Portugal - Arda Recorders, which opened in 2017, is located in the heart of Porto. It features five independent spaces with Van Damme cabling throughout.
Studio A features a vintage Neve 8068 console and a Fazioli F278 grand piano. It has a 100sq.m live room, three iso booths and an echo chamber with variable ceiling.
Studio B is suited for most modern productions, with a versatile 20m2 live room and a sound lock that doubles as an amp booth. Its control room is centred around a 32 channel Rupert Neve 5088, complemented with a great array of outboard gear. Studio C consists of a small live room and a control room for voice-over and overdubs sessions.
The Mixing Room is centred around 32 channels of Avid Artist Mix faders and more than 100 channels of vintage and modern hardware. The Mastering Studio was designed with quality acoustics in mind and has ATC main speakers and Burl conversion.
Van Damme was specified throughout the build. The project used 20 x 8 Way D-Sub to XLR cables leads which were made up on a very tight schedule, using both 8 pair multicore Blue Series and 8 pair multicore Green Series cable. 500m of 16 pair Blue Series, 200m of 12 pair Blue Series and 500m of Quad Microphone cable was also supplied to ensure maximum quality of sound.
Miguel Pinheiro Marques, Arda Suppliers, commented: "Our new studio facilities were built with record-making in mind and it’s a beautiful space for producers and engineers alike. We even have the city’s public vinyl library - with a collection of more than 35,000 records – here, so
USA - Lighting design house, Lightswitch, transformed an everyday parking garage on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe into an experience for the senses and turned to Elation luminaires, including Proteus Hybrids, for much of the sensory-rich exhibit. Called designspace, the drive-thru experience featured visual design installations from industry professionals, structural artists HYBYCOZO and ASU students enrolled in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Lightswitch, who successfully redesigned The Morton Arboretum in Illinois into a drive-thru experience this past holiday season, tapped into that knowledge for the mile-long drive adventure through the Packard Parking Garage. Described as an exploration of the duality of space, both the space above us and the space between us, the experience took riders on an immersive journey from our world to outer space through a series of sculptural art pieces and sound, light and video installations.
The designspace project allowed students to display their art while working on the lighting, video and production skills they have learned through their studies, including how to set up all the gear. Lightswitch principal John Featherstone, who is quite familiar with the university through past collaboration with the design and art department’s Jake Pinholster, led the project design team.
The Lightswitch team spent two weeks with the students loading in, focusing, and programming the project. The white parking structure proved the perfect canvas for light with several Elation
USA - Broadweigh was the wireless load monitoring system of choice for California based Cassidyrig at a recent Miley Cyrus gig at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The performer was the musical guest at the NCAA’s Final Four basketball tournament on 3 April. In a Tribute to Frontline Heroes, Cyrus performed for an audience of first responders during the Capital One Tournament central show, airing on CBS between the first and second national semi-final games.
Dan Cassidy, MD of Cassidyrig explained: “We were delighted to be approached by Warner Broadcasting to handle the rigging for this fairly elaborate project. This halftime concert is one of the highlights of a season called March Madness so it’s a pretty big deal. As most people know, Miley Cyrus is anything but a conservative performer, so we realised that we’d be working on something fairly large scale and of course she didn’t disappoint. But with just a week to get everything set up, working around basketball games and concert rehearsals and putting in round the clock 24-hour shifts, we certainly had our work cut out.”
The Lucas Oil Stadium is naturally an extremely large and strong building so for Dan and the team, there were no real concerns about overloading or reaching certain elevation. Nevertheless, when dealing with any events like this, using load cells to confirm the weights is par for the course for Cassidyrig. “We had a couple of large cable bridges for audio and lighting, load cells on the structure, an elaborate set of lighting and four LED scenic wall element
Saudi Arabia - When Middlesex Sound & Light (MSL) undertook a contract in Riyadh 16 months ago - to invest a new gym concept with a high octane ‘club-spec’ technical infrastructure - they little knew what was waiting around the corner.
“We shipped the gear out to Riyadh in February last year, and the following month COVID struck,” recalls project manager Toby Jones. “Rather than suspend the work, they decided to press ahead.” Engaging with local crews - communicating via video calls and different programming platforms - hey finally managed to fly out to commission the system during the brief pre-Christmas break from lockdown.
