AKG Showcase Architectural Microphone Shaped Sound Series at IBC

Based acoustically on the classic AKG Blue Line Series, the Architectural Microphone Series (AMS) is representing itself to be the latest must-have in microphones. With a new wave of customizable possibilities in microphones, the AMS guarantees that conference rooms will never be the same again.

The AMS series allows users to customize the microphone by easily adjusting the length of the gooseneck module as well as selecting various designs for the shape of the capsule housing unit. The self-designed microphone can be personalized with any color as well as a shiny gold, chrome or a cool nickel finish for professional settings. In total, the entire microphone series are available in more than 6,840 customizable settings.

Premium studio microphones, like the AMS, are characterized by a very flat frequency response, low self-noise and a consistent polar pattern. Three precision transducers make up the series, all with different polar patterns, including a cardioid, an omni-directional and a hyper-cardioid.

Beside the 3 different polar patterns to match different room acoustics, the AMS showcases a diverse range of capabilities, such as flat frequency response for acoustic performance, gold sputtered ultra-low mass diaphragms, switchable bass cut filter and preattenuation pad. The series also offers an extremely high resistance to RF interference for extended versatility.

Adding on to the extraordinary attributes of the AMS, the mics are equipped with a bayonet coupling system with self-cleaning contacts. The Blue Line bayonet coupling system enables the capsules to be easily change.

With the installation of any of the microphones in the AMS, different mounting modules are available, including a wide range of specialized mounting accessories specifically dedicated to making the installation easy and bringing the microphone into place. Blended rubber material and high mechanical damping in the shock mounts help to eliminate any mechanical vibrations.

SOUNDCRAFT Vi6’s KEEP iTUNES FESTIVAL RUNNING SMOOTHLY

The iTunes Festival relocated to The Roundhouse in North London this year, with over 60 artists playing live at this free event, which runs throughout July.

With bands ranging from Oasis, Kasabian, Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol at the commercial end to acoustic performers like Newton Faulkner, quirky performance artists with wide dynamic ranges (like Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan), leavened with some good old fashioned hard house and R&B it was important that the event’s experienced sound engineers, Dave Roden at FOH (here deployed as system tech) and Will King down at the stage had digital mixing environments on which incoming engineers could hit the ground running.

Last year, when the event was held at KOKO, iTunes production manager Stuart Turvill took advantage of a pair of Soundcraft Vi6’s, with the intuitive Studer Vistonics II™ interface, and it proved so popular he saw no reason to break from that tradition.

A 64-input Vi6 (with AES-EBU cards) was one of two digital surfaces offered at front-of-house, enabling incoming productions to simply plug in their show files, while down at the stage the compact surface — always a bonus within the confines of Monitor City — was configured 64-in/35-out.

Stuart Turvill was indeed fortunate to have his near neighbour from the Welsh valleys, Dave Roden working alongside — and despite their long relationship, the Stereophonics’ trusted sound man for the past 14 years was working the event for the first time. "Stuart has asked me on previous occasions but I have always been touring," says Roden. "But the band has only done one show this summer and is currently mixing an album in the studio, so I said I would love to do it."

Although being a relative newcomer to the Vi6, Dave Roden was able to turn teacher after the briefest of inductions on the board. "The only time I had seen it previously was when the Stereophonics played the iTunes Festival at the ICA two years ago," he admits. "I had never even touched one of these desks before, but within a couple of days I could show people how to use it!"

"The Vi6 is great, particularly for engineers who don’t have their own session file because it’s an easy desk to walk up to. I set up a basic template and engineers simply overlay their mix on that."

For those who have only previously worked in the analogue domain its straightforwardness is particularly reassuring. "Not only that, but it produces a nice sound and has great preamps. We have certainly had a lot of compliments."

Dave Roden said they opted for the 64-channel board knowing they would have a choice of two boards for main act and support. "This gives us 32 channels on Layer A, and another 32 on Layer B."

"I will simply label the channel and provide a couple of tap delays, reverbs and vocal thickener. However I leave the EQ and dynamics flat because if you dial in too much in advance it can becomes confusing — simple is better." However, he did say that the channel capacity was stretched when Snow Patrol appeared, supported by Silversun Pickups and Animal Kingdom. "That was a big channel requirement," he said. "But Snow Patrol only required a left and right feed from their control, so the Vi6 managed to cope admirably with the two support acts."

Will King agreed with his colleague’s assessment of the desk, though he admits he had to mix the first shows himself. "At the beginning I didn’t have a visiting engineer for four days — and in a way that was good because it kept me busy. It’s so easy to show sound engineers how to use the Vi6 — and I become pretty much redundant once the soundcheck starts."

