bring intercom strength Kevin Hilton Intercom manufacturer Clear-Com has bought the internet protocol technology that forms the basis of its VoICE and Concert product ranges for an undisclosed sum. IV-Core was developed by Montreal-based Talkdynamics Technologies, which will now operate as Clear-Com Research. The acquisition shows a strong commitment by Clear-Com to this means of communications and underlines the growing importance of IP to the market. The two companies have been working together for the past four years and in June this year agreed a strategic partnership under which IV-Core would be embedded in Clear-Com’s hardware and software intercom systems. Speaking exclusively to PSNE, Clear-Com’s managing director, Matt Danilowicz, says VoICE had proved “quite popular” but the company wanted to go further with the technology and create a “native IP architecture” that would go direct into a matrix. “To do that we had to buy the company,” he says of the decision to acquire IV-Core. story continued on page 24

If you’re reaching for this, you’re probably not mixing with Yamaha. In the heat of the moment, the last thing you need is your console cracking under pressure. Leading engineers don’t just choose Yamaha digital mixers for their superb sound and innovative control surfaces, they choose the rock-solid reliability that guarantees peace of mind. Avoid performance anxiety, visit www.yamahacommercialaudio.com or call us on 01908 366700.

CONNECT WITH EXPERIENCE

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news & contents 3

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BELGIUM

Edith Piaf recording studio for sale Marc Maes Jet Studio, Belgium’s oldest recording facility was put up for sale on 5 October by owner Staf Verbeeck. The decision to sell the facility, a musical monument in its own right, was taken due to dropping revenues in the past three years. Originally designed as a theatre in 1900, the building in Jette, an area of Brussels, was transformed into a studio in 1942. Baron Pelgrims, owner of record company Fonior (and distributor of the Decca label), bought the premises and built a studio, the Decca Studio, with artists such as Edith Piaf recording there. In 1975, Italian/Belgian singer Salvatore Adamo took over the studio after Decca went bankrupt in 1973. Eight years later, producer/ engineer Erwin Vervaecke became the new owner, attracting artists like Shirley Bassey, Alain Delon, Michael Nyman and domestic talent Will Tura and Vaya Con Dios. Verbeeck entered the Jet Studio in partnership with financial group Pinguin Trust in 1997 – he assigned Roger Quested in reviewing the acoustics of the control room and studio. Three years later, Verbeeck became the full owner – he concluded a deal with music TV channel TMF to record live sessions for TV with bands like Manic Street Preachers, Live, Zita Swoon and many others – the superb acoustics of the recording area resulted in fabulous recordings and TV-shows. But now Verbeeck has been forced to sell up. “We had to negotiate over every booking, clients wanted to cut expenses ad infinitum and asked for more extras. In addition, record companies reduced their budgets for recording, while we were still

News 4 4 6

InfoComm opens European HQ in the UK West End closures not due to credit crunch AES San Francisco review

Studio 10 12 13 14 16 18 22

Tickle Music focusing on studio business Prism Sound grows its team eMerging enjoys HD boom Cardiff studio refit goes with a Bang At home with Paul van Dyk The key issues from the Develop Games Conference STUDIO BOOKINGS listing

Broadcast 23 24 26 28 Staf Verbeeck in the historic Jet Studio

facing substantial overhead expenses,” he says. “Also, after 11 years of ownership, I wanted to broaden my horizons – my new assignment for Ancienne Belgique is exactly that (see page 60). I really hope that the studio will be sold to someone with an ear and heart for music so that the building and its acoustics can be preserved.” Q www.jetstudio.com

UNITED KINGDOM

House of Lords role for Robin Millar? Producer Robin Millar could soon be appointed to the House of Lords as a cross-bench peer. Although best-known as a record producer with 150 platinum, gold and silver records to his credit, Millar is also active in numerous other roles, including as an Honorary Patron of the Music Producers Guild (MPG) and as a UNHCR music patron. Blind since the age of 16, Millar is also a noted fundraiser and champion for vulnerable people. Millar was interviewed for possible appointment to the Lords earlier this year. His nomination was sponsored by a variety of leading industry figures, including Sony Music Worldwide CEO Rob Stringer, John Kennedy, John Deacon and George Michael. In order to further Millar’s chances of selection, the MPG is currently collecting signatories and has already received Robin Millar has the support of the MPG messages of support from

In this issue...

more than 200 people, including Harvey Goldsmith, Peter Jenner, Tom Robinson and Gail Colson. Both MPG and non-MPG members are being asked to visit the MPG website (first link below), where they should look for the ‘Robin Millar in the House of Lords’ link that invites them to send an email registering their support. “Robin is a lovely, cantankerous, sharp-witted man,” MPG chairman Mike Howlett tells PSNE. “I have participated in a number of music business forum events and he has a terrific style – he just sits quietly until everyone has said their bit then puts his hand up and basically blows all the bullshit away in a very non-offensive but firm way… It would be fantastic if he was to secure a place in the House of Lords.” In other news, the MPG has opened the nomination process for its inaugural Awards event, set to take place on 19 February at the Café de Paris in London. Anyone wanting to nominate a recording professional for an award in any of the categories should visit the dedicated Awards website (second link below) and follow the instructions. Self-nomination is also an option. The winner of the Music Producers Guild Producer of the Year Award will also receive the BRIT Award for Best Producer following a recent arrangement with BRITs organiser The BPI. Q www.mpg.org.uk

Channel 4 puts DAB adoption in doubt Final touches made to BBC Radio Theatre Development of surround sound continues Megahertz completes EPIC project

Live 29 30 32 36 38 42 43 46 48 52

Flemish entertainment cluster formed K&F Sequenza 10 system in first Italian outing Sziget Festival goes from strength to strength PSNE revisits 18 Sound and finds automation is king ETA increases its VerTec inventory DiGiCo targets new users with entry-level SD8 Fatboy Slim takes to Brighton beach once more Ron Vogel on running the Focus sales arm JBL redefines the EON series LIVE EVENTS listing

Installation 54 55 56 58 60

Riedel acquires RockNet developer National Theatre, Prague installs Lawo consoles Truro Town Hall modernises sound system Italy’s Exhibo celebrates 50 years in business Ancienne Belgique utilises the power of the web

Business 62 Mainstream and niche brands make up the Scandinavian market 65 The intercoms market gets exciting 68 Online grows as a source of music royalties

Back pages 72 Hither & Dither 74 Interview: Rick Wakeman

Technology 69 New products 71 ROR: Review of reviews: Lexicon PCM96 digital reverb Universal Audio UAD-2 powered plug-ins Waves JJP Collection plug-ins

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Picture by John Tuffen

4 news & welcome

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 UNITED KINGDOM

InfoComm selects UK for European headquarters David Davies

Editor’s comment Dave Robinson

SOMETIMES A WEEK is a long time in pro-audio, to paraphrase former UK prime minister Harold Wilson. Last month, you may have read our article on Fleetwood Mobiles. The mobile recording venture was all a-glow about recent developments: a joining of forces with two other mobile operations, taking on new staff, bringing veteran engineers on-board as senior sound supervisors. All good stuff. Then literally the day before we went to press with our October issue, we heard a rumour that the company was in trouble. ‘In liquidation’, the rumour suggested. We called Fleetwood’s press officer; Fleetwood denied such accusations. Some restructuring, but definitely not liquidation. So we went ahead with the story. And then, while I’m at the AES show in San Francisco four days later, I get another message from the press officer. Yes, Fleetwood had gone into liquidation. PSNE October had already been printed by that time, of course. I thought – when my vexation had subsided – surely, when the rumours started flying that very week, didn’t Fleetwood really know that something was up? Couldn’t they have asked me to hold off publishing a story until the so-called ‘restructuring’ matter was settled? If there’s one thing this tightly-knit pro-audio community has taught me, it’s this: where there’s smoke, there’s not just a fire, there’s a raging bloody inferno. By the time you read this, Malcolm Jackson will have already sold off the Fleetwood kit, along with equipment from former post house Videosonics and, we hear just hours before press deadline, Mark Angelo studios. In a separate happening, Jet Studios in Belgium is up for sale too, you will have read on p3. There’s no hiding from the fact that these darkening winter days are bringing darker economic times. Avid would be first to confirm that, of course. But I’ve been impressed with the speed in which Avid has reacted to our call for clarity on recent events. And, despite the job losses, it seems the future is a little dimmer right now but bright for them in the long term: from conversations I had with Avid execs at IBC and AES (before the Q3 figures were in), a real push on interoperability and compatibility issues is going to make post-production for Avid/Digi users a much comfier place. Though, you may see Digidesign disappearing as a brand in a little while… Finally, round of applause for DiGiCo with their 298 orders for the SD8. There may be a lot of gloom around at the moment, but some businesses are still giving off light, and we should celebrate that. Q

In a move designed to boost the levels of support for its European membership, professional AV industry trade association InfoComm International has established a new office in the UK. The European HQ is complemented by an existing outlet in Germany, and will provide guidance and educational materials to InfoComm members across the continent. The inception of the European HQ, situated in St Albans, coincides with the formation of a new-look team to serve the UK and Europe. Although he will continue to be involved on an occasional consultancy basis, long-serving European regional director Geoff Turner retired from full-time duties at the end of October. Accordingly, Christopher Lavelle has taken on the position of UK regional manager, Sarah Carless has become European programme co-ordinator, and Godwin Demicoli has been promoted to regional director, Europe. Lavelle expects the new HQ to strengthen InfoComm’s relationship with its existing European members and encourage more companies to take an interest. “One of our main aims for 2009 is to get our members more involved in InfoComm,” he says. “The organisation has been very successful in terms of providing training and education for audiovisual companies; now we want to find out more about the requirements of the local market and encourage

Christophe Lavelle, UK regional manager

members to talk to each other in a bid to strengthen the entire industry.” “Opening a European headquarters sets the stage for increased membership activities in Europe,” adds Terry Friesenborg, InfoComm’s senior vice president, international development. “Member roundtables in cities across the continent will allow European members to network and discuss emerging industry issues. The office also provides an impor-

UNITED KINGDOM

West End closures not a result of the credit crunch

Don’t forget this: Take That show Never Forget, is closing early not because of financial conditions

Rob Speight It has been much reported in recent weeks that the credit crunch and impending recession is laying waste to many a once successful show in London’s West End. If The Independent’s article: “Crash brings down curtain on West End shows” of the 20 October and a swathe of others

such as The London Paper’s: “Curtain to Drop Early in West End” are to be believed, then the early closure of Avenue Q, Rifleman, Eurobeat, Never Forget and others are only the tip of the iceberg. If this is the case, shouldn’t specialist theatre sound companies be panicking, laying off staff

Terry Friesenborg, senior VP international development

tant home base for activities to enhance InfoComm’s education curricula with appropriate regional terminology and ways of doing business.” The roundtables will begin in February with sessions in London, Birmingham, York, Edinburgh and Dublin. In addition, two events organised in conjunction with the Royal Institute of British Architects are being planned for April and September. Q www.infocomm.org

and shutting the doors, hiding and crying into a bottle of Moët in the Green Room? “My feeling is that it’s all a great media excuse. I don’t believe things are closing because of the credit crunch. If Avenue Q closes a month early it is because a new show is due to go into the venue. The show has been on for nearly three years, which has surpassed everyone’s expectations,” said Duncan Bell, financial director at Autograph Sound. Whereas The Independent screamed: “A spate of West End shows have issued closure notices over the weekend, prompting caution in theatreland as the credit crunch hits box office sales.” However, Richard Pulford, chief executive of SoLT (Society of London Theatres) told PSNE: “It is correct that shows are closing, but there are always shows closing. Some have come to the end of their run and for others it is quite right that they should close. The idea that Avenue Q’s closing in March instead of April is a result of the economic downturn is absurd. In addition, advance sales across the board are very strong indeed.” Probably one of the highest profile shows to issue an early closure notice was Rifleman, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman at the Trafalgar Studios. The show, which only opened in September, closed 10 weeks early on 25 October. Eurobeat, a spoof of the Eurovision Song Contest will close early as will Never Forget, the Take That musical. Chris Headlam from Orbital reinforced the comments of others in the industry: “We all know there will eventually be a negative effect but we are not seeing it at this point. We don’t see any decrease in box office at this stage and to date we have not noticed any downturn in the theatre side of the business.” Q www.autograph.co.uk www.orbitalsound.co.uk www.solt.co.uk

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UNITED STATES

Technology aplenty in the City by the Bay With close to 18,000 attendees packed into the North Hall of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, there was a lot to see at the 125th AES Convention and Exposition. Mel Lambert presents ‘Seven from San Francisco’ – products that caught his eye, with a touch of analysis of their significance – while Dave Robinson and David Davies round up other debuts, developments and delights

The Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco was once again the venue for the AES Convention

Outside the walls of the Moscone, global economic troubles deepened. Banks shut down and the public shuddered. Nevertheless, this year’s US AES maintained the same buoyancy we’ve seen since 9/11. “Certainly everyone is concerned about the economy,” said AES incoming president Jim Anderson, “but equipment was being bought; people were taking advantage of Master Classes, Tutorials and other education opportunities to improve their skills, and networking was on overdrive. This was an extremely positive event.” AES 125’s conference and presentation programme included a keynote address by Record Plant co-founder

Chris Stone concerning current music industry challenges and opportunities, and a presentation by Geoff Emerick about the 40th anniversary cover version of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “From a standing room only audience for Opening Day Ceremonies and Chris Stone’s keynote address, to packed houses for most of our Platinum, Educational and Special Events… the 125th Convention will stand as a watermark against which future conventions will be measured,” commented Convention co-chair John Strawn. So, to my seven products to watch. Front and centre – literally as visitors entered the Expo space – was the much

Photo: Merelyn Davis

anticipated unveiling of Digidesign Pro Tools 8, which now sports a completely updated user interface, more than 70 plug-ins and virtual instruments, fullyintegrated MIDI and score editors, plus more editing features; the new release is compatible with HD, LE and MPowered rigs. Obviously motivated by user feedback and a long glance at the competition, PT8’s graphics are a remarkable development, combining a user-selectable colour palette, highcontrast text and imagery with a dockable Editor window and a configurable Edit window toolbar. In addition to a number of plug-ins, a very useful Elastic Pitch enables real-time transposition within the Edit window. For Pro Tools HD users,

SSL E-Series EQ strip

a new Satellite Link option allows simultaneous control of up to five systems. (Recent news about downscaling at Avid should not overshadow the significance of the new release, or the levels of interoperability, compatibility and ‘customer-centric’ delivery which Avid/Digidesign is beginning to absorb under the direction of its new board. There will be more on this in next month’s PSNE.) The fruits of an ongoing collaboration between Cakewalk and Roland (which owns a controlling stake in Cakewalk) turned a number of heads in San Francisco. The new SONAR VStudio 700 combines a Roland-developed controller with DSP-enhanced workstation software; in essence it represents a one-stop music and post solution with processing power to spare. V-Studio includes SONAR 8 Producer with Rapture, VS-700C V-Studio Console and I/O, Fantom VS synthesiser, plus direct control of EDIROL video editors. The USB 2.0-enabled I/O sports 24bit/192kHz converters, while preamps are said to complement SONAR’s 64bit data highways. Dedicated controllers extend the creativity of already powerful DAWs. The US price is expected to be close to $4,000; shipments begin February 2009. Turning to consoles, the new Soundcraft Si3 digital live-performance

SONAR V-Studio 700 was an important launch for Roland and Cakewalk

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analogue one out, put the digital one in. Everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liking the concept and the operating system. Both PLASA and AES have been fantastic launches for it. And weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hoping to ship early November.â&#x20AC;? With large-format analogue consoles a thing of the past for a vast majority of production facilities, a new pair of ESeries modules from Solid State Logicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s X-Rack/Mynx Series will allow users to achieve the EQ and dynamics sound of the famed SL-4000 E-Series channel strip. The EQ Module also offers a choice of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Brownâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Blackâ&#x20AC;? nuances offered during the E-Seriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lifetime in the Eighties â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the two were distinguished by different coloured knobs on the LF section â&#x20AC;&#x201C; while the Dynamics Module mimics the circuitry and key components of the original SL-611E strip, including a remodeled VCA. Since SSLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director of engineering Chris Jenkins was with the firm all those years ago when E Series was innovated, we can expect these new offerings to bear a remarkable similarity to the original. Proving that there is indeed life left in vintage microphone designs, Audio Engineering Associates unveiled the A440 Active Ribbon, which brings phantom power to the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chunky transducer that visually and sonically shares a close kinship with the famed RCA R44. A number of circuit enhancements ensure a sensitivity of -32.5dBV per Pascal (94dB SPL) and an equivalent noise level to 6dB SPL(A), enabling ribbonmic users to enjoy a dynamic-range performance that matches dynamic and condenser models. The A440 uses authentic RCA ribbon material housed in a cast bronze yoke and machined brass housing; the single diaphragm offers a familiar figure-8 polar pattern with consistent horizontal polar response, onand off-axis. Fairlight brought a number of new innovations to San Francisco, including Pyxis-MT, a much anticipated 192-track version of the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s video-equipped DAW, and the Connie II/two-bay and

Neutrikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s USA best-selling XX series XLRs have officially been blinged out with Swarovski crystals. According to Neutrik, this crystalCON-line is geared towards â&#x20AC;&#x153;users looking for that extra sparkle on stageâ&#x20AC;?. We say, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the connector for the artist who has everything. Miley Cyrus is reported to be one of the first customers. (Thanks to hand model Nicole Smith of D Pagan Communications!)

mixer, making its US debut, delivers what is says on the tin: a single-chassis, direct replacement for a conventional 64-by-24 analogue desk, using conventional I/O and no central control screen. Instead, to streamline the analogue-todigital transition â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and take advantage of those very useful reset capabilities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the surface looks and behaves like a lastcentury design. Assignment is handled on each channel strip, for example, which means that the learning curve is not an impediment for neophyte users â&#x20AC;&#x201C; â&#x20AC;&#x153;Where you look is where you controlâ&#x20AC;?. The design includes four Lexicon processors, 12 VCA groups and eight Mute groups. Soundcraftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dave Neal said reaction to the Si3 had been â&#x20AC;&#x153;brilliantâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of the key things is that people are immediately grasping the concept that its an all-in-one box, you can take the old

AEAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Active Ribbon version of the A440

Connie III/three-bay compact control surfaces. The Connie Series are lower-cost versions of the large-format DREAM Constellation console; both feature the new XCS/Xynergi Centre Section that adds powerful controller capabilities, and is driven by the Crystal Core/CC-1 engine, with features dramatically lower power consumption. The new XCS brings operator-pleasing Xynergi-based SLICK control technology to all Constellation Series surfaces with centralised functions. Usefully, Pyxis-MT does not require a Fairlight hardware controller â&#x20AC;&#x201C; instead it operates from a host PC with a custom GUI optimised for touch-screen or mouse operation. Finally, from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;I-wish-I-hadthought-of-thatâ&#x20AC;? department, a new San Francisco-based company is offering a

useful stereo-to-5.1-channel upmixing service for producers, TV stations and post houses. Send them a two- or three-channel track and for between $100 and $250 per minute, Penteo will process the material and deliver a stereocompatible 5.1 result. Having accurately checked the azimuth of the source material â&#x20AC;&#x201C; considered essential to extracting centre-channel information â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the firm applies its DSP magic to the in-and outof-phase content and delivers a truly stunning result. During demonstrations, Penteoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inventor John Wheeler summed an original stereo track with a derived 5.1 mix that had been collapsed back to stereo and inverted. The result was virtual silence as the signals cancelled one another. Users are just an FTP transfer away! f

Fairlightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DREAM Constellation â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Connie IIIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; plus a touch of glamour

Soundcraftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dave Neal experienced a very positive reaction to the new Si3

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And elsewhere on the showfloor... f John and Helen Meyer appeared

with Pablo Espinosa who has just been promoted to vice president of research and development. A long-time Meyer Sound associate, he comes to the role from his previous position as the company’s director of loudspeaker R&D. Meyer Sound was promoting the 500-HP, the latest in the company/ range of compact, high-output subwoofer that “integrates smartly with other Meyer Sound loudspeakers”. Following the launch of its UAD-2 DSP card (see PSNE October 2008, p18), Universal Audio announced the shipment of the LA-610 Mk II Classic Tube Recording Channel, a “feature enhanced, second-generation” version of its popular analogue product. The preamp and compressor use the same signal path as the original LA-610, and features the “legendary” 610 mic-pre and EQ section combined with an LA-2A style T4 opto-compressor. UA also showed off the Moog Multimode Filter, developed under licence and endorsed by Moog Music, for the UAD-1 (UAD-2 version to follow). Focusrite used AES 125 to launch the latest addition to the Liquid range, Liquid Mix HD, which is designed to deliver the power of Liquid Mix exclusively to the Pro Tools HD market. Also new is multichannel FireWire audio interface, the Focusrite Saffire PRO 40 (pictured), which includes eight Focusrite pre-amps, a host of I/O options, 10 analogue outputs, and two virtual ‘loopback’ inputs for routing digital audio between software applications. TC Electronic has turned the spotlight on a new addition to the PowerCore platform, PowerCore 6000. Designed for serious studios and professional applications, PowerCore 6000 incorporates eight FreeScale DSP engines, the same DSPs used in System 6000, and an

Trevor Coley and the SONORA mic pre/DI

Greg Gualtieri with his AM660 Fairchild-a-like

CharterOak’s Michael Deming and his

Michael Griffin and the MusicCord Pro

SRAM memory design that supports high-performance reverbs and delays. It also features seven plug-in algorithms from System 6000, including VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb, DVR 2 Digital Vintage Reverb, MD3 Stereo Mastering and Brickwall Limiter. On the heels of the IC Live Digitally Beam Steerable Array, launched at Infocomm and PLASA08, AES saw Renkus-Heinz launch the installationspecific counterpart, the high-powered IC Live-RF. Audio Precision unveiled two new four-channel models of its award-winning APx500 Series audio

(L-R) Geoff Emerick, APRS executive director Peter Filleul, Alan Parsons, British Trade & Industry Consul Jaclyn Mason and Maureen Droney (P&E Wing of NARAS) Photo: John Medina, WireImage

(L-R) John and Helen Meyer, the 500-HP and Pablo Espinosa

Small Studio Collection

analyser. The APx521 and APx526 offer the same performance, high-speed and one-click measurements as the APx520 and 525, but with four analogue input channels instead of two. Like the APx525, the APx526 includes a 192k digital I/O. LaChapell Audio, appearing with distributor Vintage King, launched the Model 583s vacuum tube preamp for the ‘500 Series’ format; meanwhile, Greg Gualtieri of Pendulum Audio/Anamod, demonstrated his AM660 “faithful recreation” of the Fairchild 660 limiter (but for 1/20th of the original cost). Gualtieri quipped, “Bizarrely, I bought a Fairchild 660 so I could model a product that would devalue the money I spent on that Fairchild 600.” sE Electronics’ Siwei Zou and Mr Rupert Neve unveiled the new Se RNR1 active ribbon microphone at the show, the first of several mics being readied for production in the Rupert Neve Signature sE series. Elsewhere at the Moscone, Josephson Engineering celebrated 20 years of mic manufacturing. Sontronics’ Trevor Coley showed off the SONORA two-channel solid state mic pre/DI box, which is shipping now. Bricasti Design demo’ed its Model 10 remote Console for the M7 Stereo Reverb Processor. The company, started in July of last year, has distribution in 23 countries is on course to have sold 1,000 systems by the end of 2008. Michael Griffin of Essential Sound Products was espousing the benefits of the MusicCord Pro, “innovative AC power cords designed specifically to enhance audio component performance to a new level of truth”. CharterOak Acoustics’ Michael Deming proffered his Small Studio Collection, a “total microphone solution for small recording studios with a

Chris Minto (left) and Asger Bak of MK Sound

tight budget and large studios that would like to add the CharterOak sound to their existing microphone collection”. Consisting of the SA538 Large Diaphragm Condenser, the E700 Solid State condenser and a sequentially numbered matched pair of M900s, “start-up and well established studios will be able to tackle any recording situation from vocals to orchestra to loud electric guitars,” adds Deming. AES was the first showing of MK Sound: in effect, the essence of Miller & Kreisel reborn, following Denmark audio man Asger Bak’s purchase of the company’s IP last year. Chris Minto, in charge of US sales, and Bak were on hand to re-introduce people to the sound, and reported to have had many compliments from Miller & Kreisel users, including the engineer who worked on Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic mix sessions. And finally, outside the Moscone, Alan Parsons got to receive his Sound Fellowship award from the APRS at the annual mixer party hosted by SPARS and APRS, with guests including Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. Q

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Roll on, Beethoven Having finally succeeded in acquiring the freehold of its west London site, Tickle Music Hire can focus anew on its burgeoning studio business, writes David Davies In a move described by the company’s directors as “the deal of our lives”, Tickle Music Hire has purchased the freehold of its main site, The Old Dairy, in Queen’s Park, west London. The news emerges shortly after the audio equipment rental house and studio operator reopened its Beethoven Street facility following the construction of a roof terrace. Situated on Kilburn Lane, The Old Dairy is home to numerous freelance engineers, producers and songwriters, many of whom rent individual units on the half-acre site. The facility also serves as Tickle Music Hire’s headquarters for its equipment hire and studio businesses. “It was gazillions, but a bargain all the same,” says Tad Barker, co-director (alongside Jerry Evans) of Tickle Music Hire. “This deal secures the future of all the producers, songwriters and other tenants here for many years to come. It’s also good security for us and means

SOUND BITES

f Arbiter Group has

announced a new partnership with Berlin-based Magix to distribute the Samplitude and Sequoia DAW programs in the UK and Ireland. Magix Samplitude is one of the most successful solutions for audio and MIDI recording, editing and mastering for PC. Arbiter Group will commence distribution immediately and will offer Samplitude 10X and Samplitude 10 ProX editions at £199.99 and £399.99 respectively for a limited period, a substantial saving on the full SRP of these products. www.arbiter.co.uk www.samplitude.com

f Originally scheduled to launch this autumn, the Celemony Melodyne DNA (Direct Note Access) plug-in is now expected to begin shipping towards the end of the first quarter of 2009. Prior to launch, Celemony is planning to inaugurate a Public Beta phase in which all registered Melodyne users – whether of Melodyne essential, Melodyne uno, Melodyne plugin, Melodyne cre8 or Melodyne studio – will be invited to participate and put the beta version through its paces in their own facilities. www.celemony.com

f The winner of the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize – an annual music prize awarded for the best album of the year from the UK or Ireland – was mastered using PMC monitoring equipment. Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid was mastered by Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering on a PMC BB5 XBD 5.1 system. Young’s other recent clients include Van Morrison, Bjork, The Kooks, Amy Macdonald, Grinderman, Manic Street Preachers and Babyshambles. www.pmc-speakers.com www.metropolis-group.co.uk

Tad Barker, co-director of Tickle Music

that we are here to stay. We still can’t quite believe that we pulled it off!” The Old Dairy is only a few minutes’ walk from Beethoven Street, one of two UK studio facilities owned and operated by Tickle. Arguably best-known as the venue for many of Seal’s most successful recordings, Beethoven Street fell into decline prior to Tickle taking an involvement in 2006. Revamping the studio around an SSL 4000E/G+ console originally owned by Bowie/Bolan producer Tony Visconti, Tickle also added classic outboard equipment and vintage microphones from its extensive inventory. Subsequent to this phase of work, Tickle has added a roof terrace, the recent completion of which was marked with a party attended by the likes of John Leckie and Phill Brown. “A roof terrace is a pretty unusual feature for a London studio, and it really gives the place an attractive vibe,” reckons Barker. Dave Eringa, Pete Wilkinson, Chris Sheldon and Baxter Dury are among those to have already made use of Beethoven Street, which is also proving to be an ideal complement to Tickle’s boutique residential recording facility, Warren House Farm. Incorporating a configuration originally deployed as a mobile set-up for the recording of albums including Blur’s Think Tank, the studio now occupies a converted farmhouse eight miles outside of Scarborough. “We’re finding that a lot of bands record their material at Warren House Farm, then travel down to spend two or three weeks mixing at Beethoven Street,” says Barker.

