Peru - 2014 has been a landmark year for Lima-based DBLUX S.A.C. With a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system, founders Andres Cuadros and Guillermo Riera have grown the company into a rental powerhouse chosen for top international tours stopping in Peru. Artists who have performed with DBLUX's Leo system include Paul McCartney, Metallica, Soundgarden, One Direction, Jack Johnson, Marc Anthony, Rubén Blades, and Daddy Yankee and Prince Royce.

"The concert promoters have been extremely pleased by the great coverage, power, and overall musical quality of the LEO system," says Cuadros. "Obviously Leo's reputation has spread among FOH engineers; many who haven't used it yet are eager to try it. And when they are finished mixing, they are impressed-and sometimes even surprised-by what the system can do."

Other notable events covere

UK - Celebrating its 34th year, World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) is an annual eclectic world-music festival of "artists whom we might not get to hear anywhere else" and the largest and most prestigious event of its kind. As with WOMADs of the past, Britannia Row Productions Ltd. once again provided sound services for the festival. But this year had a new team member - SSL Live consoles at FOH for two stages: the main Open Air Stage and at WOMAD's new Society of Sound marquee.

Having worked as front of house and system engineer in WOMAD's Siam Tent last year, New Zealander Johnny Keirle returned to mix FOH at the Open Air Stage. An SSL Live console was used by Keirle to mix acts travelling without a FOH engineer. "The SSL Live provides an intuitive, logical workflow and is very easy to use in a festival situation," he says. "Despite the time restric

UK - Rock legends Europe and the Black Star Riders headlined this year's Steelhouse Festival, which claims to be the biggest and the highest heavy metal festival in Wales. It was also the debut appearance in the UK for Nexo's new STM M28 compact line array cabinets.

The M28 omni-purpose cabinet completes the line-up of Nexo's STM Series modular line array. At Steelhouse, it was being used as the Main cabinet with the B112 Bass and S118 Subbass cabinets, in a system designed by rental company SMS-PA together with Nexo concert sound specialist Val Gilbert.

In its stunning rural location on a Welsh mountain peak, the Steelhouse Festival was attended by 5000 people over two nights, enjoying a busy schedule of national and international bands. Last year, the festival used a Nexo GEO S12/RS18 system and SMS-PA owner Ian Smith was eager to take a pioneering role with the new M28, lau

USA - Audio-Technica has announced that Roseville, California-based The Farm Technical Sales & Marketing has been presented with A-T's prestigious President's Award, for their work representing Audio-Technica U.S.

The Farm Principal John Hood accepted the award, which recognizes a leading manufacturer's representative for outstanding commitment and dedication during the Audio-Technica 2013/2014 fiscal year. The award was presented by Philip Cajka, Audio-Technica U.S. President and CEO.

The A-T President's Award was presented at a ceremony during the 2014 InfoComm Expo on June 18 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Farm represents Audio-Technica in the territories comprising Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Northern CA, Northern Nevada and Hawaii.

Phil Cajka commented, "The Farm Technical Sales & Marketing has again been awarded this honor for their continued dedication

UK - Martin Audio partner, Old Barn Audio, has sold its first MLA Compact elements to rental company, Doug Hunt Sound & Light.

The initial purchase comprises MLA Compact enclosures partnered with Martin Audio's infamous WS218X sub. "This match of products was a sensible option for Doug Hunt Sound & Light as it offers all the benefits of the cellular MLA Technology combined with conventional WS218X sub-bass," commented Old Barn Audio's Phil Clark.

Doug Hunt Sound & Light works with a number of production companies, including events at Abbey Road (in fact they auditioned the MLA Compact system in Abbey Road's legendary Studio One). The company saw an opportunity to invest in the growing portfolio of MLA products and ensure they are always one step ahead of the competition by offering the MLA control and quality of sound.

Doug Hunt, owner of Doug Hunt Sound & Light, s

Europe - Young Australian pop punk band, 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) have barely even "arrived" and yet they are already sampling the dizzy heights of international stardom. Their first single, She Looks So Perfect, was an instant number-one hit in the iTunes UK charts (and those of 46 other countries) on pre-orders alone before anyone had heard a note. Their self-titled debut album, which only came out at the end of June, has already reached number one in eight different countries worldwide including the USA, and number two pretty much everywhere else.

