Canada - Meyer Sound has been named the official sound reinforcement sponsor of the Montréal International Jazz Festival 2013 in cooperation with Montréal-based Solotech. Solotech will provide festival-wide audio support using a variety of Meyer Sound systems, including a Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system for the festival's largest stage, Scène TD.

Ranked by Guinness World Records as the world's largest jazz festival, the Montréal International Jazz Festival will span 10 days starting Friday 28 June, featuring 3,000 artists who will perform over 1

USA - Originally built in 1949, San Antonio's Freeman Coliseum has hosted everything from rodeos, boxing and hockey to expositions, circuses and concerts over the years. Now, Bexar County and the facility's management team are in the middle of a multi-year initiative to update the venue, the most recent phase of which included the addition of a new ARCS Focus arena loudspeaker system installed by L-Acoustics certified provider LD Systems.

According to Garth Hemphill, sales engineer for LD Systems' Houston office, Nelson Wilcox served as the project manager with project engineering han

Israel - Waves Audio's popularity is growing among live sound engineers. One front-of-house engineer who has recently adopted Waves' SoundGrid live platform is Tom Wiggans (UB40, Squeeze, Wet Wet Wet, and Roni Size & Reprazent), who is currently using SoundGrid and Waves plugins on tour with Irish alt-rock mainstays The Cranberries.

He notes, "I ended up using SoundGrid especially for problem solving. The most impressive thing for me is the Waves C4, since it is the first multiband compressor that I have used that I can actually hear working when making the subtlest of changes. I

UK - The Pet Shop Boys have received rave reviews for the first two dates of their 2013 Electric tour. Capital Sound Hire deployed its Nexo STM system for the shows in London and Manchester, the largest they have undertaken to date, using the first three-wide configuration of the modular line array, requested by FOH engineer Holger Schwark.

For both the O2 Arena and MEN Arena, Capital's sound design presented a main left/right system in a 'double bass' configuration, with each array having a hang of 15x STM M46 main cabinets in the centre, and two hangs of 15x STM B112 bass units, one

UK - DiGiCo consoles were specified on many band riders for 2013/14. This is reflected across the global festival scene, not least at this year's Glastonbury Festival for headliners Arctic Monkeys and Mumford and Sons, plus Smashing Pumpkins, who played the Other Stage on Sunday.

"Despite the popularity of our consoles, it's still relatively unusual for bands to take their own equipment into a festival, due to the restrictions imposed by the quick turnarounds between sets," said DiGiCo managing director James Gordon. "The fact that three top class bands are insisting on

UK - London-based rehearsal facility Music Bank has added a DiGiCo SD9 mixing console to its portfolio.

"When an engineer steps into one of our rooms, they know they will have a familiar rig that they can step up to and use straight away," says manager Jimmy Mac. "Most importantly, it has to have the most up to date features. With so many different makes and models of digital mixing desk in the industry, having a powerful machine like the SD9 and a name like DiGiCo providing support is a winning combination."

Following a training session for Music Bank's studio t

UK - Technical solutions and rental specialist Adlib is supplying lighting, sound, rigging equipment and crew for the current Elvis Costello and The Imposters Revolver UK and European tour. It's the first time that the Liverpool based company has worked with the artist.

Adlib's account handler Phil Stoker states, "Working with someone of Elvis's stature is fantastic and production manager Milo Lewis and engineers Fern and Nathan have been great to deal with all along the way."

The format of the show is that there's no formal set list. Songs are chosen - enough to fi

Ireland - Sound Technology has announced a two-day BSS Soundweb London Certified Level 1 Training Course in Dublin on 24-25 July 2013. Alongside the official training there will also be a showcase of all the latest install products from JBL, Crown, dbx, BSS, AKG and Soundcraft in conjunction with Irish sub-distributor Reynolds.

The training and showcase will be held at the Bewley's Hotel at Dublin Airport and is free to attend although registration is required for both.