Avid streamlines The reduction in workforce will comprise 410 positions across the firm’s audio and video divisions, plus 90 within Softimage, based in Canada. No specific details were made available of where these staff losses will be concentrated; company sources indicate that the 400+ job losses will be made equally across each operational centre around the world, and will be mainly based around duplicate sales roles. Currently, professional video accounts for 54% of company revenue, with professional audio offering 33%. Reduced staff levels from the new, lean-and-mean Avid will lower worldwide staff levels to 2,200, down from a mid-year high of 2,700. According to Tex Schenkkan, Avid’s VP and general manager, audio: “These recent changes are part of our long-term transformation of the Avid operation from a group of [disparate brands] into a single company with multiple

(from cover)

customer segments and product lines.” For audio brands under the Avid umbrella, Schenkkan adds that Avid plans to “maintain brand identities that appeal to different groups of customers. We plan to leverage the Avid name more strongly across all market segments,” he concludes. The shedding of Softimage and portions of the Pinnacle product line can be seen as further evidence of a streamlined Avid business model, allowing the operation to focus more closely on professional audio and professional video, while continuing to develop integrated workflows across these complementary areas. “As we transform Avid’s business,” considers Greenfield, “our strategy is to focus on software applications that not only meet consumer demand but also complement our broader portfolio of video and audio solutions.” Avid/Digidesign successfully launched the latest incarna-

An SSL 4000E/G+ console takes centre stage at Beethoven Street

Inside Tickle’s residential recording facility, Warren House Farm

As with Warren House Farm, Beethoven Street is being promoted and booked by CEC Management’s Jess Gerry in conjunction with Emily Taylor from BrownPunk, the latest label project from Tricky and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. “Having worked previously with other recording facilities, we were keen to find a studio set-up that could offer a unique and personal service that would cater for the recording needs of discerning clients,” says Taylor. “We are so lucky to have found just that. The combination of the two studios enables us to be hugely flexible, honestly priced and yet still able to provide a superior level of facilities.”

tion of Pro Tools, version 8, at the AES show in San Francisco in early October. Paul Foeckler, Digidesign’s VP of sales and marketing, echoes Greenfield’s assessment. “One of Avid’s strengths as a company,” Foeckler says, “is its ability to provide creative tools for a broad market – from the enthusiast to the pro and enterprise customer. The company is going through a transformation to better align these customer segments and more effectively address their needs across the Avid portfolio.” This holistic design approach and added emphasis on integrated workflow are evidenced by the recent promotion of Dave Lebolt to Avid’s senior VP and chief technology officer; formerly he was VP/general manager of Digidesign. “The vision around Avid’s future is a renewed focus on addressing customer needs,” Lebolt says, “especially delivering integrated, end-to-end workflows that let people create in a fluid and seamless way. We can and should do more around interoperability between our audio and

Factor in the core rental operation and an event PA hire brand (Audio Hire) that continues to do good business, and Tickle Music Hire appears to be the embodiment of the modern 360o business model. “You have got to get as many bites of the cherry as possible,” confirms Barker. “It’s part and parcel of The Old Dairy, really, where we have people in every part of the business in the one yard – and if they can’t do a particular thing, they will know somebody who can.” Q www.audiohire.co.uk www.beethovenstreet.com www.brownpunk.tv www.ticklemusichire.com

video post products, and more, to tie together entry-level video offerings with pro-video products.” “Our challenge in working on Avid’s renewal,” concludes Lebolt, “is to balance a newer, more open ecosystem for people to collaborate in post production, music and live performance, while delivering innovation that can inspire our customers. It won’t be easy, and it’s a tough economic climate, but Avid has a lot of creative folks who are committed to making it happen.” With revitalisations at Avid beginning to move ahead, and results of staff layoffs and divisional sales still to impact the bottom line, it is too early to predict what the full impact will be. In any other economic climate it might be judged as a safe and proven strategy. But with credit restrictions and stock-market imbalances, not to mention dramatic fluctuations in currencies, it might not be plain sailing for the coming period for this international operation. Q www.avid.com

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SOUND BITES

UNITED KINGDOM

f Acoustic solutions

manufacturer Vicoustic has appointed Systems Workshop Distribution as its new distributor for the UK and Ireland. The Shropshire-based company will add Vicoustic’s product range to a portfolio of brands including Fohhn, Tube Tech, Schertler and Pearl microphones. Vicoustic offers a comprehensive range of Studio Line diffusion and absorption panels, bass traps and room kits for use in a range of venues. The company’s Premium Line products include the innovative Wave Wood and Flexi Wood panels.

www.vicoustic.com

f Hard-drive manufacturer Glyph Technologies has teamed up with sound effects publisher Blastwave FX to produce a range of drives preinstalled with HD sound effects libraries and search software. The libraries included in the new range are Sonopedia, The BlastDrive and TitleWave – all of which will be delivered on 250GB and 500GB Glyph GT 050Q drives. They will ship with Blastwave FX software, allowing users to search, audition and drag ’n’ drop files into most Mac or PC applications. www.blastwavefx.com www.glyphtech.com

‘Exceptional year’ prompts Prism Sound to add extra staff David Davies Seven people who previously worked under the SADiE banner have been added to the team at Prism Sound, which acquired the business and intellectual property rights of SADiE in April this year. Among those to have joined from SADiE are Steve Penn, who is handling product support; Mark Overall, in charge of SADiE production; Ed Tottenham, from the SADiE software team; Mark Evans, who looks after sales administration and product support; David Cousins,

who is responsible for processing SADiE orders; Matt Mason, who works in the accounts department; and Pete Nash, who is serving as a sales consultant. The company has also added Dan Poxton (software developer), Tim Reynolds (hardware engineer) and Christopher Bradbury (production assistant) to its ranks. “Despite the economic doom and gloom, we’ve had an exceptional year and this has led to the need for additional staff,” commented Prism Sound’s sales and marketing director, Graham Boswell. “Our existing product range is going from strength to strength and we’re now developing new products that will combine Prism Sound and SADiE technology in ways that will be of real benefit to our customer base.” Q www.prismsound.com

The new recruits

www.sadie.com

UNITED STATES

Royer Labs help the King to ride again David Davies Engineer Chuck Ainlay used Royer Labs ribbon microphones during production of an innovative album project that finds Elvis Presley duetting from beyond the grave on assorted Christmas standards. Pairing the King with leading contemporary country performers including Carrie Underwood and Martina McBride, Elvis Presley Christmas Duets was released last month.

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The album came together in two Nashville recording studios – RCA Records Studio B and Ainlay’s own facility at Sound Stage Studios – and used a Royer Labs R-121 ribbon microphone for ambient room miking and electric guitars; an R-122 Active Ribbon mic for acoustic guitar; and an R-122V Vacuum Tube ribbon mic for capturing strings. “I wanted this album to sound classic but current, so I chose these Royer

mics because of their warmth along with their ability to capture rapid transients,” said Ainlay, whose engineering/production credits include albums for Mark Knopfler, Vince Gill and Steve Earle. “On lower level instruments like acoustic guitars and stings, the 122s work really great because their built-in preamp allows for suitable gain without noise.” Ainlay also praised the mics’ robust build quality. “With a little care, Royer mics

Chuck Ainlay setting up his Royer R-122V for guitarist Jim Cooley

can withstand more rigorous treatment than other ribbon designs,” he said. Q www.chuckainlay.com www.royerlabs.com

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com UNITED KINGDOM

eMerging benefiting from the HD boom David Davies eMerging, the distribution and support company for Merging Technologies in the UK, has supplied major systems to London post-production house De Lane Lea, the Liverpool Institute of the Recording Arts (LIPA) and, also in Liverpool, Lime Pictures. For De Lane Lea, eMerging has provided a Merging Technologies VCube HD video playback system for installation in the main dubbing theatre. The system was purchased in response to the ongoing shift towards HD workflow for film production. The facility has been using standard definition VCube for several years, although the selection of VCube HD was by no means automatic. “We did look closely at the competition, but VCube seemed to offer us the friendliest user interface,” said Paul Jarvis, De Lane Lea’s technical manager. “Some of the competing systems were technically impressive, but couldn’t offer jog/shuttle-type control, forcing you to jump through a video file in increments rather than rewinding or forwarding in the traditional manner. We’re used to systems that emulate tape machines – you can see what’s happening with the image better. And the VCube seems to accept the major file formats and codecs without any trouble.” Elsewhere, eMerging has played an integral role in the design, construction and installation of six new audio

dubbing suites at Lime Pictures. Each features Merging Pyramix audio post-production DAWs, VCube HD high-definition video playback systems, and Merging Ramses control surfaces. Alongside the equipment from eMerging, Lime has also acquired new HD Sony HDC-1500 cameras, constructed a new Central Apparatus Room with a 102TB Data Direct video production SAN, and developed six new-build HD video editing suites based around Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Collectively, the project represents a major facility upgrade for Lime Pictures, arguably best-known as the

The surround suite at LIPA now features Pyramix DAWs

company behind Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. The technical team’s decision to go the Pyramix route dates back to 2006, since when the scope of the upgrade has expanded considerably. “It’s all about integrating well with the network, basically,” commented Lime’s head of dub, Chris Lovgreen. “We didn’t want work to tape at the dubbing stage any more – we wanted to stream all the pictures straight from the production SAN and, put simply, the VCube HD is the high-definition video playback tool that integrates best with Pyramix. Similarly, with Ramses, I liked the integration with Pyramix.” Also in Liverpool, eMerging has supplied a MassCore mix engine and version 6 software upgrade for the Pyramix DAW at LIPA. Q www.merginguk.com

Bob Earland with the new Audient console

UNITED KINGDOM

Audient warms up Alaska A recent upgrade to Alaska Studios in London saw the installation of a 36-channel Audient recording console alongside the studio’s collection of classic analogue outboard gear. “We still use 2” and 0.5” mastering tape for the artists who love to keep it old school and get that warm sound of analogue tape,” explains studio owner Beverley Lodge. “Saying that, most of the recordings we do are to hard disc, using Logic Pro 7/8 and MOTU interfaces. The Audient handles it all easily.” Studio engineer, Bob Earland, agrees: “The Audient has excellent routing, a very useable mix buss compressor and nice clean, uncoloured signal path. Routing has sped up the mixing process especially for the laying down of stems.” Alaska has just finished recording Roots Manuva’s latest album, Slime and Reason. “It was great to be part of that,” adds Lodge. “It’s a brilliant album!” Q www.audient.com

This easy-to-use commentator’s unit for two announcers plus guest has all you need for a perfect production: three intercom channels, stable technology, transformer balanced inputs and outputs, high-quality preamps and additional wide-ranging logic control interfaces. There are countless possible configurations – all tucked away out of the operators’ sight, making it impossible for them to do anything wrong. The Aircom Dual Commentator’s Unit from Zähl – the perfect tool for the perfect show.

Showpiece. Tel. +49 (0)89 419671- 0 · www.sono.de

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f The first AEA Big Ribbon A440 microphone to be sold in Europe has been bought by producer Steve Mac together with an AEA R88 stereo ribbon mic and a TRP ribbon mic preamplifier. Audio consultant KMR Audio supplied the A440, which is said to be the quietest microphone currently made and maintains a flat response and accurate figure-of-eight polar pattern down to 20Hz. www.kmraudio.com www.wesdooley.com

f This year’s Reproduced

Sound Conference retains its familiar format in a hotel environment with papers covering a wide range of issues relating to sound design for theatres, concert halls and sports venues. Other topics for debate include immersive sound fields and wavefield synthesis, digital audio encoding for broadcast sound and audio distribution. Scheduled for 20-21 November at the Barceló Old Ship Hotel in Brighton, the conference is organised by the IOA’s Electroacoustics Group and supported by the AES, the Association of British Theatre Technicians, the APRS and the Institute for Sound and Communications Engineers.

www.reproducedsound.co.uk

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 UNITED KINGDOM

Bang on target after major refurb Nigel Lord Bang Post Production in Cardiff has undergone a £150,000 refurbishment of its main dubbing theatre – said to be one of the biggest outside London. The major revamp – carried out by Munro Acoustics – took three weeks to complete and includes both acoustic and cosmetic improvements to the studio which has scored success on projects such as Abraham’s Point, Doctor Who and Torchwood. Theatre 1 has had its wall coverings, ceilings and lighting stripped out and replaced, and received new acoustic treatments designed to accommodate mixes for larger cinemas. Two new 18” sub woofers have also been installed to provide better low-end definition and the mixing console has been upgraded

Doug Sinclair (left) and Paul McFadden, owners of Bang Post Production

to a Digidesign D Control ES with multiple Pro Tools systems controlled from the desk. “This gives us the capacity to playback more than 380 tracks of audio in the theatre,” explains Doug Sinclair, supervising sound editor and the man who founded/runs Bang with business partner Paul McFadden. The revamp also saw the installation of a new high-def projector and picture playback has been dramatically improved with the incorporation of Avid Media Station. Having secured a full Dolby Digital Licence, Bang can Russell T Davies open the studio, watched by a Cyberfriend now mix Dolby

Cinema, full HD, Dolby E and Dolby Digital EX and plans to take on additional film and TV post production work. “Bang is a great example of a turnaround project where, with a lot of experience and accurate data, we can create a very good dubbing theatre,” comments Munro Acoustics’ director, Andy Munro. “A Dolby feature mixing theatre in Cardiff is a great addition to the burgeoning range of facilities we have designed and built in Wales, and I am all for that.”

Bang’s team has won two BAFTA Cymru awards, three BAFTA Cymru nominations, two national BAFTA nominations, and a MPSE Golden Reel nomination for sound in a foreign feature. The new facility was officially opened by Doctor Who revivalist and writer Russell T Davies on 1 October… while being observed closely by a Cyberman. Q www.bangpostproduction.com

UNITED KINGDOM Stewart Copeland (The Police) and Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) were the special guests at a recent British Video Association Blu-ray music showcase at Metropolis Studios in London. Providing surround sound for the event – which featured clips from Blu-ray DVD releases The Police: Certifiable and Strat Pack – was a PMC IB1S 5.1 system with XB3 subwoofer. Recent albums mastered at Metropolis with PMC equipment include The Verve’s Forth and Elbow’s Nationwide Mercury Music Prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid. Left to right are Mike Brown (BVA), Peter Thomas (PMC), Manzanera and Copeland. Q

www.pmc-speakers.com www.metropolis-group.co.uk

“I was looking for a console that was not only functional, but was inspirational as well.... I found it!” Richard McNamara - Embrace “The desk is in use from 10 till 10 every day and the students can’t get enough of it... [they] are all very impressed with the sound.” Bruce - Head Lecturer - SAE Amsterdam

VTC. ‘INSPIRING’. The TL Audio VTC (Valve Technology Console) is simply without competition. Nothing comes remotely close to providing the flexibility, the features and above all the impeccable sound that only real valves can create. Use the desk clean for a low noise, high quality signal path or drive the valves harder to produce luscious warm tones and rich sounding even harmonic distortion. But don’t just take our word for it, Producers, Artists and Engineers the world over refuse to track and mix on anything else. Read more about the VTC and their comments at : www.tlaudio.co.uk Prices start at just £9995 ex VAT

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“I just fell in love with it - I’ve never achieved a sound as warm and luscious as I’m currently getting, and having this vibe at the early stages of writing and recording is really spurring me on. The VTC is an absolutely inspiring desk to work with!” Kipper - Producer, Sting “When we saw the console we knew instantly that we had to have it. The EQ on the VTC is really detailed, making it easy to pick out what you want… It really is a monster piece of kit.” EMI Music Publishing “The quality of preamps on the VTC really attracted us. We needed the highest quality front end and wanted to keep the signal path as simple as possible with only one A/D stage. The VTC allows us to do that and it gives us that high quality valve sound.” Joe Bennett - Bath Spa University “We were immediately impressed by the quiet noise floor of the VTC - and the sound of the EQ is unreal. I only wish I could take it on tour with us!” Rick Smith - Underworld

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Paul van Dyk: Not a DJ in the usual sense of the word

GERMANY

Click van Dyk Phil Ward drops in on the world-beating DJ who mixes with Euphonix In a typically leafy suburb of Berlin, one of the pretty yet unassuming houses guards a secret. The cellar contains the private studio of Paul van Dyk, the East Berlin-born DJ who packs global dancefloors by night and returns home to make records inspired by the experience. Van Dyk is part of that generation who turned DJs from people who played records to people who made records. Embracing music technology, he became as much an electronic musician as DJ, picking up essential pro-audio insight along the way. Recently he procured a Euphonix System 5-MC to become the bridge of his mix Enterprise,

and has been using it on everything from a compilation of Cream Ibiza anthems and third-party remixes to work on his own, sixth album. “This is a very special set-up here, targeting exactly the way I work. Everything is mixed, finalised and produced here,” he reveals, adding that that this is where you’ll usually find him in between the 110-120 gigs he racks up each year. “I’m not a DJ in the common sense of the word,” he continues. “I’m not playing two records and mixing between them. Basically I have two computer set-ups on stage synchronised with each other, plus MIDI keyboards and MIDI controller keyboards. I’m

playing a lot of live things. So when you see something really taking off in front of a live audience, why not take that experience and actually put it back into the production in the studio?” While it’s Ableton Live on stage, back home the System 5-MC is used to penetrate deeply into Logic Pro. “The computers are so powerful now, it makes sense to have a native system with a mixing desk that becomes an oversized remote control,” he says. “You get the tactile interface, even though the computer enables you to do all the mixing within it. The special set-up in this studio is that every single channel has its own D-A converter, so it goes out digitally, gets mixed in analogue and goes back in. That’s why this place has a certain punch that would be missing if it was purely digital.”

The tactile interface is crucial, whether musician or DJ… “I just don’t like working with a mouse or track-ball all the time. We are talking about making music. When I mix a track I start with the drums, laying them out in a certain set-up. If I imagine setting a level with a mouse, it just wouldn’t feel right. Music has a lot do with feel, and in order to mix properly I need something like this. It will actually let you do more than the software currently lets you, and the potential is huge. For example, the joysticks are currently used for 5.1 mixing. But how cool would it be if they controlled filters, so you could use the X and Y axes to do some crazy effects? “What’s great about the console are the possibilities it gives you. It even has an input to the creativity that you put into the production. Suddenly you’ll see something and you think, yes, let’s try that. It doesn’t help with the general idea – you have to be creative to have that idea! But it helps you to nail it down right away. You can then enhance the idea and develop a full track. It gives you a grip on creativity.” Quite literally, in fact. Van Dyk makes full manual use of the faders, notwithstanding their digital autonomy. “I ride

the faders, of course,” he says. “There are some short cuts when we’re tracking, but when we do the proper mixdown we don’t use any automation at first. We lay the basic foundations by hand. Later in the mixdown we’ll start to use some automation and let the faders move on their own, but it’s never completely automated.” Next on the agenda is Euphonix’s Artist Series. Van Dyk has just taken delivery of both an MC Mix and MC Control, but hasn’t had much time to work with them so far. The studio is orientated around the System 5-MC, so they may well become part of the live set-up. Meanwhile, van Dyk and his engineer Jonas Zadow continue to push the boundaries between performance, composition and production. And the ultimate aim? “As much as composing music, it is a question of how one thing sounds in relation to another, so obviously you need to go into EQing and find out if they work together. We do always zero everything after the arrangement is done, so we can really begin to construct the sound properly. We’re then aiming for a clean, full-on, banging, punchy sound…” Q www.euphonix.com

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SOUND BITE

UNITED KINGDOM

f Vienna-based recording studio

Conference marks launch of Roland Music Academies Nigel Lord Roland UK has expanded its Music Academy Programme with the launch of eight new academies at colleges in Boston, Carmarthenshire, Leicester, Northampton, Oxford and Cherwell Valley in Preston, south Devon and Worcester. The occasion was marked by a recent two-day conference in Chepstow, where academy delegates had an opportunity to meet, exchange ideas and discuss future training. Guest speakers included Edirol’s Julien Tritsch who previewed the new Cakewalk/

V-Studio 700 with SONAR 8, and Dr Simon Pitt of Rockschool (awarding body for the Roland Certificate in Entrepreneurship). “We are delighted with the response from this first conference,” says David Barnard, Roland’s head of education. “Over the past two days we have seen a real sense of comradeship developing, combined with an excellent understanding of the immense task ahead and a genuine desire to make this project a success.” Q www.roland.co.uk

Tonzauber has taken delivery of the first SADiE LRX2 multitrack location recording interface in Austria. Supplied by SADiE’s Austrian and German distributor, ForTune, the LRX2 is being used as part of a mobile rig to record live classical and acoustic performances. Tonzauber already owned SADiE PCM4 and PCM8 systems, with studio owner/founder Georg Burdicek noting that “given our good experiences with the SADiE brand, it was a logical step to introduce SADiE into our mobile recording chain”. Roland Music Academy facilities at Walsall College Photo: Lis McDermott Photography

www.prismsound.com www.sadie.com

UNITED KINGDOM A recent refurbishment of the Bournemouth & Poole College studios at Knighton Heath included a new TL Audio M4 32-channel analogue mixing desk for Studio One plus new mixers and bass amps for the five rehearsal rooms. Martin Outhwaite, Academy Manager for Music, comments:

New PD Series Location Recorders

“The new desk uses a more traditional way of routing audio signals that allows teaching in a more practical and intuitive way. The facilities allow our students to have access to a professional workplace whilst studying at the college.” Q

www.thecollege.co.uk www.tlaudio.co.uk

UNITED KINGDOM

Duke meets Dudd Focusrite/Novation’s royal revelry, following the company’s attainment of the Queen’s Award for Innovation (see PSNE October), (L-R): Phil Dudderidge came to a close with the Duke on the 20 October, with a visit to the High Wycombe HQ by HRH The Duke Of Gloucester. “Not all winners of this coveted award are selected for further visitation by royalty!” says Focusrite/Novation’s Simon Halstead. After shaking hands with company president Phil Dudderidge (left), the Mayor, local councillors and the Novation team, the Duke was then shown around the facilities, particularly the R&D department, where the award-winning Automap technology was conceived and implemented. Q www.focusrite.com

Audio acquisition that’s as versatile as you are. www.fostex.jp Fostex Company, 3-2-35 Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, Japan 196-0021 Email: info_sales@fostex.jp

Designed from the ground up to excel in ‘real-world’ applications, wherever you happen to be in the world. The new PD606 (8-track) and PD204 (2-track) location recorders both offer spectacular audio quality, flexible recording to 12cm DVD-RAM, hard disc or a combination of both, rock solid timecode implementation, extended battery life, loads of ‘instant access’ knobs, buttons and switches plus a whole battery of interface options. But impressive features are only part of the script. Fostex’s unrivalled pedigree in designing and manufacturing world class location recorders for over 16 years and our unique understanding of the broadcast, film, tv and audio acquisition environments means that these new recorders aren’t just the best PD recorders ever, they’re simply the best professional location recorders available today.

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WORLD

Raising the stakes Increasing budgets for sound design, audio production and music scoring, more use of ‘live’ musicians, improved dialogue scripting, and more advanced mixing techniques – these were some of the main topics during this year’s Audio Track sessions at the Develop Games Conference, writes Mike Collins This summer’s Develop Games Conference was the third such event. Held in Brighton, it featured speakers from several leading games production companies, who went into detail about budgets and production techniques, audio teams, sound design and mixing styles. “Given a £1 million game budget, most of this is allocated to coding and design, with between 5% and 10% – £100,000 at best – allocated to audio,” complained Ciaran Walsh, audio director at Zoë Mode. “This is not very much when you have to pay a salary for an in-house sound designer for a year, then pay for voice recording and localisation. After all these things, you might have £20,000-£30,000 left for the music.” Walsh spoke about how he had to go ‘cap in hand’ to the publisher of a recent games title, You’re in the Movies!, to make a strong case for a significant budget increase for the music. In this

A game such as Battlefield: Bad Company can average 50 hours of audio

game, the player carries out various actions that are recorded and used to create movies, so you end up with a

whole bunch of movie genres – from silent era through to present day – requiring lots of different types of

music. Walsh realised that they would need a very experienced composer to create music for all these genres, so they

decided to hire top games composer Richard Jacques, and use at least some live music. “Having convinced the producer that the music budget needed to be increased significantly, we had to convince the publisher, demonstrating sampled and live versions of the score.” To clinch the deal, Walsh gave the publisher three budgetary options and ended up with the audio budget more than doubled, so they were able to use live brass and a 32-piece string section. Convincing decision makers to pay for ‘live’ musicians was one of the main themes of the day, with several speakers playing music scores created using samples and comparing these with the final versions recorded using real orchestras. Sound designer and composer Steve Burke from Rare spoke about the budget for the score for BanjoKazooie, a game he originally composed with samples using Cubase and Gigastudio. “Three months before the game came out we re-recorded the score using an 80-piece orchestra and a 40piece choir. It cost about £35,000 for the orchestra and studio time. We also had to hire an orchestrator, so altogether it cost about £45,000, but this gave us a soundtrack album as well.” Garry Taylor, audio manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), also had plenty to say about budgets and the problems that can arise during game production. “Previously, the problems were with limited audio memory and limited bandwidth,” he said. “Today, the problems are with

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managing complexity, managing production, and creating increasingly complex toolsets.” According to Taylor, the fact that budgets are rising to six or even seven figures introduces new challenges – mistakes can be much more costly, for example. Taylor revealed that a top-end title such as Heavenly Sword might have a complete audio budget of £800,000-£900,000, while a midsized title might have a £300,000 budget and a smaller title’s budget might be around £20,000. Games producers are increasingly taking note of how things are done in film production – and not only as far as music scores are concerned. Former Skywalker Sound re-recording mixer Tom Johnson, now based at Ardmore Sound in Ireland, made the point that some of the best film sound is not necessarily the most technologically advanced or the most overwhelming. According to Johnson, sound for movies used to cost much more when magnetic film tape was used – so it was thought about much more carefully before it was used. “Now we have too much sound with digital – terabytes to choose from!” Of course, there can be a lot more dialogue, sound effects and music used in today’s larger game productions. For example, Banjo-Kazooie required 20,000 lines of dialogue, 5,000 sound effects, and approximately two and a half hours of music. As Burke revealed: “We recorded all the speech in-house originally, then got it outsourced and localised in seven different languages.”

Top-end titles might have a complete audio budget of up to £900,000

probably for half a year – changing things in small steps that became the final mix.” Moellerstedt also described how DICE implemented real-time mastering in-game, giving the user three choices: home cinema with little or no processing; hi-fi with some filtering and compression; and TV with lots of compression and some limiting. A new technique called dynamic mixing is increasingly being used in games to limit the different types of sounds that are audible at any point. In older titles, car engine models have used dynamic mixing systems so that recordings of different engine revs could be mixed up or down accordingly.

“Previously the problems were with limited audio memory and limited bandwith. Today, the problems are with managing complexity and production, and creating increasingly complex toolsets” Many games actually last much longer than films. Discussing the mixing techniques used in Battlefield: Bad Company, David Moellerstedt, head of audio at DICE, pointed out that a battlefield game can average 50 hours or more. “Music albums and movies have a set structure and are much shorter, so a game needs to be mixed differently from other media,” he said. “We mixed this game constantly –

SCEE’s Taylor spoke enthusiastically about the latest capabilities: “Now we can save complete mixes and recall these according to in-game triggers, changing the mix depending on ingame events.” Illustrating how this might be done, Taylor explained: “With a compressor on every sub-group taking a key-input from every other sub-group, controlling the volume of one channel based on the

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level of another, your mix can be ‘self aware’. So everything ducks down when the dialogue comes in. Or if there’s lots of gunfire going on, you could trigger shouted dialogue and when it goes quiet again, go back to spoken dialogue.” Sound effects have always been important in games, but today there is a growing realisation that dialogue production is becoming more and more important. SCEE is now recording dialogue on the motion-capture stage using the actors instead of hiring voiceover artists – which was previously the norm. “Things have changed in big budget cinematic productions,” Taylor told the audience. “The actors on Getaway were doing voices as well as motion, and high-profile games are now using high-profile actors.” Taylor also recommended using experienced directors who would do whatever it takes to make the talent comfortable, “which is the only way to get best performance out of them!”. Adele Cutting from Electronic Arts agreed – having learnt a lesson by getting bad reviews for dialogue. “On the early Harry Potter games we did not use a trained scriptwriter, so all the different lines were spoken with the same voice. Each character should have had a different way of speaking!” Once the penny had dropped, they hired scriptwriters for subsequent episodes and got good reviews for the speech thereafter. What emerged at the end of the seminars was a realisation that games

www.ardmoresound.ie www.develop-conference.com www.ea.com www.rareware.com www.scee.com www.zoemode.com

Zoë Mode’s Ciaron Walsh

THE headphone company

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audio has reached a new level, and specialists are increasingly being employed to get the dialogue, sound effects and music to match, or even better, that of the best feature films. Budgets are increasing, but this has brought new responsibilities and greater risks of failure. Nevertheless, the overall feeling was of a new freedom to create world-class dialogue, sound effects and music for the next generation of games titles. Q

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Studio bookings

If you want your web address to be included in the magazine AND in the digital edition of Pro Sound News Europe for just £50 a year, please email Lianne on lkdavey@cmpi.biz for an order form

The Studio Bookings listing is a free service. All information is provided by the companies listed and PSNE cannot be held responsible for any factual errors. To be included in the listings, please contact Lianne Davey, studio bookings editor, on +44 20 7921 8401, or email lkdavey@cmpi.biz ARTIST

PROJECT

CLIENT

PRODUCER

Djee Djee Pita Mellow P

ENGINEER

Belgium Hype After all The Sedan Vault Loesh! Rauw en onbesproken

New Album Album Vanguard Mastering Mastering Grafrede

Dockyard 1 San Khepaw Recs Showarma Recs 9000 sessies

Studio La Chapelle Jef Neve The Chargers Arcadius

Pre Production EP Recording Pre Production

Jef Neve Concours cour-circuit Arcadius

+32 0495 401 231 Djee & Xtof Djee Volckaert Volckaert +32 487 44 60 78

Verdonckt

Denmark IRHOJ Irwin Starr Helle Borgesen Humble Rats

Tracks – Song Contest Irwin Starr Album Helle Tracks Artist

+45 563 81986 Irhoj/Stavnstrup/Winther Irhoj Johnsen/Irhoj Irhoj Bogelund Irhoj

France Beneath the Underdog Lili

Artist

Arnold

+33 6 2977 7477 Arnold

Germany Ballsaal Keimzeit

Album

www.ballsaal-studios.com Artist

Peter Brandt Remote Recording GmbH www.remoterecording.net Queen & Paul Rodgers World Tour Queen Joja Wendt DVD Feschfilm Lionel Richie SIR Entertainment Group Simple Plan Streetgig T Mobile

Grau

Justin Shirley Smith Schuetrumpf Schwedt Schuetrumpf

+49 30 8441 4960 BlackPete/Simon +49 212 254 1225 Smith/Brandt Saueressig/Born Brandt Carrol

Greece Athens Megaron En Chordais M Tzouganakis Mikis Theodorakis Estoudiantina

CD Live Recording

En Chordais General Publishing Co

Symphonic Works Omma Live Rec Recording Estoudiantina

Katsigiannis

+30 1 72 82 209 Mandopoulos Mandopoulos/ Blazoudakis Mandopoulos/ Blazoudakis Mandopoulos

May Horvath Kovacs

+36 1 383 2481 Lize Matok David

Kalaintzidis M Tzouganakis Omma

Hungary Digital Pro MSO Snetberger/Szakcsi GTI Band Origo Studio Lord Bishop Supernem Soundmasters Depresszio Various LB 27

