Firehouse Productions deployed an L-Acoustics PA for Justin Vernon and company’s latest North American trek, which added L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology for its second leg, giving fans a super-wide sonic panorama experience.
Bon Iver’s fourth and most recent studio album, i,i, showed up on numerous music critics’ “best of” lists at the end of 2019, widely praised for its mélange of acoustic instrumentation, otherworldly electronic and experimental elements, and, of course, front man Justin Vernon’s inimitable voice.

An L-ISA rig helped by K2 to expand outfill coverage to 180° of seating in Minneapolis (photo credit: Graham Tolbert)

To be expected, Bon Iver supported the release with a tour of arenas in select North American cities, with Red Hook, New York-based Firehouse Productions supplying an L-Acoustics K2 and Kara PA for the trek. But the second and latest leg of the tour was even more special and spatial thanks to Firehouse’s deployment of L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology.
According to Firehouse Productions Account Rep Chris Russo, the tour’s L-ISA configuration featured three central arrays each composed of 16 K2 plus three Kara down, flanked to the left and right by hangs of 24 Kara as the Scene system, which extended over the full width of the stage. Farther out to the left and right, two per side, 12-enclosure Kara arrays served as the Extension system, while two fill arrays of 12 K2 expanded outfill coverage to 180° of seating.

Two hangs of 10 KS28 each were flown in close proximity to the center K2 arrays providing homogeneous LF coverage, while three ARCS II per side down below were used for nearfield outfills and six Kara lined across the stage delivered frontfill. Fifty-two LA12X amplified controllers powered the entire system, and four new Milan-certified P1 AVB processors plus a pair of L-ISA Processors rounded out the L-Acoustics system complement.

Ben Iver Tour hits Chicago with L-ISA technology (photo credit: Graham Tolbert).

Although Bon Iver FOH Engineer Xandy Whitesel had mixed using L-ISA technology for a select “one-off” show with the band at the Santa Barbara Bowl a couple of years ago, this was his first opportunity to tour with the setup. “Andrew Gilchrest, our system tech, and I found that the mix image and tonality represented at FOH was very consistent and natural-sounding throughout each venue with L-ISA,” he shares.
“Even the far ‘nosebleed’ seats of the arenas sounded fantastic, as did the extreme left and right sides of the main floor where the L-ISA coverage very transparently transitioned over to the outfill coverage. There was no low/mid ‘wonk’ from seat-to-seat—it was all very clean and consistent—and there was also a noticeable attenuation of low end bleeding back onto the stage, which allowed the band to enjoy more precise in-ear mixes.”

Drawing on material from Bon Iver’s full catalog, the two-hour nightly show was performed by six musicians—two drummers/percussionists and four multi-instrumentalists/vocalists—generating 95 inputs from the stage, not including guests, talk mics and local channels. All musicians were on hard-wired IEMs, eliminating the need for stage wedges. Front-of-house and monitor positions both featured DiGiCo Quantum 7 consoles, and Whitesel’s desk fed the L-ISA Processor via direct outs from each channel.

The Boston L-ISA Bon Iver show (photo credit: James Dean).

Whitesel points out that his approach was to avoid “glitz,” at least from a sound reinforcement perspective, so he made judicious use of the L-ISA technology’s vast potential. “The band’s music is generally complex enough, so there’s no need to add fanciness to make it interesting,” he says.
“We did use some dynamic movement of elements in a couple of the songs that really invited it, but our goal for L-ISA was to enable a quality and consistent immersive experience for the audience to more fully engage with the music not to be distracted by the sound and we absolutely achieved that. It was very apparent that audiences were stoked and totally engaged.”

Firehouse’s Russo agrees: “The L-ISA technology definitely widens the ‘sweet spot’ typically only found at or around FOH and a thin slice up the center. Xandy did a great job using all of the technology’s resources. His mix was well balanced and dynamic, and the technology gave him a much wider canvas to paint on, which enhanced other show elements. L-ISA increased the resolution of Xandy’s already detailed mix, which deepened the audience’s connection with the band and their music, in turn making for an exceptional experience.”

Other information on L-Acoustics website

Based in Oakland, Brad founded Waveworks in 2016. “The dance music industry tends to stick with what it knows, and a lot of the competition is racing to be the loudest. I’ve spent my career searching for a true ‘3D’ sound that does not hurt after hours of dancing, where there is so little distortion that you can have a conversation and earplugs are optional,” he says.

Brad Katz with his system based on custom bass and subs and RR12 Alcons tops.

He first heard Alcons Audio pro-ribbon systems at a demonstration of the VR8 compact versatile monitor, before he founded Waveworks. “The demo was great, and it really stuck in my mind,” he says. “When I started the company I went to a lot of demos, to really prove to myself that Alcons pro-ribbon technology is amongst the best of the best out there. Every time I heard it, I was impressed.”