While this represented a joint venture between 1Rebel in the UK (represented by James Balfour and Giles Dean) and Pulse Fitness Group’s Fahad Alhagbani and Nathan Clute, there have subsequently been a number of venues open in London, all bearing the familiar imprint of Martin Audio BlacklineX loudspeakers.
“We had already spec’d Martin Audio in other 1Rebel venues as they represent great value for money, and display tremendous sonic quality,” said Toby. Large quantities of Martin Audio Blackline X12, X10, X8 and X115 and SX212 subwoofers were supplied locally by Martin Audio partner’s Dubai-based distributor, Pro Lab, along with 16 Adorn A55 for the waiting, changing and reception areas.
1Rebel Riyadh boasts separate male and female studios (with female being the larger). Each has its own clearly delineated fitness zones. Knowing that the spec needed to match the high intensity of these studios,
China - Amsterdam -based live experience design studio Live Legends has delivered the full production design and implementation – including lighting, video / visual, laser, scenic and related 360-degree interior elements plus equipment specification, programming, and commissioning – for the new 1,200 capacity nightclub OT Cities Gui in Nanning.
This is the newest club experience presented by the Noa Group, located in Nanning, capital and largest populous city of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China.
A Live Legends creative team led by principal designer and show director Daan Oomen, set designer Stefan Peters and senior lighting director Serge Patist specified 270 x Robe moving lights to be signature fixtures in the innovative venue, right at the core of the lighting design.
Central to the ambitious visual concept for OT Cities Gui is the rich and dynamic history and culture of the locality and the ancient ethnic Zhuang tribe in particular. The intricate geometry of Chinese Xiuqiu (silk balls), the Zhuang bronze drums and other ancient ritualistic objects are underscored with several slick, contemporary twists from a new era of entertainment, exuding quality, excitement, and a superlative guest experience.
“Our goal was to bring the beautiful culture of this minority to a new audience and mix it with modern technology to connect Zhuang history, via the ‘OT Cities’ brand, with a switched-on audience of millennials and generation Z,” explained Daan. “The quest is to amaze and surprise nightclub guests and basical
South Africa - For curious minds intrigued by anthropology, archaeology and the San people, the oldest residents of South Africa, the Origins Centre Museum at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, has an extensive collection of stone tools, fossils and rock art, all interwoven with technology.
Since opening its door in 2005 Gavin Olivier of Digital Fabric has been intricately involved in the museum, recently installing a Visual Productions system to centralise lighting control via a single button, but which has delivered more than expected.
Having spent the last two years in Dubai on Expo 2020, Olivier of Digital Fabric, a company that specialises in heritage work and attractions internationally, was pleased to be back at one of his earliest installations. “I never really stopped going to Origins,” he says. “I was part of the original team, working as an audiovisual consultant with project director Francis Gerard of Totem Media. Like most things, museums rely on funding, and since then, we’ve returned several times to assist with small upgrades to keep the system running.”
Olivier is affectionately referred to as a ‘friend of the museum’ by Duncan Riley of DWR Distribution. “When it comes to Origins, we typically do more than our core business, but the current team running the museum are outstanding. While Origins is close to my heart, it’s also good for my soul. In this instance, aside from the AV and lighting, we have rebuilt many of the display cases, including dress panels, conservation standards, object mountin
Sweden - The first Neve 8424 console to arrive in Sweden is now up and running in a private studio belonging to artist and producer Pontus Hagberg, the man behind the popular Mr Firechild synthesiser video review channel on YouTube.
Pontus chose a Neve 8424 console for his own studio because it combines analogue summing and analogue processing in one simple, easy to use and cost effective solution.
“I have been using a classic ‘in the box’ studio with some hardware synthesizers for 25 years, but it was only recently that I discovered how much of an edge real analogue outboard units have over plug-ins,” he explains. “It is similar to comparing virtual instruments with real analogue synthesisers – the difference is very apparent.
“Once I fell in love with analogue hardware, I started using the hardware insert feature in Pro Tools Ultimate, which led to me buying a lot more analogue outboard gear and additional audio interfaces to add more and more AD/DAs. Eventually I realised that all my channels were already in the analogue world, so I could sum in analogue as well. Summing this way has been popular for many years but, for me, the real mojo was analogue processing.
“With the 8424 console I found my perfect match because the routing and features were exactly what I wanted but it also has the iconic Neve sound. I fell in love with the look of it when it was reviewed in Sound on Sound in October 2020 and soon after I placed an order.”
