USA - Audinate's tradition of creating innovative solutions continues, with the announcement of its new software application, Dante Via at InfoComm 2014.

Dante Via transforms Macs and PCs into networked I/O devices. With Dante Via, you can now build a complete, standalone audio system of networked PCs without the need for any dedicated Dante-enabled hardware to be present on the network. Any computer instantly becomes a networked audio I/O device, says the company.

Dante Via "expands AV horizons, freeing one from the limiting constraints of short reach point-to-point analogue and USB cables". Dante Via allows you to create a flexible audio bridge for your computer to connect with legacy USB, FireWire and Thunderbolt audio interfaces and transform them into networked devices. Without the need for additional hardware, Dante Via transmits and receives professional qual

UK - When Grillstock delivered a weekend full of BBQ-flavoured treats and good old-fashioned rock'n'roll bands and DJs at Bristol's Amphitheatre, they called on Bristol-based lighting specialists, Utopium, to supply its full stage production package. This included branded graphics, stage, sound, lighting and video walls to host headliners Fun Living Criminals and Hayseed Dixie, as well as other rockabilly favourites.

Utopium's hire and sales manager Ben Knowles commented, "It was great to work with the festival organisers putting together the full scale production to ensure it translated for every element of the event.

"It was also a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our new lighting technology live for the first time. We supplied six SGM X-5 LED Strobes, 12 Chauvet Legend 419 Washlights, 16 Chauvet 230 SR Beams and 18 Chauvet Nexus 4 x 4 panels, which allow f

UK - Audio Logic, provider of pro audio sound equipment products has appointed Derbyshire-based Commercial Audio Solutions as a sub-distributor of its Ecler, Audac and Procab exclusive brands. A shared business ethos and an eye for a mutually advantageous forward move underpin this arrangement, which sees Audio Logic continue to develop and grow its business.

Commercial Audio Solutions is a long established supplier to the installation market and stocks a large range of prestigious world-wide brands as well as offering an in-house system-design service. The addition of these Audio Logic brands increases further the scope of Commercial Audio's offer whilst at the same time extending Audio Logic's reach into new markets.

Interest in Audac's new range of amplifiers at the recent PLASA Focus event in Leeds was keen. Ecler continue to offer a quality product for just about every au

Singapore - One of Singapore's leading educational institutions, the Republic Polytechnic, has completed the installation of a Nexo Geo S12 line array in its primary theatre at The Republic Cultural Centre (TRCC).

Designed by Maki & Associates (Japan), TRCC exudes an elegant simplicity and balance of aesthetics and functionality that reflects an appreciation for the arts and culture. Under its fan-shaped roof, TRCC has three main performing arts venues: a 1,000-seat theatre, 300-seat studio and, 120-seat lab, all of which are open to the public.

This is the first upgrade for the main theatre since its opening in 2007. With more international acts gracing its stage, and taking into account the evolving needs and criteria of modern shows, Mark Spencer, former student and Head of TRCC's Audio Division, felt it was time the audio caught up to speed. "Audiences nowadays are mo

Italy - Pope Francis' address to the 37th National Convocation of the Renewal of the Spirit at Rome's Olympic Stadium recently, was clearly received by the gathering of over 50,000 people who thronged to Rome's Olympic Stadium - thanks to RCF loudspeakers.

After walking a short distance across the field, the Pope arrived at the stage where the previous night Italian rock star Luciano Ligabue had delivered a major concert. The audio system used on this occasion was made up of four of RCF's flagship TTL55-A Touring & Theatre line arrays, comprising 84 elements in total. This was not the first time an RCF system has been used to amplify an event of this kind: in 2012 the company provided the audio system for the official and historical visit of Pope Ratzinger to Cuba, an event followed by millions of people all around the world.

Now, two years on, RCF has again amplified t

USA - Entertainment and event production services provider Production Resource Group (PRG) has officially begun upgrading to L-Acoustics' new K2 platform with the purchase of two complete line source array systems. Delivered in mid-May, the sale comprised a total of 48 K2 enclosures and 24 LA8 amplified controllers.

PRG's inaugural K2 deployment came almost immediately - two dozen enclosures were put into active duty for the 25th annual National Memorial Day Concert, attended by countless spectators on the West Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. on 26 May. This year's event, hosted by actors Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise, featured an all-star line-up of performers, including the National Symphony Orchestra, Jennifer Nettles, Megan Hilty, the US Army Chorus and Air Force Singing Sergeants.