The Alcons RR12 topping 4 custom mid-bass subs aquipped with Faital Pro 15HP1030 woofers.

Brad invested in a system based on the Alcons RR12 point-source array module and Sentinel10 amplified loudspeaker controllers, which he deploys with his own custom single 15-inch Faital Pro horn loaded mid-bass Paraflex subs and the BassMaxx subs.
This ensures that, as a small production company breaking into a market with many established players, he brings something genuinely new and exciting.

“The RR12’s sound has incredible clarity and is so seamless – you can direct it very precisely and I’ve never heard another product that you literally can’t find the seam between two boxes unless you use your eyes,” he says. “But it’s not just our trained ears that hear it. It’s a whole new paradigm. I love watching the faces of people on the dancefloor experiencing such little distortion, asking what’s going on?”

The RR12 horizontal behaviour. As good as it gets thanks to its ribbon technology

It’s not just the exceptional sound quality and precise directivity of the pro-ribbon RR12 that Brad is so impressed with; logistically it ticks all the boxes. “They fly or ground-stack very easily; they literally just snap together and, with the asymmetric morphing lens on the ribbon, they sound right with little or no down tilt when they are ground-stacked,” he says.

“They are very loud for the size and weight; one person can rig or stack no problem and nothing else comes close to the detail at that level. I can scale up or down for all kinds of shows, use them as DJ monitors, front fill, mains, rear fill, etc. They are incredibly versatile.”
Alongside events, Waveworks also installs audio systems in upscale restaurants, nightclubs, places of worship and entertainment venues. You sense that Brad is really looking forward to the chance to install an RR12-based system, to give patrons the full pro-ribbon experience.
“Without a doubt, Alcons has knocked it out of the park with the RR12. It is a truly standout loudspeaker,” he says. “The fidelity makes it a pleasure to use each time. You feel all the music but can still have a comfortable conversation. Not only that, but I really like Alcons and its people. From the top down it is a very easy company to deal with.”

He concludes, “We worked at a small festival recently and the best comments came from the lighting crew. They were right in the firing line, in the middle at front of house, and they were stoked at not being blasted and having to wear earplugs for the whole show. That made my year!”

For more information, please visit the Wavework website and/or the Wavework Facebook and the Alcons Audio website

As the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battled it out for the NFL Championship, the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show brought a little Latin flavour to Miami’s 65,000-seat Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday 2 February 2020.
Thanks to an explosive show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, aided by Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Colombian star J. Balvin, and a cast of near 170 musicians, dancers, and performers.

This massive production, an eagerly awaited annual event, was broadcast live by Fox to 100 million viewers worldwide, all of whom witnessed a superb lighting show which had at its centre over 120 Ayrton Perseo IP65-rated multi-function profile fixtures.

The spectacular production was created by the legendary Super Bowl team headed by show designer, Bruce Rodgers of Tribe, Inc. and lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees, alongside four lighting directors including Super Bowl veteran of 10 years, Jason Rudolf, Dave Grill, Pete Radice, and newcomer Patrick Brazil, who programmed and took responsibility for the Perseo fixtures.
“The show is a complete co-production involving all the team,” says Barnhart. “So, while Bruce is responsible for the layout and I the fixtures, ideas were bandied around early on and we quickly decided the Ayrton lighting rig would be the centrepiece of the whole design.”

Ayrton Perseo

Rodgers’ stage design included four runways of light upstage of the main stage, delineated by the same lighting fixtures that would also outline the circular main stage. Barnhart chose Perseo as that fixture to define the performance area, embedding 13 Perseo units in each runway to provide a dynamic backdrop to the show, and using the remainder around the main stage. He also installed 24 further Perseo fixtures on either side of the tunnels to light the teams as they made their pre kick-off entrances onto the field.

“The upstage ramps were the background of the show for us,” says Barnhart. “It’s very hard to get elevation in a set in the middle of a field with only 8-minutes set-up time, so we depended on those four long rows of lights to give us a really strong background.

One section of the upstage ramp containing 24 Perseo fixtures was capable of elevation, tilting 5ft into the air during Lopez’s song On The Floor. “This gave us a nice hard background for this number,” says Barnhart. “Shakira’s Empire was perhaps my favourite light cue in the show though. I loved how the Perseo light strobed so effectively it was the second song in the show and we were waiting to really roll them out in that number. It was great to have an LED fixture capable of genuine strobing instead of using its shutter, and it became an incredibly strong dynamic effect.”