Neve’s first 8424 in Sweden is now the centrepiece of Pontus’ studio in the north of
UK - Remembering the Oscars, staring Strictly Come Dancing’s Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara, is a celebration of the Golden Age of Hollywood. With the originally intended 41-date UK theatre tour curtailed for two consecutive years because of the pandemic, Škorjanec and Manrara were desperate not to disappoint fans. The show’s producers, Steven Howard for The TCB Group and David Shepherd from Imagine This Live, looked for alternative solutions.
With streamed performances gaining increasing success, they turned to video production specialist iMAG Displays to help them bring the sparkling show to life in a series of streamed performances, which aired for three weeks from 27 March.
“When Steven and David got in touch with us, we were more than happy to help,” says iMAG founder and technical director, Alex Strachan. “We sent them pictures and information about our mobile virtual production studio, which was set up in the Bournemouth International Centre at the time, so they could see how this alternative solution could work for them.”
iMAG’s mobile facility offers a 360-degree LED workflow, which includes an in-house drawing team, rigging specialists and full LED set up. Howard and Shepherd realised that working within a virtual setting could open up a host of creative possibilities for the one-hour special, which featured the Strictly duo and a cast of singers and dancers performing favourites from Dirty Dancing, Mary Poppins, Flashdance, Cabaret, The Wizard Of Oz, Singin’ In Th
Belgium - The still-to-be-announced winners of Popquiz, a popular show on the VTM television network that asks 14 teams of two contestants to guess the titles of pop classic songs based on a series of audio and visual clues.
The winning pair, who will be announced soon now that the pre-recorded show is completing its 10-week run, will get to attend every concert in Belgium for one year, even sold out performances, once live music returns.
Adding to the show’s energy level was a distinctive set created by the Arf & Yes set design team that featured a high-impact lighting design anchored by 160 ÉPIX Strip Tour linear fixtures, as well as 48 ÉPIX Strip Tour 50 units and 25 COLORado 1 Solo washes from Chauvet Professional.
The Arf & Yes team hung the one-metre long LED strips in a circle over the stage deck, whilst the remaining ÉPIX units were integrated into the back of the set, and the COLORado washes were positioned as backlights for the audience.
By arranging the strips in a circular configuration, Arf&Yes endowed the set with a instantly recognizable identity, while evoking a touring concert image. “When people are going between channels and they come to Popquiz, they will immediately recognize the circle,” said Arf & Yes’ Jonas Weyn, who served as the lighting and video operator for the show. (Dirk Declercq and Marco Pauwels were the lighting directors).
The circle of ÉPIX Strip gave the design team a great deal of flexibility to come up with a wide variety of looks. To enhance this flexibility, Weyn used
USA - The Rooftop by JG at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills recently installed a trellis structure with retractable rain coverings and radiant heaters along with a complete renovation of the Meyer Sound foreground music system.
“The owners were acutely aware of the importance of sound in the overall customer experience, and they already were familiar with the quality of Meyer Sound products from other installations there since opening,” says John Swan of Las Vegas-based Technology West Group, who was design engineer and project manager for the upgrade. “This was an opportunity to raise the bar for audio even higher in this area.”
Comprising 17 UP‑4slim full-range loudspeakers and six MM‑10XP miniature subwoofers, the new rooftop system augments the total of 92 additional Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers that already were installed in five other public areas when the hotel opened in 2017.
“The UP-4slim was a perfect fit for the rooftop because the owners insisted on discreet loudspeakers that would blend into trellis beams,” continues Swan. “Not only did the UP-4slim have the slender profile needed, but Meyer also offers a custom colour option. In this case, the company making the trellis had their own paint formula, which they sent to Meyer Sound where it was matched perfectly. In addition, using Meyer Sound’s XP series loudspeakers allowed us to retain the advantages of self-powered systems without running even more AC conduit around the trellis.”
All the new loudspeakers are fully weather-protected, and the signal
The Netherlands - Osram, parent company of Claypaky, will be the official lighting partner of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), held this year at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam on 18-20 and 22 May 2021.
Claypaky will be represented by a complement of 481 Xtylos luminaires equipped with a tailor-made laser source and boasting concentrated beams of coloured light. They are being provided by the shows’ rental and production companies, including Ampco Flashlight, the ESC’s Official Technical Supplier for lighting.
