News

LONDON — In its 21st year, PLASA 2012 marks the final staging of the annual exhibition at Earls Court & Olympia before the show moves to ExCeL London (and the month of October) for 2013. Along with panel sessions on the industry’s involvement in this year’s Diamond Jubilee and London 2012 Olympics, there were plenty of new professional audio products on display.

LAS VEGAS — FRONT of HOUSE readers — and that means YOU — have nominated the top individuals and companies involved in sound and production support for the Parnelli Awards, set for Oct. 20 at the Mirage in Las Vegas. (Yes, tickets are still available!) The final ballot is now online, and voting is now under way — but only through Sept. 30. This is it for 2012 — don’t miss out! Go to www.parnelliawards.com/vote and let YOUR voice be heard!

LONDON, Ontario, Canada — Solotech Inc. received the CITT Supplier Achievement Award from the Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology (CITT). The award was presented Aug. 18 at a banquet during the conference held here. Solotech president Denis Lefrançois, pictured here, accepted the award. It is presented annually to the individual or company that has shown sustained commitment to providing excellent service and products to the Canadian cultural industries community.

SAN DIEGO, CA — VUE Audiotechnik, which staged a series of demos in August, announced plans in early September to expand the U.S. leg of their demo tour by another eight weeks. Plans call for a series of demos overseas after that.

LONGMONT, CO – Bassist and vocalist artist Esperanza Spalding is currently touring with her new group, the Radio Music Society, with a full microphone setup from DPA Microphones, including the new d:facto Vocal Microphone.

HIGH WYCOMBE, U.K. — Focusrite’s new portable audio interface, Forte, is designed to serve as a two-input, four-output USB 2.0 audio interface that works with Mac and PC. It has two remote control mic preamps, as used in Focusrite’s RedNet range of professional audio interfaces, and uses 24-bit/192kHz A-D/D-A converters. The product is slated for release in October, with MSRP $749.99 / $599.99 at dealers. Forte features a color OLED (Organic LED) display to indicate input and output signal levels, mic preamp gain and other information, with motion graphics providing users with detailed visual information. A single control knob operates with touch-sensitive icon buttons to give users control over input and output levels and DAW control parameters.

POMONA, CA — CSI MultiMedia (Campbell-Shaw, Inc.) of Woodland Hills, CA, designed and integrated the new Q-Sys system now in use at the new $28 million Sheraton Fairplex Conference Center, an 85,000-square-foot addition to the Fairplex Exposition Complex here. The QSC integrated system platform has been designed to network AV resources for the expanded center’s existing and future hotel and conference halls.

Now shipping, Smaart v.7.4 acoustics software adds many powerful GUI and measurement capability enhancements, and features, including a complete overhaul of the Impulse Response Mode and integration of the measurement/analysis capabilities from Smaart Acoustic Tools. It also adds improved versions of its intelligibility and acoustic response capabilities, tweaks such as timed or infinite peak holds, Dual Spectrographs (for simultaneously viewing two plots), Multi-Device Transfer Function measurements, user-defined views/zooms and Enhanced Trace dB offset.

ANN ARBOR, MI — Hearing Health Science, Inc., a privately-funded company developing Soundbites hearing health supplements, announced real-world studies with musicians to measure and confirm the effectiveness of the patented, FDA-approved micronutrient in mint form. Sensaphonics founder Michael Santucci is overseeing testing and documentation of the clinical trials via his Musicians Hearing Clinic at Sensaphonics, Inc. in Chicago.

CALGARY — Sound Art general manager Dan Frerichs took responsibility for coordinating wireless frequencies at the TransAlta Grandstand Show during the 10-day Calgary Stampede. He used four channels of Axient and 16 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless to guard against dropouts for performances by country music star Paul Brandt and  perennial Stampede cast members The Young Canadians.