BSS Certified Training Level 1 is a two-day course designed to balance practical applications of the powerful Soun

UK - Following a successful UK cathedral project earlier this year, the installation division of Wigwam Acoustics has once again turned to Fohhn Audio for a project at the Church of St. Peter in Eastgate, Lincoln. The church specified a replacement sound system that would be capable of generating excellent levels of speech intelligibility, yet be flexible enough to meet a range of worship requirements and allow operation by untrained staff or congregation.

For main sound coverage, Fohhn Audio Linea Series AL100 and AL150 loudspeakers were selected. The two-way line source systems with

France - The Institut National de L'audiovisuel (Ina) is one of the most influential multimedia and training organisations in France. For nearly 40 years it has been one of the top European training centres for AV and, more recently, the digital media professions. Ina has recently added Yamaha's Nuage to its training portfolio.

Ina has a wide remit, including custodianship of France's radio and television archives and co-productions with broadcasters throughout the world. One of its most important facilities is Ina EXPERT, which trains 5500 students and professionals every year using

USA - The 42nd annual CMA Music Festival, the world's largest country music festival and broadcast, recently stomped all previous attendance records at its 2013 event, which took place in Nashville from 6-9 June. As usual, the highlights of the festivities this year were the main stage concerts at LP Field, which nightly drew more than 45,000 spectators to cheer and sing along with dozens of the genre's top artists.

For sound reinforcement duties, the Country Music Association (CMA) awarded the contract to Sound Image, which supplied a large-scale L-Acoustics K1 system for the headlin

Spain - Málaga, one of Europe's most historic cities, is building a much-needed new metro / subway rail network. And with the expertise of PA / VA integrators LDA AudioTech, Iconyx beam steering systems will make individual station announcements crystal clear.

Now dubbed the capital of the Costa del Sol, Málaga - whose 2,800 year history makes the port city one of Europe's oldest - has a profusion of excellent tourist destinations including the world famous Picasso Museum, a pedestrianised shopping centre, sea port, innovative restaurants and stylish hotels - many featuring trendy r

China - Hong Kong's Space Museum has reinvigorated its visitor offering through Omnimax planetarium system film experiences. The museum's Lecture Hall has not only benefitted from the visual elements of cinematic styling, the audio system is also state-of-the-art - with the help of a TiMax2 SoundHub16 multi-channel delay matrix installed as surround system management and spatialisation processor.

The new d&b audiotechnik 7.1-channel surround sound system comprises a total of three E12D screen channels with two S18 subwoofers, with left and left-rear surround - mirrored on the right -

Licensing Laws - Performers and producers will no longer have to obtain an entertainment licence to stage shows during the day with an audience of up to 500 people after regulations were relaxed. Following an amendment to the Licensing Act, entertainers can now present plays or dance shows, which includes street performances, between 8am and 11pm without a licence. Performances outside of these hours and for larger audiences will still require a licence, as will dance shows of a "sufficiently adult nature" according to Hugh Robertson, minister for sport and tourism.

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UK / Italy - Outline, the Italian manufacturer of professional loudspeaker systems and associated products, has confirmed the formation of a new distribution partnership with CUK Audio. Effective immediately, CUK Audio assumes exclusive UK distribution rights for all Outline products.

Outline's sales director Chris Hinds said, "2013 is our 40th anniversary year and our business is expanding globally with year-on-year sales up significantly across our product range, which is especially encouraging given the economic situation around the world right now. Much of this growth is due

UK - Pioneer is set to enter the professional audio market with the launch of its flagship club sound system. Drawing on the company's rich heritage in sound reproduction, deep understanding of the club industry, and close collaboration with Gary Stewart Audio (GSA) and Powersoft, this exciting arrival promises to make waves in Ibiza this season and, with Pioneer returning to the PLASA Show this year, will be available to hear at PLASA London (6-9 October, ExCeL, London) as Pioneer is set to demo the system in the show's exciting new AudioLab Arena.