“Xtylos was launched by Claypaky about 18 months ago and has already been used in a number of major world events and specified for others, which unfortunately were cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Claypaky sales director Alberico D’Amato. “All the Xtylos that will be used at the ESC 2021 are already available on the market and used by major rental companies across the globe.”
Although the stage has been redesigned, the ESC 2021 organisers have decided to maintain last year’s technical set-up, as the event was cancelled due to the pandemic. The Claypaky Xtylos were also part of that project and have been confirmed among the key lights of the event. Henk Jan van Beek of Light-H-Art, this years' ESC lighting designer, in fact called Claypaky's Xtylos “irreplaceable”.
Marcus Graser, Claypaky CEO, adds, “I am excited that the Claypaky Xtylos will be part of this celebrated event, which always has a wide echo in our industry. I also am confident that everyone will enjoy an unforgettable show highli
Poland - ESS Audio, TJT Music and Master-Ton recently deployed a complete Harman Professional Solutions live sound reinforcement system at the fifth annual Psalms of David Festival.
Held in September 2020 in the small Polish town of Kolbuszowa, the fifth annual Psalms of David Festival was a celebration of Jewish and Christian scriptures set to a soundtrack of live orchestral music. The open-air event, which was hosted at Kolbuszowa’s sports stadium, saw performances from Poland’s largest youth symphony orchestra, the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, as well as dozens of individual performers and soloists.
To ensure every note rang clear among the audience at the event, which had to adhere to COVID-19 social distancing rules, the organisers needed an appropriate cound system. To accomplish their goal, they hired ESS Audio to design and deploy a powerful Harman sound reinforcement system consisting of JBL loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers and Soundcraft mixing consoles in collaboration with TJT Music and Master-Ton.
“2020 was a difficult year for the professional sound industry, with only a handful of events taking place,” said Witold Karalow, managing director, ESS. “The Psalms of David Festival was our biggest show in Poland, and we were determined to make it a success. Alongside TJT Music, we deployed a JBL VTX A12 FOH system to great effect. The performance of the Harman audio solutions, including the Crown amplifiers and Soundcraft Vi Series consoles, was outstanding.”
At the core of the sound system were 24 JBL VTX A12 line array lo
UK - Emma Dalesman is a London-based freelance director of photography. A graduate of the National Film and Television School, she shoots a range of projects encompassing fiction, documentary, art films and commercials. In July 2020, following a quiet period on the work front due to the Coronavirus-enforced shutdown, Emma received a call from producer Derek Richards about a potential job.
The contemporary dance company, Rambert, had decided to turn their upcoming creation by Belgian choreographer/director Wim Vandekeybus into a live broadcast performance which could be enjoyed in real time by audiences around the world. Draw From Within would be a significant departure from Rambert’s customary working methods - conceived for the medium of film for an online audience.
Following a remote interview with Wim and Derek, Emma secured the job and, after a COVID-19 test, went straight into rehearsals. As the production was rehearsed, the camera and lighting style quickly came together, as Emma explains:
“Wim was an inspiring director to work with, and as the piece came together we experimented with what would work best for different scenes, creating atmospheric lighting and camera work to draw the audience in. Rambert weren’t short of in-house lighting fixtures. Some I was familiar with - others, coming from a film background, I’d never seen or used before. I was eager to check the colour rendition of the fixtures and whether they would look good on camera. We brought in the camera I’d be using during rehearsals and, adopting as filmic appr
South Korea - A wide range of PMC professional studio monitors have been installed at Busan Sound Stage, a new audio post-production facility in South Korea that has been established to help the region develop its film industry.
Located in Busan City’s Haeundae-gu area, the new facility is owned and operated by the Busan Film Commission and has five studios including a Dolby Atmos ADR/Re-recording room that is equipped with PMC system comprising twotwo.8, result6 and twotwo sub2 monitors. Three of the four remaining rooms, which are dedicated to foley, editing, mastering and education, also feature PMC result6 and twotwo sub2 monitors, all supplied by PMC’s South Korean distributor Music Metro.
“PMC monitors were chosen for this facility because they offer very high resolution audio that allows us to hear elaborate sound in perfect clarity,” says Brandon Han, general manager at Music Metro. “Our customer particularly liked their consistent balance at every level, especially the deep low frequencies. Everyone is really happy with their performance and the sound they are delivering.”