The band is currently supporting One Direction on their worldwide Where We Are stadium tour and has just announced a monster headline USA, UK and European arena tour for 2015. The band is using a comprehensive range of Sennheiser wireless and hardwired microphone and wireless monitor systems specified by Fo

UK - Adlib was again right at the core of the action for four days of public theatre that saw the return of the Royal De Luxe giant marionettes to LIverpool for a weekend of fun, history, poignancy and entertainment.

The show Memories of August 1914 was devised to commemorate the centenary of the start of World War 1 - in the process highlighting the heroic Liverpool Pals who answered Lord Kitchener's call for volunteer recruits - and pulled an estimated one million people into downtown Liverpool for one of the most successful ever public arts events staged in the UK.

Adlib provided sound systems for the main seven performance sites dotted around the city centre, working for Liverpool City Council's events department. It followed on from Adlib's very successful servicing of the Giants' Sea Odyssey spectacular in 2012.

The different sites all accommodated large

USA - Long Beach High School is situated on a barrier island on the southern side of New York's Long Island, where it received a terrific pounding from Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. For more than a year afterwards, student athletes had to pass the trashed and unusable athletic field as other rebuilding efforts took precedence.

The job would be large. In addition to rebuilding the field itself, the school had to replace the field's fatally damaged sound reinforcement system. Installed by Advance Sound of Farmingdale, New York, the new system centres on an Ashly ne24.24M modular processor and two Ashly ne8250 eight-channel amplifiers. Advance Sound installed a similar system at Long Beach Middle School prior to Hurricane Sandy, and that system weathered the fateful storm and remains functional to this day.

"Long Beach High School was very hard hit by Sandy," sa

Czech Republic - Dancefloor, s.r.o. has recently completed the installation of Community loudspeaker based audio systems in two venues for the town of Znojmo, located in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic close to the Austrian border.

The first venue completed by Dancefloor was the Winter Stadium, the 6,000+ seat capacity home of the Orli Znojmo hockey club. The Winter Stadium is also used for international matches, hockey camps, figure skating training sessions and competitions, skating courses and public skating, but had long suffered with poor sound levels and intelligibility, lacking the ability to inform and involve visi-tors and produce an exciting atmosphere for events.

Libor Klemenc, Dancefloor's managing director, explained the choice of loudspeakers, "For high intelligibility and overall sound quality we chose Community R.5 12-inch, two-way loudspea

USA - Mobile production specialist TNDV has five trucks and six flypacks crossing the country on any given week, but for one week in June most of the fleet and crew remained in Nashville for the CMA Music Festival, accommodating a live broadcast TV shoot plus video and audio production across multiple downtown stages.

TNDV's relationship with the Country Music Association is enduring, delivering full-service mobile production for several annual events including pre-show festivities for the CMA Awards each November. The CMA Music Festival is the most immense, encompassing many outdoor stages with live performances from well-known and emerging national and local musical acts. TNDV also provided onsite shooting, graphics and editing services across most stages, producing 30 original packages used in conjunction with an ABC TV special that aired on 5 August.

In addition to the mus

Norway - What better music to accompany the 41st World Chess Olympiad tournament than the soundtrack to Chess the musical? Under the direction of Andrew Eljas (who also wrote the original score to the music by Benny Anderson and Bjørn Ulvaeus), the performance included the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra along with a choir and ensemble of leading Norwegian musical performers.

This full concert version of Chess demanded a massive audio system. The production tapped the power of three SSL Live consoles, supplied by Bary Sales AS in Oslo, to handle the inputs from the live band, choir and the Arctic Philharmonic. This application is among the largest implementations of SSL Live thus far.

FOH and monitor consoles shared 64 inputs from the band and soloists on stage, while the third Live was used to submix 86 orchestra channels down to six stereo stems.

UK - West London-based rental specialist Entec Sound & Light renewed its long association with the three-day Guilfest music festival in Surrey, supplying sound design and equipment to the Main Stage in Stoke Park, central Guildford.

The event is renowned for its eclectic line ups and friendly, family orientated atmosphere - and superlative audio, which has been supplied by Entec since 2006.

This year Mark 'Magic' Ellis-Cope, newly installed as Entec's head of sound after the legendary Dick Hayes' recent retirement, led the team who worked closely with Guilfest's production manager, Paul Warner.

Magic comments, "It is always a pleasure to work at Guilfest and we did miss it last year when there was a short break. The atmosphere is fantastic and everyone really pulls together to make it one of the nicest festivals on which we work".