Rodgers and Barnhart wanted to keep to the same fixture across the entirety of the stage for the sake of uniformity, and Perseo’s aesthetic played a major part in Barnhart’s choice. “Form factor is very important and Ayrton has chosen to pay a lot of attention to its aesthetic design. When choosing a fixture, it needs to look good as well as have all the bells and whistles, especially for TV. If it’s going to be on camera you want the inside and the outside to be as sexy and high tech as possible.

“Perseo is great to look at and, from a designer standpoint, I like that large aperture with its big glass face which you can use to create ‘hokum’ to fill in for camera shots – just glowing the face of it instead of producing a beam gave a nice look in the background.”

The successful fixture needed to be waterproof above all else “because Miami loves to rain as we know from previous Super Bowls there! We got lucky on the night as the weather was fine, but there were several downpours during programming in the parking lot and I can attest the Perseos are truly IP65-rated! We just let them run and they didn’t care at all. They were like dogs in a lake!”

But it is not just the IP rating that Barnhart found so attractive: “Perseo has many great features: the shutters were something I didn’t think I would need when I first picked the fixture, but as the show developed they became a really handy tool. I was able to side light the dancers during Waiting for Tonight for example, and shutter-cut off the spill on the floor and on Jennifer on the centre stage Dance Pole.

“The show gets very colourful at times and Perseo’s colour rendering is very good. Fox used new cameras running 2020 Vision – a new colour rendering system which increases the colour range the cameras can perceive. It was great to be able to see on camera all these colours that Perseo can produce – even though many broadcasters didn’t broadcast in 2020 Vision – but I can attest they were there! You’ll just have to take my word for it!”

Barnhart was also pleased with Perseo’s zoom capabilities which belie it compact size: “It’s a tough compromise – you want a fixture to be small, but physical size can limit the extent of your zoom ratio. But Perseo does really well on this front – it zooms out really well. It’s both a good close up fixture and pretty good distance fixture.”
In total, 124 Ayrton Perseo were supplied on a quick turnaround in a joint venture by JamPro Productions of Reno, NV, Mid-America Sound Corporation of Greenfield, IN, LEC of Chicago, IL and Harvest Productions of Kansas City, MO, all of which was faciliated by Aaron Hubbard at ACT Lighting, Ayrton’s exclusive distributor in the US.

“We’d like to thank these companies who were willing to pre-order the Perseos with shipment direct from the Ayrton factory in order to make the deadline,” says Hubbard. PRG’s Vice President of Television & Special Events, Tony Ward, and his team provided the transportation and onsite technical logistics for entire lighting system, including the Ayrton Perseo units.

“Aaron worked really hard to ensure we would be able to use Perseo and supported us at every step of the way,” says Barnhart. “There was a large quantity involved and a short deadline but he made sure they got delivered in time for the big event, ‘hot off the press as seen on TV!’ you might say.”
Crucially, Hubbard was instrumental in helping solve the crunch point that guaranteed Perseo’s place on the field. “I’m probably the only one in the world who cares about a lamp’s calibration time but it’s a vital element to us because of the extreme limits to our set up time in the interval,” explains Barnhart.
“We have precisely 8 minutes from the moment 500+ half-time crew exit the tunnels until we go live to over 100 million viewers, 5-6 minutes of which is taken up by the set build before we can make our cable connections. This leaves the last 120 seconds for the lights to receive power.

Perseo originally had a 2-minute calibration time which was just too long, especially when the opening cue made a big feature of them from the very first beat as they spring into life in animated waves behind Shakira. If they weren’t there, it would be very obvious.
So Aaron made a call to the Ayrton engineers, and within half an hour I had a call back telling me they could re-engineer the software to reduce the time to 70 seconds! So it was game on! It’s very nerve-wracking – I’m living dog-year lives when I’m doing a Super Bowl!”

“The other nice point that helped sell that fixture to me was its LED engine. It has an amazingly flat field with no hotspot (which can really stand out on camera), and there’s no strike problem with the lamp as can happen with a conventional source. With LED, once the power is on, it’s ready to go which takes away another whole layer of worry!

“I’ve become a fan of Perseo. I find I don’t need washlights anymore because good multipurpose units like Perseo do it all, and I heavily gravitate towards these kind of fixtures. Why alternate wash and profile fixtures in a rig if I can have multi-functional lights instead which give me more tools to work with.
“Ayrton has moved from creating unique effects lighting to truly functional workhorses. For a production like this you need a truly multi-purpose fixture with an LED source, shutters, iris, gobo options, a frost, prisms, ideally animation wheel plus they need to be quick and responsive and dependable all of which Perseo has. With a fixture like that you have a workhorse that you want to put through your entire rig!”

More on the Ayrton website

On Sunday, March 22nd, in an act of solidarity with all the heroes fighting the COVID-19 global pandemic, AV rental companies across the Benelux region, including on Curaçao in the Dutch Antilles, lit up the nighttime sky in an initiative called #LightTheSky.