Launched some years ago as the first film production support organisation in Korea, Busan Film Commission has played a crucial role in strengthening Busan’s film and video industry. As well as supporting over 1,000 films and videos, the Commission has also expanded the city’s film industry infrastructure by building studio and post production facilities and supporting local companies that are related to the film industry. Another key part of its remit is
USA - Teen Vogue model turned singer/songwriter Charlotte Lawrence recently completed a four-video recording session at Beehive Studios in LA that included her national TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a subsequent appearance on The Late Show With Steven Colbert. Helping Julien Reux to create the right mood for the performances were 28 Chauvet Professional STRIKE 1 fixtures supplied by PRG.
“When producer Jonny Stiegler, the co-founder of Beehive, asked me to light these videos, I spent time studying the artwork on Charlotte’s new album as well as the wardrobe designs she’s been involved in,” said Reux, the owner of ReuxLight. “I wanted my design to reflect the hip, modern, western vibe of her style as well as the emotional force of her music.”
The design Reux created also had to be flexible enough to convey different looks for each of the session’s four videos, which ranged in length from three minutes (for the TV appearances) to 40 minutes. “Our art director, Cameron Nawaz, really helped me take what I had in my head and turn it into reality,” he said. “Working with the textured fabric panels Cameron came up - and rearranging my STRIKE fixtures -made it easy for us to change our looks quickly.
“Throughout the session, each set had its own stage and light orientation,” continued Reux. “Since we had a camera jib, the STRIKE fixtures were very important to maintaining good visuals for the top camera shots.”
Reux created different looks by changing colour schemes for each song. He also set different em
Australia - Twenty four Astera AX1 Tubes were utilised by lighting designer Michael Negrao from event technical specialist Scene Change in Brisbane at the Australian launch event for the new Lamborghini Huracán STO (Super Trofeo Omologata).
Staged at Lamborghini’s Brisbane dealership in Fortitude Valley, the Huracán STO, designed for ‘ultimate driving fun on track and road’, was the centre of attention.
Michael received a “high-level” brief from his client relating to the mood and ambience they wanted to achieve inside and out of the premises, which was added to a budget and Michael’s fund of experience in lighting automotive events giving a free rein in designing what he felt appropriate.
Twelve vertical Astera AX1s were positioned around the car park on stands at the corners of each car space; another six were under the Huracán STO itself in the showroom and the remaining six positioned around the DJ booth.
The AX1s in the car park brought a “smart and futuristic” look to the space explained Michael.
Empty spaces were denoted by AX1s set to a warm white, and as guests parked up, the Titan colour was changed to match the colour of their car.
Once the STO was revealed, all the car park AX1s flipped into alternating blue and orange to match the hero car colour scheme.
The AX1s under the STO were used in conjunction with moving lights and other fixtures on Michael’s showroom lighting rig for the reveal. They provided a sub car glow effect accentuating the accumulating smoke from the fogger placed at the ba
Finland - Audico Systems has installed 281 of Elation Professional’s Fuze Pendant LED downlights in Finland’s Tampere Hall. Located 180km north of Helsinki, Tampere Hall is home to the Tampere Opera and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and is the largest concert and congress centre in the Nordic countries.
The impetus for the house lighting upgrade stemmed from EU regulations that will effectively end the use of certain halogen bulbs, coupled with the fact that the venue’s old house lighting system was nearing the end of its lifetime. The project commenced in 2018 with Audico, Elation’s Finnish partner based just west of Helsinki, conducting product demos of various house lighting fixtures, including the Fuze Pendant.
“The venue required good quality white light with high colour rendering and also highly saturated colours for effects. The fixtures also had to be very silent,” explains project sales manager at Audico, Tapio Järvinen, who has worked with the venue on various projects over the past eight years. “We chose the Fuze Pendant because of the good light quality (CRI of 90) and the good dimming. It also had enough output to cover the venue and because it is fanless it does not make a noise.”
Järvinen says that a colour-changing solution was not necessarily a requirement at the beginning of the project but as the jump from general halogen to LED-based lighting was happening anyway, the leap wasn’t made any more difficult by adding a color-mixing option but instead was a positive addition to the system.