"Pioneer and sub-brand

The Netherlands - Dutch PA company, Decibel 111 Audio, recently invested in an Allen & Heath iLive-T80 digital mixing system and ME-1 personal monitor mixers to supplement its hire stock and specifically manage the summer tour dates of top pop band, Hike.

Decibel purchased the new A&H equipment following a demo and training day for engineers and musicians at pro audio dealer, Aptronics.

"Decibel has supplied equipment and engineers to Hike for years, and GL Series analogue desks used to be our weapons of choice," explains Decibel's owner Eric Egging. "However, the lau

Germany - When the updated production of Starlight Express opened at Bochum's Stadionring - celebrating 25 years since its first performance at the specially constructed 'Starlight Express Theatre' in June 1988 - it featured for the first time Martin Audio's Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) platform.

Advertising itself as "the fastest musical in the universe" it fell to sound supervisor Riccardo van Krugten and system engineer/installation manager, Georg Hentschel to supercharge the next generation production while remaining faithful to Martin Levan's original s

UK - Orbital's sell-out training course returns for 2013, combining theory, practice and a West End show visit within its popular two-day format.

Forming an important part of Orbital's training programme, this year's course is running across the 27-28 August. Designed to help aspiring theatre sound operators take their show mixing skills to the next level, this two-day course focuses on the practical skills and theory behind the best-practice FOH mixing requirements of musicals.

Participants will be taken through every stage of the process - from the rehearsal room to setting up a d

UK - Cadac Holdings has supplied a Cadac CDC8-16 to Glynd?r University AVL Technical Services for evaluation and first time ever use on a public performance. The company's latest digital console proved itself invaluable and capable of the highest performance standards, when deployed by senior AVL technician Darren Hughes, on his sound design for Chester Operatic Society's production of Kiss Me Kate at the university's William Aston Hall in Wrexham.

"We have two in-house desks available to productions in the 900 seat theatre," explains Hughes. "Current analogue an

UK - BlackBox manufacturer JoeCo has announced the release of JoeCoRemote for iPad. The new software app, together with a specially developed hardware interface, enables remote control of both 24-channel and 64-channel BlackBox Recorders and BlackBox Players via iPad.

An intuitive interface allows all transport functions (Play, Stop, Record) to be remotely controlled from the iPad, as well as providing access to the BlackBox menu structure for changing settings. JoeCoRemote also provides an accurate metering overview for the BlackBox Recorder. In addition, the app can be used for remo

Poland - Polish rental company GMB Pro Sound will christen its new Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system at the Heineken Open'er Festival in Gdynia this week.

Owner Janusz Jonasz Tolopilo established GMB Pro Sound nearly 20 years ago to serve the growing demand for higher quality, more reliable live sound. The company's purchase of a new Leo system adds to an inventory that includes Mica line array loudspeakers, UPA-1P and UPM-1P loudspeakers, MJF-212A stage monitors, and a large number of MM-4XP loudspeakers.

According to Tolopilo, GMB's investment in Leo wa

Greece - MusicGroup has tapped Omikron Electronics to manage distribution, customer support and service for all Behringer and Bugera-branded MI products in Greece. Since the company's inception in 2009, Omikron has experienced sustained growth and established an extensive dealer network throughout the region.

Music Group and Omikron already have a close relationship, with the company serving as distributor for high-end Midas and Klark Teknik professional-sound products.

"Omikron Electronics has done remarkably well with our Midas and Klark Teknik brands, so we couldn't have ask

Germany - For singer-songwriter Peter Maffay's latest German tour, POOLgroup supplied its new Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system. This touring system is one of the two Leo systems purchased by POOLgroup, who is also the first Leo rental supplier in Germany.

"Leo really delivers a lot of headroom and dynamics, and makes it very easy for me to get the artist vocals on top of a loud and powerful mix," says Werner Schmidl, FOH engineer for Maffay. "It seems to me that LEO is going to be the reinvention of the wall of sound."

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