The d&b system design utilised b

Russia - The Stairway to Heaven Festival, held in the Krasnodar Region of Russia, made its debut this summer. Live Master, located in Krasnodar City, provided lighting and an Adamson Energia sound reinforcement system for the event.

Adamson's Jochen Sommer assisted with system design and was on site to oversee the set-up and tuning of the Energia system. The festival line-up included a variety of popular performers including Joe Lynn Turner, Ian Paice, Ken Hensley, Pink Floyd Show UK and Russian heavy metal band Aria.

The impressive 35m stage was flanked by left-right Energia line arrays followed by large-scale video walls that delivered visual impact throughout each performance.

"In comparison to similar events, this was an extremely large undertaking," explains Oleg Ivanov, Adamson Russia. "The Adamson system performed extremely well delivering exactly what

Australia - Audient's compact product range, including the award-winning USB2 DAW interface, iD22 and the eight-channel mic pre and ADC, ASP880 is now distributed by Innovative Music in Australia.

The Melbourne-based company was set up 24 years ago by CEO Steve Lincoln-Smith and boasts strong links with the major resellers and independents around the country. The company prides itself on providing high quality product and consistency of supply to its customer base.

"We market products that ensure long term customer success, and our partnership with Audient will help us maintain this trend. Audient's expanding range of DAW focused products comprises of leading edge products that feature the legendary ASP console mic pre's, top class Burr-Brown ADC, look great, and better still, come in at a surprisingly reasonable cost," he explains.

"We're partnering with prem

UK - The Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers (ISCE) has for the first time offered PLASA members the same discount on training courses as is offered to its own members.

Upcoming courses taking place in September include 'An Introduction to Sound' which will give attendees a good understanding of how sound behaves and hopefully inspire them to delve deeper into the world of sound and communications engineering, and 'Designing for Speech Intelligibility' which takes a look at the relevant British and European standards for speech intelligibility for voice alarm systems and gives an interpretation of their requirements. The course also takes a detailed look into the factors affecting speech intelligibility and how they can be controlled.

For more information, please visit: www.isce.org.uk/training-2014.

World - Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Spider-Man and 20 other action heroes are all coming to an arena near you - and as a part of Feld Entertainment's Marvel Universe LIVE! CAST BlackTrax motion-tracking solution is bringing these favourite Marvel comic characters to life as never before.

Marvel Universe LIVE! is out on tour this month after debuting in Tampa, FL, premiering at New York City's Barclays Centre on Wednesday, 13 August and visiting 85 North American cities in its first two years before coming to the United Kingdom, with other global destinations to be announced. Produced by Feld Entertainment, this visually stunning multimedia production sees the Avengers, Spider-Man and members of the X-Men in a live production for the first time - doing battle with some of their most notorious foes, in a show designed to wow audiences of all ages.

Spectacu

Spain - The most iconic Ibiza club of them all - Space - celebrated its 25th anniversary with a massive birthday bash, centred on its outdoor Flight Club arena, on 13 July. Regular Ibiza sound specialists, Project Audio, deployed one of the most sophisticated Funktion-One systems in the world, powered by Full Fat Audio amps with XTA processing, and all fronted by a Cadac CDC four digital compact console. The club's earlier 2014 season Opening Fiesta on 25 May, saw the Funktion-One rig fronted with a Cadac Live1 analogue console.

Dave Millard, founder of Full Fat Audio, was Project Audio's sound engineer for both events, working in partnership with Funktion-One 'chief' Tony Andrews and Project Audio's Ibiza system technician George Yankov: "We used the Live1 on the opening party but for the 25th Anniversary we needed to wireless mic a troupe of flamenco dancers on sta

Germany - Founded in 1989 by recording engineer Hans-Joachim Kloock and sound engineer / Foley artist Arne Damman, Hamburg-based M&E Studios GmbH provides post-production services to all of the major German television production companies. Long-term users of Steinberg Nuendo DAW software, the studio has recently invested in a Yamaha Nuage system, which has made a very positive difference to its workflow.

Hans, Arne and scoring specialist Daniela Mükisch have used Nuendo since version 2 was released, back in 2003. The team prides itself on the studio's excellent facilities, which have attracted a client base that includes virtually every high profile German actor and producer.

A total of six Nuendo workstations deliver a seamless workflow for transferring projects between the company's dedicated mixing, Foley and dubbing studios.