Audico supp
Japan - The May Theatre, also known as the Suita City Cultural Hall, in Osaka is a venerable performing centre that has been on the Sound Engineers & Artists Society of Japan’s list of the Top 100 Best Halls by Acousticians, since it was opened in 1985. The cultural centre includes a 1,400-seat large performance hall, a medium sized hall, a reception hall and an exhibition space. The multi-faceted venue hosts concerts, operas and classical Japanese theatre, as well as social gatherings and art exhibitions.
In July 2019, the May Theatre began a thorough renovation project, including an update to the point source sound system in the large performance hall, which was well over 20 years old. “The previous point source speakers were placed inside a speaker box, which made it impossible to deliver uniform sound quality throughout the auditorium, explains Satoshi Tanio, sound engineer at May Theatre.
Tanio’s team evaluated systems from several different brands. “We chose L-Acoustics because they are the pioneers and leaders in the development of line array speakers and because their systems all have good phase characteristics.”
Japan Advanced Technology Operations (JATO) was tasked with recommending and upgrading the theatre’s system to line array, with the support of L-Acoustics certified provider distributor in Japan, Bestec Audio.
JATO’s Taiki Imamura knew that the May Theatre was working to a fixed budget, so he proposed a Kiva II-based line array system. “I was confident that the Kiva II, with its powerful SPL offered the pe
Italy - The 2021 Sanremo Music Festival was staged at Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, Liguria and apart from being one of the country’s biggest and best-known song competitions and media events, also chose the country’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was organised and broadcast by RAI and lit by director of photography (DOP) Mario Catapano.
The lighting rig included over 400 Robe moving lights - a mix of T1 Profiles, Spiiders, LEDBeam 150s, Pointes and a six-way RoboSpot system - all supplied by Pesaro-based rental company Sound d-light Srl.
For the first time, the competition, which unfolded over five evenings of live television, also broadcast worldwide, and streamed via the official ESC website, was hosted without a live audience due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The contest comprised two main sections - one featuring 26 established artists, plus a Newcomers section of eight rising-star singers. The voting came from a mixture of sources including a judging panel, a large public tele / internet vote and by the musicians and singers of the Sanremo Festival Orchestra.
It was the fifth time that Mario Catapano has lit the event. And as in 2020, he was asked onboard by both TV director Stefano Vicario and artistic director Amedeo Sebastiani (Amadeus) with whom he has previously worked.
His starting point for the lighting was the elaborate set design imagineered by Gaetano and Chiara Castelli which comprises six large shrinking perspective octagonal portals surrounding a central staircase with a large LED screen at the upstage end, o
South Korea - Looking to add improved sound to its sermons and special events, Dongil Church hired TechDataPS Co to design and install a Harman Professional audio solution throughout the property.
Originally located in Dangjin, Chungcheong-do, Dongil Church was established in 1996. In 2020, the church relocated and built a new 600-seat temple in Dongdaesin-dong, which is in the Seo-gu district of Busan. In addition to offering sermons and contributing to the development of the community in various ways, the church helps pastors of the Protestant church become missionaries in India.
Wanting to bolster its facility and offer guests enhanced experiences during services and events, Dongil required a new audio system that delivers quality sound and speech intelligibility. Meeting those acoustical requirements, TechDataPS equipped Dongil with a Harman Professional audio solution that features JBL Professional loudspeakers, AKG microphones, Soundcraft mixers and more.
The TechDataPS team reported that Harman was their choice of brand because of its award-winning products like JBL Professional VTX Series loudspeakers and the Soundcraft Vi1000 digital mixing console.
To ensure even coverage across the church’s main hall, TechDataPS installed JBL VTX A8 compact line array loudspeakers and VTX B18 arrayable subwoofers. For stage monitoring, the system includes JBL VTX M20 professional stage monitors, AC195 and PRX812W full-range loudspeakers, as well as a dbx PMC16 personal monitor controller for fine-tuning the sound.
Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD ampl
USA - Creating a more camera-friendly stage became a pressing need for many churches during the pandemic, as they turned to livestream services to reach worshippers during lockdowns. Marysville Christian Fellowship was no exception to this rule.
This dynamic, small church, which serves a rural community in northeast Kansas, also shared something else in common with many other houses of worship: it had only a limited budget to devote to making its space more well-suited for broadcasting services.
Marysville Christian was able to navigate its way through this issue with help from Stark Raving Solutions, which recently completed a lighting and video upgrade at the church. Taking a holistic approach to this project, the Lenexa, Kansas based company provide a comprehensive solution that involved far more than the installation of new gear.