Countless companies, venues and individuals took part Sunday evening from 20:00 to 20:30 by either pointing light beams skyward or illuminating architecture such as hospitals and parks. Reaction to the initiative was overwhelmingly positive as the events industry showed its support for all the medical staff and other front line service workers fighting to keep us all safe. As an industry hit especially hard by the pandemic, the outpouring of support by lighting companies was especially poignant.

A broad range of lighting manufacturers were represented with Dutch rental company MM Licht & Geluid proudly taking part in the action by filling the sky southwest of Rotterdam using Elation Platinum HFX™ luminaires and other lights. “We participated by sending bright beams of light all over our region and lighting up our location with minimal staff of course,” said Maarten Alleman of MM Licht & Geluid.

“The idea was to do something which people could enjoy from home. As a lot of us are currently stuck without production work, we lit up the sky and landmarks as a show of solidarity and support for the heroes of our society, but also for everyone else doing their part, even if just by staying home.”

Links:

• FaceBook MM Licht & Geluid
• Facebook events
• Facebook Light The Sky

Led by NEXO’s primary training instructor Nicolas Poitrenaud, the presenting team includes NEXO engineers from all over the world, who will work in four different languages (English, Spanish, French and German). All tutorials are free and open to any interested party: no special knowledge of NEXO equipment is required.

Nicolas Poitrenaud

“We’ve carefully considered these sessions so that they will also interest engineers and venue owners/operators who may not yet be familiar with NEXO systems,” explains Poitrenaud. “We are confident that these Facebook Live sessions will provide skills and knowledge to enhance the business activities of many professionals, especially in these difficult times.”

Broadcast using Facebook Live, the first session will be The Fundamentals of Acoustics, covering topics such as the basics of acoustics and psychoacoustics for live sound applications. Sound radiation, propagation and perception will be explained in order to give online students competency with the main acoustic parameters and phenomena.

Broadcast date: Friday 10 April at 15.00 hrs (GMT+1) More on The Official NEXO Page

The next class will be an Introduction to NS-1, NEXO’s proprietary acoustic simulation software programme dates can be found on the NEXO Facebook Page. This 2-hour tutorial will be presented in Spanish by Roberto Tschopp, with support from Hely Chirinos and Celso Papadopulos, all from our Latin American team.
This class will present sound system design principles using the software workflow starting from venue creation and system implementation, examining acoustical and mechanical settings to optimize performance in a venue. Participants can study two different solutions using NEXO point source and line source models according to various targets.

More on The Official NEXO Page

After the Easter break, a new series will be broadcast, looking at specific applications: performing arts venues, sports arenas and stadia, and many different sizes of live events. All dates and tutorial topics are listed on NEXO’s Facebook page.

Disguise, specialist for creative and technical professionals to imagine, create and deliver live experiences, has launched ‘disguise OnDemand’ a virtual hub that features access to free training and webinars exploring key features and elements of the disguise workflow.

Held in multiple languages, multiple times a day, the platform will feature exclusive content, including the opportunity for the community to take part in specialist discussions on key industry topics, and hear from customers during spotlight discussions on showstopping case studies.

Designed as a place for the community to learn and keep up-to-date on all things regarding disguise, free online training sessions take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are planning on running a condensed version of the Fundamental and Pre-Production Workflows Training, broken down into a series of six one hour sessions where attendees can learn the core features, including the timeline, stage, configuring output feeds, and how to set up devices.
As part of a wider initiative to reach out to the disguise community, the ‘Designer’ software will also be free until September, and giving a series of discounted USB dongle giveaways, as well as partnering with Notch on a ‘codemeter’ dongle sharing scheme, allowing more people to access to both their software.

“We understand this is a really hard time for our industry, and disguise is committed to doing what we can to support our community of freelancers, partners and customers across the globe,” said Fernando Kufer, CEO at disguise. “These initiatives are vital to support our community and key industries, enabling more people to access our software, and learn new ways to maximise efficiencies. We’re looking forward to joining forces and hearing from our users.”

Keep up to date with the growing webinar and training schedule, and register by visiting Disguise training webinars

For more information, please visit Disguise website

grandMA3-V1131

Unveiled right on time to keep operators busy during the Big Confinement, version 1.1 of the grandMA3 software proves that the Germans, even staying at home, have not been idle lately, indeed. Just 112 days after the official release of version 1.0.0.3, this new version is strongly upgraded with many additional functions, fixes countless bugs.

Even if it does not bear spectacular steps ahead, MA did take the opportunity to rework many parts of his code. A work not necessarily easy to discover at first sight, but which allows to have a very great stability, for both software and graphics, and gives healthy bases for the next evolutions. Among the new features, some have been waiting for since long, while other ones are emerging.