Filmusic Mastering Album

Album Album

Album Voiceovers EP

Merlos Konzert Vox Arts Private

Lord Bishop 1G Records

HMR Music Viasat Europe MTV

Friedrich Jozsa

Erdelyi Erdelyi Erdelyi

+36 70 518 0801 Cserny Jozsa/Cserny +36 1454 0200 Hidasi Dunai Dunai

ARTIST

PROJECT

CLIENT

PRODUCER

ENGINEER

Album Album Tracks Tracks

Sena Tonaljos Music Tonaljos Music Tonaljos Music

Halldorson Steed Lord Bobo Hawks

+354 892 9000 Tempo Tempo Tempo Various

Artesuono Anuar Brahem Frank Harrison Paolo Fresu – Uri Caine

Album Album Mixing

www.artesuono.it ECM Frank Harrison EMI

Fonoprint Alessandro Ribella Skiantos Zucchero

CD CD CD/DVD

Universal Music

OASI Ponentino Trio Raffaello Simeoni

Album Album

Artist Finisterre

Artist Treglia

Officine Meccaniche Cesare Picco Carnera Deasonika Ministri

New Album New Album New Album New Album

Blumargot Officine Pan Idler Tommy Vertical Vision Zumpapa srl

Picco Carnera Deasonika Camagni

Monster Allergy 2 CD CD/DVD Kaulonia Taranta Festival

Rainbow Animation Agrosound Agrosound Eugenio Bennato

Rainbow Animation Sardella Sardella/Belelli Kaulonia/Bennato/ Sardella

SMC Ballista-Lucchetti OSGP Entracte

Album Album Album

Discantica SMC Discantica

Bertodo Bertodo Campajola

+39 1 254 8416 Campajola Campajola Campajola

Spazi Sonori Jerry Weldon Paolo Migone

Album Theater Music

Max Farao Dnart Studio

Farao Ciardulli

+39 586 504116 Barbieri Barbieri

Studio 52 Coro Del Conservatorio Luigi Rubino Daniela Del Monaco-

Demos Album Album

Conservatorio Di Napoli Mormile Artist Artist Ass Marco Mascagna Krauss

+39 8 1579 2599 Rescigno Rescigno Rescigno

Studiottanta Southlands Salvo Buono Orchestra Orizzontale

Mastering Mastering Album

SFR Artist SFR

Visentin-Southlands Artist Visentin

+39 141 928174 Visentin Visentin Visentin

Album Mix Album Album Mix

Artist Rough Trade I hate

Artist/Luuk Cox Boa/Vella Vella

+356 21 574 833 Cox Vella Vella

Iceland Tonaljos Laddi Steed Lord Bobo & Heartbreakers Hawks

Italy

Pink House R Belelli/F Sardella Lingaterre Riciclato circo musicale Various

+39 0432 570 0754 Eicher Amerio Frank Harrison Amerio Verdearanciomusica Amerio +39 51 585 254 Zucchini Carati Biancani

Leo Z

+39 06 3723312 Modugno Modugno +39 2813 8593 Cupertino Gohara Marco Trentacoste Gohara +39 3355 973004 Sardella Sardella Sardella Sardella

Malta Temple Nudex Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub Forsaken

RF signal to send frequency

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22 studio bookings ARTIST

PROJECT

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 CLIENT

PRODUCER

ENGINEER

Netherlands Excess The Comeback Delain X-Tinxion

Album Drumtracks Album

Artist Roadrunner Artist

Storm Artist Pieters

+31 1 0201 2111 Pieters Pieters Pieters

Portugal Estudio Vale de Lobos Zeca Medeiros Claud

www.estudiovaledelobos.com.pt Recording Recording

Borges Grilo

+351 963 051270 Guerreiro Guerreiro

Mastermix Casino Royal

Album

Janela

+351 239 952 143 Janela

Artez

Spain Sonic Vista Guru Josh Seamless Recordings Welt Recordings Nikki Squire

+34 627 151117 Sarmiento Sarmiento Sarmiento Sarmiento

Mixing Mastering Mastering Mastering

Sweden Studios 301 Project X Alain Clark

String Rec Tracking

Lady of the Lake Falk

Quiz and Larossi Falk

Mixing Single

PatateLane FM

DaveID DaveID

+46 8 730 0400 Ian Agate Falk

Switzerland Forces Motrices Lutin Crash Sunhill Project Studio Spaced Country Fries Tontechnikschule Trial off Frontline Troop Henri Gloveller Taurus KC/Ames Crescendo Sam Blunier Hyren

Demo Drums & Mix Workshop Album Mix & Mastering Album Mix Live

Album Classical Guitar Album Album Album

Gassmann Gruber Slamanig Red Alert Ent Artist

Artist/Schwitter tts Artist/Schwitter

+41 22 800 3280 Weber Weber +41 56 631 0353 Schwitter Schwitter Schwitter

Schwitter/Pathos Works Schwitter Gloveller/Schwitter Schwitter

Relsky Prods Crescendo

KC Crescendo/Lander

Sabina Publishing Hyren

Blunier/Lander Lander

+41 22 796 5218 Rudio Lander Lander Lander

UK Air Just Jack George Michael Project – The Road

Cave

+44 20 7794 0660 Reynolds Noble Jackson

Flood

+44 20 7232 0008 Flood

Peterson Sullivan Perkins Power

+44 20 7354 2525 Acott Wolf Thomas Price

www.miloco.co.uk New Album Rec Is Good Ltd

Flood

+44 20 7232 0008 Flood

Album Tracks EP EP Album Tracks

Sub Nova/Elliss Elliss Elliss Spiders

+44 130 276 9676 Elliss Elliss Elliss Elliss

Recording Mixing/Recording Recording

Alpha Centauri Recording The Hours

Mixing

Angel Recording Sarah Brightman Nine The Feeling Todd Sharpvile

Christmas Single Pre Record Christmas Single Charity Record

Assault & Battery 2 The Hours Axis Sub Nova All at Stake Chasing Amy Black Spiders

Mercury Panayiotou Nick Cave

www.a-centauri.co.uk Is Good Ltd

Steve Sidwell Weinstein Rhythm & Bookings Ltd Steve Power

Stunted Records AAS Pete Spiby Mgmt

Britannia Row The Verve Hermione Ross Dani Harmer MP4 Leon Jackson

Recording Album Vocals Tracking Tracking

Parlophone Black & Blonde Musik RIM Syco

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+44 20 7371 5872 Mclaren Pritchard Vessey Vessey Hall

Byre The Jack Mood Bungalow

CD CD

Big F Records Artist

Ramsey Reed

+44 1463 741829 Graeme Robertson

Lyn Beardsall

+44 1932 592 016 Buckley

Classic T Stage Rick Wakeman

In Concert

Rick Wakeman

ARTIST

PROJECT

Andre De Moller Spall N/A

Grueber Grueber Copping

Hear No Evil Wallander A Simple Man Above Suspicion Lark Rise

TV Drama Ballet TV Drama TV Drama

BC Threefold Lynda La Plante BBC

Phipps Davis Johnston Nott

+44 20 7385 8244 Parr Parr Parr Parr

Hillview Brian Eastwood Claire Luxton Chantelle Adonis Tjourmas

Album tracks Album tracks Writing Album Tracks

Brian Eastwood Guitars Cheap N Best Cheap N Best Hairy Dog

Ben Egg Ben Egg Ben Egg Tjoumas

+44 781 2649056 Bojan M Bojan M Egg Egg

Livingston Feeder Kronos Quartet Mongrel Tony Allen

www.livingstonstudios.co.uk New Tracks Feeder New Album Tracks Aga Khan Music Initiative Album Mix On U Sound Album Mix World Circuit Ltd

Norton Kronos Quartet Sherwood Nick Gold

+44 20 8889 6558 Massey Fraser Brendan Sonny

M2 Magnum CJM Music Soley Mourning Jim Lea

Album EP Album Album

Artist CJM Music Ltd Artist Jim Lea Music

Clarkin Stanley Mark & Sheena Jim Lea

+44 1902 840 440 Stuart Sear Sheena & Mark Sear

Metropolis Hikaru Utada James Blunt Mika Black Eyed Peas

Album Mixes Album Mixes Mixing Live DVD Album Tracks

Undercover Atlantic Universal Interscope

Will I Am

+44 20 8742 1111 Goetz B Elmhirst Lawrence Tucker/Lawrence

JesseRogg Colin Richardson

+44 20 7232 0008 Oli Wright Hyde

Smith

+44 1424 774 810 Uddin

Moulder

+44 20 7232 0008 Rankin Rankin Rankin

Musikbox Sam Sparro Bullet for my Valentine

Mixing Mixing

www.miloco.co.uk Island Sony/BMG

Parkgate The Cure

Album

Universal

Pool Sam Sparro Travis Bloc Party

www.miloco.co.uk Recording Island b sides Red Telephone Box Filming & RecordingWichita

Sain Ysgol Glanaethwy Gwyn Hughes Jones Fflint Male Voice Choir

www.sainwales.com/services/studop.aspx Album Sain Evans Album Sain Evans/Parri Album Sain Evans

Sawmills Hey Molly The Goodness

Tracks Tracks

Chris Wolstenholme The Goodness

Reeve Cornfield

Smokehouse Pete Brown

Tracks Dub Mix

Pete Brown

Sphere X Factor Christophe Williem Stereophonics Nadiya

TV Tracks Album Radio Tour Album

Sofa Sound Doll House Stereophonics

www.miloco.co.uk Recording & Mixing Z Management Mixing Mercury

Southern Studios Danananaykroyd Yokozuna Crass White Magik

Album Tracks Re-Mastering Album

Best Before Artist Southern Records Artist

Machine Birrell Rimboud

Sprint The Mirettes My Dazy Chain

Album Album

Sprint Music Sprint Music

Ratcliff Ratcliff

+44 1458 851010 Chamberlain Chamberlain

Square Princess Superstar Jamie T Elvin

www.miloco.co.uk Writing Nutricious Recording Virgin Recording Demos Virigin

Cox Hoffer

+44 20 7232 0008 Dring Dring Rejmer

Strongroom Maps Razorlight Late of the Pier Placebo

Mixing Mixing Mxing/Recording Recording

Mute Mercury Crosey Parlophone Alkan Riverman Management Bottrill

+44 20 7426 5100 Holmes Cervonaro Robertson Savours

The Way Arno Carstens David Waldner The Long Good Fridays

Album Album EP

Sony BMG Client Client

Strange Buttery Buttery

+44 20 7165 4756 Buttery/Strange Buttery Buttery

Toyshop Kid British

Mixing

Jones

+44 20 7232 0008 Aldridge

Pro Tools Transfers DRC

Rose

Engine Room Razorlight Kid British Magistrates

www.miloco.co.uk Album Mercury Album Tracks Mercury Rec New Tracks Machine Management

Crossey Jones Spencer

+44 20 7232 0008 Crossey Aldridge Eiles

Anning/Mullen Robbins Robbins/Mullen

+44 20 89770632 Anning Robbins Ott

Peters Duffy Anderson

+44 1938 810758 Fielding Fielding Anderson/Fielding

Wolf Dana Gillespie Monsoon Kava Kava Kat Vipers

Album Mastering Mastering Mastering

Crossey Brown Alkan

+44 20 7232 0008 Cervonaro Brown Robertson

Yard Out From Animals Andy Clockwise Pepys

Mixing Mix Mixing EP

Spinnin’ Records bv Spinnin’ Records bv PNC Publishing

Foel The Alarm The Mutineers The Groundhogs

Album/DVD Album Album

Garden Razorlight Flamboyant Bella Late of the Pier

www.miloco.co.uk Recording b sides Mercury Demo’s Big Life Recording Parlophone

21 Century Tri-tone Artist

ENGINEER

Album Mixing Tracks

+44 20 8964 8256 Rose/McBride

Single Tracks Celtic Manor/ Ryder Cup

PRODUCER

+44 1473 272756 Grueber Grueber Grueber

Deep NH

Fairlight Elize Elize Paul Kelly & Sarah Kempe

CLIENT

Gemini Andre De Moiler Band Paula Taylor Andy Copping

www.spherestudios.com SMP Sony BMG France Universal Sony BMG France

www.miloco.co.uk Mercury

Gillespie Malca Chocolate Fireguard Vipers www.miloco.co.uk Incredible Ironbark Entertainment Nitro Music

+44 1286 831111 Jones/Davies Davies Terry +44 1726 833 752 Joyce +44 20 7702 0789 Madden

+44 20 7326 9450 Wright Sellars Martin/Harris-PampouneauMartin Jones Bohannon Nadiya Blair +44 20 7232 0008 Hall Lowe

Gillespie/Cross

Gore

+44 20 8888 8949 Harvey Birrell Birrell Birrell Birrell

+44 20 7733 8088 Brethes Brethes Brethes Brethes +44 20 7232 0008 Lewis Rejmer Gore

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com UNITED KINGDOM

More doubts over DAB as Channel 4 pulls its radio plans Kevin Hilton DAB suffered another blow during October when Channel 4 Television abandoned its plans for digital radio. The broadcaster won the licence for the second national commercial DAB multiplex last year as part of the 4 Digital Group, and had intended to launch three stations. The move was blamed on “a rapid downturn” in C4’s core revenues and the need to save £100 million on its operational costs. C4’s chief executive, Andy Duncan, commented that the decision was taken “very reluctantly” and the broadcaster still believed DAB “has a strong future and that we could make a return from radio in the medium term”. Duncan added that, due to a drastic downturn in revenues, “we can no longer afford the short-term investment necessary given that we are having to cut so deeply across all parts of the organisation”. C4 is set to save as much as £10 million during 2009 after dropping its radio plans. Systems integrator Oxford Sound & Media had begun technical design work on the radio studios for C4’s headquarters in the Victoria area of London, but the project has been abandoned. Managing director Andrew Riley said the announcement came like a “bolt from the blue”. He added that his company had other contracts lined up, particularly in the theatre sector, but said the C4 situation showed there was a “bigger problem for the whole industry”. The UK regulatory and licensing body, Ofcom, issued a statement saying it recognised that today’s economic environment is “very challenging”. It was planning discussions with the other members of the 4 Digital Group to see how they proposed to move forward. Ofcom was also talking to other multiplex operators and the BBC regarding “a viable

SOUND BITES

f Custom Consoles has

confirmed three major orders for broadcast furniture following its appearance at IBC 2008. Two of the orders come from BBC divisions – BBC Training has purchased a new version of Media Desk with a 13U pedestal for installation at Wood Norton, while BBC Television has ordered two new System 2 desks. The remaining order, placed by the systems integration division of Shepperton-based reseller Altered Images, is for a five-bay Module R desk, incorporating an 8U equipment rack behind each of the five bays. www.customconsoles.co.uk

f Belfast-based audio

Canned: Channel 4 has “very reluctantly” abandoned plans for three digital radio stations

“We remain committed to developing our digital radio presence when and where we are satisfied that we have the right brands on the right platforms at the right time” outcome that is in the interests of radio listeners and the industry”. The 4 Digital Group also comprises Bauer Radio, BSkyB, The Carphone Warehouse Group, UBC Media and

UTV Radio. These partners had already delayed the launch of their contributions to the new multiplex, leaving C4 to lead the way. C4 had intended to put entertainment station E4 Radio on air this summer but, prior to this latest announcement, it was postponed to next year, with no dates for the other two services. Bauer issued a statement saying: “We believe the future for radio is to provide a multi-platform consumer experience, and we remain committed to developing our digital radio presence when and where we are satisfied that we have the right brands on the right platforms at the right time.” The Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB) said it regretted C4’s

decision, but chief executive Tony Moretta added: “DAB remains a strong proposition with sales up 20% year-onyear. The medium has made good, steady progress without C4 and, although it is a shame that we will not be able to enjoy E4 Radio, we will continue to see new stations launching on DAB in the coming months.” Despite this, and a 30% rise in digital radio listening figures, the doubts will remain over the future of DAB. But, as talk of a recession continues, there should be wider concerns for the radio industry itself. Q

compression specialist APT has appeared in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 – a list of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in Ireland – for the second year in a row. The company ranked number 28 in this year’s list. “Receiving such a prestigious award for the second consecutive year is a testament to the fact that we are on track to achieve our ambitious goals and is a huge endorsement of our success in an extremely competitive marketplace,” said APT CEO Noel McKenna.

www.aptx.com

www.channel4.com

f Audio & Design Reading, a retailer for RTW Meters in the UK, has sold what it describes as “a significant amount” of 10600 Surround Sound meters to broadcaster BSkyB. Special software changes were made to the devices to include a BSkyB display page. After assessing all the major meter suppliers, Sky chose the RTW 10600 because of its “intuitive display information”, says Audio & Design.

www.drdb.org

www.adrl.co.uk

www.ofcom.org.uk

www.rtw.de

www.bauermedia.co.uk

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

OUR ORDER Y LOG FREE CATA All the greats, from Barenboim to Bowie, have played in this room

UNITED KINGDOM

Curtain up on new V-Mixer at famous BBC Radio Theatre One of the final components in an extensive technical refurbishment of the BBC’s largest radio studio, the M-400 V-Mixing System from RSS by Roland, has been installed in the broadcaster’s famous Radio Theatre in London’s Broadcasting House. As part of a larger building programme, the Radio Theatre has been refurbished and fitted out for a wide range of audience shows, primarily but not exclusively output to radio, including light entertainment productions, comedy, Christmas specials and oneoff events. Built in the 1930s when it was known as the BBC Concert Hall, it has played host to Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Janet Baker and Kiri Te Kanawa. Since it became the 312-seat Radio Theatre in the mid-1990s, and featured a modern production gallery and a stage configured for a broader

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range of programmes, more familiar names including David Bowie, REM, Prince and Paul Weller have graced the facility. The RSS M-400 digital mixing system, supplied by Total Audio Solutions, has the job of mixing the two PA systems in the theatre, a d&b compact line array and a distributed speech system. More than 100 mic inputs are sent from stage via MADI to the main control console for the on-air broadcast mix. From the stagebox, a smaller selection of 40 inputs is split to the RSS S-4000 Digital Snake stage unit, travelling up Cat5e digital multicore to the M-400 console, where these inputs are used for the front-of-house sound mix, and providing up to eight foldback mixes if required. The system configuration permits the use of a second M-400 as a monitor console, currently seconded from a BBC multimedia events team. “The Roland M-400 was chosen for its powerful features and high-quality

mic pres,” explains Peter Knowles of Total Audio Solutions, who started his own career at Broadcasting House some 25 years ago. “Digital consoles of this type are ever-flexible tool boxes that can recall complex set-ups in seconds. The Roland can distribute its remote mic pres many times over.” With the M-400 halving the physical footprint of the previous analogue console used in the theatre, and the RSS Digital Snake 32 x 8 stage unit and 8x32 front-of-house unit fitting into a single 12U rack, the system is suitably compact and portable for an environment that has limited space. “If necessary, we can strike the system really quickly,” says events manager Mark Diamond, a contributor to Roland’s customer research on feature upgrades. “With some Radio OB vehicles using the same Snakes and M-400 consoles, we can turn up at very short notice and provide broadcast splits fast.” Q www.rolandsg.co.uk

Clear-Com IP buy seeks intercom strength In reality, Clear-Com has bought the technology and hired all the original Talkdynamics staff to continue the research and development work into voice and data systems that began when the company was founded in 2004. IVCore comprises Instant Voice Network (IV-N) and Instant Voice Router (IVRouter) and is based on routing, error recovery and noise suppression algorithms. Under the deal the lead developers of IV-Core, Talkdynamics’ president Stephane Menard and business development director Patrick Menard, join Clear-Com as director of

IP development and sales director of Clear-Com Concert respectively. Clear-Com is part of the Vitec group. During the 1990s it was a market leader in intercom, particularly across Europe. Vitec also owned Drake Electronics, a UK intercom manufacturer that had carved out a niche for itself with its digital systems. Matt Danilowicz says Clear-Com began to lose ground seven to eight years ago when Vitec decided to integrate the two companies and their product lines under a single banner. Danilowicz was appointed in 2006 to oversee the last stages of the integration

(from cover)

and help push the ‘new’ Clear-Com back into the market. This, he says, has been done by strong engineering in the core technologies of TDM and two- and fourwire systems, as well as in wireless and IP. “The IV-Core technology will give Clear-Com a competitive edge,” Danilowicz comments, “but for our customers it is important to show that IP is now ready for mission-critical applications like live production. We see IV-Core as the basis of our next generation of products but these are still a few years away.” Q www.clearcom.com

h See Intercom feature on p65

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The latest software innovation comes from Rastatt/Germany: The Real-Time Dolby ® E Plugin from Lawo. Lawo brings you a genuine world’s ﬁrst with the deﬁnitive real-time plugin decoder for surround bundles. The advantage: Dolby® E data can now be processed not only on a workstation in your edit studio but also in a live situation. In combination with the Lawo Plugin Server you will experience superb usability that sets new standards in your every-day programme work. Simultaneous decoding of several data streams, the easy porting of complete productions, and multiple use of your software licence – only the new Dolby® E Plugin, developed in close cooperation with Dolby Laboratories and Minnetonka, gives you these innovative features. More about this real-time plugin – exclusively from Lawo – at www.lawo.de

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EUROPE

Surround sound surrounds more as formats develop 5.1 and 7.1 are becoming commonplace but 22.2 is pushing boundaries, and even Ambisonics could make a comeback after a busy year for the surround sound market, writes Kevin Hilton New products, new formats, new company structures and a new-found enthusiasm from broadcasters have raised surround sound’s stock and profile this year. Bluray Disc (BD) is pushing consumers up to 7.1, and major broadcasters across Europe are establishing and developing 5.1 services, although many broadcast organisations and platform operators are still to decide how multichannel will be implemented. The leading manufacturers in the field are exploring new opportunities as well as consolidating in established areas. Dolby Laboratories introduced the first result of its acquisition of Coding Technologies at IBC 2008, exploiting the research and development specialist’s work in MPEG4 and low bit-rate technology to produce Pulse. This bit-stream format/encoder/ decoder package uses High Efficiency

MPEG Surround demo in an M35x Infiniti auto at AES San Francisco

Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) codecs. Jason Power, director of broadcast systems at Dolby Labs, describes it as being for situations in which

“efficiency is king and there is pressure on the amount of bandwidth available”. This includes digital TV networks with restricted space on the multiplexes,

IPTV, transmissions to mobile devices and the internet, with interactive view/listen-again services, such as BBC iPlayer, now a major consideration for broadcasters. Through Coding Technologies, Dolby is now part of the consortium behind MPEG Surround, which is intended for bit rates even lower than those handled by HE-AAC. Applications include mobile, web audio, IPTV and internet music delivery. For broadcasting, MPEG Surround can produce data rates on a par with stereo, doing away with the need to simulcast surround sound and two-channel signals. Also involved in the development of this system are Philips, LSI and the Fraunhofer Institute. Power views now as a “critical time” in the development of surround sound, as many broadcasters and platform operators are deciding what direction to take for high definition and other transmission systems. Last year the European Broadcasting Union named the Dolby range, primarily Dolby Digital Plus, and HE-AAC as the audio formats best suited to work with digital TV

systems, giving broadcasters a choice according to their circumstances. Last year the industry was rife with speculation about the future of DTS, which had worked closely with Coding Technologies, basing its TV surround offering on HE-AAC. The initial conclusion was that Dolby had effectively cornered the broadcast market, a blow for DTS, which was already trying to sell its digital cinema division. That business was finally settled in May this year when Beaufort California bought it for $3.3 million. In April DTS off-loaded its Digital Images facility to Reliance Big Entertainment for $7.5 million. During the summer DTS underwent a period of reorganisation, which saw the US parent company retaining its corporate headquarters in California. It now trades in Europe as DTS Licensing, with a new head office in Limerick, Ireland. The research and development and certification centre in Bangor, Northern Ireland continues to operate as before. Amid all this, the manufacturer launched version 1.6 of the DTS-HD Master Audio Suite and moved further into 7.1 loss-less coding. DTS is keen to promote the adoption of 7.1, which is being driven by the growth in BD. “It is developing at a faster rate than DVD – it’s going to be a big, big format,” says DTS Licensing’s recently appointed director of marketing for Europe, Anthony Wilkins. DTS was involved in NBC’s 5.1 coverage of the Beijing Olympics, using Linear Acoustic’s UPMAX:neo upmixers. Wilkins comments that DTS’s

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work in broadcast continues, with its system providing the audio component for the RiksTV digital terrestrial platform that is rolling out across Norway. Wilkins stresses that as the HE-AAC algorithm is an open standard, the takeover of Coding Technologies by Dolby did not have a big effect on DTS. Dolby is also benefiting from the onward march of BD, and Power says 7.1 is beginning to move from disc to TV. “Those broadcasters that are most interested see it as a way to offer a Bluray experience. As sales of BD players and discs increase, more consumers will have expectations of what the additional audio channels can do,” he says. Eight separate audio channels might seem more than enough, but future television systems could see a profusion of microphones and loudspeakers

UNITED KINGDOM Sonifex Mixer and SOL-T12 at Radio Lollipop launch: A Sonifex S2 mixer has been installed at a new studio for Radio Lollipop at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London. Set in glass walls, underneath the glass atrium of the hospital, the new facility is complemented by Sonifex’s S2 Solutions clear perspex range of studio furniture. “The Radio Lollipop Evelina project was a lovely, positive project to be involved with because of where it was and also the enthusiasm of the project team,” comments Richard Butlin, technical sales manager at Sonifex. “The design of the studio is amazing and I’m sure will bring a lot of happiness BBC R&I’s Super Hi-Vision OB test

to the children.”

transmission, London

www.sonifex.co.uk

Photo: BBC

Studer Digital Mixing Technology

Anthony Wilkins, DTS’s new addition

as NHK pushes on with its Super HiVision video system with 22.2 surround. The BBC and Italy’s RAI are assessing the technology in Europe. During IBC 2008 the UK public broadcaster organised a test transmission from London to Amsterdam that also involved Siemens IT Solutions and Services, SIS Live (including what was BBC OBs) and Cable & Wireless. The audio side was not quite 22.2 but sound supervisor Bill Whiston still had 18 mic inputs to handle for the broadcast from City Hall on the banks of the River Thames. The concept behind 22.2 is to provide something near 3D sound, with height as well as width and depth. A central array of eight microphones was augmented by another four above and three lower down. The BBC is now using Dolby Digital for its HD transmissions, but BBC R&I is continuing to assess other surround sound formats, which might be used for future video systems. Among the formats being evaluated are HE-AAC, 22.2 and Ambisonics, the surround system developed in the 1970s by Michael Gerzon. “We’re looking at the next generation of audio,” explains research engineer Andrew Mason. “One of the advantages of Ambisonics is that it can transcode to any number of loudspeakers, which helps with stereo and mono compatibility.” Which goes to prove that technology is always changing to meet new applications and that no format should be written off completely – although don’t start dusting off your old quad ELP albums just yet. Q www.bbc.co.uk/rd www.dolby.com www.dts.com

Already the choice of leading broadcasters and world-class concert venues, Studer’s intuitive and failsafe digital mixing technology is now proven on the road. The Vista 5 SR is a comprehensively re-engineered version of the acclaimed Vista system, incorporating revised ergonomics for operating in a standing position, and a unique temperature control system in a robust package that’s already delivering flexible,Vistonics™- powered FOH and monitor mixing on some of 2008’s biggest tours.

On tour with Celine Dion

On tour with Rascal Flatts

On tour with Katie Melua

“We were looking for one console that could be used for FOH and monitoring. The Vista 5 SR is one of the best sounding consoles, and it has a very small footprint and weighs just 30kg.” Frankie Desjardins, FOH Engineer

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“Studer have got it exactly right. This is the smallest footprint, lightest and easiest to use of the lot — everything is where you want it to be and all the parameters and displays just open up.” Bill Fertig, FOH Engineer

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UNITED KINGDOM

Install of the week! Megahertz completes revamp at Norwich’s EPIC, finds Dave Robinson The former Anglia TV studio, made famous by Nicholas Parsons’ famous catchphrase “From Norwich, it’s the quiz of the week!” every Sunday evening, has been converted to one of the most advanced independent HD studio and postproduction facilities in Europe. Broadcast systems integrator Megahertz Broadcast Systems (MHz)

has now completed the design, construction and installation work at the East of England Production Innovation Centre, or EPIC, a contract worth £1.3 million of the £1.5 million highdef refit of the centre’s production, editing and play-out facilities. MHz’s role in the refit included designing and realising high-definition production workflows at EPIC, installing a fibre-optic

(L-R): EPIC head of engineering David Hazel and director Mark Wells outside EPIC

studio infrastructure, server-based production, playout and editing facilities, and constructing custom furniture for the master production gallery. EPIC occupies the main drama/light entertainment studio and news facilities formerly owned by Anglia Television (and before that, a bowling alley!) and acquired by Norfolk County Council in 2006 when the television company sold it off. The Council’s aim was to ensure that Norwich’s long history as a centre of TV production skills and training was maintained. With the aid of the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), the studios reopened as EPIC, providing broadcast facilities to independent production companies and training facilities for future broadcast professionals, including students from Norwich’s School of Art & Design (now

the city’s University College of the Arts) using some of the old newsroom technology left behind by Anglia Television – although since mid-2007, nearly all that equipment, studio and postproduction, has been entirely replaced. David Hazel, EPIC’s head of engineering, says it was important to go further, and comprehensively refit EPIC so that it could also offer state-of-the-art broadcast and production facilities for drama and light entertainment clients. “The idea was that EPIC would offer broadcast professionals the facilities that they would expect to find in any mainstream broadcast studio,” explains Hazel. “And likewise, for the students we train, the idea was that we should familiarise them with the kind of kit that they might reasonably be expected to encounter when they joined the world

T H E R E N TA L C O M P A N Y View of the new main production control room at EPIC as constructed by MHz

Many years training, technical know-how, perfect preparation and a convincing audio performance to the ears of the world; after Vienna and Beijing, we are ready for the next big event.

www.audio-broadcast-services.de

of work after college. We could meet those twin demands – network production standards plus state-of-the-art education and training opportunities – only by going to high definition and a serverbased workflow.” Following a tendering process, MHz came in with the most competitive quote for the job. “But more than that,” says Hazel, “we also felt that Megahertz fully understood what we needed. With all the systems integrators that pitched for the upgrade work, we explained the type of systems that we knew we would need, but left it up to the SIs to shade in the finer details. MHz came up with designs we liked to fulfil our requirements, and at a reasonable cost.” Kit supplied includes six Sony HDC1500 high-definition cameras with Canon lenses; Thomson Grass Valley Kayak HD-capable vision mixers; JVC flat-screen HD monitors and plasma displays; a station-wide Telex talkback system; and a Thomson K2 server. MHz worked with Hazel and his team to integrate it with EPIC’s existing 60-terabyte SAN. Apple Macintoshes in the three studios now have access to both the SAN and the production K2, which also integrates with EPIC’s existing Final Cut Pro and Avid editing systems. “It’s a well-thought-out system, a proper tapeless workflow. It’s good for our commercial broadcast clients, because we can more than hold our own with national broadcasters on a technical level. And the students will be learning on tomorrow’s systems, not yesterdays. “EEDA is trying to kickstart creative resources within this region, and we are now perfectly placed to do that,” says Hazel proudly. “It’s going to be a very interesting 3-4 years as the building comes back to life and the post side and education grows. I’m reluctant to use these words, but the BBC and others don’t have anywhere near the kit that we have. This will be the place to come.” Q www.megahertz.co.uk

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com BELGIUM

Tales from the valley Three leading players in the international entertainment industry have moved their headquarters to a new site in Tildonk, Flemish Brabant, writes Marc Maes EML Creative Audio & Visual Solutions (EML), The Powershop and Stageco Belgium have all relocated to the Belgian town of Tildonk, on a site dubbed the ‘Flemish Entertainment Valley’, in a move designed to create synergies as Europe’s biggest (in terms of revenue and ‘weight’) entertainment cluster. “The unique thing here is that three independent companies, two of them major league players in Europe, plus Stageco leading the world list, are located on one site offering a complete solution: sound, light, production, staging and power supplies. This is more than just a rental company expanding its cache,” says Jan Van Malder, CEO with EML. The first company to build warehouses on the new site, just a few kilometres away from the site of the Rock Werchter festival stage, close to motorways and Brussels airport, was The Powershop. The company, founded in 1990, specialises in temporary mains supplies for events, and employs some 35 people, plus extra hands during the festival season. Although The Powershop’s initial activities consisted of renting power equipment and related services, the company also developed the sales side of the business; with a

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(L-R): Jan Van Malder, CEO, EML; Patrick Dams, rental manager, The Powershop; Jan De Meyer, CEO, The Powershop; Hedwig De Meyer, CEO, Stageco

Photo: M Gorremans

combined total revenue in 2007 of €9 million for the Belgian company and Dutch subsidiary, sales now account for 40% of activities. Headed by Jan De Meyer and Patrick Dams, the Powershop has a total output capacity of 25 megawatts; a shift into the design and sale of generators, distribution boxes and cables has seen investments of €1.5 million per annum. Stage building company Stageco Group serves a similar group of clients (festivals, events, concert tours) and holds a world-leading position in its niche. Before it was launched in 1985 as Stageco Belgium, it had built stages for Rock Werchter since the festival started in 1975, as well as Genesis’ Abacab world tour and Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason shows. Today, the Stageco Group, with a turnover in 2007 of €24million, and subsidiaries in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria and the US, enjoys international recognition, catering for international artist tours such as Tina Turner, U2, Bon Jovi, Robbie Williams,

Celine Dion, Metallica, Elton John, Ricky Martin, and more. According to founder and group CEO Hedwig De Meyer, the company’s future growth, alongside festivals and tours, lies in tailor-made supply for trade fairs, corporate events, TV production and sports events. “The new building in Tildonk will serve a 25-strong team to concentrate exactly on these new business opportunities for Stageco, boosting the company’s share in the domestic market,” says De Meyer. EML joined the Tildonk cluster when it invested €2.7 million in new headquarters – the building was officially inaugurated in September and includes 5,000sqm of covered storage facilities and 900sqm of office space on a total surface of 10,000sqm. The company, a major player in the European sound, light and production markets, posted growth of 20% in 2007 and a turnover of close to €22 million, through work in musicrelated projects, theatre, television and events. EML has subsidiaries in the Netherlands and Spain.