Having supported this annual holiday event for over two decades now, PRG's new K2

UK - Miley Cyrus' current tour is eclectic and outrageous, featuring a giant hot dog, a troupe of dancing furry animals and cartoon characters, foam fingers and some very skimpy costumes amongst other things. Critics have been largely positive, appreciating her vocal performance, audacity and charisma, with one critic from Time magazine calling her one of the "most dynamic performers of her generation". On this tour, and for the first time, Cyrus is performing with the new Digital 9000 microphone system from Sennheiser.

Despite the change of image and musical direction of recent years, Cyrus has remained faithful to key members of her technical team, in particular monitor engineer Vish Wadi and FoH engineer Paul David Hager. Both have been working with Cyrus (and Sennheiser) for a number of years. Wadi's relationship with Sennheiser goes back some 17 years, whil

USA - At InfoComm 2014, Shure Incorporated announced the availability of Wireless Workbench 6.10, available for download at www.shure.com/software. The next evolution of this software solution from Shure adds new product support, enhanced frequency analysis, and safeguards against unwanted setting changes.

Wireless Workbench 6.10 now supports the newly introduced QLX-D Digital Wireless System, a cost-effective solution that features networked control and Shure's intelligent rechargeable battery technology.

For greater insight into frequency compatibility, Wireless Workbench 6.10 introduces a re-designed Frequency Analysis view. Providing more transparency when troubleshooting, Frequency Analysis displays a detailed and interactive listing of conflicts discovered per frequency and enables users to filter conflicts by type.

After all desired settings are in place, the software

UK - Manchester-based dbn Lighting supplied lighting production and rigging for five out of the eight primary stages at the 2014 Parklife Weekender festival in the city's Heaton Park and LED screens for one of these five plus one other arena.

dbn has been the lighting supplier for the festival organised by Ground Control since it started five years ago, since when it has grown in stature, popularity and physical size. Last year, it moved from the original site in Platt Fields to Heaton Park to allow for expansion and this year the capacity was increased to 70,000.

dbn's project manager Pete Robinson created an individual production design for each area, all of which served as eye-catching backdrops for the heterogeneity of acts appearing over the two days.

He comments, "It was great to be involved again! We are all really excited to see the festival develop and to be ab

South Africa - ARX Systems, the Australian based designer and manufacturer of digital and analogue interface and signal processing products has announced the appointment of Johannesburg based Matrix Sound as their new distributor for South Africa.

ARX managing director Colin Park said, "Matrix Sound are a well known and long established Distribution, Sales & Rental Company in the South African Professional Audio Industry.

"Here at ARX we're looking forward to working with the Trevor Peters and his team at Matrix, they're very enthusiastic about the possibilities for the growing ARX product range amongst their extensive client base throughout South Africa."

(Jim Evans)

UK - The Britannia Stadium is the home of Premiership Football Club Stoke City. The stadium, which cost £15m, was opened in 1997 by Sir Stanley Matthews. As a top-flight arena with a capacity of 28,000 spectators, the need to clearly deliver information throughout the venue is of great importance.

From safety announcements and music, to team changes and minutes of added time, stadium announcer Steve Buxton is a busy man who carries great responsibility. On February 1st Stoke's heroes demonstrated their progress under manager Mark Hughes by putting Premiership giants Manchester United to the sword. On a memorable day for the club, Steve was putting into action some progress of his own.

Prior to that momentous day, Steve was to be found high above the pitch, behind glass and mixing his output from information received by walkie-talkie. This unsatisfactory state of affairs

UK - Singer songwriter Passenger (aka Mike from Brighton, as he introduces himself) may be one man busking with a guitar, but this is busking with a difference. Fans turn up in their droves to his impromptu gigs. Both they and production manager and FOH engineer Simon Kemp have discovered the benefits of Sennheiser's LSP 500 wireless loudspeakers.

Announced on his Facebook page only a matter of hours before each performance, and drawing crowds of up to a thousand at a time, Passenger's latest 'busks' have seen him perform in Manchester, Brighton and on London's South Bank outside the Tate Modern and they certainly haven't been disappointed in the quality of the audio.

Simon explains why he chose to use the LSP 500s. "I looked into this long and hard," he says. "The whole vibe of these gigs is that we need to be able to turn up anywhere and be completely self con

Israel - As the largest PA company in Israel, Sincopa Sound & Light has recently used its newly acquired Optocore digital returns racks to service major concerts by Justin Timberlake and the Rolling Stones in Tel Aviv's giant Park HaYarkon for up to 50,000 fans.