Network

The Network menu is enhanced with Session and Station parameters, and a network update tool, the Network Update.

The new versions for the various devices (consoles, GPU, Nodes and OnPC) are included in the MALighting ZIP files, to be dragged and dropped into the MA update folder. This allows you to update any type of MA product, from any platform.
A new function allows to switch from mode3 to mode2, with the ‘’ SwitchGma2Mode ’’ command. The other way around is impossible, the grandMA2 code system does not allow this implementation

Park/UnPark

The Park and UnPark functions are back, by pressing the Go + and Pause keys twice, much like on the grandMA2. The possibilities of these commands are multiple, working either by projector, or by DMX output, or by attribute category (FeatureGroup).

Layout

New arrangement tools are available, identical to those in the 3D menu.
It is also possible to lock the position of a Layout, or its elements, in order not to accidentally change them.

Cue-Only

The ability to record in Cue-Only is again available, adapted to the Part-Cue browsing structure of the grandMA3

Tracking Distance

Brand new function, the Tracking Distance allows you to lock a value throughout several memories before going back to the previous tracking.
Quite advanced, this setting is a kind of tracking pyramid, which works with a Delta cue or a stop cue, and can even multiply itself.

Screens management

Thanks to this setting, the screens configurations can be adapted to external screens or computer monitors for the OnPC version, and thus recover its screens configuration whatever its screen.

Shortcuts

Long-awaited, keyboard shortcuts are finally making their debut in version 3, thanks to the small ‘ShCuts’ key in the command line.
Interesting bonus: editing these shortcuts is possible and can be found in the Preference & Timing menu.

3D

Small additional option in 3D, with the possibility of hiding and locking certain elements of the patch thanks to the columns ‘’ 3D selectable ’’ and ‘’ 3D Visible ’’.

Outputs configuration

To simplify the reading of DMX output configurations, the ’’Output Configuration’’ menu now has three playback modes, ‘’Condensed’’, ‘’XLR Only’’ and ‘’Full’’. For enhanced clarity, the options are represented by vibrant colors. DMX mode is the one used by default, rather than RDM mode.

Web remote

The configuration of the ’’Web Remote’’ items is improved by a dedicated menu, as well as the possibility of managing the output resolution in order to limit the bandwidth.

Universal Preset

The creation of Universal Preset is now possible thanks to the Preset Pool Preset option.

grandMA3 Extension

For those with grandMA3 fader wings, their connection is via the MA-Net network, and the settings in the ‘’Extension Configuration’’ menu. Note that it is possible to add such an extension per FullSize console, two for the Light and three for the Replay-Unit.

Changes

Quite a lot of changes have occurred, including the famous use of long press on the directory boxes now limited to recording and no longer allowing an “on the fly” update. In addition, in the list of available screen views, a new tab appeared with a classification and sorting of all available views.

Corrections

More than a hundred corrections were made, the complete list is available here on the official MALighting Website

Other expected features, such as the Move In Black or the Time Code Generator, are not yet included, but be assured that they are planned for next version.
MALighting thus participates in the maintenance of the lampies’ high spirits, they thus find what to work on and improve themselves, even during confinement boring times!

Martin Audio SXCF118

Martin Audio has announced the release of two new compact, high performance cardioid subwoofers, the SXCF118 and the SXC115, suitable for both live sound reinforcement and fixed installations.

Martin Audio SXC118 internal view.

The SXCF118 is a flyable version of the SXC118 released last year and has been purpose designed to accompany the WPS optimised line array system, while the ground stack SXC115 is set to partner WPM.

The SXCF118 combines maximum low frequency output with exceptional pattern control.
It features an 18” (460 mm) forward facing driver and a 14” (356 mm) rear facing driver, each driven independently by separate amplifier channels and DSP. Each driver has its own chamber with optimised bass reflex porting.

Martin Audio SXCF118 array

This arrangement produces a cardioid dispersion pattern which maximises the front radiation, while reducing unwanted radiation behind the subwoofer.
The recommended iK42 amplifier optimises the DSP parameters for front and rear drivers to maximise the rear rejection from 21 dB at 43 Hz to 28 dB at 75 Hz.

This keeps low frequencies away from stages and walls as well as reducing reverberant energy in the room, greatly improving low frequency response accuracy and impact. In front of the enclosure, the output from the two drivers is additive, giving an extra 2 dB of output when compared with a conventional 1 x 18” subwoofer.

The enclosure is constructed from tour-grade plywood and finished with a hard-wearing textured polyurea coating. It is equipped with four grab handles, while foam-backed perforated steel grilles protect the front and rear drivers.
Integral flying hardware, coupled with the WPSGRIDT touring flying frame, allows the SXCF118 to be incorporated at the top of a WPS array, or flown as a separate array alongside.