“We opted for a completely new building because the previous premises were too small and offered insufficient storage capacity,” comments Van Malder. “The new site can be expanded to 20,000sqm, and the main building has six loading docks, allowing maximum efficiency in loading and unloading. The building also comprises catering and lodging facilities.” Van Malder is confident about the future, and sees a steady growth of the entertainment world and the increased professionalism in the business – in the new Tildonk building, EML has a crew of five constantly active in R&D and designing new structures for transmission of sound and light, serving organisers Europe-wide. “A continued ‘Europeanisation’ of the sector will undoubtedly lead to more synergies – in this respect, a closer co-operation with our neighbours The Powershop and Stageco will be regarded with goodwill,” he adds. Q

Matt Bush to the position of vice president of sales. Bush joins Crown Audio from sister company, Harman Music Group, where he was vice president of operations. He takes the position previously held by Scott Robbins who was recently promoted to vice president of sales for Harman Professional. In his new role, Bush will direct worldwide sales operations from Crown Audio’s Indiana headquarters. www.harman.com

www.stageco.com

f B&C Speakers has appointed Bai Sheng Audio as its distributor in China. This newly created entity will be managed by Kevin Lin (pictured), who has been closely associated with B&C products in China since 2002. The loudspeaker transducer manufacturer was previously represented in China by Yun Lin.

www.thepowershop.eu

www.bcspeakers.com

www.eml-productions.com

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ITALY

Sequenza 10 saddles up for World Cycling Championship Kling & Freitag line array systems on first Italian outing, writes Mike Clark Following its launch at this year’s ProLight+Sound show in Frankfurt, Kling & Freitag’s new Sequenza 10 line array system recently made its Italian debut at a highprofile event in Varese, where the town’s Mapei Cycling Stadium was the focal (and finishing) point for the 75th Road Cycling World Championships, held from 22-28 September. After opening speeches by the authorities, the chairman of the International Cycling Union declared the World Championships officially open and the UCI flag was carried into the stadium by six world champions: Vittorio Adorni, Francesco Moser, Mario Cipollini, Gianni Bugno, Felice Gimondi and Ercole Baldini. Following a parade of the national flags of the 58 nations taking part, the thousands of cycling fans at the stadium were treated to a spectacular opening show by Studio Festi, whose extravagant productions were also seen at Turin’s 2006 Winter Olympics ceremonies. The systems installed for audio coverage for the main tiered seating at the finishing line and for the Festi show comprised two clusters, each with nine Sequenza 10, plus six subwoofers, (three Access B10 and three SW215E). There was also a ground stack for the seating dedicated to disabled spectators, formed by three Sequenza 10 and another SW215E sub. The stage hosting musical entertainment and other events in the World Village – situated in the centre of the

The opening ceremony featured parades and flying dancers Credit: Enzo Laiacona

A ground stack provided sound coverage for disabled spectators

stadium during the races – also had a K&F set-up, with a hang of six Sequenza 10 and four ground-stacked SW215E subs with another Sequenza on top on either side. These were controlled (as were the other systems in the stadium) by Kling & Freitag CD44 units, and powered by Lab.gruppen FP10000Q 4-channel amps. Another two smaller K&F systems were also used in Varese: the podium for

the prize-giving ceremonies had a system comprising CA1215-6 SP enclosures and CA106 on monitor; and the large pressroom had CA1001 SP systems and SW115E SP subs. All the systems were designed, installed and manned for Frame Communication, the championship’s main contractor, by audio rental firm Corsinotti of Grugliasco, near Turin. Corsinotti is one of two Italian companies to have purchased Sequenza 10 systems from Kling & Freitag’s Italian distributor, Audio Sales. The company’s founder, Rinaldo Corsinotti, explains: “We heard the Sequenza 10 systems in Germany – first in Hanover, at an open-air arena dedicated to shows and the screening of European Football Championship games, then at a concert by ZZ Top at the Singen Festival. We were struck by the systems’ incredible sound pressure, quality, linearity and uniformity, all in an enclosure that weighs just 32kg and has rapid, practical and secure flying hardware. We decided to

buy 24 systems after seeing their great flexibility – they can be used in several clusters or ground stacks, according to application requirements, and so are ideal for a wide variety of events.” Corsinotti supplied the SW214E subs as well as the line arrays for the event, supported directly by the German manufacturer, who supplied the remaining systems and relative processors for the key event and sent a technician to assist the Italian audio crew. Marco Alterini, sales manager with Audio Sales, confirmed that the other rental company that has already bought the Sequenza 10 line arrays is Ventilazione, based in Ancona. Ventilazione owner Giuseppe Pettinari says: “We’ve been satisfied users of Kling & Freitag systems since 2001. Before buying the Sequenza 10 – which we heard at a demo in Dusseldorf in May – we already had a stock of their Access and Line systems.” Ventilazione purchased 14 systems – Pettinari and his staff were impressed by the loudspeakers’ quality and versa-

tility. He concludes: “We’ll be using them indoors and out in a wide variety of situations – from jazz, classical and operatic music to rock and theatre productions. We were very impressed by the speed and ease with which they can be prepared and installed, thanks to their integrated rigging system, without any need for additional kit.” After the Cycling World Championships, Corsinotti enthused: “We also have a considerable stock of other top brands, so the Kling & Freitag systems were chosen after listening to them with a ‘critical ear’. My technicians and I find them really exceptional – beautiful systems with an incredible sound and great SPL!” This year’s championship saw Alessandro Ballan push on to become world champion. Q www.kling-freitag.info

Alessandro Ballan celebrates becoming the new world champion

The World Village stage featured a hang of six Sequenza 10

Photo: Bettini

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HUNGARY

Spirit of Sziget Originally a low-key student event, the Sziget Festival is now one of Europe’s largest and most highly rated summer gatherings. David Davies travelled to Budapest to sample an event renowned for its relaxed ambience and eclectic line-up A formidable total of 433 loudspeakers and subwoofers from Meyer Sound headlined the sound specification at the 2008 Sziget Festival, held in the Hungarian capital of Budapest during an extremely hot weekend in August. From relatively humble origins in the mid-1990s as a student event, Sziget has evolved over the ensuing decade-and-a-half to become one of Europe’s largest music and cultural festivals. Staged on a landscaped island in the Danube, the seven-day event has attracted an annual total of more than 350,000 visitors every year since 2001. Inevitably, the event’s spiralling popularity has paralleled its emergence as a regular fixture on the summer tour-

ing schedules of leading national and international acts. Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers and Nine Inch Nails are just a few of the mega-unit-shifting acts to have graced the main stage during the past few years, although Sziget is equally famed for its comprehensive coverage of non-mainstream acts on stages dedicated to jazz, blues, metal and other genres. In the same way that stories abound of some Glastonbury aficionados going days without actually witnessing any musical performances, Sziget also offers a variety of activities that have nothing whatsoever to do with music, ranging from alternative theatre to bungee-jumping. A no-frills rock festival it is not.

Trans-Global Underground featuring Natacha Atlas on the iWiW World Music Stage

While such an eclectic remit is hardly unheard of these days, Sziget has also forged an enviable reputation for its overwhelmingly easy-going atmosphere. Maybe it’s the sprawling nature of the site, the island location or indeed a combination of other factors too nebulous to pinpoint – whatever the case, the festival has been impressively trouble-free throughout its 15-year history. The relaxed ambience became apparent almost as soon as PSNE arrived on-site, although there was no mistaking the ability of the festival’s powerful sound systems to disturb the peace. Dominating the specification on many of the stages were loudspeakers and subs from Meyer Sound, which has been Sziget’s primary sound supplier

48 MILO and 16 MICA line array loudspeakers, along with 40 700-HP and 30 600-HP subwoofers, dominated the powerful Main Stage system

since 2003. The company’s European technical support representative, Károly Molnár, is the linchpin and key enabler of a huge logistical operation that entails substantial equipment supply by various regionally based companies (Expander 2000, Omega Sound, RenegatX, HG Events Team, Erla Sound, Amex Audio) and Londonheadquartered Capital Sound Hire, which brought two trucks of equipment to the 2008 festival. Budapest-based Chromatica provided 24-hour on-site technical support. While Meyer equipment was also utilised on the iWiW World Music, Metal Hammer, Jazz, Blues, Gipsy, Open Music, Open Air Theatre and new act-oriented Wan2 stages, it was the Main Stage that exemplified quite how significant a showcase for the company’s technology this event has become. Some 48 MILO and 16 MICA line array loudspeakers, augmented by 40 700-HP and 30 600-HP subwoofers, dominated the powerful system, which was used in conjunction with three Galileo processors and a variety of consoles, including DiGiCo D5s and Midas XL4s and Heritage 3000s. Berteaut Fleming – better known as ‘Mr Rude’ – was among the visiting engineers to find the Meyer system to his satisfaction. Speaking after a ribcage-rattling, bass-heavy set from Netherlands-based reggae revivalists Ziggi & The Renaissance Band, Fleming – the band’s long-term FOH engineer and studio associate –

Meyer line arrays featured heavily at the event

praised “the thump and clarity” of the MILO/MICA rig. “You want a heavy but mild sound for Ziggi’s music, and we definitely got that with this system,” he added. But with other acts including Iron Maiden, The Killers, Sex Pistols and a back-to-guitar-rock-roots REM, the Main Stage emphasis was on in-your-face rock ’n’ roll. If, in days gone by, Meyer Sound might not always have been the first-call choice for such music, the company’s touring manager, Paul Giansante, believes that events such as Sziget are helping to overturn any lingering misconceptions once and for all. “There are a few people who still don’t think of Meyer as rock ’n’ roll, but once you’ve heard the main stage for yourself, you’ll know that it definitely is!” f

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Meyer’s Károly Molnár, Expander engineer Pignon and Meyer’s Luke Jenks

f he told PSNE as an uncompromis-

ingly fiercesome set by hotly tipped UK trio The Cribs neared its climax.

“We received positive feedback about the coverage and the power of the system,” noted Molnár a few hours later to

a sonic backdrop of the resurgent Sex Pistols. “Every year, we think ‘what can we do better?’ Two years ago, we introduced the M3D full-range cardioid line array loudspeakers as delays to provide a full spectrum for people standing further from the stage, and that has definitely made a big difference. We have also moved towards full network-based control of the system in both drive and monitoring. We can monitor the actual state of the system using RMS and see the transfer function of each processor channel. A SIM audio analyser at FOH was also connected to the Galileos on stage. “Another important factor in terms of the Main Stage – and this also applies to the World Music stage – is that everybody gets the opportunity to soundcheck. That’s pretty rare at events of this size and scale, and it’s

one of those factors that makes people want to come back and play the festival again.” Meanwhile, over on the iWiW World Music stage, a system based around M3D line array loudspeakers and M3DSubs was put through its paces by acts as diverse as Irish traditional music sextet Altan, Balkani dance music troupe Fanfara Tirana and Jamaican dub legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. FOH-helming a set by Trans-Global Underground with special guest Natacha Atlas from a Yamaha PM5D, engineer David Hendon said that he was “very pleased to be using Meyer. There was a wellbalanced sound across the audience, and everybody seemed to be happy with it.” Although, as mentioned above, the festival has been admirably troublefree down the years, there have been

recurrent complaints from local residents about noise levels after dusk. In response, the organisers decreed that, for the 2008 edition, the Main Stage would shut down at 11pm, with levels on other stages also reduced at set times. In addition, a new central control point enabled organisers to monitor SPL levels across the site and take action if required. In summary, then: forward-looking in technological terms, but appealingly old-fashioned when it comes to the emphasis on good vibes and good times. In an era of increasingly bland, corporatised festivals, Sziget’s enduring success is not difficult to understand. Q www.capital-sound.co.uk www.expander.hu www.meyersound.com www.sziget.hu

(L-R): Jason Price of JAP Sound with Greg Oliver RCF alongside the RCF TT+

UNITED KINGDOM

JAP Sound progress with RCF TT+ Bedford-based audio hire, install and sales company JAP Sound recently purchased an RCF TT+ TTL33-A line array system along with a number of other TT+ loudspeakers. The company has become one of a carefully selected group of dealers/distributors that make up the RCF TT+ Audio Partnership, set up by RCF to support its flagship range of products. Jason Price MD of JAP Sound commented: “After using the system last year on numerous events, it became clear that it could certainly deliver a lot more than expected, the high SPL output along with crystal clear dynamic audio quality made it an easy choice”. JAP had ‘road tested’ several alternative systems from other manufacturers. Another deciding factor in the buying decision was the support they got from RCF, which proved very important to them when investing money in a new system. Price again: “Having dealt with RCF’s Greg Oliver previously when he was with EAW, I knew that the support would be excellent, and after a trip to RCF’s HQ [in Italy] I realised that the company was also fully behind its staff and customers which was very re-assuring.” JAP Sound immediately put the system into use on many of its larger corporate events. Greg Oliver comments: “The TT+ range has this year seen a huge rise in sales mainly due to companies like JAP and our other Audio Partners who can see the potential in the products. They can also see that as a product range it is as good, if not better than a lot of the other high-end systems on the market today, but from a business point of view it cost less, making real commercial sense.” Q www.japsound.co.uk www.rcfaudio.com

PSNE Oct P000

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

ITALY

i Robot(s) Italian transducer manufacturer 18 Sound has grown since PSNE last visited, two years ago. But one thing remains the same – its impressive devotion to technology, as Barney Jameson discovers Some loudspeaker manufacturers take pride in doing things the traditional way; employing long production lines of skilled workers, assembling their products largely by hand, listening carefully to each speaker as it emerges from the production line, and trusting the fault-finding capacity of the human ear above and beyond a mere oscillator. Then there’s 18 Sound, and its devotion to all things robotic. The transducer manufacturer, based in Italy’s industrial and culinary heartland, Reggio Emilia, is fiercely proud of the technology it employs in its substantial factory. No visitor can help but be struck by the sheer scale of the automa-

tion the company has developed. From conception to delivery, an 18 Sound loudspeaker will have passed through the claws of robots varying between a new giant picker selecting raw materials, an elegant gluing machine, and the robot whose responsibility it is to place speakers in their packaging with perfect, metallic efficiency. Human beings also exist in the 18 Sound warehouse, but it’s rare they get their hands dirty. Not that anyone who is familiar with the 18 Sound business model should be particularly surprised by any of this – the use of automation is, after all, key to the success of the relatively young brand. Conceived in 1997 by former RCF staffers

Giorgio Zucchi and Andrea Manzini, in tandem with automotive component manufacturer AEB, 18 Sound started production two years later with a mission to use robotics as the foundation for its entry into the market. Since then its faith in technology has turned into a kind of religious zeal, its enthusiasm spurred by the success it has enjoyed. “From the foundation of 18 Sound we focused on having a product come out of our production line exactly as it was developed by R&D,” enthuses sales and marketing manager Giacomo Previ. “It’s about robots – automation in the production process being able to repeat exactly the same operations. The speakers are

always the speakers we originally intended them to be. Automation is helping us to be competitive. Our strategy is to continue producing in Italy but, with the help of automation, keep the cost of manufacturing as low as possible.” During PSNE’s last visit, the 18 Sound philosophy was already very much in evidence. A sister company had been established, AEB Robotics, to manufacture the machines that would go on to build loudspeakers. “The AEB Robotics business was born because we needed to have a

giving us the possibility to have a longer breath. Not just a one-month breath, but a four-month breath, which gives us greater safety. Also, because we’re buying on a worldwide basis, we have more time for acquiring delivery terms.” It’s certainly an impressive sight, with thick walls of stacked boxes rising up into the rafters of the AEB warehouse, between which robots throw themselves, selecting the right components for whichever 18 Sound products their mechanic cousins are due to produce on

Despite the high level of automation, people still have a role to play

lot of automation and we were not able to support the high cost of the very highprecision robots,” remembers Previ. Even then, it was obvious that the brand was becoming significant not only within the wider audio industry, but within its parent company as well. “In terms of numbers, the automotive division is number one because it is the market leader and expanding,” he explains. “But in terms of growth, 18 Sound was number one from the beginning. 18 Sound is a young company that has grown three times in size since 2003.” With numbers like that it’s no wonder that AEB is willing to give its young gun so much support. But even in the past two years the world has changed, with the much-discussed global economic downturn striking hard at many a manufacturing facility. Oil is becoming increasingly expensive, raw materials are becoming scarcer, and new nonEuropean competitors are emerging with more strength than before. In the face of all these challenges, 18 Sound has remained true to its principles. “We’re expanding our manufacturing lines with new robots,” Previ declares. “It means we’ll be offering better quality while keeping the pricing at an interesting point.” The first example is already in place, and it’s mightily impressive. In the face of rising costs, the manufacturer has invested in a huge new automated warehouse capable of holding four months worth of raw materials at any one time. Previ believes that the benefit is obvious. “We’ve invested in the automated warehouse in order to be able to supply the products with the lowest possible pricing to the final customer. We can’t afford an iron or neodymium price increase unless we are working on a vision based over two or three years. That’s the standard in the automotive business, but not in the pro-audio industry. We try to apply the same principle. “It’s being able to look to the shortterm future in a better way. There is now a shortage of raw materials, and this is becoming more and more evident on a worldwide basis. But our warehouse is

“It’s about robots – automation in the production process being able to repeat exactly the same operations. The speakers are always the speakers we originally intended them to be” the production lines. Many of the loudspeakers that appear at the other end are destined for the OEM market. “Automation applied in our way gives us the flexibility to produce custom OEM products for other manufacturers that are not always able to order in big numbers,” says Previ. “It means we are able to manage fragmentation in terms of production without losing quality. At the moment, 50% of 18 Sound’s business is developed together with OEM partners. It’s a big proportion. But you can see in the catalogue that a lot of our products have been developed thanks to the effort we put into OEM. So, in terms of pure numbers, it’s 50% today but we want to expand. Our primary focus is OEM business. We believe that it’s the market that will tell you what it really needs, so we don’t try to make a me-too product line. We want to support customers with exactly what they need.” Some of those customers are surprising, as Previ explains: “I meet a lot of people in China who need high-quality products. They are looking around and buying from European manufacturers, which is creating a difference between their products and 100% Chinese products. It’s okay to be 100% Chinese for their market, but if they want to be competitive with big brands then Europe is where they have to go.” When PSNE last sat down with Previ, 18 Sound’s growth in the audio market story continued on page 38

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 UNITED KINGDOM

ETA expands to cover Docklands arenas SOUND BITES

f DiGiCo has moved its Greek

distribution channel to newly established company DN’A Systems, which is set to focus its attention on the digital sector of the Greek pro-audio market. Although DN’A Systems is a new enterprise, its founders – Takis Tsonopoulos, Yannis Tatsis, Aris Koyntouris and Alexios Gkanas – are familiar figures in the industry. “DiGiCo is the top digital console, so this appointment is very important for us,” explains Tsonopoulos. “We want to steer the Greek pro-audio community towards the digital world and teach analogue users that DiGiCo is a very friendly console.”

Looking to extend its rental fleet to provide auxiliary sound reinforcement for shows at London’s O2 Arena and the smaller Indigo2 venue, ETA Sound has increased its inventory of JBL VerTec speakers and Soundcraft Vi6 and Vi4 digital consoles. The North Wales-based company has been contracted to provide systems and site-wide maintenance for the O2 arena since its days as the Millennium Dome, relying heavily on Harman Pro systems operating on CobraNet. “During the past 10 years I’ve got to know the people at Harman Pro, and now Sound Technology, very well,” explains company owner, Eddie Thomas. “I felt the time was right to invest, and although I considered and reviewed other brands, we have such a fantastic relationship with Sound Technology that it was pointless looking elsewhere.”

Earlier this year, ETA purchased a pair of Soundcraft MH2 analogue desks and JBL 4887 VerTec line arrays with 4881 sub-bass cabinets, powered by Crown IT8000 amplifiers. The new additions include 12 Crown-powered VerTec 4888DP line arrays, which allow the VT4887s to take on side fill duties, depending on the coverage pattern required. Realising the importance of keeping abreast of developments in digital technology, Thomas also decided to look into the new generation Soundcraft consoles with the Studer Vistonics II interface… “I immediately liked the desk because it is so intuitive. You don’t have to scroll through numerous menus and pages. We can have one at front-of-house and one on monitors, all linked by optical fibre.” Q www.soundtech.co.uk

www.digico.org

f Capital Sound Hire has added a KV2 Audio EX system to its inventory for use at corporate retail commitments and combined services entertainment (CSE) shows. Supplied by LMC Audio, the system comprises two EX10 two-way, full-range active cabinets, plus two EX12s and a pair of EX2.2 active subwoofers. “We needed a very smart system for our corporate work and the KV2 looks very good,” commented Capital’s Ian Colville. “We also needed some very lightweight but powerful speakers to service our CSE contract.” www.capital-sound.co.uk www.kv2audio.com

ETA’s Eddie Thomas at the O2 Arena

Massive L-Acoustics system for Stockhausen epic David Davies A large L-Acoustics KIVA/KILO system was utilised for four performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen at the recent Musikfest Berlin. The concerts took place in a 1930s aircraft hangar at the city’s Tempelhof Airport. Composed between 1957 and 1959, Gruppen was written for 109 players divided into a trio of individually conducted orchestral units. The three groups are deployed in a horseshoe shape to the left, front and right of the audience, ensuring a clear distinction between the simultaneous but contrasting musical passages.

was impressive, and it remains so. But neither Previ nor the wider 18 Sound team are fooling themselves as to why the brand continues to flourish. Quality is paramount within the AEB building, but pragmatism comes a close second. “I think that the pro-audio market in general terms is not growing, so our growth is more because we are becoming increasingly respected in the proaudio community,” he explains. “I think it’s also because we are still a young company, even though we have invested a lot in technology, in R&D, materials and in automation.”

Responding to the requirement for three discrete speaker systems at FOH, sound system designer Paul van Baasbank specified eight KIVAs under two KILOs per side for the centre stage, augmented by a central cluster of six KIVAs. The left and right stages each featured systems of seven KIVAs and two KILOs, while two delays of six KIVAs and two KILOs provided a mono mix for the rear sections of the auditorium. The cabinets were provided and installed by German rental company Wilhelm and Wilhalm. Q www.l-acoustics.com

However, to simply focus on the high-tech robotics is to miss the real reason for its continued success – a healthy serving of very human forethought and planning. “The original idea in 1997 was to make not only a loudspeaker transducer company but to deliver transducers at the top of technology at a reasonable price without compromising reliability. If you want to take all of these steps in 11 years, you have to plan. We’re continuing to invest and think into the future because if we make the proper pillars to support our company structure, then this will help a lot.” It hasn’t failed yet. Q www.eighteensound.it

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AKG_ADV_670/1/E_245x335:Layout 1

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Music is

13:43 Uhr

Seite 1

Perception

Close your eyes and trust your ears: the new line of Perception microphones from AKG offers a range of solutions for anything from vocals to instrument miking and ensemble recording. AKG's signature "up-front" sound quality brings out the best and lets you hear all the nuances in any voice or instrument. Now open your eyes: gorgeous, rock-solid, die-cast chassis with gold-plated XLR outputs ready for heavy studio sessions or life on the road. Get blown away with Perception's sound and build quality and be astounded at how little they cost. For the price of

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AKG SOUNDS BETTER

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f EAW has begun shipping the new JFL210 Compact Constant Curvature Line Array. Designed to satisfy a variety of small- and medium-sized applications, the JFL210 modules are said to form easily configured arrays with very predictable output, and coherence and coverage that is both horizontally symmetric and consistent from short to long throws. Suitable for both flying and stacking, the two-way, full-range JFL210 incorporates neodymium drivers, user-switchable singleand bi-amp modes, and EAW’s RoadCoat enclosure finish, among other features.

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 BELGIUM

A Stellar piece of entertainment With clever use of sound effects and industrial noises, sound company brings the Stella Artois brewery back to life, Marc Maes finds

The brewery became a national monument in 1997

SELV revealed the sound and feel of a working facility

www.eaw.com

f Two Irish rental companies are

among the first clients to place orders for Midas’ new PRO6 Live Audio System, which made its debut at PLASA08. MG Audio and Murt Whelan Sound and Lighting have each purchased a PRO6 system from distributor Sound Communications. Whelan’s first major job for the PRO6 will be Sharon Shannon’s Christmas tour of Ireland, while MG Audio will put its newly purchased system on the road for Liam Lawton’s UK/Ireland shows in November and December. www.midasconsoles.com

As part of Belgium’s Open Monuments Day, held in September, the cultural organisation Sacred Places, backed by audio

Anyone fancy a pint?

service company SELV and light artist Tom Lagast, revisited the nostalgia of a former Stella Artois brewery. The event took place in De Eenhoorn (the Unicorn) brewery in Louvain – home of one of the world’s leading brewery groups, Inbev. The building was used to brew beer until 1976, and was classified as a national monument in 1997. “The idea was to revive the

atmosphere of the late 1950s, when the brewery was still being used,” explains Ludo Vleugels, audio engineer and manager of SELV audio services. ”With SELV, we were assigned to re-create the sound of a ‘brewery in motion’ around 1958. The rumbles caused by the machines and valves spawning steam were mixed with all kinds of industrial sounds and reproduced by speakers invisibly mounted inside old machinery. The impression of a human presence – workers walking through the halls, talking, coughing, the sound of breaking glass – was reproduced by separate speaker sets.” SELV used JBL Control 5 and Wharfedale Force 9 coaxial 12” speakers; Vleugels says that he picked older speak-

ers because of the possible contamination by dirt or mechanical damage. A Mackie 1402VLZ console controlled the APart Audio and Chevin power amplifiers; each of the brewery halls had a different sound background. VRT Radio producer Jan Sprengers compiled special CDs featuring hits from the year 1958 and experimental sounds of the same period. “The result was quite astonishing,” says Vleugels. “Old workers from De Eenhoorn said that the impression was very realistic… “[And] the overwhelming silence when we stopped the presentation at the end of the day: everybody realised that we really had created the original sound scenery of the brewery.” Q www.selv.be

#24479 - PSNE Stew Chaney ad

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11:54

Page 1

“In live TV there is no second chance, so we stand behind Yamaha.’’ Stewart Chaney Plus 4 Audio

From Gladiators to Dancing On Ice, Children In Need to The Royal Variety Performance, Plus 4 Audio has established itself as one of the primary choices for television studio sound in the UK. In critical live-to-air environments, founder Stewart Chaney knows that reliability and service is paramount to the ongoing success of his business. That’s why Plus 4 own every model of Yamaha console, from the LS9 to the PM1D. Ready to make the switch to the world’s leading digital consoles? Visit www.yamahacommercialaudio.com or call us on 01908 366700.

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UNITED KINGDOM

The up escalator Mick Anderson Consulting has fashioned DiGiCo’s first ‘entry-level’ desk. Phil Ward finds out which floor it’s on It’s a bit like the Queen at a car boot sale. She’d probably need some help with interpreting the sales lingo, and she definitely wouldn’t be carrying the local currency. She might well turn to Mick Anderson Consulting, an experienced outfit when it comes to knowledge of different market conditions. A few wise words from Anderson himself, and she’d have no bother at all shifting all those used corgi baskets. UK console manufacturer DiGiCo found itself in a similar position when the decision was taken to build the SD8.