In the case of Timberlake they were able to meet the spec by deploying Optocore's sophisticated fibre distribution system comprising four XR6-FX interfaces at the FOH, stage and delay tower ends. One device was configured 8AE/8MI and the other three 8AE/8LO.

Transmission to the L-Acoustics PA and delay towers was via Optocore AES, Analogue and Ethernet on a redundant loop, with two AES lines from the DiGiCo SD-7, through a routing/summing Lake LM-44 to a total of five AES lines on the Optocore rack. These were configured for AES and analogue, while an analogue line was connected for backup.

The two Optocore stage rac

Angola - Doo.Bahr Nightclub, in the Angolan capital of Luanda, recently took delivery of the largest Martin Audio sound system ever shipped to the Portuguese speaking African country.

The work was carried out by Phil Clark and Neil Kavanagh of UK-based Old Barn Audio. They were commissioned by the owners, who also operate the Oon.Dah Restaurant below it in the EdifĂ­cio Escom, Luanda's tallest tower.

Phil Clark takes up the story. "We had already designed the original system 18 months ago, with assistance from Nigel Meddemmen at Martin Audio, but it was such a roaring success that we were asked to return and make the system louder to satisfy the DJs. This we did by upgrading the nightclub with more subs, bigger amps and processing."

Doo.Bahr is one of Luanda's chicest cocktail bar/lounges with an outdoor terrace offering spectacular views. It was originally designe

Brazil - Allen & Heath is playing an important role in the playback, broadcast and transmission of the 2014 FIFA World Cup taking place in Brazil. Supplied by distribution partner, Teleponto. multiple Allen & Heath consoles are being used at several stadiums, in various remote broadcast trucks, and in the master control rooms.

Fox Sports Brazil, a key broadcaster of the games, is using a GLD-80 digital mixer connected via Dante to 3 LAWO consoles and 3 RTS matrixes for broadcasts from Rio de Janeiro. Broadcaster, Sigma, is using a Qu-16 and a Qu-24 compact digital mixer, plus two iDR-16 and an iDR-48 iLive MixRacks.

Fox Sports' Sao Paulo studio installed a GLD-80 earlier this year. As part of the system, an AR2412 remote I/O rack was selected as a master unit, with two AR84 expander racks installed in the Fox studio with the mixer. This system is being used to provide audio fe

USA - The CBS broadcast of the 2014 Tony Awards, which aired 8 June, was one of the most complex in the event's history. From host Hugh Jackman's sprawling, bouncing, opening number to the on-stage gathering of all winners for a closing rendition of On Broadway viewers were treated to a fast-paced production that included a record 17 musical acts and a live orchestra in Radio City Music Hall.

Managing RF system design and frequency coordination for Firehouse Productions was Vinny Siniscal. "With so much real estate to cover, so many frequencies to manage and so many live bands, I specified Shure UHF-R systems again this year," he states. "When I'm doing a live network broadcast, that's my preference. Even though the product has been around ten years or so, I know there's nothing else out there that I trust to be robust enough to survive in such a crowded RF

UK - Orbital's new Nemesis distribution line of audio playback and control solutions took centre stage at last week's ABTT 2014 Show, with the Nemesis UMT-2D Multi-Button & MIDI to USB Converter being judged the Sound Product of the Year by the ABTT panel of peers and industry experts.

The award was presented to Orbital Sound's Richard Carter, part of the Nemesis design team, at a joint ceremony hosted by The Association of British Theatre Technicians and The Stage Management Association, at the end of the first day of the show.

Orbital MD Chris Headlam commented, "This is a great achievement for the team behind Nemesis - representing two years' research and development to create something that has long been missing in the theatre market. The objective is to remove the complexity and often random nature of computer playback systems - something that has plagued us all at s

USA - In a significant development for users of Audinate's Dante audio networking technology, Symetrix has announced that the latest version of its popular SymNet Composer software will support native configuration of select Dante-enabled Attero Tech and Stewart Audio products.

Settings affecting I/O levels, routing, and more may be defined with SymNet Composer 2.0, which gives customers the ability to consolidate design on a single software platform where previously multiple platforms were required.

"As of this release, integrators will no longer need Audinate's Dante Controller as well as separate software packages for each manufacturer's products," comments Trent Wagner, senior product manager at Symetrix. "Supported Attero Tech and Stewart Audio Dante-enabled products can now be configured and managed right alongside to SymNet hardware. Integrators who have

UK - Long-time ambassador for Optocore fibre signal interfaces, HD Pro Audio's sales director, Andy Huffer has strengthened his relationship with the Munich based network specialists - by placing the focus on sister company, BroaMan.