The SXC115 follows similar principles and contains a 15” (380mm) front facing driver and 12” (300 mm) rear facing driver, each driven, again, independently by separate amplifier channels and DSP. Each driver, similarly, has its own chamber with optimised bass reflex porting.
In front of the enclosure, the output from the two drivers is additive, giving an extra 1 dB of output when compared with a conventional 1 x 15” subwoofer and 21 dB at 43 Hz of rear rejection. It is the perfect accompaniment to WPM or indeed with a pole mount for Martin Audio point source loudspeakers.

Martin Audio SXC115

Shipping for SXCF118 will begin in May with the SXC115 a month later.

More information on Martin Audio website

Merseyside-based Adlib made a sizeable investment in Ayrton fixtures by adding Khamsin-S, Bora-S and Diablo LED profiles and wash lights to its inventory, purchased from Ambersphere, Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for the UK.

Established in 1984, Adlib is an event technical services company in the UK, providing hire, sales, and installation of professional audio, lighting, video, rigging and staging equipment across the whole spectrum of the live events industry.
“We were looking to add some big, powerful LED fixtures that were bright enough to handle the areas that we are growing into fixtures that were comfortable in arenas and larger venues, with a full feature set, framing shutters, CTO wheels, and all the other essentials. The Ayrton products ticked all of these boxes.”

Edwards first spotted Bora and Khamsin at a tradeshow in the company of Ambersphere: “It was the quality of light coming out of the Bora wash light that caught my eye and especially impressed me,” he says. “It is very rare that you see something in the ‘bread & butter’ range that excites, but when I saw the fixture, it was like seeing something new and ground-breaking!
“You could almost feel the light, which is testament to how good the glass optics are. Add to that the fact you can get air effects out of it, and it has an absolutely massive zoom range which can cover an arena stage with just 8 units – well, there’s not many lights that can do that.”
24 Bora-S wash lights and 40 Khamsin-S profile spots, both of which are capable of producing 40,000 lumens from their 750W LED sources, were initially purchased from Ambersphere for the Gerry Cinnamon tour, designed by Pete Hutchinson of Illumination Creative Design. “Khamsin is an absolutely solid workhorse light for us and it will form the backbone of many shows to come,” states Edwards.

“Much of Adlib’s work is with broadcast and many of our shows are either recorded or broadcast,” explains Edwards, who has a very strong video background, “so it is very important to be able to fine tune colours to assist cameras. When working with LED lighting, a camera engineer must pull a lot of green out of the cameras to obtain correct skin tones.
But the Ayrton Khamsin and Bora have a ‘minus green’ filter built into them so, instead of correcting it in camera, you can fix it at source. The result is that you get a lovely skin tone in real life and in camera, straight out of the fixture, which is a really big plus.”

The new Bora and Khamsin fixtures proved such a hit that Adlib made a follow-up investment in 24 Diablo LED profile spots – powerful, fully-featured, compact 300W units that pack a 19,000 lumen punch which immediately went out on tour and were initially used on tours by Sam Fender and Asgeir designed by Liam Tully. “We decided on Diablo for similar reasons to its bigger brothers,” says Edwards.

“We wanted something we could put into the same rig as Khamsin and Bora to give us a coherent range of fixtures which can cover all sizes and style of venue and show.
The big advantage of Diablo is its small size compared to what it is capable of doing: they’ve got an incredible feature set for such a little light and they are very, very bright for such a small fixture, they really do pack a punch! Ayrton has made a product range that is very investable.”
“We are proud that Adlib has entrusted the heavy lifting tasks of lighting their arena and broadcast applications to our Khamsin and Bora,” says Ayrton’s Jerad Garza. “The output and consistency of these fixtures, and that of the smaller Diablo, will continue to give them returns for many shows to come.”

For more information on Ayrton Bora, Khamsin and Diablo, and the full range of LED lighting fixtures, visit the Ayrton website

And more information on Adlib and its services

When forming special effects company, Encore SFX, George Baker and Anthony Earles, both of whom have many years’ experience in senior roles in the SFX business, decided to invest in the highest quality special effect products available, and knew exactly which company and products they wanted to partner with.

“We needed great products from a reliable company who could offer not just the quality but the essential support required, and immediately thought of MDG,” says Baker. The company purchased 4 MDG ICE FOG Q HP low fog generators with DMX interfaces, and 4 pneumatic Round Floor Pockets with remote control boxes.
The ICE FOG Q HP is the quietest low fog generator on the market which it produces a thick, low-lying fog with zero residue. The award-winning Round Floor Pocket is DMX/RDM operated and can be embedded in the stage floor or set wall to conceal a fog output and deliver low fog or fog to precise locations.