James Gordon got in touch at the beginning of 2008,” explains Anderson, who had already brokered the successful distribution deal DiGiCo now has with Group Technologies in Australia. “There was a new product coming up that was going to be more volume-based, and he felt the company had little experience of that type of output. Rather than go through the difficult process of headhunting a permanent member of staff, he decided to use a consultancy that could handle exactly this kind of business development on a monthby-month basis.

briefs are so intense that no two competitors could sanction breaking the same bread at Anderson’s big, fluffy consulting table, so no further manufacturers of digital mixing consoles need apply. For the time being. “We have a speaker brand, an amplifier brand and a desk brand,” Anderson continues. “We work at such a deep level that, even though we offer confidentiality, there would eventually be some conflicts of interest. This is the fairest way to do our business, and the best way to give confidence to our clients.” Anderson describes the entry-level market now targeted by DiGiCo as “volume, but not consumables. It involves agreed commitment by your sales partners around the world”. But, crucially, the SD8 is pitched as a product that will help entry-level users move up-market, not a product that will send the manufacturer

Mick Anderson and the SD8 – ‘delivering what the market is asking for’

down-market. It’s a subtle distinction, but marketing is the discipline in which you try to design people’s perceptions – and you do it, in theory, for the benefit of a brand’s equity. Mick Anderson is the man to put that theory into practice. “It moves away from an almost custom-build situation into larger production runs,” he says. “Some users will be high-end, looking for a flexible add-

Assembly and quality checking of the circuit boards

Even though the number is one higher, it’s actually a subset of the SD7 launched last year amid techniques of such stealth they made the CIA look like San Francisco’s Love Parade. In essence it aims lower than any previous product in DiGiCo’s very high-end history, and the territory could loosely be described as virgin. Earlier this summer, it was announced that DiGiCo had “shifted up a gear” with Mick Anderson Consulting (MAC). Soon after it became apparent that the relationship predicated the advent of the SD8, and that MAC had been intimately involved in the positioning of the product, its pitch and its yaw. “Obviously I’ve known the senior executives at DiGiCo for many years, and [MD]

“So it’s not directly a sales or a marketing job; it takes an overview of all commercial activities, including sales and marketing, and tries to make the synergies work. The SD8 is a high-specification product at a very cost-efficient price. The key thing is that it’s not the result of R&D showing off some new technology, it’s the result of DiGiCo listening to the market and delivering what the market is asking for.” According to Anderson, the market is asking for more spec for less money – like markets do. He therefore had to line up DiGiCo with a different commercial template, with the aim of having most things in place by this year’s PLASA show. Early indicators suggest DiGiCo and Anderson read the market correctly: as our cover caption story relates, orders for the SD8 are just shy of the 300 mark and the first batch of 75 are almost ready to ship from DiGiCo’s Glenrothes factory in Scotland. The partnership continues. “New distribution is definitely within my catchment area,” Anderson says, “so along with the existing sales force at DiGiCo I am producing new contacts and very much deciding the right direction to go in. No doubt in time the trend towards volume will necessitate more sales facilities, although right now we have a good handle on it.” MAC is methodically compiling a portfolio of non-competing brands. The

Tel. +49-7191-9669-0, www.dbaudio.com

Meet some of the team who put the SD8 together

And. But. Also. The new E-Series systems.

on, but all through the year there will be a steady match of supply and demand from a new customer base. And these people will enter the DiGiCo fold, with its unrivalled expertise and experience, creating a core network of users on an upwardly mobile curve of excellent support. That suits me: I don’t take people down; I carry them up.” Q www.digico.org

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com

UNITED KINGDOM

Fatboy Slim comes home Jim Evans Fatboy Slim aka Norman Cook brought his Big Beach Boutique back to his hometown of Brighton at the end of September and attracted an all-ticket crowd of some 22,000.

However, as on previous occasions, the event was not without controversy. The venue – a long and narrow stretch of esplanade nestling at sea level between the beach and the upper promenade – is far from ideal. Fans com-

Superstar DJ Danny Tenaglia was one of the guests

plained of dangerous overcrowding, especially during the build-up to Fatboy Slim’s scheduled appearance. And some of those furthest from the stage complained of poor sound quality. Event manager Jim King of Loud Sounds said: “It is clearly disappointing to hear that some people had safety concerns and we take these very, very seriously. But it must be noted that only a few hundred people left before the end, with more than 21,000 people remaining until the end, enjoying a great show.” Loud Sounds said they would take all complaints on board for planning any future event. Central to the event’s sound system was a d&b J Series set-up, provided by Encore PA and co-ordinated by the Brighton-based H2 Organisation. “Because of the strict guidelines imposed by the local authorities Gareth Hance of H2 was brought on board to

Norman Cook having fun in his home town

Light, loud, compact and enclosed within robust polyurethane cabinets: the modest d&b systems E8, E12 and E12-D are upwardly mobile.

co-ordinate all sound issues,” said production manager Lee Charteris. “It was a great opportunity to use the d&b system which we have used in Europe for a couple of Fatboy shows in the past.” “In short, the d&b J-series rocks,” said Hance who also worked on the recent inaugural Beachdown festival on nearby Devil’s Dyke. “We selected d&b because it is one of the best sounding products available today and is uber rider friendly. It also has impeccable pattern control which is exactly what we needed for this gig. “The Brighton & Hove Environmental Health people placed some seriously strict conditions on the licence regarding noise schedule and levels. In the past, these off-site levels have been near impossible to achieve without running a very quiet system on Madeira Drive or causing a lot of complaints and potential licence condition breaches.

A whale of a performance

The council were amazed at the directionality of the system. We achieved over 110dB on the pit rail and 99dB at 200m which only raised the noise levels by a mere 3dB above normal at local residences just 40m away from the stage.” Q

UNITED STATES Best known as the leader of eclectic blues band G. Love and Special Sauce, G. Love (real name Garrett Dutton III) is a long-time user of Shure’s SM58 microphone, although his devotion has led to the odd unscheduled trip to the dentist over the years. “I’ve busted [one of my front teeth] on my mic a number of times,” he admitted. “I’ll be rapping, or stomping my foot while playing guitar, and accidentally stomp on the base of the mic stand. The mic, of course, comes straight back at me and hits me square in the mouth.” Q

www.shure.com

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 UNITED KINGDOM

The new D6: the little D12. Dual channel amplifier, the efficient solution with the d&b E-Series. Bye E-PAC. Buy D6.

www.dbaudio.com

Wigwam and Skan take in new L-Acoustics gear Two prominent UK rental companies have recently made major additions to their L-Acoustics equipment inventories. Wigwam Hire has taken delivery of 32 SB28 subwoofers and 24 LA8 amplified controllers, while Skan Hire has purchased 32 SB28s and 60 LA8s. The new SB28 features L-Acoustics’ Laminar Airflow Vents – a new bass reflex vent design which, combined with high excursion components, yields a 5dB increase in dynamic range. “I heard the new subs, thought they were great and bought some to replace

Geoff Muir, Wigwam’s contracts manager (left) and Billy Ellison, Wigwam’s warehouse manager, with the SB28 subs

some of our older stock,” explains Wigwam’s Chris Hill. “At the same time, we thought we’d also dip our toes in the water with the new amps.” The

LA8 controller is said to offer “cuttingedge” speaker amplification, DSP, network control and comprehensive protection. Wigwam has been using the new SB28s and LA8s on tours with Radiohead, Human League and Shane Ward. Skan, which joined L-Acoustics’ network in 2003, introduced the new subs and racks on REM’s current European tour. Q www.l-acoustics.com

Ohm is supplying a ready-to-go package that packs a punch

UNITED KINGDOM

DREAM CURVES

Plug ‘n’ play, all the way Ohm Dave Robinson

The KIVA system establishes a new reference in Line Source Array technology in a sleek and ultra-compact design. Its integration with the LA4 amplified controller combines advanced filter topologies, L-DRIVE power limiting, and an innovative enclosure voicing approach. Further, the incorporation of intuitive remote control and monitoring via LA NETWORK MANAGER, the complete KIVA System delivers the full potential of its DOSC® heritage for an incomparable listening experience. More on www.l-acoustics.com

A complete plug ’n’ play solution is now available from Ohm in the UK, including speakers, DSP amplifiers, patch panel, power distribution, flight cases and cabling. The basic three-way system, consisting of three TRS-118H bass bins and two TRS-112H mid/high cabinets per side, can all be powered using three lightweight DSP amplifiers housed in an 8U case with a patch panel that features routing for signal inputs, speaker outputs and remote Ethernet DSP control. Power distribution, housed in the matching 8U case, has a three-phase input with six C32 outputs, each having its own voltage and current meters. Trip switches are provided for the input and each of the outputs along with UK and European mains outlets. “The use of 8-ohm single driver speakers considerably simplifies the amplifier requirements allowing the complete system to be powered from three amplifiers,” says Ohm’s sales manager Clive Kinton. “Skillful cabinet design ensures that the sound pressure levels are very similar to dual-speaker units.” The bass cabinet is horn-loaded and the mid/high utilises a single piece molded horn mounted with a 12” mid and a 1.5” compression driver providing a long throw for outdoor events. “[It’s] a small-box solution with resulting savings in transport and manpower,” summarises Kinton. Q www.ohm.co.uk

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f On Stage Audio supplied JBL

loudspeakers for all of the recent US presidential and vice presidential debates. “Given the significant role they play in the election, reliable, clear and robust audio was of the utmost importance,” stresses Larry Estrin, audio and production communications director for the Commission on Presidential Debates. “The JBL loudspeakers performed to our expectations and enabled us to deliver high-quality sound to the live audience and to viewers across the country.” www.osacorp.com

fThames Audio recently

provided full sound production for Ray Davies’ new musical, Come Dancing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London. The system, designed by Thames’ James Tebb, includes a 48 x 24 Digidesign Profile console which he describes as a “fantastic sounding” desk. “When you combine this with its flexibility and onboard processing power you have everything you need to handle all eventualities.” www.digidesign.com www.thamesaudio.co.uk

f A.C. Audio, a division of A.C.

Entertainment Technologies Ltd (formerly known as AC Lighting Ltd), has recently supplied Aberdeen Performing Arts with a completely stand-alone, 12-way Audio-Technica 5000 Series wireless radio microphone system. Aberdeen Performing Arts has been investing in new equipment for its first ever touring production, Sunset Song. It approached AC Audio with a requirement for a new, completely transportable and robust radio microphone solution that would be put to use at all venues they tour throughout Scotland in the coming months. The 500 Series fitted the bill. www.ac-et.com

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 THE NETHERLANDS

In and out of Focus The successful sales arm has severed from Focus Showequipment’s rental operation, and there was always only one man who could take on the job of running it. Phil Ward meets Ron Vogel In the beginning was Thijs van Leer and Jan Akkerman, and a prog rock phenomenon of the 1970s hailing from Amsterdam. A typical journey, really: band splits up, leaving high-quality PA system in demand and available. Engineer Piet Meekel went on to run Focus Showequipment for 20 years, in the process adding sales and distribution into the ever-expanding bargain. Fellow engineer Ron Vogel joined the company at the start, and was still there when Meekel sold his business to private investors 10 years ago. This planted the seeds of change: sales had been a successful spin-off from the core activity of rental, having prospered in the hands of Vogel, a genial host for several brands that became associated with him across the Dutch territories and beyond. Apogee Sound, White Instruments, Countryman Microphones… all enjoyed strong profiles as the events and installations grew in number and status. “It paid my wages,” recalls Vogel with typical modesty, “but as it wasn’t the basis of the company it was never given the attention needed for real growth. There were periods when we were selling really big Apogee systems and the profits were good, but it was only ever a byproduct. The new management felt that the sales effort was taking up too much space in the building, so we began looking at other possibilities.” Approaching 60, Vogel didn’t relish at first the idea of starting afresh and for a while took his portfolio to a third party sound and lighting concern – handily located near both Schipol Airport and Vogel’s own home. But then a revelation: if Vogel’s working life

Ron Vogel, focusing on sales

was to draw to a conclusion away from its Focus origins, why not take it into his own hands? “I still had use of the name – Focus Sales – so I was at liberty to take it wherever I wished,” he says. “It wasn’t working out as a sales operation where I was, so I decided to create Ron Vogel Audio – that’s the concern that owns the inventory, now trading as Focus Sales because of the heritage and brand equity that resides in the name. The Dutch Government likes to support people starting their own business, so there are good tax incentives for the first couple of years enabling you to invest well – so why not? These are my final working years and I don’t want to spend them in the wrong place.” Ron Vogel Audio is now based in Haarlem, not far from a giant IKEA and well within Schipol’s level hinterland of calm polders and multinational light industry. The short drive into Amsterdam actually takes in two or

three windmills – and they date from the 1600s, focusing the attention for a moment on a different kind of sails and an age of mercantile expansion long considered golden. One way or another, the wheels keep turning. “The right premises were essential, and this is a good enterprise zone,” Vogel continues. “The city council of Haarlem does a lot of investment in this area, improving access and even organising drinks get-togethers for local business owners, to establish a sense of community. I get two invitations, because Ron Vogel Audio and Focus Sales are both registered!” More beer for the true entrepreneur, then, because at the moment Vogel is flying solo from his tidy lock-up on the polder. “I like it that way,” he says, “because even at Focus in Amsterdam, which is a big place, I was mostly on my own in the sales office. It’s also very important to note that I still have technical support from Focus Showequipment. If I need to service amplifiers, processors or speakers I can do a certain amount myself, but I’m not an electronics engineer. For more indepth repairs I can turn to the Focus maintenance workshop, and it’s all part of the deal by which I can continue to use the name.” This comes in particularly handy given the proportion of second-hand sales that still forms a meaningful part of the sound reinforcement trade here. Meanwhile as a distributor Vogel still represents both Apogee Sound and Countryman in the Netherlands, and sells Formula Sound (from the UK) alongside Real Sound Labs’ Coneq technology from Latvia – another old tie with Apogee Sound, the deal stemming from erstwhile Coneq evangelist Ken DeLoria. Then, of course, Vogel is a straightforward dealer, consulting and specifying the right brand for each job from the entire smorgasbord of modern pro audio. In syphoning off sales in this way, Vogel appears to be moving with the European times – especially around

Benelux. Ampco Pro Rent, for example, saw fit to create TM Audio for just that purpose. “There’s always been the problem of competition when you have a sales department within a rental company,” Vogel says. “Most other rental companies don’t want to buy from a rival, even if they have goods that they really need or want. There was always a few who looked at us and said that they would never buy from our inventory and support us in that way, and that was one of the reasons why Ampco split into TM Audio when it did. That said, it’s odd really because it’s still the same company in the end! “It’s the same with trying to avoid conflict of interest between brands. As a distributor I could never represent Meyer Sound, for example, next to Apogee Sound, but some operations just start another company in a different name to handle overlapping brands – even though it’s ultimately the same holding company that takes the profits. I might sell some Meyer Sound, or JBL, or Electro-Voice to a specific customer who requests it, but I would always quite genuinely prefer to sell Apogee Sound for certain purposes. “The sales patterns vary. There are those customers who know exactly what they want, or they have to complete an installation with specific products; and there are those who come to me with no clue as to what they need – other than a reliable, good-sounding system within their budget! I recently installed some small Apogee models into a couple of churches, they worked perfectly and the client is very happy with them. That’s when it all comes together.” Then there are those jobs that defy definition. Sound reinforcement for sea-lions? “Amsterdam Zoo has asked me to put in a few different systems, actually,” reveals Vogel, “including the sea-lion enclosure and the reptile house. I did the dolphinarium a while ago… Most attractions nowadays require live commentary for information and education, especially when animals are involved. The elephants are getting a sound system next…” At which point ‘sales’ becomes an anagram, and, in the capable hands of Ron Vogel, the yodelling of Thijs van Leer lives on. Q www.focus-sales.nl

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f Loudspeaker system and component manufacturer Radian Audio Engineering has revamped its website. The new-look site brings together comprehensive descriptions and technical specifications for a broad range of Professional, Contractor and Apex monitor speaker systems, coaxial ceiling speakers, proprietary speaker components and replacement diaphragms. Specific features include easy-access product datasheets, featured installations, and a ‘Where to Buy’ section that enables prospective purchases to locate regional distributors or dealers. www.radianaudio.com

f The audio set-up at the recent Surfstock festival in Cornwall included four Allen & Heath iLive digital systems. Deployed across three performance areas, the iLive systems comprised two iDR10 stage racks with iLive-144 control surfaces on the main stage; an iDR10 and iLive-112 surface on the Local Heroes stage; and an iDR10 and iLive-80 surface in the Rabbit Hole tent. The recently released v1.3 iLive software was installed in all of the systems. PA requirements for the two-day event were managed by SPS Systems. www.allen-heath.com www.ilive-digital.com

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 UNITED STATES

Eon and on and on... Phil Ward discovers what it took to deliver the new generation of JBL’s hit monitor line It was a hard act to follow. JBL’s EON series more or less defined a generation of portable monitors, arriving in 1995 all dressed to kill in sleek, smooth, injectionmoulded black. Estimates hover around the figure of one million unit sales to date, during which time brand after brand has followed suit. How do you re-define the definitive? At the AES in San Francisco last month, JBL presented the following: the EON10 G2 compact powered speaker; the EONSub G2 powered subwoofer; and EON G2 Systems featuring the EON15 G2 and EON10 G2 powered speakers and mixers. Clearly the EON line wasn’t broke, so why has the company chosen now to start fixing it? “That’s exactly it: the risks were huge,” admits director of portable PA marketing, Simon Jones. “The legacy was so great. But, in fact, we held back from messing with the formula too

much. You look at other advances and you think: what would a new EON have to include? And you assume new voice coils, hard drives, wireless communication, USB connectivity… But we did a hell of a lot of research. We went out to focus groups, we put models together and did a lot of testing. And we discovered that when you prioritise what EON is, fundamentally, it’s a do-anything, workhorse loudspeaker system and we needed to do that as best we could. As soon as you start introducing other tech-

nology, there’s a certain risk to it. It forces the product down a certain path.” So: no HiQnet, then. In a way, such sophistication can reduce a product’s flexibility; and it will certainly increase its cost. The new EON therefore attempts simply to set a new standard for the old functions, and top of the list is portability. The temptation to show off Harman Pro’s ubiquitous integration was resisted. “There’s so much technology out there,” Jones continues, “you can throw this or that in and… the

Director of portable PA marketing Simon Jones with the new EON design

cost goes up. It becomes really good for only a few people, and the rest don’t want to pay for it. All they want is something they can put on a stick, put an XLR cable directly into it and go.” The overall design hasn’t changed: there are still no hard edges to catch your knees on when you’re carrying it; nothing to knock your head on once it’s up on a pole. It’s arguably even more durable: the full grill covers the woofer, so it looks a little more advanced and provides more protection. Even on the inside the tweaking has been minimal. “The drivers have been fine-tuned,” says Jones, “but we’re still using this 15” differential drive that was originally designed for EON, then it went all the way up to VerTec and now it’s back in the EON. But we do have a brand new 400W, 15” woofer that only ways 4.5lbs [2kg]. So as it evolves we give it smoother power response, less distortion, we squeeze the weight out, we understand the heat distribution on the voice coils… we just get better. It represents years of refinement. That’s what allows us to have a 400W woofer unique to JBL – and that’s the heart and engine of the loudspeaker. And you also get these Class D amplifiers…” Class D has only come to the fore during the life of EON, and is one refinement that could threaten to shed

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SOUND BITES

fA Midas XL8 console from

New York theatre sound specialist Sound Associates is making its Broadway debut in a musical version of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Sound Associates’ Wallace Flores worked with the Midas design team to develop the XL8 for ‘real-world’ applications: “The XL8 offers a range of unique features to design show sound in ways that streamline operations and hardware logistics while offering the very highest audio quality and signal processing flexibility.”

The EON range has sold nearly one million units to date

a different light on the existing range. How does JBL intend to migrate from the huge legacy of stock to distribution of the new output? “The previous generation will still be good for a long time,” replies Jones. “The very original 15P is still selling. It’s found its price-point, and we’re still making it. At the moment we’re supplying the current product while stocks last. And then, I believe, the market will define where the existing product moves forward. It could well be that we make the original for another 10 years, based on demand. Why wouldn’t we, if there’s a market for the product? It’s successful now, and if it continues to be successful, and everything can co-exist, then it makes sense to stick with it.” If the only way that EON needs to adapt to today’s world is by being all the more itself, maybe that’s because there is simply a bigger world for it

to fall into. Have iPod, have EON, will travel… “I think the user profile has expanded,” observes Jones. “The amount of media delivery mechanisms is huge, and the number of people who speak out and spread their message has grown – whether it’s a band or a presidential campaign, whatever it is that demand is getting higher and higher. Above all the EON range is accessible. At only 17lbs [7.7kg], it provides everyone with something that they can move around. You don’t have all this integrated wiring and other extras. You don’t need to worry ‘which way do I point it?’ It’s obviously a loudspeaker with great utility. It’s balanced in size. If a musician wants to record in the studio and then perform somewhere, he can definitely take this with him.” Or if a presidential candidate wants to change the world. Q www.jbl.com

www.midasconsoles.com

fAshcroft Services of

EUROPE Orbital Sound created the sound relay infrastructure at each location on the fiveevent 2008 iShares Cup Extreme 40 Sailing Series. Enlisted by OC Events, Orbital had to ensure unimpeded ship-to-shore communication, UHF radio commentary and video feeds to the VIP suites, among other responsibilities. Equipment selected for the demanding project included Sennheiser SK50 body pack transmitters, Shure UR2 handheld radios and Motorola GP340 VHF two-way radios. “Despite the variable wind and weather conditions there were no comms or sound issues, and the client was delighted with the coverage we provided,” said Orbital Sound’s Tim Sherratt. Q

www.orbitalsound.co.uk

Croydon, UK has recently launched a brand new online shop selling “a wide range of sound, lighting and effects equipment suitable for use in pubs, clubs and performing arts venues”. Pro-audio products now available include complete PA systems by Ecler and JBL, mixers by Soundcraft and Beyerdynamic and microphones by Shure, AKG and Crown. “There’s also a full range of stage and DJ lighting, as well as stands, flightcases, lamps, filters, gaffer tape and batteries,” says Ashcroft’s Laura Roberts. www.ashcroftservices.com

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

EUROPE

Yamaha desk provides hub for pan-European Timeproject

In planning: the idea on paper…

A Yamaha PM1D console was chosen to provide the central hub in an ambitious project by Austrian artist Matthias Loibner to bring together performers from north, south, east and west Europe. As its name implies, the panEuropean Timeproject addresses the passage of time through music played at a tempo of 60bpm and live performances each lasting exactly 60 minutes. Timeproject takes place on four stages set up in a circle with an audience space in the centre. Starting with the North stage, the bands play indi-

vidually, gradually working their way clockwise around the stages, with each performance segued into the next and the musicians adding accents to the performances by the other bands. “Matthias contacted me and fellow sound engineer Stefan Bauer to ask how he could get this idea off the ground from a technical perspective, and which equipment we would recommend,” says Joseph Jabbour, who shares technical duties with Bauer. “The first answer was that we need a digital desk and two sound engineers! We chose the PM1D because we needed a console that is flexible, reliable, has a significant number of outputs and is easily available worldwide – as the show is planned to visit different festivals throughout Europe and possibly further afield.” Each of the four stages had its own PA system and multicore carrying 16 inputs, stereo PA outputs and two stereo monitor returns. Twelve further inputs came from four mono click tracks and four stereo loop tracks, making a total of 60 inputs and 24 outputs on the console. With space at a premium, the PM1D’s onboard effects proved particularly useful – as did the console’s save and recall facilities when setting up the system for subsequent performances. “The PM1D is absolutely the right tool for the job,” says Jabbour. “We needed a lot of busses and outputs, the sound quality is very good and I really like the reverbs. Overall, it was remarkably smooth. We are looking forward to hopefully taking Timeproject to more countries in 2009.” Q www.yamahacommercialaudio.com

…and in reality: four stages with a central audience space

IRELAND

D.A.S. seminars reach the Emerald Isle D.A.S. Audio continues to push its profile on the global level with the next instalment of its series of worldwide seminars. Ireland recently received a visit from D.A.S. Audio engineer Joan La Roda, who boasts ample experience in the preparation and development of seminars throughout the world. “His seminars have been widely accepted by audio professionals, increasing their training and bringing D.A.S. Audio and its products closer to the worldwide professional audio community,” says a D.A.S. spokesperson. The two-day seminar took place in central Ireland from 6-7 October at the Hodson Bay Hotel in the city of Athlon, an hour away from Dublin. The event was organised by D.A.S. distributor Reynolds of Raphoe and was attended by some 25 D.A.S. customers and prospective clients. The seminar’s main focus was ‘Line Arrays: How They Work’ detailing the technical features and applications of line array systems as well as an explanation about subwoofer characteristics and configuration entitled “Subwoofer Configurations and Time Alignment”. The theoretical section

A large complement of D.A.S. speakers were available for the sessions

was followed by Arco, DR, Reference, Artec, Variant112A and Variant 18A product demos. Brian McGrath of Reynolds of Raphoe personally took charge of the demos and the D.A.S. systems presentation. Q www.dasaudio.com

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com ITALY

Orchestral manoeuvres in the Arena Two DiGiCo SD7 on Italian star’s original shows, writes Mike Clark Just a few days after being consigned, two of the first four DiGiCo SD7 consoles delivered to Italy were used by audio contractor Nuovo Service of Toscanella di Dozza for a series of concerts staged at Verona’s marvellous Roman arena by top Italian rocker Luciano Ligabue. On his last show at the Verona Arena (a shrine for opera fans worldwide), the Warner Music Italy recording artist had his line arrays flown in over the wall from two huge truck cranes outside. This time, apart from the technical ‘first’, Ligabue performed for no fewer than seven nights, accompanied by his hardhitting band and the 70-strong Verona Philharmonic Orchestra. The FOH mix fed out through the L-Acoustics rig (featuring a total of 42 V-DOSC, 24 dV-DOSC and 32 SB 218 subs) was handled by an SD7 and a D5 Live FOH, with another identical setup on monitor chores. For well-known sound designer Daniele Tramontani,

manning the FOH SD7 was a return to his roots as a sound engineer. He explained: “I used about 110 channels for the orchestra – the band was loud, so we had to use almost 40 bugs on the strings as well as the Schoeps spot mics. I gave Alberto Butturini (at the FOH D5) two sub-mixes – one with the strings, the other with everything else.” Butturini, who’d used the D5 on many top Italian tours, had 60 channels from the band to look after. He continued: “As well as the actual instruments, there were four channels of SMPTE, Pro Tools sequences, spares and click tracks, and the show’s highprofile video content was latched on to our time codes, so we were kept on our toes. We managed to get 98/99dB of orchestra, which was quite a feat for a 70-piece acoustic line-up!” On stage, another veteran DiGiCo user, Stevan Martinovic, was assisted by Umberto Polidori. He added: “I had the same set-up, with a feed from the band’s D5 being mixed with the orchestra – which I divided into 14 sections – before being sent to the musicians’ cans, with each musician’s section slightly higher than the rest. Some sections had particular requirements – for example, the trombone players wanted to hear the basses more than the other instruments. They also got a click track and the voice

Luciano Ligabue played seven nights at the arena

Stevan Martinovic (front) at the D5 and Umberto Polidori at the SD7

of conductor Marco Sabiu, who had a pedal to enable his mic when he needed to give them instructions. I fed the SD7’s orchestra mix to the D5 to be mixed with the band, then on to the artist, band and conductor, all on IEM.” After the highly successful shows, Tramontani (also responsible for the design and set-up of the audio system) enthused: “The SD7 is really fantastic and sounds great! I definitely like its filters in general – particularly the hipass and lo-pass.” Martinovic, who made more indepth use of the new console, was impressed and highlighted several features that had immediately struck him. “Apart from its incredible potential as far as number of inputs and outputs are concerned, channel patching is great, as it enables to patch from 1 to 100 by just patching the first one – the others follow on. The 12-channel bays are also a great improvement, as is the fact that data on units connected to inputs and outputs are stored automatically with each session in a ‘socket file’ that engineers can name as they please, greatly facilitating what was previously a rather time-consuming procedure. Another advantage is being able to decide if you want to use a compressor or gate preor post-EQ.” Q www.digico.org

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

Live events The Live Events listing is a free service. All information is provided by the companies listed and PSNE cannot be help responsible for any factual errors. To be included in the listings, please email Linda Frost at linda@frosthome.co.uk BAND

COUNTRY

MIXERS

ENGINEER

AMP

SPEAKERS

ARTO Hooverphonic Adamo

Europe Belgium

Profile, SY48 SY48, SY80

O Gerard Camco H Vandendriesh Crown

+32 10401305 Nexo GEO D Nexo GEO S

ASP BLUE-SQUARES Lorie Tour Bharati Rob De Nijs Je Me Voyais Deja

Europe Europe Europe France

PM5D-RH, PM1D PM1D, D1, D1 PM5D-RH, M7CL

B Viricel P v Cau JJ Dialo

LA-48a LA-48a LA-48a LA-48a

+32 67895000 V-DOSC dV-DOSC dV-DOSC Mtd

AUDIO INDUSTRIES SCANDINAVIA Ulf Lundell Scandinavia Yamaha PM5000, PM5D-RH H Johansson

Crown

+46 87477910 EAW 750

BRITANNIA ROW Cliff Richard Oasis Will Young Jamiroquai

Lab.gruppen Outline T Series Outline T-Series -

+44 20 8877 3949 V-DOSC Outline Butterfly Outline Butterfly Turbosound TFM

Stage Box/In Ear Lab.gruppen

L-Acoustics

P Tame B Fertigs C Pyne -

Martin Audio Meyer Sound Martin Audio Martin Audio

+44 20 8944 6777 Martin Audio W8L/LC Meyer Sound Martin Audio W8L/LC Martin Audio W8L/LC

CHATTERBOX SOUND & LIGHTING Forever Everly Australia & NZ Soundcraft, A&H Australian Elton John ShowAustralia Soundcraft, Soundcraft Elton-Joel Australia Soundcraft, Soundcraft Send In The Clones Australia Soundcraft, -

S Lorraine S Lorraine S Lorraine D Lee-Jay

Crest/QSC Crest/QSC Crest/QSC Crest/QSC

+61 7 5529 9969 Martin Audio Martin Audio Martin Audio Martin Audio

CRAFTMAN Rene Marie Roisin Murphy

UK UK UK & Eire Germany/ Korea Goldfrapp US/Australia MTV Euro Music Awards Bryan Adams UK CAPITAL SOUND HIRE Lee Evans UK Katie Melua Europe Kylie World Hard Rock Hell UK All Tomorrows Parties UK

-,Midas XL4, Midas XL8 DiGiCo D5, DiGiCo D5 Yamaha PM5D, PM5D

B Johnston G Bradshaw R Pope

Digidesign Profile, PM1D B Findlay UK -,Midas H3000, H3000 J Perpick

Midas XL3, Yamaha M7CL DiGiCo D5, DiGiCo D5 DiGiCo SD7, DiGiCo D5 Yamaha PM5D, PM5D Yamaha PM5D, PM5D

