News

BERKELEY, CA–New San Francisco Opera General Manager David Gockley is championing free performances by the opera in the city's parks, and recently created "Opera Vision," a program to simulcast live performances from the War Memorial Opera House. The performance is transmitted to an outdoor location where the public watches a six-camera video shoot projected on a large-format screen and hears the music on a top-quality system of Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers.

EMERYVILLE, CA–Nady Systems recently announced the introduction of a new addition to their Headmic Series–the HM-10 Mini Headworn Condenser Microphone. The HM-10 joins Nady's 2 other headmics, the HM-1 uni-directional dynamic microphone and the HM-3 omni-directional condenser microphone.

LOS ANGELES–The Foo Fighters are touring their acoustic show this summer, visiting select locations in Europe and the United States. A combination of Sennheiser evolution series and Neumann wired microphones were selected by monitor engineer Ian Beveridge and front-of-house engineer Bryan Worthen for the instruments that the band is taking out on the acoustic tour.

OXNARD, CA–L-ACOUSTICS US has appointed Jim Kinkella to the newly created position of engineering services. The announcement comes from Vice President of Sales and Marketing Paul Freudenberg, to whom he reports.

DALY CITY, CA–Bruce Springsteen's longtime FOH engineer John Cooper is one of the newest converts to the Digidesign VENUE live sound environment. Springsteen, one of the biggest acts in contemporary music, is on a worldwide tour through 2007 promoting his latest recording, The Seeger Sessions. Some of the tour highlights to date have been The New Orleans Jazz Festival, and television appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brian." Cooper is utilizing VENUE to mix all of Springsteen's live shows, along with Pro Tools to record and later remix the songs for a subsequent live release and for use on the Internet.

VALENCIA, SPAIN–It started with a desire to provide their fans with the "Ultimate Sound Experience" and Durell LLC was encouraged to look for ways to make the fan experience like none other in the NFL. It ended with a unique sound system for Cleveland Browns fans.

COSTA MESA, CA–QSC has released a new dual-eighteen subwoofer built for flown or groundstack applications, the new WL218-sw. Operable down to 31 Hz and capable of delivering high acoustic output (139 dB SPL@1m), the device is designed for use with QSC's WideLine loudspeakers, but can be used with other professional, full-range enclosures as well.

JERSEY CITY, NJ–Production services provider Big Mo Pro, Inc of Parsippany, NJ, recently brought out its L-ACOUSTICS Kudo rig for a pair of events at Liberty State Park on Jersey City's waterfront. With Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan as the spectacular backdrop, BMP provided sound and lighting for the big LibertyJAM concert on Sunday, June 25, featuring a stellar lineup of artists, including Cheap Trick, George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic, Los Lobos, Patti Smith, The Smithereens, Fab Faux, John Eddie and Exit 105. Celebrating the park's historic 30th anniversary, the purpose of the event was raise funds to benefit The Friends of Liberty State Park, a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to preserving and improving the park for free public use.

NORTHRIDGE, CA–The Moreleta Park Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria, South Africa recently commissioned a new JBL VerTec DP Series powered line array system with JBL DrivePack technology and HiQnet networking for their new 7,200-seat auditorium. The church serves a growing worship community that now includes over 17,000 members. With three balconies and a new presentation stage nearly the size of the congregation's entire previous church building, a sound reinforcement system was required to complement the unique modern design of the venue and to serve a broad variety of applications, including worship services, live broadcasts and contemporary music concerts. Chris Leeson of Claasen Auret Inc. Consulting Engineers and Chris Jonker, Technical Director for the Moreleta Church, collaborated on the design specifications for the networked audio sound system.

OLD LYME, CT–Rachel Vaclavik was promoted to the newly-created position of marketing communications specialist at SEnnheiser, while Gregory Pizzi was hired as the graphics and new media project manager.

CALUMET, IL–With more than 10,000 seats and 200,000 square feet in total floor space, Salem Baptist Church of Chicago's new $50 million worship facility and neighborhood activity center more closely resembles a concert/sports stadium than a traditional church sanctuary. That impression is further bolstered by the fact that three regulation-sized basketball courts can be revealed when the main seating area is cleared, not to mention that there are two giant 19 x 11-foot video screens in the venue as well as several dressing rooms and an onsite ticket box window.

HOLLYWOOD, CA–Soundelux has introduced the U99S, a switchable version of the award-winning U99 microphone. Designed by David Bock, the U99S combines the performance of two high-grade tube condenser microphones in a single unit, giving users the choice of selecting "Normal" or "Brite" sonic signatures at a flick of the switch.