©Dymond_Thames

“The ethos of our company is to make effects more accessible and give our clients the best products for their money. The only way to do this is to offer the best,” says Baker. “We have worked with many different brands of fog and haze machines over the years, and as we are not tied to any one brand, we can choose which we want to go with. When we started the company we were in a unique position of having no pre-existing stock, so could make a fresh start by investing in the best, and latest, products on the market.”

Baker and Earles have very definite reasons for their faith in MDG: “We believe the ICE FOG Q HP is one of the best-built units we have seen. The volume and consistency of the output is incredible. It’s the best looking effect I’ve seen and it doesn’t rise up when you move around in it. Other low fog machines’ output tend to flick up and get wispy, but MDG just sticks to the ground and is solid, no matter what you do to it.”

©Dymond_Thames

The ICE FOG Q HP units and Round Floor Pockets were instantly put to work in BBC1’s current series of The Greatest Dancer which is filmed at LH2 studios in West London, with lighting director, Tim Routledge.
“The products we’d used for the previous series were OK, but not the best quality, and with a such big stage and lots of movement from the dancers, we found the low fog was getting thrown up into the air,” says Baker. “For this series we swapped to the ICE FOG Q HP and sunk the Round Floor Pockets into all four corners of the stage.

This instantly made the stage look a lot cleaner as the space is just an open dance floor where you can’t hide ducting. Then, because of the ICE FOG Q HP’s high output, we got really dense low fog, with the floor pockets ensuring an even distribution and sharp cut offs.
They are just incredible. We were very happy with the result and it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase an excellent product on six weeks of prime-time national television!”

Tim Routledge, lighting director for The Greatest Dancer, agrees: “We’ve never quite cracked low smoke at LH2 during live TV shows but with the new investment by Encore in MDG we have gorgeous low smoke that lasts and sits low for an entire performance. MDG are by far the go-to company for haze and fog.”

“Anthony and I spent a long time looking at other units, but MDG was the obvious choice by a long way,” explains Baker. “When The Greatest Dancer came along for the second year running, we knew it was the ideal opportunity for us to initiate the investment we’d been wanting to make. Working closely with the production team we had a clear choice of which route to take. Why would you opt to put together combinations of products from other manufacturers when MDG does the full package in one?”

Encore SFX chose the Q version for its high output and ability to fill much larger areas, as it now runs on regular HP (high pressure cylinders) that can be sourced easily from local gas suppliers. “I prefer to have the bigger output units in our stock to give us more options on the many, varied jobs we have lined up for them in future. We can be in a TV studio one week and an arena show the next and anything in between. The ICE FOG Q HPs give us maximum flexibility.”

©Dymond_Thames

But Encore SFX’s investment in MDG goes beyond the quality of its products: “The service we got from MDG, in particular Matt Wiseman, was incredible. This is a big investment for Encore SFX but an exciting prospect for us, and Matt was there to advise us every step of the way. We are the only SFX company to have MDG in their stock, and aim to develop our relationship with MDG further.

“We like to work with people who support and help us right from our beginning, and keep working with those who have proven, not just to provide the right product, but also the support. It’s very important for us to know the service is there, and the danger is from companies who just want to sell you a product rather than invest in you as people or as a company. With Matt and MDG, I know I will get the best service and a straight answer with every call. We want to invest in MDG to the same level as they want to work with us.”

For more information on all MDG’s fog, haze and atmosphere generators, visit MDG website

Lighting designer Normand Chasse of Montreal-based Wysart selected Robert Juliat Dalis 864 LED asymmetric footlights for the recording of Mix Sonore, a new English-French music variety programme, which will air on Canada’s TV5Unis starting in May.

Mix Sonore is a live music series which features Martha Wainwright hosting a lineup of English and French-speaking artists at Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Marquee Ballroom.
Performers on the 13 shows include Rose Cousins, Classified, Matt Andersen, Basia Bulat, Jason Collett, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Sam Roberts, Etienne Fletcher and Yann Perreau. It was produced by Connections Productions Inc. of Halifax.

Normand Chasse says he was “excited to see” the Dalis 864 fixtures at last year’s LDI and has been kept up to date on the fixtures by ACT Canada’s Alex Monat. The Dalis 864 is a new, 150W colour variation of the original Dalis 862 tuneable white footlight designed for the creation of colourful upstage or downstage lighting. Mix Sonore’s Dalis 864 units were supplied by Jonathan Pichette of SoftBox Integration, Montreal.

“I’m a big fan of Robert Juliat products,” says Chasse. “The company makes really good products; I especially like their new LED Fresnels.” Chasse calls the Dalis 864 “amazing” with “a curve that’s so sweet and soft for an LED light, nice colours and really good results when lighting faces. I can control every group of four LEDs and use two different colours in lighting the full body of a singer or musician. The fixture is a good substitute for tungsten lighting.”