Poland Poland

MH3, SM12 Five, SM20

G Karasinski T Dudar

Crown

+48 22 849 1878 Meyer Sound JBL VerTec

DEE SOUND & LIGHT Victoria Europe Needcompany Europe

DM2000 , D-Show , -

Crest/Martin Audio Crest/Martin Audio

+32 3844 0192 Synco STS Synco STS

Oasis have played dates in the UK using Outline’s Butterfly array and T-Series amps

If you want your web address to be included in the magazine AND in the digital edition of Pro Sound News Europe for just £50 a year, please email Lianne on lkdavey@cmpi.biz for an order form BAND

COUNTRY

MIXERS

ENGINEER

AMP

SPEAKERS

DWA British Insurance Awards British Mortgage Awards Fund Manager Awards UK European Pensions UK Charity Times UK Marketing Week UK

UK UK Yamaha, Yamaha Yamaha, Yamaha, Yamaha, Yamaha

Yamaha, Yamaha M Hyde Yamaha, Yamaha D Woodman M Dinlay Alcons D Woodman Alcons J Landen Alcons A Kerslake Alcons

+44 1883 373503 Alcons Alcons Alcons Alcons Alcons Alcons Alcons Alcons

EARS & EYES AB Ale Moller Band Wildbirds Pinton Quintet

Yamaha LS9, Yamaha LS9, Yamaha LS9, -

F Persson H Persson M Persson

d&b D12 d&b D12 d&b D12

+46 8592 590 70 d&b Q7/Qsub d&b Q7/Qsub d&b Q7/Qsub

ELECTROTECH SOLUTIONS SL Revolver Tour Spain Greenspace Spain Mirror Spain

DiGiCo D1, DiGiCo D1 H2000, H3000 Yamaha M7CL, M7CL

M Sena -

+34 96 1220357 Meyer Sound MICA Meyer Sound MICA Lynx

EML PRODUCTIONS NV Nick Cave & The Bad SeedsUK Simple Minds UK Night Of The Proms Europe

Midas XL4, Yamaha PM5D M Crosbie DiGiCo D5, Midas H3000 J Lemon DiGiCo SD7, DiGiCo SD7 P Demoustier

Lab.gruppen Lab.gruppen Lab.gruppen

+32 16617110 Adamson Y-18 Adamson Y-18 Adamson Y-18

ESS The Feeling John Martyn Razorlight Max Boyle Tony Hadley From The Jam

Vi6, Vi4 PM5D-RH, M7CL Profile, M7CL M7CL, LS9 PM50-RH, M7CL A&H i-Live, M7CL

MC2 MC2 MC2 Amcron MC2 MC2

+44 1623 647291 Turbosound Aspect 890 Turbosound Aspect Turbosound Aspect 890 Turbosound TQ440 Turbosound Aspect 890 Turbosound Aspect 890

Sweden Sweden Sweden

UK UK UK UK UK UK

J Sword L Hunt I Laughton B Keown L Hunt E Hidon

EUROPEAN TOUR PRODUCTION APS The True Award 2008 Denmark Yamaha LS9, Sos & Kirsten Denmark A&H, Jonathan Spang Tour Denmark -,-

J Nakel QSC F Pedersen QSC M. Lykke Hansen -

+45 36307080 Martin Audio W8LM Tarp1 -

EXCESS BV Gala WTC

Holland

Soundcraft MH3, -

M Ros

Crest

+31 1020 12111 JBL SRX

GOETTE SOUND Goa Party Dream Burning Rage Festival Die Schabe Christmas Festival X-Max Festival

Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany

A&H GL4, Midas XL200, DDA QII Mon Midas XL200, DDA QII Mon Midas XL200, DDA QII Mon Midas XL200, DDA QII Mon

E Voigt G Goette E Voigt G Goette G Goette

Lab.gruppen fP6400 Lab,gruppen fP6400 Lab.gruppen fP6400 Lab.gruppen fP6400 Lab.gruppen fP6400

+49 341 422 4220 T Custom T Custom T Custom T Custom T Custom

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HOF Andrae Crouch & Band Radio2 – Top 2000 in Concert DvhN Live! Hour of Power-Xmas Tour

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com

Razorlight are touring the UK with Turbosound speakers and MC2 amps

BAND

COUNTRY MIXERS

ENGINEER

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SPEAKERS

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Sweden Sweden

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Heritage 3000, Heritage 4000 Midas XL4, Midas XL3 W Simean DiGiCo SD8, F Perrin

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Camco Camco Camco

+4621 359300 Nexo GEO-T Nexo GEO-T d&b Q1

NEOMY SOUND AND LIGHT Chrysanthema Lahr Germany

Midas Venice

Mackie SR24

Camco

+49 7808 084333 Nexo GEO S

PRODUCTION HOUSE Robin Mark Children In Need – Belfast Mandate Conferences BBC Television Young Voices New Irish Orchestra

DiGiDesign, H3000 Digidesign Venue/Profile, H3000 H3000, Roland M4000 Digidesign, Digidesign H3000, H3000 PM5D, Yamaha M7

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+46 707 271 007

Canada N. Ireland N. Ireland UK N. Ireland UK

RIDER AUDIO AND MEDIA Jerry Lee Lewis Tour Europe Dance Tour Holland Turbulent Festivals Holland DJ Clinics Holland Praise Tours Holland/ Belgium

Yamaha PM5DRH, M7CL-48 P v Baasbank Yamaha M7CL-48, F den Dulk Yamaha PM5DRH, M7CL-48 Mackie/Pioneer, S Groeneveld Yamaha PM3500/32, J v Loo M7CL-48

LA48 LA48 LA48 LA48

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UNITED AUDIO STARLIGHT AB SWEDEN The Battle of The Bands Sweden M7CL, LS9 Monster Magnet Sweden -,Al Fakir Sweden PM1D, PM1D

B Lehnberg

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VIKING SOUND & LIGHT Illegal Eagles UK Slade T-Rextasy Mud II UK The Blockheads UK

Midas H1000, Sienna Midas Verona, Sienna Midas H1000, Sienna

SD Williams SD Williams SD Williams

MC2 MC2 MC2

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YORKSHIRE AUDIO LMUSU Freddie Starr Roy Wood Festival of Light

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UK UK UK UK

Advertise your equipment and services to the live/touring market by contacting Lianne Davey on 0207 921 8401 or email lkdavey@cmpi.biz

New Website

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54 installation SOUND BITES

f After 20 years based in Bredbury, near Stockport, Formula Sound has moved to new premises in Oldham and simultaneously opened a new London office. “When we looked at moving it seemed there was an opportunity not just move to another location, but also to open an office in the south to improve our UK coverage,” explained general manager Barry Penaligon. One of the few professional audio companies still manufacturing in the UK, Formula Sound has also announced a new technical helpline number: +44 (0)161 688 0020. www.formula-sound.co.uk

f The Helsinki City Theatre

celebrated its recent 100th anniversary with the installation of a Meyer Sound System. The A/B distributed system – provided by Espoo-based Studiotech Oy – doubles up the speakers to provide a mix of vocals and a second mix of the band or orchestra. The system is also said to be useful when two singers work in close proximity; using different mixes to help avoid problems caused by leakage between lavalier mics. www.meyersound.com

f Les Planches, a nightclub located in the glamorous Normandy resort of Deauville, has purchased a new APG sound system based on SMX15 monitors – a first for a nightclub – plus DS8, DS12S and TB215S boxes. DJ stars such as David Guetta, Chris Willis and Martin Solveig have played at this prestigious venue. The installation was carried by the Elecson company based in Rouen. In other news, APG has released newly developed presets for its DMS26 digital processor. www.apg.tm.fr

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 GERMANY

Riedel acquires RockNet developer David Davies Riedel Communications has acquired Media Numerics, developer of the RockNet networking technology. Headquartered in Hanau, Germany, Media Numerics is best-known for its development of RockNet, billed as a real-time, low-latency audio distribution network suitable for installed and tour sound applications. The technology is currently centred on the RockNet 300 product which began shipping earlier this year. “We’re a flexible company, so [the acquisition came together] very quickly,” says Thomas Riedel, managing director of Riedel Communications. Following the acquisition of Mediornet in 2007, the latest deal is likely to further enhance Riedel Communications’ credentials as a backbone provider.

The RockNet 300 is the latest product from Media Numerics

“With RockNet we now have another ingenious network technology which, in particular, will allow us to target the live sound markets,” says Riedel.

Regarding the long-term prospects for RockNet, Riedel says he is “prettysure” that it will “establish itself as a new standard for audio networking.

“The RockNet technology in combination with our other activities will push this. At first sight, RockNet seems to be just another audio network, but if you look deeper you will realise that it is unique in quite a few aspects. So I anticipate a long and eventful life for RockNet.” Matthias Knoth, managing director of Media Numerics, adds: “With the integration of Media Numerics into the Riedel family this will allow us to focus 100% on the development of further innovative features for RockNet. Tasks such as sales and order management, which increasingly absorbed our resources, can now be handled more efficiently within an international organisation such as Riedel.” Q www.medianumerics.com www.riedel.net

ICELAND

Cultural gift for Exton Dave Robinson The Icelandic banks have taken a knock in recent weeks, but the cultural face of the country seems intact. Now local sales and integration company, Exton ehf, has been contracted to provide all sound, communication and production lighting systems in the Icelandic National Concert and Conference Centre. The project is by far the largest sound and light installation in Iceland to date and covers all four

halls of the centre. Scheduled to open on Reykjavik’s East Harbour in December 2009, the building will house a centre for music, culture and tourism in a prime location in Iceland’s capital, as well as becoming the new home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. “The tender for these systems, based on the design by US consultants firm Artec, was very ambitious,” says Exton’s CEO, Sverrir Hrei∂arsson. “The Centre

The centre will house the Iceland Symphony Orchestra

Exton and Portus seal the deal

will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and solutions.” The sound system is mainly comprised of Yamaha mixing consoles and Meyer Sound speakers. “The set up is comparable with Copenhagen’s new Opera and the Barbican Centre in London.” “This is a large scale project for our country of just over 300,000 inhabitants,” he adds, “so I think we can say with some certainty that we are hiring.” During the signing of the contracts Exton presented the owners, Portus hf, with a symbolic piece of art. This work

“Traps” by Finnbogi Petursson, one of Iceland’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, consists of two wall-mounted sculptures. Each sculpture responds to a certain frequency in the room. Between the two segments lies a narrow gap. Viewers discover that, by pressing their ear against the gaps, they perceive a barely audible tone similar to that gleaned from a seashell. “We found this particular piece quite fitting. The Centre itself can be perceived as a seashell at its striking waterfront site,” Hreidarsson concludes. Q www.exton.is

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November 2008 www.prosoundnewseurope.com UNITED KINGDOM

CZECH REPUBLIC

Brighton Centre ups Prague picks Lawo ante with IRIS-Net David Davies

The Brighton Centre, the south coast’s premier conference venue, has revitalised its long-serving Electro-Voice PA system by replacing all the existing amplifiers with EV’s latest DSP-controlled P1200 RL Precision Series amplifiers, running IRIS-Net remote control and system supervision software. Known to many in the UK as the venue for high-profile conferencing, as used by the Conservative Party and the Trades Union Congress, the Main Hall of the Brighton Centre routinely accommodates prestigious exhibitions, banquets and leisure events. With its flexible seating, it can accommodate 4,500 delegates. The Main Hall’s house PA was installed in the 1980s, a centrally-flown cluster of Electro-Voice loudspeakers which has worked impeccably for over 20 years. Brighton-based specialists MBI Sound & Light have maintained the Centre’s facilities since that time. “With the important TUC conference looming, we wanted to rule out any potential reliability issues caused by ageing amplifiers,” explains MBI’s Dave Rudge. “We’d previously installed EV’s P1200RL remote amplifiers in the Palace Theatre in Southend, where they have met with great success. That was the catalyst for our thought process here and

Product specialist Dave Howe tries out his new configuration tool in the Brighton Centre

they quickly became the obvious choice, especially as we could put the whole system under the control of IRIS-Net.” The Brighton Centre is the first permanently installed system to test Shuttlesound’s IRIS-Net product specialist David Howe’s new software configuration tool, a specially written project generator for IRIS-Net. “It can take several hours to configure a control package like IRIS-Net; this new software offers a significant shortcut for tasks like importing presets, applying speaker settings and building the user control pages. For an engineer, it means he can now start getting sound out of the speakers in just a couple of minutes rather than hours.” Howe’s project generator has already been used extensively by touring engineers from Britannia Row, APR Audio and other leading EV rental companies. Q www.shuttlesound.com

The ability to include an element of The National Theatre (Národní divadlo) customisation reportedly played a in Prague has been provided with two major role in the venue’s decision to Lawo mc2 66 consoles as part of a comspecify a Lawo solution. Accordingly, prehensive audio networking project. the consoles allow control of ProTools Occupying a neo-renaissance strucdigital workstations via GPC faders or ture that was rebuilt in 1883 after the Mackie HUI. original theatre was destroyed by fire, The installation – led by Mediatech’s the National Theatre has recently Roman Kasnik – was completed in time undertaken a five-year refurbishment for the beginning of the venue’s programme encompassing its entire 2008/9 season. While Czech film sound system. director Milos Forman used one of the In conjunction with Czech partner Lawo consoles to record a live DVD durMediatech, Lawo has supplied an audio ing the summer, the new equipment control network based on the Nova73 HD made its official debut with productions central routing system and four DALLIS of the Bizet opera Carmen and Rock I/O systems. A 16-8-8 frame mc2 66 has ’n’ Roll, the most recent play by been situated in the FOH control room of Tom Stoppard, who was born in the forthe main auditorium, while a mobile mer Czechoslovakia. Q www.lawo.de 8-8-8 frame mc266 is available for a variety of applications, including stage monitoring and recording in a separate studio. Serving as the central hub for the system, the Nova73 HD provides both consoles with access to all audio signals at any time. Access rights management allows all input signals to be shared between both consoles, although one acts as the main console for controlling I/O parameters and important functions. Responsibility can be switched between the two conOne of two Lawo mc266 consoles soles via User Keys or the GUI.

IN TUNE

APPOINTMENT

f Barix AG has named Marcel

van der Meijs as its new VP of sales and marketing. He comes to Barix with more than 20 years of experience in international sales and marketing in the security and network industry, including high-ranking positions at Lantronix International and HID Corporation. Based in the Netherlands, he will focus on increasing “sales-driven activities” for Barix worldwide.

Acoustic perfection as a holistic sensory experience – the union of aesthetics, technology, and economics. The new Line Array System K&F Sequenza 10 opens doors to unexplored sound spaces and a new dimension of sound enjoyment.

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UNITED KINGDOM

Iconyx brings true class to Truro Although grand, Truro’s Town Hall was being overlooked as a corporate venue due to poor acoustics. A new sound system changed all this Like many a municipal building in the modern era Truro City Council’s Town Hall, in the centre of the Cornish town, faced the task of reconciling historic architecture with contemporary and commercial needs. With the help of AV integrator AV Concepts, it has found the solution to dealing with challenging acoustics using RenkusHeinz Iconyx digital loudspeaker technology. Truro’s grand City Council Chamber, where portraits of mayors going back to the 19th century adorn the walls, can be hired out for public and commercial functions, as well as being the seat of local government. But the chamber’s grandeur was also a curse, as the high stone walls, wooden floor and tall windows made speech intelligibility so poor that few potential hirers were keen to use it.

Renkus-Heinz’s Iconyx ‘transformed speech intelligibility’

Truro Town Hall moved into the 21st Century

Town Clerk Russell Holden appreciated the time had come to bring the facility into the 21st century and called in West Country-based AV Concepts, active members of InfoComm, CAI and CEDIA and an accredited Gold CAVSP provider. James Friendship, managing director of AV Concepts, says: “The room is quite high and has a tremendous reverberation time of around eight seconds. If you stand across the room from someone else you can’t understand what they’re saying. So we needed a system that would minimise the reverberant field, which their existing system failed to do.” A demonstration on site with beyerdynamic UK (now Polar Audio) of an Iconyx digitally steerable array provided the answer, he says: “everyone thought the demo was awesome; you could hear everybody speak clearly from wherever you stood or sat. Speech intelligibility throughout the room was completely transformed.” The client suitably impressed, the system was permanently installed during the summer, comprising two active Iconyx IC8 steerable array modules, a Biamp Nexia CS fully automated audio controller, Volume 8 rotary encoder, three beyerdynamic MTS67/5 and MPC 67 desktop mic units, a Sennheiser EW152 headset mic and Sennheiser EW122 G2 UHF lapel system. Delicate lath-and-plaster walls prevented direct mounting of the IC8s, so the AV Concepts team, led by project manager Steve Marks, fabricated projectorstyle mounts, while beyerdynamic UK’s Jon Stanley worked with Friendship to fine-tune the Iconyx arrays using the system’s dedicated BeamWare software. Among the first users of the room, aside from regular council business, have been local groups ranging from dance classes to meetings and a presentation by opposition leader David Cameron. Friendship adds: “In a demanding room, when we turn the sound system on everyone can now hear perfectly. Since the new system has been installed the council has been able to use the room to raise revenue, adding value to the facility.” Q www.renkus-heinz.com

GERMANY Celebrity Solstice, the biggest cruise liner ever built in Germany, has just been launched with no fewer than four Dynacord ProMatrix 4000 systems onboard delivering a combined power of 53kW. The 350m long ship accommodates 2,852 passengers served by over 8,000 speakers, including 350 EV 309-8As, 520 EVID C4.2s, 30 EVID C8.2s and 70 Sx80PIXs. Celebrity Solstice is one of over 25 cruise liners built since 1985 in the Meyer Werft shipyard and fitted with Dynacord/Electro-Voice systems. Q

www.dynacord.com www.electrovoice.com

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R Series Coaxial Plastic speaker

Wall mounting

Ra active series(5 models) and Rs passive series(4models) are both available

Ceiling installation

Unique acoustic configuration with point sound source High intensity cabinet construction Patent MF/LF compression chamber design Suitable for musician, small living performance, monitoring, also can be used for engineering project

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Rotatable horn

Neodymium transducer(Rs15)

Waterfall diagram

Ra series Transducers: Frequency response(-3dB): Rated Power(RMS): Max. SPL: Dimension(W×H×D) : Weight (1pc):

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1x25mm dome tweeter

1x3" paper cone tweeter

1x34mm tweeter

80Hz-15kHz

65Hz-15kHz

60Hz-15kHz

55Hz-20kHz

50Hz-20kHz

50W

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160×210×160mm

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ITALY

Half a century, not out The founder of Italy’s Exhibo talks to Mike Clark about 50 years in the trade This year, Exhibo, one of Italy’s oldest pro-audio distributors (brands include Sennheiser, Neumann, Ecler, AEQ, EAW, Tascam, Vestax and Teac), celebrates 50 years’ trading. Founder and chairman Ferrante Anguissola d’Altoé gives PSNE an authoritative insight into the market and shares how his firm has managed to distribute a key brand like Sennheiser for half a century. There’s no doubt in Anguissola’s mind as to the most dynamic market area at present. “The permanent installation market is constantly growing and this is closely linked with the spread of multimedia technology in various environments, from homes to industry,” he says. Although stressing that a few rental firms are investing in new technology, he adds, “They’re exceptions, as the overall is situation is critical as far as this market is concerned. Nowadays, dealing with rental companies can sometimes resemble barter rather than business. As well as being smaller than other European countries’, our live industry is also suffering from the difficult overall economic situation and lacks ideas and – above all – support.” In spite of this, Exhibo’s founder is optimistic as far as the industry’s future is concerned, as highlighted by the firm’s move into new premises a couple of years ago. Since he set up business in Florence with two partners and was the firm’s only salesman, to the definitive move to northern Italy (initially Milan, then Monza), Anguissola has gradually added staff and brands – AEQ from Spain and Neumann are other long-standing partners. The company’s premises (which at one point included a castle!) have grown to accommodate the expansion. The latest move brought together Exhibo’s three Monza facilities under one roof, in

The transmitter for the first Sennheiser wireless mic, showing the thermionic valve (the ‘heart’ of the circuit)

industry members would probably like to know the secret behind managing to distribute a brand like Sennheiser for 50 years. The reply is typically frank. “The brotherly friendship between myself, Fritz Sennheiser, the founder of the German company, and his son Jörg was built up through the years, working with competence, punctuality, transparency and close collaboration. The relationship formed between Exhibo and Sennheiser is so close that many of my staff consider themselves ‘Sennheiser men’ to all effects. This has obviously helped us become one of the manufacturer’s top distributors.” Regarding the current economic situation, things have been worse in the past, as the industry veteran explains. “When I founded Exhibo, there was an atmosphere of great enthusiasm worldwide and the economic boom was beginning. The first energy crises came in the late 1960s and early 1970s, fol-

“Today’s issues seem to me to be a situation that, as in the past, will put the solidity of a lot of companies involved in all branches of commerce to the test” a 5,000sqm site divided into a large warehouse, offices, meeting rooms, workshops, demo rooms and lecture rooms. Anguissola continues: “The manufacturers of the brands we distribute are always working on the development of products that are increasingly sophisticated from a technical point of view and able to respond to market requirements.” As well as a staff of 70 employees, Exhibo now also has a network of 150 agents, reps and 38 authorised laboratory staff countrywide. “This enables us to handle the various markets we are involved in: not only pro audio, but also communications, security and consumer electronics.” With distribution changes frequently in the trade press headlines, many

lowed by another period of reprise and general affluence. In the 1990s, we had monetary problems due to the devaluation of the lira, but we overcame that crisis too, and today’s issues seem to me to be a situation that, as in the past, will put the solidity of a lot of companies involved in all branches of commerce to the test.” Anguissola’s career has, of course, seen many groundbreaking changes. He explains: “One of the first was the advent of wireless technology in the microphone industry, then – around the late 1970s – the introduction of IR transmission for simultaneous translation. The effects of the quality leap to digital technology are still being felt to this day, with the integration of IP and AV technology. The most recent was the adoption of signal

(L-R): Uwe Marks, Sennheiser sales manager; Ferrante Anguissola D’Altoè with his award for best sales; Jörg Sennheiser

transmission networks, with brands such as NetCIRA (which Exhibo distributes) enabling up to 64 channels of digital audio to be transmitted in real time to tens of thousand of devices using simple off-the-shelf Cat5 cable, greatly facilitating new installations and retrofit work. The type of system is also ideal for live, recording and broadcast applications, thanks to its extremely low latency.”

Exhibo’s stand at the Milan Fair in 1959

On the subject of how to let the trade know about new technology, and, following the recent fragmentation of the Italian trade expo market, with firms exhibiting at new Milan and Bergamo expos rather than Rimini’s long-standing SIB event, Anguissola concludes by offering this: “With the endless amount of information provided by the internet, even if not superfluous, expos have at least changed their aim, as they’re no longer the only opportunity for presenting new products,” he says. “Nowadays, clients visit expos because they want to contact an experienced technician personally. In Italy, these events should be connected with initiatives of an educational nature, as market growth depends to a great extent on professional training. This is why we take part and sponsor events such as the recent SIB Forum in Rimini. Unfortunately, although rental firms are on the whole more ‘receptive’ as far as this aspect goes, a lot of installation technicians think they can still rely on just a screwdriver to get the job done!” Q www.exhibo.it

SPAIN

IRELAND

Bikers feel BiDriver benefit

EvenTech Ireland confirms support for regional shows

The town of Albaida, located in the province of Valencia, recently hosted the third round of qualifying tests for the 50th edition of the Motocross MX Elite Championship. The “La Vega” circuit’s recently redesigned installations were used for the first time. The remodelling work consisted of paving the paddock area (16,000sqm) and planting trees to provide shade for the many different areas of the track. The installation has also been equipped with a brand new PA system using the D.A.S. Audio BiDriver systems. The Valencian firm Betadreams, S.L, run by Francisco Bosch, supplied and installed the full PA system with a total of 11 D.A.S. BiDriver units distributed

“La Vega” motocross circuit in Albaida has improved its facilities

in four stacks throughout the circuit. The main stack, comprised of six BiDriver units, was installed in the cen-

tral area covering the different spectator sections. The three remaining stacks, with five BiDriver units, were placed lengthwise in the paddock area. BiDriver units are specifically designed for outdoor use and comply with the strict IP54 regulation, referring to the resistance of the system to moisture and dust penetration. The installation was topped off with wireless microphones, preamp and amplifiers, a CD player and a digital signal processing unit. The renovation project was possible thanks to the efforts of the Albaida City hall and the “Ciutat D’Albaida” Moto-Club. Q www.dasaudio.com

EvenTech Ireland opens its doors on the 18-19 November – the first time the regional business networking forum has visited the Republic. EvenTech organisers – Scattered Media – already have two successful events under their belt, in Scotland and Singapore… “The EvenTech brand is just in its first year and already we’ve had two very successful shows in two very different regions,” explains director, Iain McLean. EvenTech Ireland has been our fastest sell out to date and all exhibitors are very optimistic about the success they will see.

Companies such as Ard Soilse and Dublin-based AVL Systems are firmly committed to the event – as is RCF whose Phil Price explains its appeal… “The EvenTech shows are like a breath of fresh air and have already proven their importance and validity to us. There is much more emphasis on dealing with locallybased companies and from the manufacturers’ point of view it’s going to give them an opportunity to meet some of the local companies that can actually help them.” Q www.eventech-ireland.com www.scattered-media.com

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BELGIUM

Ancienne Belgique venue amplifies online output Concert venue Ancienne Belgique has launched its new website – interactivity, information and unique concert footage are the key elements, writes Marc Maes Websites are now an essential element when it comes to promoting concerts or events – and this has not gone unnoticed by the creative team at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The venue has completely refurbished and expanded its webpages offering more and better information, concert pre- and reviews, and, on the ABtv section of the site, exclusive backstage footage, sessions and concerts. “ABtv kicked off as part of the website in March 2006,” says David Zegers, director of communication and development at Ancienne Belgique. “It has become a welldocumented element of the AB site: with an archive of over 250 concerts, mostly by local artists, available ‘on demand’, we wanted to create an international platform for domestic talent and promote them abroad.” The second element highlighted on the new website is the concert live streams – these have also been featured on the site since 2006 but Zegers expects them to receive a boost now that Ancienne Belgique has become the first Belgian venue to stream a concert live

Ancienne Belgique’s recording studio control room used for recording concerts and AB Sessions

“Alongside the studio control toom, we installed an intimate room. The idea is that we ask artists who come and play the venue to perform in that room – they switch on the lights, play the song in one take, turn the lights out – that’s it” and direct in HD quality. “The Calexico show was sold out weeks in advance and we were granted permission to stream the concert through ABtv, which will be a huge promotion for the site,” adds Zegers.

Ancienne Belgique’s recording studio is equipped with a Euphonix CS3000 104channel digitally controlled analogue mixing console, Digidesign Pro Tools HD Accel3 24-bit/192k hard-disk recorder and Genelec monitors (1038B and 1031A). A wide inventory of effects, EQs and dynamic processors provide yet another bonus for the new website. Since 1997, the venue’s in-house studio has recorded over 1,000 concerts through its direct link with either the 2,000-capacity main hall (featuring d&b J-Series line array, EAW fills and Midas Heritage desks) or the smaller, 250-person ABclub. The studio was designed to record and mix live concerts without losing quality or time, and it will now play a crucial role in the further development of the online offering. “Apart from five-minute ‘behind the scenes’ reports offering exclusive content, we launched the AB Sessions project. Alongside the studio control room, we installed an intimate room, with microphones, one camera and a light switch button. The idea is that we ask

artists who come and play the venue to perform in that room – they switch on the lights, play the song in one take, turn the lights out – that’s it. Needless

to say this will add up to an archive of super exclusive material, and we plan to take this to an international level,” Zegers explains. The first artist to perform in the AB Sessions was Zita Swoon’s frontman Stef Kamil Carlens. This was followed by Steve Wynn and the Dragon Bridge Orchestra in early October. Following the one-year sabbatical of in-house recording engineer Stef Van Alsenoy, Ancienne Belgique appointed Jet Studio owner and engineer Staf Verbeeck. “My name was on their list of engineers working with Euphonix consoles, and I already worked as replacement engineer at the studio,” explains Verbeeck, “so the link was already there… and it allowed me to rethink the future of Jet Studio.” (See story, p3.) Verbeeck, who has more than 18 years of studio experience, says the Euphonix CS3000 is the best console for both the live recordings and the AB Sessions. “Not every artist that plays the Ancienne Belgique wants to play the AB Sessions, but if they do, we manage to get the recording and live mix on ABtv in fewer than 15 minutes, so actually before the venue doors open to the public,” says Verbeeck. “And with 320 concert days per year, we gather that the AB Sessions will soon make an ideal promotion tool, offering unique footage,” adds Zegers. Q www.abconcerts.be

SWITZERLAND Daniel Libeskind’s landmark shopping and leisure centre, Westside, has opened, just outside Berne, Switzerland. Music distribution is provided by an IP streaming system from Barix, which divides the building into several zones according to function. Each is covered by an Exstreamer receiving an audio stream via the internet, which is converted into music and fed to individual audio systems on site. Ten channel feeds are available allowing each zone to ‘tune’ into the most appropriate programme material. Q

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LONGBOW DOMINATES THE FIELD

GLASTONBURY 2008

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THE MARTIN EXPERIENCE

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SCANDINAVIA

Fjord fiesta Scandinavia is not known for its big-name pro-audio manufacturers, and many domestic companies make up most of their sales abroad, but niche players ensure that the market remains strong, writes Gez Kahan Scandinavia – strictly speaking an unofficial subset of Europe’s official Nordic Region, comprising Denmark, Norway and Sweden – is, unsurprisingly, not the place to go for cheap speakers. There’s plenty of wood and water (two of the prime ingredients for making and shipping such products) but there’s also a low-density, high-earning population, low unemployment and high taxation. Those conditions favour high-end, high-value products. Outside a couple of big names, the majority of Scandinavian pro-audio manufacturers are targeting niche business, along with speciality services such as acoustic measurement and design. But there are some brands that genuinely count as mainstream, and global. One is microphone manufacturer DPA (once Danish Pro Audio), formed in 1992 when Brüel & Kjaer, which specialises in measuring equipment, spun off sales and service of its B&K4006 microphones. Two former employees,

Morten Støve and Ole Brøsted Sørensen, combined service and repairs with developing their own DPA-branded products (and duly bought out the rights to the 4000 series in 1998). Since then, DPA Microphones has not only established itself in recording studios, particularly for classical music, but has made inroads into the theatre and the house of worship markets with its miniature 4060-series, but into broadcast and post-production with its larger format mics. Its latest product release (at IBC 2008) was a mobile mic system for 5.1 recording, the appropriately named 5100. Prior to that, at PLASA 2008, came the launch of the 4099 instrument mic line. These clip microphones have specifically designed mountings to suit particular instruments – guitar, sax, trumpet and violin – without risking damage to the musician’s pride and joy. “The goal has been to set a new standard for sound quality and functionality in this product category,” explains DPA’s sales and mar-

keting director, Poul Koza. “We see this product equally suited for the PA/live industry as for the high-end retail MI market,” she says, adding that response so far has been “overwhelming”. DPA’s growth in overseas business won it an export award from the Danish Chamber of Commerce in 2007, and though Koza acknowledges that the Nordic region still accounts for a fair chunk of its total turnover, the US, UK, Germany and Japan occupy the first four slots in DPA’s sales-byterritory chart. That will have been helped by the establishment of a dedicated sales subsidiary in the US back in 2003. DPA is now looking to replicate the formula in the Asia-Pacific region with the announcement of a Shanghai office to cater for this area. For its part, Sweden has a pair of niche microphone manufacturers (plus, from distributor Mikrofonen Sverige, a Swedish made popscreen). Based in Åstorp, in southern Sweden, Pearl (Pearl Mikrofonlaboratorium) has been going

Benum and friends: (L-R) Erik Ostby (Benum Norway), Mats Mattsson (Benum Sweden), Jörgen Christensen (Benum Sweden), Klaus Hansen (Benum Denmark), Bob Goleniowski (D&M Europe), Ronald Hernes (Benum Norway) and Norbert Perstinger (Allen & Heath)

Raw materials are in abundance in the region

since 1941, starting off with crystal mics before moving into dynamics and condensers in the 1950s. Bernt Malmqvist, whose family now owns the company, joined in 1954, and oversaw developments such as the stereo mics that Pearl began building in the 1980s, and which still form a large part of the catalogue. Although the majority of Pearl’s products are designed for studio and broadcast recording, there are also dynamics for vocals, conferencing and talkback. And along with standard mono and stereo condensers, there is the ELM series of linear (using line array principles) condensers and a range of tube mics. The latest release is the CB22, which (together with the CC22 and CO22) makes up a family of three large-membrane condensers with different patterns. Malmqvist reckons to sell around half his products in his domestic (Swedish) market, with the rest of the output split between Europe and the US – though he wryly observes that “we might have had better sales in the US if the currency rate was more in our favour”. A few miles down the road from Åstorp, is Helsingborg, and Milab. That Milab, like Pearl, has rectangular capsule products is no accident, resulting from Pearl’s split into two companies in 1978. Milab (Microphone Laboratories) was formed after that split became permanent, with Hans Rosander, whose father founded Pearl, as managing director.