“We did a lot of upgrading, including adding an entire video system with new cameras and switching, but we didn’t stop there,” said Marcus Hammond of Stark Raving Solutions. “Clark Johnson our design lead and Shelli Kutz, our project manager did a great job finding ways the church could better employ some of its existing equipment.”
Indicative of this approach is the way the church’s front lighting was revamped for filming services. Prior to the rehab, the worship area had six Chauvet Professional Ovation E-160WW ellipsoidals. Stark Raving Solutions increased this number to 14 units. But adding these new fixtures was only the beginning. The company also changed the angle of the church’s front lighti
Finland - Ilmatar Windpower is dedicated to the supply of clean and affordable wind power as part of the drive to transition to renewable energy sources. The company has recently made their own transition to new headquarters in Helsinki, designed according to sustainable practices with the aim of achieving optimum efficiency and wellbeing. AV solutions experts 4Business Oy were called in to design and implement all the AV technologies for the new premises, which included a Smart IP audio solution from Genelec.
One of the biggest issues to be addressed from an audio point of view was auditory comfort in Ilmatar’s open workspaces - an integral part of any modern, activity-based office today. However, one of the inherent problems of any open plan workspace is a lack of privacy and disruptive noise coming from elsewhere in the environment. Ilmatar was determined to create the most comfortable and efficient working environment possible in their open plan areas, and so paid great attention to sound behaviour in these spaces.
“The lobby and open work areas, as well as the meeting rooms and offices, are all exceptionally well designed from an acoustic point of view, with excellent reverberation times,” notes Janne Lankinen of 4Business. “There are also absorbing screens between the desks, and the background noise caused by ventilation has been minimized. Nevertheless, while these measures help considerably, they cannot resolve the issue completely. To achieve optimum results, we designed and implemented a custom sound masking system - starting with a hig
UK - Creative Technology supported the live broadcast of a ‘secret’ event from one of the UK’s leading motor racing circuits.
The event would be streamed to a small number of top clients for the manufacturer, with security of the broadcast being of utmost importance. CT proposed the use of its Eden platform which enabled two-factor authentication for the invited attendees to maintain a high level of security, ensuring confidentiality of the product. CT were on hand to collaborate with the end client’s IT department and Sprout, throughout the production process, to ensure that all protocols were observed and minimise any issues on the day for the invited audience.
CT’s involvement with the project further extended into the ‘live’ environment following Sprout’s decision to broadcast the event on-demand over the weekend of 13-14 March.
The on-site element therefore developed into event capture and subsequent editing to create a programme for the broadcast. On site, CT played the supporting role to the event by providing both video and audio equipment and services.
Audio services consisted of a DiGiCo SD12 console, a range of wired and wireless microphones and IEM systems to manage capture and monitoring for the 18-piece orchestra which was recorded within the environment on day one of the production. On day two, audio support was provided for the capture of on-stage presenter and host interviews.
Video consisted of a 10.5m x 3m ROE Black Pearl 2.8mm LED screen set within a 3° curve. Delivery of content to the screen was fr
USA - When the Seattle Symphony orchestra wanted to explore the realms of music through audio and visual representation, they envisioned creation of a space that would immerse the audience into ‘a music experience unlike any other’.
The Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Centre is named after Seattle philanthropists James and Sherry Raisbeck, who donated $2m on top of the various public and private donations to transform the former Soundbridge Seattle Symphony Music Discovery Centre into a musical experience to remember. Fusing music and technology, Octave 9 was designed to stretch the boundaries of creative possibility and immerse the viewer in new worlds created with the orchestra’s music.
With this in mind, the technology implemented in this immersive space needed to be fully adaptable to match the variety of genres and eras recreated by the orchestra, and able to change at the touch of a button. US based acoustic and AV design firm Jaffe Holden contacted German projection specialist Vioso in order to provide installation support and calibration for the visual aspects.
“When we were contacted for the visual content of this project, it was immediately a very exciting prospect,” said Kevin Zevchik, director of Vioso America. “The complexity and purpose of the project, along with the need for it to be entirely flexible to any future needs, made it a very interesting project to be part of.”
The visual complexity with the project laid within the cylindrical moving screens, which surround Octave 9’s intimate demonstration space and move o