M&E has been using hardware control since ado

USA - For the launch of the summer blockbuster film X-Men: Days of Future Past, 20th Century Fox staged its worldwide premiere at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre on midtown Manhattan's west side, NY.

The debut of the $200m-plus film, attended by Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry and other stars, was a huge event filling a hall inside the cavernous Javits Centre and illuminating a 75ft-wide screen hung on the hall's north wall. The showing also had to be able to reproduce the film's bombastic 5.1 surround soundtrack, but the Javits is no cinema; the same huge floor-to-ceiling glass wall that offers spectacular views of the Hudson River and New Jersey can also create uncontrollable aural reflections that would turn the hall into an acoustical nightmare.

Event producer Samantha Sackler Productions tapped NYC-based See Factor Industry, its

Belgium - Set during the First World War, 14-18 - The Musical is a very ambitious musical theatre production. With the 1900-strong audience sat on a moving bleacher within a vast set, an innovative audio design was key to its success. A DiGiCo SD5 digital mixing console was the logical choice for co sound designer Guido Olischlager.

Set in Mechelen's vast Nekkerhal, an hour west of Brussels, the show is produced by entertainment company Studio 100 and features a set the size of two football pitches. The mobile bleacher moves the audience up to 150m within the set, so a complex audio system was needed to ensure fidelity of sound throughout the show. This required a versatile mixing console that had large i/o capacity.

"We chose DiGiCo because it's one of the favourite brands of all three audio guys involved - myself, Marc Luckx (sound designer) and Thomas van Hoepen

Canada - The Mayfield Dinner Theatre is one of the leading live entertainment venues in Edmonton, Alberta, producing five new comedies, dramas and musicals every season, six days a week. The sound for a theatre with that much variety has to be exceptional and versatile, so last summer Edmonton-based AV integrator Production World teamed with Bose Professional Systems to install a new sound system and ensure that there was even coverage to all tables and seats.

The new system consists of Bose RoomMatch Progressive Directivity Array loudspeakers. Production World installed the system, which consists of three hangs - two outer arrays, each with four symmetrical array modules, and a centre array with two symmetrical array modules and two RMS215 subwoofers, all powered by four Bose PowerMatch PM8500N networked amplifiers. The system provides even, comprehensive coverage of the entire

Germany - For its recent audio upgrade, the Deutsches Theater in Munich, Germany has selected a Meyer Sound Mina line array loudspeaker system due to its impressive power-to-size ratio and sonic performance.

With the Mina loudspeaker's small footprint measuring just more than 51 cm long, the technical staff at the 1,500-seat Deutsches Theater was initially sceptical. "We first thought we would need boxes with at least two eight-inch drivers for such a large house," says Stephan Kirschner, sound engineer for the Deutsches Theater. "But when we heard a Mina system at Jugendstil-Festhalle hall in Landau, we were quickly convinced. You could hear the same level of music everywhere, and the imaging was excellent, which is important in theatre."

The main system comprises left and right arrays of 13 Mina loudspeakers each, with an additional center array of 10 Min

UK - Carlsbro sponsored this month's Bloodstock Open Air 2014, supplying an awesome backline array for the festival's multiple stages. In a backstage artist demo cabin, the company gave the guitar world its first sight - and sound - of a new, ground up design, amp head - the Apex.

Apex is an all-new "feature rich", 100 watt head design, boasting "an astounding sonic palette, outstanding power and grunt, and a unique dark and beautiful lacquered wood finish that distinguishes it from afar". The backstage demo room provided the opportunity for the assembled metal head musos to get hands on with the Apex; seen and heard for the first time outside of the company's UK workshop.

A three-channel all tube head design, all three channels feature independent Gain, Volume, Bass, Middle and Treble, plus Resonance and Sharpness controls. Each channel, additionally, feat

USA - The sound system at Trinity Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida is quite sophisticated for a sanctuary that seats approximately 800 congregants. It delivers left-centre-right imaging to nearly every seat from multiple loudspeaker positions, including six time-delayed left-center-right zones that cover the areas farthest from the pulpit. This system was installed by Pro Sound & Video in 2004 and although the loudspeakers and amplifiers have held up well, the original DSP processing system that performed the complex routing and filtering did not.

Florida-based Pro Sound & Video, Inc. replaced the original processing system with two Symetrix Radius 12x8 Dante network audio DSPs and augmented their sixteen combined outputs with two SymNet xOut 12 audio output expansion boxes. All of the units network seamlessly via Dante and replace all of the old analogue processing, with plenty

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