“Big distribution players seem to have found Scandinavia as a market and want to win market impact here” Its range of condensers, including a surround sound system, sells well in Germany, the UK and Sweden, says Milab’s Mattias Strömberg, and he is now looking to ramp up sales in the US with the appointment of three new distributors, in Wisconsin, California and Connecticut. Moving down the signal chain, Denmark has a couple of niche companies in the signal processing market, such as the relative newcomer, Kjaerhus Audio, a web-based developer of plugins. Rather more established, and bridging the gap between digital and analogue, Digital Audio Denmark has a range of A-D/D-A converters and other inputs devices. Meanwhile, on a more traditional kick, Tube-Tech was founded in 1977 and has been marketing its range of valve mic preamps, compressors, equalisers and the like since 1984. But even though the first of the company’s five axioms is ‘We shall only allow tubes

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to be used in the audio path’, Tube-Tech is pragmatic enough to recognise the way the world is going, and has recently launched a plug-in version of its CL 1B compressor. This, available in TC PowerCore and Pro Tools versions, was produced in collaboration with Softube and TC Electronic, and TC is also handling sales and support. TC Electronic is, of course, anything but a niche company, and is Denmark’s – and Scandinavia’s – outstanding example not just of a global professional audio brand, but of a global professional audio corporation. The company has been around for 32 years, concentrating at first on guitar effects pedals, but it was its move into pro-audio processing that set it on the way to being a corporation. Signal processing in its wider sense – as exemplified these days by its System 6000 – has enabled TC to gain a foothold in every sector from recording to post, from broadcast to sound reinforcement, and that has also served as a springboard for a series of acquisitions. Not every one of TC’s acquisitions and mergers has gone entirely to plan. Martin Audio was in and out of the TC Group in short order, and the bombshell partnership with Gibson Corporation bombed, equally unexpectedly, before the ink was dry. But along with its TCbranded lines, including TC Helicon and TC Applied Technologies, the group contains a couple of big names in Tannoy and Lab.gruppen. Lab.gruppen is Sweden’s big proaudio success. As is often the case, it was formed by a pair of enthusiasts who simply wanted to make good products: Kenneth Andersson and Dan Bävholm, who started the company in 1979, made mixers and guitar amps, and serviced consumer hi-fi equipment to help make ends meet. But it soon became obvious that power amps were the company’s future. The growth of Lab.gruppen’s range, and a series of innovations such as the Intercooler heat sink and a solution to the problem of how to design a work-

able switch mode power supply for high-power pro-audio use, helped the business expand well beyond Sweden. Lab.gruppen’s biggest territory is the rest of Europe, followed by North America, with Scandinavia in fourth place. And power is still the watchword. The latest in its C series of installation amplifiers, announced in October, offers 8,800W of total output power. But the market no longer wants power alone. The trend over the past few years has been to incorporate management functions, and that has seen a series of alliances with control software and signal processing specialists. In Lab. gruppen’s case, a notable, and successful, partnership with Dolby seemed to have been an ideal solution, until Dolby decided to quit the live sound market. Lab.gruppen is not unduly concerned. “One of the main reasons Dolby cites for this move is the success of our PLM Series of Powered Loudspeaker Management systems with integrated Dolby Lake Processor (DLP) technology,” points out Tim Chapmen, Lab.gruppen’s head of marketing, promising that it will continue to use (and develop) DLP technology. In fact, because that processing is now only available as an integrated element within its PLM series, Lab.gruppen expects this to result in greater demand. The search for integrated power and processing, Lab.gruppen notes, applies to its domestic market as much as anywhere, and in installation as well as touring. “We can see an increasing demand for more intelligent installation amplifiers, even in smaller [Scandinavian] venues,” adds Chapman. “A small venue that would previously have been supplied with a couple of 2-channel amps, now requires much more complex, multifunctional systems employing more channels and more zones.” In terms of technology, Scandinavia is basically in line with global trends. “Line arrays and digital consoles” – neither of which are available from domestic manufacturers – “are still top on the

gear lists”, reports Anders Molund of Etech (Event Technologies Scandinavia), which offers rental services along with sales and installations. And that market seems to be expanding. “We’re also seeing a higher demand for highly qualified all-round personnel, which is far harder to source,” adds Molund. “We try to cater for this by providing in- and outof-house education for our employees.” DPA’s Koza, likewise, has noticed that: “Big distribution players seem to have found Scandinavia as a market and want to win market impact here.” One indication is the level of investment within Scandinavia from external companies. UK-based Profusion, for example, which specialises in audio semiconductors, has opened a new Danish sales office near Copenhagen, citing the Nordic region’s “very strong and cutting-edge audio sector to which our specialised semiconductors are well

Poul Koza, DPA

suited”. The office is headed by Bjarne Vonger-Lorenzen, who is targeting “a wide range of applications, anything from high-power amplifiers to ultra low noise microphone preamps”. Such moves may have been helped by attempts over the past few years to free up the burden of regulation and taxation – although the climate for overseas investors could change again in line with the recent coolness towards free market economics. One thing that won’t change in a hurry, though, is the geographical obstacles. Though all three countries are prosperous and well developed, the combined population is relatively small and spread out, especially in the north. That has led many of the pro-audio service companies to diversify rather than specialise – like Etech, other distributors also offer such services as consultancy, installation and rental. And relationships count for a lot.

Profusion’s Bjarne Vonger-Lorenzen

The C884 – Lab.gruppen’s latest in its successful series of installation amplifier

“Personal contact is still – and hopefully will remain – the prime decision parameter when budgets are spent, in whatever way,” comments Molund. “Even though these countries seem small, the distance and logistical obstacles require good service partners on hand around the corner, so to speak.” It’s the same story for Benum Nordic, which has offices in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo, and has just won Allen & Heath’s agency for the whole of Scandinavia. Benum’s activities combine MI distribution from Ampeg to Zoom with multi-sector pro-audio lines as diverse as CEDAR, Digidesign, Digigram, Genelec, Renkus-Heinz, SSL and Shure. Its services are equally eclectic, running from pro-audio equipment sales and system solutions to industrial sales and production of cabling, panelling and the like. “You would have to look hard to find a company that survives in one f

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DPA’s 4099 clip microphones have been designed to suit instruments such as trumpets

f business area only,” adds Chapman.

“Working with pro audio in small countries like this and being so far north, restricting gigs to indoor jobs in the winters, there is not enough business for most companies to focus on just one market sector. Most do both installation and touring, and quite often they act as a dealer and sometimes distributor as well. However, as the audio business matures and increases in professionalism, it is starting to change and a clearer picture is taking shape that allows some separation and specialisation in the business areas.” Only one of those we spoke to had seen great benefits from the post-Soviet era opening up of the neighbouring Baltic States, however. “We have been able to establish a distribution network in the

Baltic region,” Koza admits, “but as a high-end manufacturer, we have felt this segment is limited so far.” The exception is Lab.gruppen. Chapman says: “Since the Baltic States joined the EU in 2004, our sales have grown exponentially.” And there was not a single concern about China. “We experience some competition from Far Eastern manufacturers in all markets, but primarily these products appeal when very low cost presides over quality and features,” says Chapman. “Our focus has always been to provide true value for money products for professional touring and installation applications where sonic quality and reliability is key.” “High-end products like Pearl microphones,” adds Malmqvist, “are not

affected by cheap Far Eastern imports. However, people who buy those cheap microphones will sooner or later come back for higher quality products from us or others in the high-end division.” “There have been no dramatic changes,” agrees Koza. “DPA is a quality player in the business. Fortunately, quality still has its legitimacy and Scandinavia is a quality-demanding and rich market.” But there is one Scandinavian manufacturer actually welcoming Chinese manufacture. Per Lundahl of Lundahl Transformers manufacturers pro-audio and audiophile transformers in Norrtälje, central Sweden, with around 90% of his output going to export (although he considers the 10% of his sales that go into the domestic market is more than creditable “given Scandinavia’s population and industrial structure”). Far Eastern manufacture hasn’t hurt him, but “for one major European customer we ship directly to China.” Scandinavia may not be the place to go to for cheap speakers, but it’s evidently an excellent place to go for quality transformers. Q www.dpamicrophones.com www.eventech.se www.labgruppen.com www.pearl.se

Brüel & Kjaer, Odeon & DIRAC Along with giving birth to (and subsequently cutting the apron strings of) DPA Microphones, Brüel & Kjaer – now a subsidiary of Spectris plc, which makes instruments and controls to aid productivity – has developed its own specialist place as a manufacturer and supplier of sound and vibration solutions. It started with the launch of the world’s first Charge Accelerometer (to measure vibration) 65 years ago, and continued with its range of measurement microphones in the 1950s. Since then it has designed a series of other measuring devices, including sound level meters, frequency analysers and a series of software-based methods to calculate vibration, shock and SPL. Obvious applications are in room acoustics, though B&K’s expertise runs from aerospace (aircraft noise is a problem internally and externally) to structural dynamics. Besides its own products, the company is also the exclusive worldwide distributor for Odeon, a prediction software tools for indoor acoustics. Odeon, established in 1984, started as a co-operative venture between the Technical University of Denmark

and industry consultants, aiming to help solve problems with the acoustics in opera houses and concert halls. The applications have since expanded to include houses of worship, studios and even industrial sites. The application is available in three versions –Auditorium Edition (which includes a reflectogram, a 3D reflection path display and reverberation curve displays, plus built-in auralisation features), Industrial Edition (for complex areas which may have point sources, line sources and surface sources) and a Combined Edition. Brüel & Kjaer also distributes DIRAC room acoustics software which conforms to ISO3382 (room acoustics) and IEC 60268–16 (speech intelligibility) standards. Troubleshooting awkward rooms is an obvious application for sound engineers, as is measurement of the speech intelligibility of a sound system. Other uses include characterisation of room acoustics before and after modification and comparison of acoustical quality of different rooms. It is even able to model room acoustics using measurements taken in a scale model.

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Intercom sees the party battle lines being drawn Once a necessary but slightly dull part of any installation or outside broadcast, intercom has become a vital part of pro audio thanks to new media and some market manoeuvring. Kevin Hilton talks back Equipment can be taken for granted because it is so familiar and trusted. Once it is presented using a different technology its importance in getting the job done is appreciated all over again. That’s certainly happening with intercom. Even before the Clear-Com acquisition of Talkdynamics Technologies’ IP technology the whole business of keeping in touch around a broadcasting centre, theatre, live sound venue or at a big sporting event had taken on a new urgency because of the sheer scale of what is done these days, something that was summed up this year by the Beijing Olympics. The Summer Games are something unto themselves due to their size, complexity and the number destinations for intercom and broadcast signals involved; but they do represent a general shift towards bigger networks. This is being seen in the staging of massive live shows, which are often broadcast or recorded as well, and the new breed of television and radio centre that not only takes in several hundred square metres of floor space itself but also needs to connect to regional centres, OB vans and local correspondents. The Olympics was the epitome of both. Equipment and facilities came in to the Chinese capital from around the world, and among the mix of general systems was a variety of intercoms. But

Curious?

the host broadcaster, Beijing Olympics Broadcasting (BOB), chose specific brands for specific jobs and this, combined with the choices by national and regional Chinese broadcasters and their international counterparts, meant that the big proportion of intercom provision was split between Riedel Communications, Clear-Com Communication Systems and Telex/RTS. The creation of such huge intercom networks as seen at the Olympics have been made possible largely due to wireless and digital technologies, with the two usually working together, but now voice over internet protocol (VoIP) is seen as the core technology on which bigger and bigger systems can be built. The link provided by Clear-Com between the International Broadcast Centre in Beijing and Chinese state broadcaster CCTV’s existing and new broadcast centres was based on optical fibre with a redundant E1 (the ITU-TS digital transmission format that carries data at a rate of 2.048Mb/s with up to 32-channels of 64kbps each) and VoIP connection. Matt Danilowicz, managing director of Clear-Com, says the holy grail for intercom manufacturers is to have a battery of products based on different technologies available to its customers so they can select the most appropriate for their needs. This includes good old two- and four-wire systems, digital, wireless and, now, IP.

An RTS Cronus Digital Matrix system was installed in Glyndebourne earlier this year

“The best system will use a combination of all the tools,” he says. “And we want to make our IP the best connection and more robust than anything that has been seen before.” This ambition is behind ClearCom’s take-over of Canadian IP technologies developer Talkdynamics Technologies. The company had already been supplying its IV-Core products, the Instant Voice Network (IV-N) and Instant Voice Router (IVRouter), for the manufacturer’s VoICE range. The two companies have been working together for most of

wanted to move beyond that and create a “native IP architecture”, which would do away with the need for intermediary boxes and go direct into a matrix. The Talkdynamics toolset has three elements: a routing algorithm to analyse and maximise the efficiency of the available bandwidth of whatever connection is being used for the IP signals, and error recovery and noise suppression algorithms. The technology produces a bandwidth of 7.1kHz, twice that of many other connections, which Danilowicz says is necessary to provide good audio quality. Clear-Com has also introduced IP options for some of its other products, and earlier this year launched the Concert Series, a software intercom product that runs on PCs, laptops and PDAs, Danilowicz describes it as “Skype on steroids”. The company is now looking to expand the work of its acquisition to develop new systems. “We see IV-Core as the basis of our next generation of products and into the future,” says Danilowicz, adding that these were still a “few years away”. Many of the major manufacturers now offer some form of VoIP for their products, but this embracing of IP for intercom applications is something of an about-face. This is because when the concept was first proposed the general view was that the technology was neither robust nor reliable enough for such important communications work. That was certainly the reaction when Trilogy Communications announced an IP-based system in 2001. But seven years later, with the product range, Mercury, now established and the technology on which it is based being widely adopted, sales director Barry Spencer says the company feels justified in its pioneering decision.

“We support any interoperability and standards for connecting intercom matrixes. We don’t think any proprietary protocols will have success in the future. That’s only keeping a company’s market to itself” Talkdynamics’ existence, since being founded in 2004. Danilowicz says VoICE has proved “quite popular” with users as a bridge between other systems, but Clear-Com

“Other companies said IP couldn’t be used because of the delay introduced by IT technology but now they’re coming on board with their own offerings,” he says. “It’s been a progression from the f

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Riedel’s Artist was the most used intercom system in Beijing during this summer’s Olympic Games

has made the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) mandatory as the signalling method for bidirectional links. Developed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and published as RFC 3261, SIP is an internet protocol for live communications used in establishing and ending voice or video calls. A session can be a conventional two-way phone call or a multimedia conference session with many people involved. Spencer says SIP provides an international standard for IP-based audio systems for the first time and sees the opportunities in connecting intercoms to IP phones. Riedel, which is active in both live sound and broadcast, is now moving into VoIP and it views SIP as an important step towards global standardisation. “We support any interoperability and standards for connecting intercom matrixes,” says Riedel’s product manager for intercom products, Jochen Wainwright. Riedel’s IP offering incorporates another telephony technology that was dismissed by the broadcast sector when it first appeared, DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications). Confidence in DECT is still not absolute so the Acrobat digital wire-

less intercom uses the format only at the base level, with new technologies built on top. Acrobat is not limited in the number of belt packs that can be connected, due to Enhanced Channel Agility (ECA), which detects available RX and TX space, and so exploits all the

nections. Telex Intelligent Trunking for IP is also available, allowing the least number of audio paths to be used for high numbers of users. “Connecting over IP for such systems is now very simple and cost effective,” says Richmond. “Major broadcasters are setting up large IP highways, typically between the broadcast centre and OB sites, and being able to communicate with the home base in this way is a great advantage. In effect, it is treating the OB like a remote studio. We’ve certainly seen that revolution in sports OBs. There’s also the ability to interface with mobile phones, which would allow reporters in the field to call in and be connected to different areas – such as the MCR or newsroom – by pressing different numbers.” A relative newcomer to the European intercom market is HM Electronics (HME), which started to make moves outside its home market of the US in 2004 with the DX digital wireless system. Wireless, digital or otherwise, remains the focus for the company but pro-audio sales director John Kowalski says HME is looking at all emerging technologies, including IP. “It offers benefits that are not comparable to wireless systems,” he says, “but we do not see a lot of it in theatre, it will be more for broadcast applications.” HME sells into both the theatre and

‘Skype on steroids’: a screenshot of The VoIP matrix card for Riedel’s Artist digital matrix was launched at this year’s IBC

Clear-Com’s Concert Series

f days when people used phone lines as the basis of an intercom and then moved on to four-wire and then ISDN came along in the 1990s. Now that has been overtaken by IP, which has been great for us. Where we’re seeing major growth is in the requirement for broadcasters and other organisations to communicate between sites that are hundreds of miles apart, such as Mumbai and Delhi in India or broadcast centres in the north and south of England.” With this widespread adoption of IP, the EBU issued guidelines in April this year, laying down minimum requirements to guarantee interoperability between equipment used in VoIP networks carrying contribution quality audio. These cover the transport protocols sitting on the IP carrier, which include ways of defining ports and methods to recover packet loss; the audio coding algorithms to be used; audio frame encapsulation, describing the means of framing and encapsulating audio frames into transport layer frames; and signalling, covering setting up and terminating connections and signal parameters for the receiver. While unidirectional signalling is considered in the document, the EBU

DECT frequency and channel spectrum. Also launched at IBC 2008 were the IP panel interface and VoIP matrix card for Riedel’s Artist digital matrix. Riedel is keen on the concept of open platforms as IP moves forward, which would, conceivably, allow greater interconnection between systems from different manufacturers. “We don’t think any proprietary protocols will have success in the future,” says Wainwright. “That’s only keeping a company’s markets to itself. With these new technologies the markets should be opened up to create competition.” RTS is also exploring VoIP, introducing the RVON-16 card for its ADAM modular intercom system, but it is not using SIP. Instead the company’s IPbased products run on a private, proprietary protocol. “We do look at new technologies to see where they are going,” says Adrian Richmond, sales manager for UK and Ireland. “If something proves to be an area that helps with our products and market then we will move into it. Up to now we’ve been using proprietary technology because we’ve got older products in the field and we’re still supporting them. But if an open standard proved interesting we would look at it seriously.” The RVON-16 card allows customised key panels to be linked to the main matrix using conventional IP con-

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time, replacing the ITV Red Phone intercom system connecting its central playout centre, at Technicolor Network Services’ facility in west London, to the five regional centres. Spencer says there is good growth in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, while the Middle East and India are proving fertile new markets. “There’s a lot of upgrading going on over there and a great deal of new building, like Media City in Dubai,” he says. He adds that another reason for looking further afield during the 1990s was because at the time “Clear-Com had the European market sown up”. That situation changed into the 21st century and Danilowicz is candid about the reasons why. “We lost a lot of ground in the last seven to eight years,” he says, “partly because we were trying to integrate the two intercom businesses within the Vitec Group, Clear-Com and Drake Electronics. That was trickier than Vitec thought it would be, merging the live events business of Clear-Com with Drake’s broadcast operations.” Danilowicz says the hope was the merger would produce the best of the two companies but, in some respects, what resulted was the worst of the two. This loss of direction gave Clear-Com’s competitors, particularly Telex and Riedel,

RTS’s RVON-16 card for the ADAM modukar intercom system

broadcast markets in North America and is beginning to do the same in Asia and Europe. Kowalski comments that because of changes in the way live event, entertainment and broadcasting technicians work, intercom is no longer

can bring more problems. Two- and four-wire systems have not been superseded and there is a place for everything in our portfolio. Two-wire systems can be perfect when used at small theatres and there’s the capa-

“IP offers benefits that are not comparable to wireless systems, but it will be more for broadcast applications than theatres” a specialised area. “People are dealing with more technologies today,” he says, “and wireless intercom shouldn’t be something a person has to learn. There may be just one person in a technical department now, with freelancers coming in and out, so a technology cannot be challenging.” Both HME and Riedel have embraced the newer intercom carriers, notably digital and wireless, but their competitors continue to see all technologies, two- and four-wire among them, as viable in a market that continues to have a wide variety of users and applications. “Wireless has been a large growth market for us,” observes Adrian Richmond at Telex. “Radio intercom allows people to move about totally unimpeded and up to now they have only been impeded by cost. These systems are becoming more cost effective and reliable.” Despite the proliferation of wireless devices in just about every walk of life, there is certainly still a place for wired systems, Richmond says. “They are more reliable in some cases,” he comments, “but the two go hand-inhand. New technology does not always provide the answer and sometimes it

Curious?

bility for wireless systems to conference with them.” The US is still a big market for Telex, which is also active in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with a strong presence in Australia. A company that remains wholly in the traditional four-wire domain is CTP Systems, founded by former OB engineer Chris Thorpe. Growing beyond its bespoke panel beginnings, but still a specialist despite a wider range of products, CTP produces simple equipment that is able to connect easily to other systems. “Our camera talkback can link to whatever system happens to be around,” Thorpe says. “And we do sell an awful lot of six-way four-wire boxes.” At one time, CTP was very UK-oriented but Thorpe is seeing a wider audience for his products, including Sweden and the Netherlands. Trilogy has become less reliant on business from western and northern Europe than it was 10 years ago, largely because major broadcasters such as Sky have completed major building or refurbishment projects or, like ITV, have reduced and consolidated their operations. However, Trilogy did recently pick up a contract it had been after for some

the opportunity to move into some of its former markets. After experience in incorporating different companies into a whole at Avid, Danilowicz was brought in by Vitec two years ago to complete the integration between ClearCom and Drake. He now feels that Clear-Com as it is today offers the best of its live products, with two- and four-wire still strong, and what he calls the “ubiquitous communications” of Drake, benefiting from presence aware technologies so everyone using an intercom knows where colleagues are at all times. There is no doubt that intercom is a competitive market, and as technologies and the requirements of end users change there will be even greater competition between the top five companies. Certainly Clear-Com is looking to take the fight back to its rivals and feels some of that work was done in the past two years. “We’ve got our core TDM products and we’ve been regaining some of our former position already with some strong engineering,” he says. “But we won’t be satisfied to get back to where we were, we want to be far beyond that.” All businesses move in cycles, with one company gaining the advantage and coming to prominence for a time and then, for whatever reason, losing ground to competitors that have set out

to get them. National preference and loyalty has played a part in delineating the intercom market but as manufacturers look to expand beyond established territories, they may be genuinely moving into uncharted territory. And with technology changing the rules intercom could be about to become as cutthroat as any sector of business. Q www.clearcom.com www.ctpsystems.co.uk www.hme.com www.riedel.net www.rtsintercoms.com www.telexwireless.com www.trilogycomms.com

MTV Europe are using RTS gear

Clear-Com Eclipse panels were used by Shanghai TV during the Olympics.

Please visit our website www.riedel.net

NEW

ACROBAT DIGITAL WIRELESS INTERCOM

The Solution for World Class Events.

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ANALYSIS: MUSIC ROYALTIES

A market in transition Although the value of royalties paid hit a record high in 2007, this was the first year that broadcast and online outperformed the physical product, writes Mike Collins

The MCPS-PRS Alliance, which collects and pays music royalties, has announced record results for 2007 worth £500 million in royalties to songwriters, composers and music publishers. The Alliance collected over £562 million for music creators from its customers, including broadcasters, online service providers and record companies. For the first time, income from broadcasting and online out-performed that of recorded physical product. Online royalties, although still a small proportion of the overall whole (at £10 million), grew significantly – by 54% – year-on-year, largely due to the growth in the legal online music market led by iTunes. Public performance income – the licensing of premises playing music – was driven by an increase in live pop concerts (delivering revenue up 20%) and improved licensing activity among leisure and industrial premises (up 13% and 20%, respectively). The recognised downturn in worldwide CD sales (revenues from the CD market were down 13%) was mitigated in part in the UK by improvements in licensing new formats, including pre-loaded USB sticks and musical novelties. The cost of processing the money collected and of distributing it was pegged at just over 10% of total revenues – one of the lowest in the world – in spite of a 40% increase in the number of transactions processed (due in part to the millions of music tracks included on new licensed services such as YouTube). Chief executive of the Alliance, Steve Porter, said: “Much is written about the state of the music industry, but these results show a healthy story about the increased use of music in almost all areas of our business. The downturn of 11.1% in physical product was more than compensated by innovation and growth in licensing in other areas of the business. “Further overall growth is expected for 2008, which is fantastic news for the creators of music everywhere and helps fuel the long-term future of great music for all.”

End-of-year forecast Anticipated revenue from sales of physical product is expected to amount to £131 million this year, significantly less than revenues from broadcast and online (£173 million), public performance (£143 million), and international (£135 million) sources. The Q3 figures show that these forecast figures are well on their way to being achieved: physical product had brought in £108 million by the end of Q3. This was less than broadcast and online, which had brought in £123 million (up 20%), and public performance, with £110 million (up 10%), but more than the £94 million from international sources. These are clearly encouraging results for the Alliance in what is acknowledged to be a challenging market for any kind of business. Income from the licensing of CDs continues to fall, in line with the downturn in worldwide sales. Revenues from all physical products, however, were ahead of budget in the first half of 2008 due to effective licensing of other physical formats. A strong performance from international revenues has delivered gains from most countries. The PRS collects money from bars, hotels, TV, cinemas, websites and live concerts in over 170 coun-

tries, from the Ascension Islands to Zambia. Top countries using UK music in the first half of 2008 were the US, Germany, France and Japan. The MCPS-PRS forecasts that 2008 will see UK songwriters earn more from their music being broadcast or performed overseas than they do from UK physical product, including, for the first time, CD sales. Income from broadcasting and online sources continues to outperform that of recorded physical product. Online royalties, although still a small proportion of the overall whole, grew significantly, largely due to the continued growth in the licensed online music market. Porter said: “We continue to improve our licensing effectiveness in both established areas and in new and emerging business models in order to ensure that all uses of music are accurately and fairly licensed for the benefit of music creators everywhere. We are making inroads into the online market with our groundbreaking licensing deals with iTunes, YouTube and Bebo, with further gains anticipated in the year.”

What the MCPS-PRS Alliance earned for music creators for the use of their music in 2007 – Revenues from physical products were down by 11% in 2007 compared with 2006. However, revenues from all other sources were up, providing an overall increase of 3% Source: MCPS-PRS Alliance

PPL revenues PPL, which collects income for performers and sound recording copyright owners when sound recordings are played publicly, has also released its financial results for 2007. These figures reveal another year of strong growth with income exceeding the £100 million mark for the first time. The total license fee income, amounting to £115 million in 2007, is up from £97.9 million in 2006. This represents the money collected from broadcasters and the various licensed businesses that use sound recordings in public. The distributable net revenue grew to an impressive £99.5 million representing an 18% increase on the prior year’s income. This figure is the money actually paid out to record companies and performers by PPL for the use of sound recordings. Being a not-for-profit company, PPL looks to keep running costs as low as possible – this year’s cost-to-income ratio remained low at 14.6%. The total income was made up from three main sources: international, public performance & dubbing, and broadcast. International income reached £9.1 million in 2007, a 52% growth from last year, reflecting an increased number of reciprocal agreements (now up to 41), a focus on maximising returns from each of our existing reciprocal agreements, and continued growth in the amount of repertoire PPL controls internationally. Public performance & dubbing revenues came in at £49 million, an 11% growth over 2006. Also in 2007 PPL launched its new Oracle-based public performance licensing system, which will enable the company to drive forward its public performance licensing, using all the capabilities the new system provides. Broadcast revenue grew by 20% in 2007 to £56.8 million, reflecting an increasing number of music users in the broadcast media, a wider scope of rights licensed by PPL and the re-negotiation of license arrangements with a number of existing major customers including the agreement with the BBC. Q www.mcs-prs-alliance.co.uk www.ppluk.com

MCPS-PRS Q3 results and 2008 end-of-year forecast – Songwriters are expected to earn less from physical product than from other revenue streams in future Source: MCPS-PRS Alliance

PPL growth in income from 2006 to 2007 – This graph shows the income from the various PPL revenue streams in 2006 and 2007, revealing increases in licence fee income that led to an 18% increase in distributable net revenue. This income was made up from three main sources: international income, public performance & dubbing revenues, and broadcast revenue Source: PPL

And from the Pro Sound News Europe website...