He also likes the marker or cue lights inside the fixture, which are helpful to artists in a blackout situation on stage. “The low height of the light means you can put them in front of monitors, and they’re quiet so they won’t affect sound,” he adds.

For the Mix Sonore recordings Chasse positioned the Dalis 864 footlights downstage of the performers. “The fixtures can be just one foot away from an artist and still cover them from foot to head with an even light,” he notes. Chasse also was the set designer for the show.

The lighting designer was so pleased with the Dalis 864 footlights that he says the fixtures are on his gear list for projects going forward. “I’m now a big fan! I’ve got them on the list for the next three or four shows I’m doing for television,” he reports.

Chasse is especially excited about Dalis’s prospects for lighting country music performers. “Lighting country music artists wearing big cowboy hats is always a nightmare,” he says. “The hats create shadows on faces and you can’t see people’s eyes on closeups. But this light will now be my best friend for country music!”

For more details on Robert Juliat’s Dalis 864 footlight and others in the Dalis family and Robert Juliat’s full portfolio of LED, tungsten and discharge lighting fixtures, visit the Robert Juliat website

Robert Juliat is distributed exclusively in North America by ACT Lighting, Inc.

“Everyone has been impacted by COVID-19 and its aftermath, though it’s been especially trying for the live sound community,” begins Jeremiah Karni, Head of Education at Adamson. “That’s why we’ve been working hard on ways to support and engage with our global network despite the fact that we can’t get together.

In addition to offering informative, insightful, and interesting content for attendees, the webinar series also provides them another means to interact directly with our team, as well as their peers in the Adamson Network. It’s about asking questions, sharing ideas, and making sure that, as a community, we’re better poised to come out of this challenge stronger than ever.”

Head of Product and Technology, Brian Fraser.

The Adamson Education Webinar Series launched in mid-March with a pair of episodes dedicated to the latest version (v1.2.8) of Adamson’s Blueprint AV 3D predictive simulation software, followed by an in-depth discussion and Q&A with Adamson’s Head of Education, Jeremiah Karni, and Head of Product and Technology, Brian Fraser.

New webinars currently go live every Tuesday and Thursday. With past episodes already archived for on-demand access, the series will continue to cover a myriad of topics relevant to Adamson products, technologies, and applications, as well as the wider live sound and integration industries for the foreseeable future.

Adamson’s Head of Education, Jeremiah Karni.

In addition to the webinar series, Adamson is developing and adapting other education and networking initiatives to be delivered remotely.
“The bottom line is that we’ve always prided ourselves on offering education and support that’s second-to-none, and in these challenging times, it’s more important than ever that we live up to that,” adds Karni.
“We’re here for our partners and will continue welcoming their input to ensure we’re delivering useful and timely resources specific to their needs.”

All upcoming editions of the Adamson Education Webinar Series, along with other training and networking initiatives, can be found at Adamson Education

©Phlippo RentAll

On Sunday 22nd March for half an hour, a number of Benelux lighting rental companies and individuals in fact anyone with access to a light were invited to point it upwards and #LightTheSky in support of all the key workers, heroes and heroines on the frontline of fighting the Coronavirus pandemic.

©Flashlight

#LightTheSky was an idea originated by a Dutch rental company … which then became a clarion call taken up by numerous entertainment rental companies, venues, broadcasters and others, by people working in every segment across the whole Benelux Region … with some extremely creative results … as is the nature of our industry!

©L&L

Heart shapes were a popular choice and many of the lighting schemes utilised Robe products MegaPointes and Pointes were a favourite for their brightness, however other products and brands were also involved in this spontaneous and imaginative expression of solidarity.

It highlighted gratitude for essential workers in the health service, transportation, law enforcement, supermarkets, education and many more sectors who are keeping our countries going during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The photos here are a selection summitted by different Benelux rental companies … all of whom also observed the strict rules now in place throughout Europe on social distancing and other safe working practices during the crisis.

Robe’s CEO Josef Valchar comments, “It’s heart-warming to see the entertainment technology community energised and engaging in actions like this and showing its support for everyone. We’re all affected, and by standing strong together we can help each other survive and deal with the huge challenges our incredible industry faces in the immediate and longer-term future.”

@Ampco

Also over the weekend 183 radio stations across Europe and including the UK from Spain to Slovakia, Luxemburg to Latvia conducted a synched play-out of the classic 1963 hit “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry & The Pacemakers.

©Purple Group

Galvanising actions like these are taking place all over the world while people embrace the spirit of community and help each other get through the pandemic.

©SLV

Robe will be producing special content for press, www.robe.cz and across our social channels during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Please send your uplifting stories or ideas to us for potential development.

We WILL come through this together.