Once Optocore had decided to set up Broadcast Manufactur (BroaMan) to extend the Optocore infrastructure (and distribution options) into broadcast applications such as studios, OB vans and sport events, Huffer admits "it all clicked into place."

When he first saw MUX-22, the latest addition to the BroaMan portfolio of routing and repeating devices at this year's Frankfurt Prolight+Sound Show, and sensed its full I/O capacity and configurability, it really ignited his interest.

Consequently, his company - which specialises in the sales and distribution of a range of premium pro audio brands - gave BroaMan's MUX-22 device a prime spot on

UK - SSE Audio Group has been appointed a Soundcraft Vi Select dealer, and with the company's established reputation as a Vi User, wasted no time in securing one of the first Soundcraft Vi3000 digital consoles off the production line.

SSE sales director, Alex Penn, confirms: "We have a long history with Soundcraft's Vi Series." He continued "We saw the new console for the first time at Frankfurt Prolight+Sound; it sits neatly between the Vi1 and Vi4 and offers many new features which will secure the longevity of this series, which has always been popular with engineers."

Marking a massive technological upgrade to the Vi series, Vi3000 offers many advantages, including the much requested access to Universal Audio's plug-ins and Soundcraft Realtime Rack plug-in engine - both points picked up on by Penn.

"The Realtime rack can also be used with our exis

The Netherlands - With the start of the new Formula One Grand Prix season Dutch satellite uplink specialists, Multi-Link Holland and BP Satellite Solutions, have again been brought in to provide broadcast facilities to their clients at all GP circuits worldwide.

Both companies have a history of collaboration on a number of projects. Multi-Link Holland, founded by Bob Snieder, and BP Satellite Solutions, under Patrick Hendriks, provide satellite uplink and downlink facilities, wireless cameras, multi-camera and edit facilities. They also provide data and DVB-T transmissions - single and multiplexed-channel - for their own respective broadcast clients.

In order to enable fibre distribution over long distances in a more efficient and economical way than previously, for this season they have adopted BroaMan's new MUX-22 video, audio and intercom module. MUX-22 is part of BroaMan's

UK - The Ambassadors Theatre Group has revived Irving Berlin's classic musical Annie Get Your Gun. The show premiered at the Manchester Opera House on 12 May before embarking on a 20-week national UK tour due to culminate at Torquay's Princess theatre on 4 October.

Ian Talbot's production starring Jason Donovan as Frank Butler and the effervescent Emma Williams as Annie Oakley has so far enjoyed a raft of positive reviews. Award-winning British sound designer, Gregory Clarke, specified EM Acoustics systems throughout including a new Halo Compact system as the main PA. All of the PA equipment for the tour has been supplied by Stage Sound Services.

Clarke, who received the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design for Journey's End in 2007 and who won the Tony Award for his sound design on Equus in 2009, was delighted to be able to use Halo-C on

Belarus - Art Ramos Studio a.l.c., Community's partner in Belarus, has recently overseen the installation of the audio systems at the Chizhovka-Arena in Minsk, featuring Community loudspeakers. The arena, one of the largest sports facilities in Belarus, is a multipurpose complex for ice hockey, sports, leisure and entertainment and is the home ground of HC Yunost-Minsk.

Chizhovka-Arena was built for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Ice Hockey World Championship that took place in Minsk in May 2014. In addition to the tens of thousands of fans that travelled to see the event live, the IIHF's flagship event was televised to 115 countries with television audience around the 1,000 million mark.

Chizhovka-Arena is located in the southeastern part of Minsk in a picturesque nook of a park named after the 900th anniversary of the city. Designed by Marat Grodnikov, the ar

UK - Loose HDMI cable connections can now become a thing of the past with the new HDMiGrip cable range available from CIE-Group. Featuring the 'friction lock' connectors the high quality HDMI cables can prevent the cable from falling out of an AV device socket.

Available from CIE-Group, one of the audio visual industry's longest established providers of equipment for professional audio visual integration and PA sectors, the HDMiGrip cable connector's lock ensures that it holds securely in place, but will detach simply by pulling the connector out (without the need for pressing / releasing any locking switches or buttons).

"The HDMiGrip Cable is such a simple, yet great upgrade for the common HDMI cable," comments Chris Edwards, marketing director at CIE-Group. The 'friction lock' ensures that there will be no worry of loose connections or pulled out cables which remo

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