This month’s PSNE poll asks “Should Dolby have stopped making the Dolby Lake Processor?” A majority of 72% of respondents answered ‘No’, with just 27.8% agreeing that Dolby made the correct decision

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New products

Nigel Lord compiles this month’s list of hot new products

AXXENT

FOSTEX

GPX2500

UR-2

What is it? A new rack-mount power mixer that can also be used without rack ears as a table-top device.

What is it? A compact rack-mount memory card stereo recorder.

Details The GPX2500 includes two microphone inputs with 48V phantom power, plus two line-level jacks – one providing a stereo input for external devices such as CD/MP3 players. A source switch is used to select one of five stereo auxiliary inputs and the design features 3-band EQ for each input plus additional 7-band EQ for the output mix. The four built-in power amplifiers deliver 100W into 4 ohms – two for the stereo output and two more for the mono zone outputs.

Details Offering 16/24-bit recording of mono or stereo WAV files to SD cards and USB pen drives, the UR-2 is designed to adapt to a wide variety of playback requirements. It includes two SD card slots plus a USB host connector for alternate recording/playback between different media, and offers high-speed file transfer to PCs via USB 2.0. Up to 99 cue points may be added (with locate function) using the waveform display in scrub mode to provide easy, visual cue point setting. Other features include mic input with phantom power, analogue I/O and remote control via footswitch and external keyboard.

And another thing… The GPX2500 includes a built-in multi-band limiter made by THAT Corp and capable of reducing output levels by up to 30dB.

And another thing… A future software update will add MP3 playback/recording to the UR-2’s feature set.

www.axxent.de

www.fostex.com

BEHRINGER

KLOTZ DIGITAL

Decennium 5.1

SX Series What is it? A range of analogue mixing consoles for recording and small to mid-sized live mixing.

What is it? An upgrade of the Decennium mixing console for 5.1 surround applications in TV, video and radio productions.

Details The first two models in the SX range – the SX2442FX and SX3242FX – are 24-channel and 32-channel 4-bus designs incorporating ultra-low noise, high-headroom XENYX microphone preamps with 3-band, semi-parametric, mid-range EQ. The stereo channels provide precise 4-band EQ and four aux sends for each input, with two sends switchable pre/post fader for a mix of monitor and effects. Both models feature stereo 9-band graphic EQ and two processors offering 100 24bit/96kHz effects presets.

Details The new Decennium 5.1 allows surround sources to be assigned either as single audio channels on separate faders or as a combined 6-channel block to any single fader, allowing easy cross fades. The control surface retains its familiar flat-panel design. It combines fader modules and a monitor/DSP/master module comprising monitoring section with three independent channels, including mono, stereo, and surround monitor features, and a central surround pan. Decennium 5.1 is also fitted with a central DSP and control section, programmable function keys, and master fader.

And another thing... An internal auto-ranging power supply (100V-240V), goldplated XLR output connectors and steel chassis make it suitable for live work.

And another thing… Decennium 5.1 incorporates a new fader module with motorised faders and new functions such as virtual multi-layers, source-related signal indicators and improved access to busses.

www.behringer.com

www.klotzdigital.com

AUDIO ESSENTIAL

Are you launching a new product in 2009? Do you have a product that is an essential to the industry? Advertise it in Audio essentials. Call Lianne Davey on 0207 921 8401 or email: lkdavey@cmpi.biz

Audio over IP - Transport Messengers from Barix: “They want every news online, instantly: be it about Amy Winehouse or why the train's running late.” For more about information, security and comfort in the transport sector, visit www.barix.com

ia 08 mm As InfoCo Hall 7 | 4 1-0 Stand A

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www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008 SOUNDFIELD

KORG

MR-2000S

SMP200

What is it? A compact, 1bit/5.6MHz rack-mount master recorder designed for studio applications.

What is it? A 4-channel mic preamp designed to complement SoundField’s SPS200 software-controlled microphone.

Details Offering simultaneous 2-track 5.6MHz or 2.8MHz 1-bit recording, or up to 24-bit 192kHz PCM recording and playback, the MR-2000S supports 1-bit DSDIFF, WSD, and DSF file formats as well as BWF (Broadcast WAV) and MP3 playback. A built-in 80GB hard drive provides up to 120 hours of 44.1kHz/16-bit 2-track recording or over 14 hours of top quality 5.6 MHz/1-bit recording, while word clock I/O allows synchronization with other devices or a second MR-2000S unit. Coaxial digital I/O (S/P DIF) is also included to integrate PCM sources into existing production environments.

Details The four-capsule SPS200 offers software-based decoding and processing, rather than shipping with a hardware processor and control unit like all the other products in the SoundField range. For preamplification purposes, the SPS200 can be used with any multichannel mic pre or digital interface with onboard preamps. However, the output of the SPS200’s capsules still needs to be gainmatched, and the SMP200 is designed as a one-box solution to address this need.

And another thing… The MR-2000S includes AudioGate v1.5 audio file converter software designed to support reading and conversion of MR project files and provide basic editing as well as adding support for file formats such as AAC, MP3 and WMA.

And another thing… The SMP200 offers a ganged master gain control, 48V phantom power and a low-pass filter that can be applied simultaneously across all four channels.

www.korg.com

www.soundfield.com

KV2 AUDIO

SWITCHCRAFT

StudioPatch Standard and Pro audio splitters

EX Series covers What is it? A set of weatherproof covers for the EX Series active speakers.

What is it? A pair of rack-mounted audio splitters offering eight inputs and 24 dual transformer isolated outputs.

Details Initially produced for the most popular EX12 models in the range, the new covers use Saatifil Acoustex fabric for the front section of the cabinets, allowing them to be left in place while the speakers are in use. Designed for applications such as microphone pop filters, speakers and headphones, Saatifil Acoustex fabrics use a Hyphobe treatment offering advanced moisture-repelling characteristics. They are woven with polyester monofilament fibres to create uniform mesh openings in acoustical applications requiring consistent performance and high sound pressure levels.

Details Both Standard and Pro splitters feature front-panel inputs (via XLR connectors) and line-level pads on each channel. Two ground lift switches are also included on each channel – one for each transformer-isolated output. On the rear panel, four DB25 connectors wired to Tascam DTRS standard pin-outs accommodate all inputs and outputs. On the Pro model, Jensen magnetically shielded (MU metal) transformers and Phoenix terminal blocks are fitted.

And another thing… All stitching on the covers is waterproofed, and the design includes rain hoods for the two cable inlets.

And another thing… Connections to and from all StudioPatch modules are easily made using DB25 terminated breakout cables.

www.kv2audio.co.uk

www.switchcraft.com

PRISM SOUND

TECHNOMAD ASSOCIATES

Maselec MEA-2 and MLA-2

Schedulon

What is it? An upgrade to Prism Sound’s MEA-2 stereo analogue equaliser and MLA-2 stereo compressor, offering improved performance and appearance.

What is it? An MP3 playback and recording system for music playback and security applications.

Details Updated by the original designer – engineer/producer Leif Mases – the MEA-2 (pictured) is a stereo (or 2-channel), 4-band analogue equaliser with stepped Q/shelf, frequency and cut/boost controls on each band. The new design incorporates faster amplifiers with wider bandwidth and improved low frequency EQ filters. The individual EQ sections are now completely switched off when the gain controls are set to 0dB and the unit also goes into full bypass when the power is switched off. Similar updates have been applied to the MLA-2 – a stereo or 2-channel compressor with stepped drive (input gain), ratio, attack and release time and output gain controls.

Details Taking some of its design from Technomad’s SuperConductor player/recorder, Schedulon provides instant playback of up to 99 user-loaded audio files and allows automatic playback on a user-defined schedule based on an internal clock or synchronised network time server. Operators can interrupt automatic messages and play an emergency siren from an internal sound library in critical situations. It can also function as the audio source for a PA system or be used to feed audio to large-scale paging/BGM systems. It can integrate with speakers for indoor/outdoor playback of voice, sound effects and background music.

And another thing… The exterior on both modules has been updated to include metal knobs and a thicker front panel.

And another thing… Scheduling can be as straightforward or as complex as desired, down to the exact time of day; operators can also use the Schedulon to record field audio for instant or future playback via the user-defined schedule.

www.prismsound.com

www.technomad.com

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Review of reviews

Jim Evans’ monthly digest of product reviews from other pro-audio publications and online media

Lexicon PCM96 digital reverb

Following in the tradition of the PCM60 and PCM70 signal processors, the PCM96 offers a comprehensive selection of “legendary” Lexicon reverbs and effects, including the return of the Concert Hall reverb. Appearing for the first time are new Room and Hall algorithms, plus an assortment of new mono reverbs and effects. Selectable, reversible reflection patterns, multimode filters, and “infinity switches” provide additional new capabilities. It is designed for studio or live use. Writing in Mix, Barry Rudolph observes: “Lexicon has been making high-quality

audio effects processors for 35 years. Its latest release, the PCM96 effects processor delivers great performance. Although not a convolution-based reverb, all room presets use early-reflection impulses from well-known rooms as starting points for creating reverb. This hybrid approach retains the inherent realism of a convolution reverb but allows the precise control and manipulation possible only with reverb synthesisers. The PCM96 uses 32-bit floating-point processing, works at sample rates up to 96kHz, and is HiQnet-compatible.” Rudolph concludes: “I’ve just started to scratch the surface, exploring all

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

the capabilities of the PCM96. Its versatility goes way beyond any plug-in reverb and most hardware units costing many times as much. Like the 480L and 960L before it, the PCM96 is a huge winner and future studio stalwart. It carries on the Lexicon legacy with its wonderful sound, simple operation yet deep programmability, malleable interfacing and flexible control.” Resolution’s Jon Thornton suggests: “As a stand-alone box, the PCM96 is more than worthy of its illustrious badge in terms of its sound and performance, and marks a huge step forward in general user friendliness and flexibility. For

anybody wanting that big Lexicon sound for significantly less money than a 960L, the PCM96 is an excellent choice. On the other hand, using it in conjunction with a DAW lacks a little in stability – it’s certainly not the best of both worlds yet. The good news is that software is software, and I’m sure that the remaining stability issues can and will be sorted out in the near future. And you can, of course ignore that layer of functionality in the meantime and enjoy what is a simply lovely sounding stereo reverb.” In Future Music, Stuart Bruce sums up: “That Lexicon has been at the top of the digital reverb market for 30 years should tell you something about the quality of the algorithms they use. This is a very fine unit that stands pretty much alone. My gripes about the installation process will probably be redundant by the time you read this, so the only criteria you need to decide on are

Universal Audio UAD-2 powered plug-ins The UAD-2 is, as its name suggests, the successor to the UAD-1, and puts considerably more lead in its pencil. Three cards are available: Solo, Duo and Quad. The Solo card boasts performance at 2.5 times the level of the original, the Duo at five times and the Quad at an astonishing 10 times. Future Music’s Jono Buchanan was first out of the blocks, declaring: “If you’re a fully paid-up UAD devotee, the switch to UAD-2 can only be exciting. Yes, it’s an outlay for a card, with the all-guns-blazing Quad a serious investment, but this switch will ensure the future of the UAD platform for the foreseeable future. “It’s now possible to turn your DAW into a full Neve console, for a fraction of the cost of a real desk. Performance is more than impressive, and the preparation work UA has done to ensure the install and crossgrade is smooth and error-free is com-

mendable. The UAD-2 is perfect for powerhungry plug-in users, particularly the Quad version. It might just rule the world.” In MusicTech, Mark Cousins writes: “Where once the UAD card looked like it was holding back the full-scale success of Universal’s Audio’s software mixing solution, it now looks set to propel it forward to the next generation of plug-ins and users. Once the complete line-up of UAD-1 plug-ins has migrated to the UAD-2 platform, the UAD-2 will undoubtedly offer the most comprehensive and powerful DSP-acceleration system available. Whether you want to fully load your workstation with four Quad cards or augment your existing capabilities with the Solo card, the UAD-2 has to be considered an essential upgrade for anyone who’s serious about mixing on their computer.” Resolution’s Rob James comments: “I consider these devices to be a perfectly

MusicTech’s Mark Cousins reports: “The Pultec EQP-1A equaliser and Fairchild 670 compressor are two of the most revered pieces of studio hardware in existence. On the face of it, they certainly look the part, appearing not entirely unlike two dusty pieces of

radar equipment you might expect to find in a military surplus store. But with good-condition original versions of the Fairchild compressor still commanding sums in excess of £10,000, you can see that there’s a great deal more to these signal processors than looks alone.

Reviews sampled: Future Music, Autumn 2008, www.futuremusic.co.uk Mix, September 2008, www.mixonline.com Resolution, October 2008, www.resolutionmag.com

the sound of the reverbs themselves and whether or not it suits the way that you work. As with the SSL Matrix, this unit marks the beginning of manufacturers bringing the advantage of the analogue and digital worlds ever closer, and as such can only be a good thing.” Q www.lexiconpro.com

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS reasonable compromise between somewhat soulless plug-ins and expensive, bulky hardware boxes, analogue or digital. They have more character than many native or TDM plug-ins while being a great deal more affordable and practical for many of us than a room full of hardware. If you haven’t already heard Universal Audio processors, hardware and software, you really should make the effort to do so.” After thorough testing, reported in detail over four pages, Sound On Sound’s Mike Senior concludes: “Despite some of my concerns with latency and CPU drain, this in no way detracts from the fact that the UAD-2 is an enormous leap forward from the UAD-1. Existing users happy with the latency limitations of the earlier card are entitled to froth with anticipation at the prospect of so much more of the same. There is also no doubt that Universal Audio is a force to be

f High-bandwidth x1 PCI Express (PCIe)

reckoned with in terms of the quality of its audio processing, and the more powerful card will doubtless entice many new users to dip a toe into the water... I have considerable confidence that the company will throw its weight into dealing with the early driver issues and plug-in omissions.” Q

card (can be used in x1/x4/x8 and x16 slots, PCIe 2.0 compatible) f L.O.D.E. (Live Optimizing DSP Engine) the UAD-2’s DSP engine automatically balances resources to maximise your plug-in instantiations f One, two or four Analog Devices SHARC 21369 floating-point processors f Multi-card support for up to eight cards – mix and match up to four UAD-2s and four UAD-1/1e/Xpanders in one system/group f Cross-platform for Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) or Leopard (10.5), and Windows XP/x64 or Vista 32/64 f 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz sample rate support f LiveTrack (low-latency mode) allows UAD-2 plug-ins to behave like host plugins with no additional latency added Reviews sampled: Future Music, Autumn 2008, www.futuremusic.co.uk MusicTech, November 2008, www.musictechmag.co.uk Resolution, October 2008, www.resolutionmag.com Sound On Sound, November 2008, www.soundonsound.com

www.uaudio.com

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Waves JJP Collection plug-ins Waves’ new collection of plug-ins is based on vintage pieces of gear owned by Grammy award-winning producer/mix engineer Jack Joseph Puig. The Jack Joseph Puig Collection is the culmination of Waves’ ongoing research and development project that has lasted for more than three years. The new collection debuts following the June introduction of free downloadable Waves presets from Puig. The plug-ins are based on four hardware processors: the Fairchild 660 and 670 compressors, and the Pultec EQP-1A and MEQ-5 equalisers.

f 28 Lexicon reverbs, modulation and delay effects f New mono reverbs and effects, including Chamber, Hall and Plate f Hardware plug-in feature with Mac VST and Audio Units software f DAW automation through plug-in format f FireWire streaming through plug-in format f Two channels XLR balanced 24-bit I/O f Two channels AES/EBU digital I/O f Multiple sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96kHz f 32-bit floating-point processing

“Although we were unable to test the JJP collection alongside the original units, we can still vouch that the performance and sound quality felt suitably similar to comparable hardware processors. If anything, the release times on the PuigChild 670 felt slightly snappier than the UAD-1’s Fairchild 670 – a point that Waves highlights in stating that the measured release times didn’t align with the documented values from Fairchild. “Given the range of vintage plug-ins Waves has developed, it’s clear to see that the company is giving Universal Audio a run for its money, providing classic software-based studio tools but without being tied to additional DSP processing.” Over at Computer Music, the reviewer states: “Waves has done a good job with the JJP Collection, but it has to be said that there are already other plug-ins that

emulate this type of gear, and we’re sure there must be even more esoteric items to covet at JJP’s studio. Whether the fact that Puig’s own units have been modelled here makes any additional difference is impossible to say. What’s more, the presets, although they’re a useful starting point, aren’t quite as many or as varied as they could be. Still, the classic flavours of Fairchild and Pultec processing are very well represented, making this a desirable bundle.” Future Music’s Stuart Bruce comments: “I’ve looked for criticisms but to be honest, I can’t really find any. Waves plugs are never cheap and these are no exception, but at the very high standards that they set for themselves, and achieve, they justify the price. In 27 years, I’ve used a lot of Fairchilds and Pultecs, and no two are ever the same. The characteristics are always similar and you get

f PuigChild 660/670 compressor/limiter – lateral vertical mode (MS compression) for optimal stereo imaging, linked and unlinked modes f PuigTec EQP-1A programme equaliser – resonant low shelf boost f PuigTec MEQ-5 midrange equaliser – midrange complement to EQP-1A f Digidesign Icon support f Up to 24-bit, 96kHz resolution f Mono and stereo components f Supports TDM, RTAS, VST, AU f PC and Mac compatible Reviews sampled: Computer Music, October 2008, www.computermusic.co.uk Future Music, Autumn 2008, www.futuremusic.co.uk MusicTech, September 2008, www.musictechmag.co.uk

to know the good ones from the bad, but if I came across units sounding like these in a studio I would use them every day. Now there’s no need to raid Jack Joseph Puig’s rack with a screwdriver.” Q www.waves.com

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72 hither & dither EXPOS & EVENTS

2008 MTV Europe 6 November Liverpool, UK www.mtv.com

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

Hither & dither The world of industry happenings and hearsay, through the eyes of PSNE Please send all contributions for possible publication to david.robinson@cmpi.biz

SBES 5-6 November Birmingham, UK www.sbes2008.org

VDT Tonmeistertagung 13-16 November Leipzig, Germany http://www.tonmeister.de

EvenTech Ireland 18-19 November Dublin, Ireland www.eventech-ireland.com

Ooooh! It seemed a shame not to print these fantastic and unusual pictures from the Expo 2008, which drew to a spectacular close in Zaragoza, Spain after a three-month tenure. 105 nations took part in the huge world fair which was dedicated to the topic of “Water and Sustainable Development” and attracted over 6 million visitors. Pro-audio brands taking part included Meyer Sound and Lab.gruppen

Reproduced Sound 24 20-21 November Brighton, UK

Here’s Greg Simmons, travelling

www.ioa.org.uk

surround mic and HHB

the globe with his H2-PRO Portadrive, collecting sounds for his Surrounding the World

2009 Winter NAMM 2009 15-18 January California, US

DVD project. Proposals to provide scratch ‘n’ sniff packaging to create the ‘aroma’ of Nelly here have been shelved

www.namm.org

MIDEM 18-21 January Cannes, France www.midem.co

Integrated Systems Europe 3-5 February Amsterdam, Netherlands www.iseeurope.org

Broadcast Live/Videoforum 17-19 February London, UK www.broadcastvideoexpo.co.uk

EvenTech Scotland 25-26 February Glasgow, UK www.eventech-scotland.com

ISCEx2009 3 March Watford, England www.isce.org.uk

ProLight+Sound 1-4 April Frankfurt, Germany www.prolight-sound.com

Manley Labs has come up with this limited edition ‘db8 Positioner’ especially for vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Features include a ‘Blame’ selector with

Fang you very much: Jeremy John (Dracula) and Anne Liversidge (Bride of

options Bush, China, Terrorists, Obama and Democrats, and a ‘No sir!/You betcha!’

Dracula, obviously) of Audient/ex-Dimes Sillitoe celebrate their wedding at

toggle switch. The warranty disclaimer reads: ‘220V version not guaranteed for

a party in September. In attendance: Gareth Davies (Tin Man) and Luke

use in countries that don't like us very much’. Go to www.manleylabs.com/

Baldry (Aladdin), both Audient; Matt Bell (Merlin) of Zoo Communications;

whatsnew99.html for your very own version

and PSNE’s very own Captain Hook. Yes, going to the toilet was problematic

Pro Sound News Europe www.prosoundnewseurope.com vol 23 no 11 November 2008 Editor: Dave Robinson (+44 20 7921 8319); david.robinson@cmpi.biz Managing Editor: Joanne Ruddock (+44 20 7921 8376); jruddock@cmpi.biz Editorial Group Production Editor: Dawn Boultwood European Correspondents: Mike Clark (Italy), Stephen Bennett (Sweden), Marc Maes (Belgium/Holland), Guillaume Schouker (France), Phil Ward (UK), Franck Ernould (France), Tom Becker (Germany) US Correspondent: Janice Brown UK Contributors: Dan Goldstein, Mike Collins, Adrian Bamford, David Davies, Simon Duff, Jim Evans, Lin Frost, Kevin Hilton, Gez Kahan, Nigel Lord, Rob Speight Digital Content Manager: Tim Frost, tfrost@cmpi.biz Advertisement Manager: Steve Connolly (+44 20 7921 8316) sconnolly@cmpi.biz Account Executive: Russell Rowe (+44 20 7921 8363) rrowe@cmpi.biz Sales Executive: Nick Beck (+44 20 7921 8672) nbeck@cmpi.biz Classified Sales Executive: Call the sales team! Advertising Production Supervisor: Kevin Addison (+44 20 7921 4033) Studio Bookings Editor: Lianne Davey (+44 20 7921 8401) Publisher: Joe Hosken Editorial and Advertising: Pro Sound News Europe, United Business Media Ltd, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 1UY. Fax: +44 20 7921 8302. NO CIRCULATION AND SUBSCRIPTIONS ENQUIRIES TO THIS OFFICE. Circulation and Subscription enquiries: United Business Media Ltd, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 9EF, UK. Subscriptions: Tel: +44 1858 435361 Subscribe online at www.subscription.co.uk/cc/pm/mag1 © United Business Media Ltd, 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. The contents of Pro Sound News Europe are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. United Business Media Ltd is now the Data Controller under the Data Protection Act 1998 in respect of your personal data. United Business Media Ltd will only use your data for the purposes originally notified and your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 are not affected by this change. Pro Sound News Europe is published once a month. The publishers reserve the right to refuse subscription applications considered inappropriate and to restrict the number of free copies sent to a company or organisation. 2008 subscription rates for non-industry/non-European readers are: UK, £39/€62; Europe, £54/€86; other countries, US$106/€170.

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PSNE Nov P74 Interview

30/10/08

14:18

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74 interview

www.prosoundnewseurope.com November 2008

Rick Wakeman

Rocker, raconteur and radio presenter Any new keyboards you’re particularly excited about at the moment? “The OASYS from Korg is brilliant. Korg very much listen to keyboard players and try their best to incorporate what is said back to them. That’s probably why they’ve been the market leader for so long. Having said that, I still think there is one keyboard missing from what’s available and I would love to produce it and bring it to fruition. I will be doing this in conjunction with a major manufacturer and hopefully within the next 24 months it will be available.” A lot of your ’80s/’90s output is on emusic.com. Would you recommend this as a good outlet for new artists? “Deep breath taken here! As always, the labels missed the real chance to redefine how we choose our music and the result is the chaos we see now. Too many free sites for music, which

Rick, sometime in the ’70s. He still owns the cape, apparently

Interview by Dave Robinson The APRS Sound Fellowship Lunch will be held once again at the Roof Gardens in Kensington on Wednesday 19 November. This year, the APRS Board have involved the entire APRS membership in the process of nominating candidates for the six annual fellowship awards to be “recognised for their special contribution to the art, science and industry of sound recording”. The final decisions will be down to the APRS Board and the APRS Awards Academy. The guest speaker at this year’s lunch is legendary prog rock keyboard player, raconteur, radio presenter and wit, Rick Wakeman. As a precursor to the “APRS event of the year”, Wakeman agreed to answer some of PSNE’s most probing questions. Including one about armwrestling with Keith Emerson.

How’s the Grumpy Old Rock Star book tour going? “Unbelievable, to be honest. I have been amazed at the turnouts. We’ve had up to 1,500 people show up for some of the 45-minute ‘talks’, the Q&A session and then the book signing itself. What’s been interesting is that it’s far from all music fans who are turning up; it’s a real broad spectrum, of people and all age groups too. I suppose that many of the ludicrous stories in the book are not just music-related but are simply things that have happened to me because I’m a musician who’s been around the block a few times! The publisher (Preface) seems very happy with the way things are going. The paperback comes out early next year and they want a second volume for the end of next year!”

very much that the industry was not prepared for rock ’n’ roll musicians to live into their ’60s and ’70s. Old jazz players and folk singers seem to be perfectly acceptable but the media would prefer the old rockers to keel over and die. Very sad.” What sort of message can we expect from your APRS lunch speech? “I don’t do messages really! I may well have a bit of a rant about how we’ve let the record industry slip out of our grasp, but my after dinner speeches tend to be more of the light-hearted sort. If I start getting too serious I may even find myself wanting to be involved!” Which recording are you most proud of? “There’s a few to be honest: the Going for the One Yes album where I sat in a church nine miles from the studio and played with the band by recording down the telephone lines which Switzerland had in case of nuclear disaster… this was 1976! I’m

“There is now so much music available from bands on the internet and new bands are there galore. Millions of them… so how on Earth can you find what’s good?”

Last time PSNE encountered you it was at the Swan Theatre last November, the Grumpy Old Picture Show with Ian Barfoot FOH on an Allen & Heath iLive console, and you sometimes playing along to ‘virtual’ musicians and vocalists on a video screen. Did the rest of the tour work out well? “The tour was really successful in so many ways. Ironically, the Swan was one of the few theatres that didn’t sell out. The show was a technical triumph for the crew to be honest. It took more than 90 people at various stages of the preproduction to get the show to the theatres. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the combined skills of Ian, my sound engineer, Erik Jordan, my studio engineer, and Robert Garofalo, who is the MD of Classic Media and Shepperton Studios, the tour would never have happened. “I have [since] been inundated with calls from other bands and artists asking how the hell we did it [the video syncing]. I’m very proud of my guys and they can be very proud of themselves too.”

helps nobody. Where is the investment money coming from without income? “Also there is now so much music available from bands on the internet and new bands are there galore. Millions of them… so how on Earth can you find what’s good? I receive loads of CDs every week from bands that are trying to get a play on Planet Rock, where I host a Saturday morning show.... the presentation of most of the CDs is superb, beautiful covers and nice liner notes, but when you play the CD it’s like amateur night in a mate’s bedroom with the computer. Admittedly some are pretty good and some very good, but who’s got the time these days to wade through 200 or so CDs or downloads to find one good one?”

proud mostly of the earlier solo recordings as back then there were no boxes of tricks, you had to create the sounds somehow that you heard your head. This did create much more individuality. So King Arthur, Six Wives, Journey and No Earthly Connection would rank highly. More recently, Return to the Centre of the Earth used pretty much every device known to the studio to produce and I am pretty proud of what the team of guys I had around me managed to achieve with that.”

Do you think it is possible for a keyboardist to be appreciated in the same way that he was in the 1970s ? “Not a hope in hell. The music media are only interested in singers these days. It’s not just keyboardists but guitarists, bass players and drummers too. There are some fabulous ones around – but can you name them? I doubt it. There are players today whose names should be on everybody’s lips as indeed Clapton, Blackmore, Beck and many more were back in the ’70s. There are loads of fabulous keyboard players about, but they don’t stand much of a chance I’m afraid of really being able to come to the forefront.”

What are the main issues you encounter when you record these days? Is it the tech, the availability of musicians, outlets for your music, what? “The main problem is how to release it. We put out music through many different outlets – online, through the onsite shop, through distributors and on sale on tour. It’s very hard to keep track of and control. Overseas distribution gets more difficult of course because so many people buy through amazon.com or other online places, so it’s impossible to know what you’ve sold in what country! Sadly the music press seems to be geared to whatever the current genre is; I think

Arm-wrestling: you and Keith Emerson. Who should we put our money on? “That old nutmeg, eh? Amazing that over 40-odd years, the press and media have made out that Keith and I are enemies, and the argument rages on as to who is best! Truth is that we are great friends and always have been. As to who is best, well, we’re so different it’s like asking who’s better, a baseball pitcher or a quarterback? Keith is much more jazzoriented than me, I’m more classical. I think if you had to clone something to make a keyboard player from the two of us, then I’d take Keith’s left hand and my right… that’s the best I can do!” Q

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Advertiser Riedel RTS Sennheiser Sonifex Sono Studiotec Studer Taiden Taky That Corp TL Audio Ultrasone Universal Audio Violet Design XTA Yamaha

Prokofiev – not bad. Discuss. “He is my hero. Ever since my father took me to see Peter and the Wolf in 1957! I studied him at the Royal College of Music and have done ever since. The man was a true genius.”

www.aprs.co.uk

Advertiser index Advertiser Page No ABS 28 Adamson Systems Engineering 5 Sommer Cable 24 AEB – 18 Sound 34 AKG 39 Alcons Audio 50 Allen & Heath 45 Apex 6 ASID 49 ASL Intercom 30 Audio AG 8/9 Audio Essentials 69 Audio Sud 48 Audix 59 BBM/Trantec 7 Bruel & Kjaer 64

Advertiser Cedar Audio Crest Audio d&b audiotechnik DiGiCo/Soundtracs DPA Microphones Elder Audio Fostex Hand Held Audio Hannay Reels HK Audio Hypex InnovaSON Klein & Hummel Kling & Frietag Klotz L-Acoustics

Page No 3 35 42/43/44 47/52 63 57 17 32 54 40/51 48 36 12 55 16 44

Page No 25 61 IFC OBC 64 18 37 60 56 38 62 33 70 31 21 14

Page No 65/67 66 26 23 13 27 IBC 20 14 15 19 11 46 29 Front Cover/41

Project2

22/7/08

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Project3

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