For King the exercise is a repeat of 12 months ago, when he supervised all 31 days at KOKO on the resident Vi6 — briefly breaking away to work with one of his long-term artists, Stereo MC’s (the others being Darren Hayes and ex-Morcheeba singer Skye).

"I set up a basic template. I can have all the wedges and IEM’s patched onto the aux outputs at one time, and sound engineers come in and choose what they want. Everyone likes a desk that’s easy to operate and I try and make sure they don’t have to be flicking from page to page."

All the in-ears are on stereo pairs and Will King admits he likes to have his side fills on a dedicated stereo aux "which I realise is unconventional," he says. In summary he states, "The desk has been well designed for the monitor engineer and it’s easy to flip the faders. For engineers doing a one-off show such as this it’s absolutely perfect."

For Stuart Turvill the iTunes Festival production has notched up a gear — to a larger venue in which he has installed full choice of recording options — and LED 6mm side screens for the first time.

"You don’t get a lot of resistance from engineers when they see the Vi6," he concludes, adding that he has good reason to thank Soundcraft’s sister brand, BSS Audio, for the 144 channels of [MSR-604 II] splitters that are being used. "I can’t speak highly enough about the support we’ve had from Sound Technology (UK distributor for the Harman Pro brands)," he says.

JBL Tour Systems In The House For 50,000 At Global Gathering Freedom Festival Belarus 2009

In a high-profile international application of JBL touring systems this summer, rental sound company Touring Services supplied an expansive audio system for the Global Gathering Freedom Festival at the Borovaya Airfield in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus in northern Europe. The system included products from JBL’s VERTEC® DP Series and HLA Series loudspeaker lines.

Major internationally known DJs were featured, including Axwell, Steve Angello, Dubfire, Sebastien Leger, D. Ramirez, Menno De Jong, Micky Slim, Paul Thomas, and Eston. World-renowned performance artist D.J. Tiesto was the headline act on the festival. Touring Services, a division of ART Studio Pro, was the rental sound company responsible for audio production at the event, with Vladimir Klimenko in charge as the chief system engineer.

Due to the airfield location of the event, a very large crowd could be accommodated. Event organizers had originally planned for 15,000 people but were reportedly surprised when total pre-event ticket sales reached 36,000. Final onsite attendance was estimated at 50,000 persons.

This year’s event included two main stages and a third, separate foam dance floor. Assembly of the stages and other support fixtures started on the afternoon of June 24 and by the morning of June 27 the site construction was fully completed. Sound checks were scheduled on event day, June 27, from 10 AM to 2 PM. The gates opened at 6 PM and non-stop music lasted until the early morning hours.

The Freedom Stage featured JBL VERTEC DP Series arrays, suspended from construction cranes. A total of 24 VT4888DP-AN midsize powered line array elements, equipped with JBL DrivePack™ technology, were supported by 12 VT4880A full-size arrayable subwoofers driven by Crown I-Tech 8000 amplifiers. “It’s a real pleasure to work with JBL’s VERTEC DP systems,” noted Roman Klimenko, sound engineer in charge of the Freedom Stage. “We recently updated the entire system with JBL’s new V4 DSP presets. Everything is simple, loud and clear. Plus, Harman’s HiQnet™ is truly amazing. Any configuration that we had to do was accomplished within the networked JBL DrivePack units, quickly and easily.”

The Global Stage was served by a JBL HLA system, with 24 4895 full-range elements and 12 4897A bass modules driven with BSS 366 OmniDrive signal processing and Crown MA-5000 series amplifiers.

The Touring Services sound crew had several challenges to meet, including the co-location of two different competing stages, and proximity of the crowd to the loudspeakers at the Freedom Stage site. “The task was to set up the two sound systems so as not to interfere each other. For this, we calculated appropriate signal delay settings, using Harman’s HiQnet System Architect™ software for aligning signals in the Crown I-Tech amplifiers for both stages,” noted Vladimir Klimenko. “At the Freedom Stage, our task was to provide a comfortable listening zone for the front audience areas, and a very loud, high-quality sound for the back rows. For this we first calculated all the array settings and site characteristics using JBL’s Line Array Calculator software and we were able to achieve a nearly flat frequency response for distances from directly below the loudspeaker arrays, out to 115 meters [377 feet].”

Due to the high quality and specific character of the recorded sound material, with tracks that were well-balanced and highly compressed for maximum dance-music impact, the Touring Services crew found that they were able to give the DJ’s and visiting engineers what Vladimir Klimenko called “99.99 percent” of the total SPL capabilities of the systems, without the need to have additional, significant headroom. “The systems were operated hard like this for 12 hours straight without any problems”, he confirmed. “All in all, we were proud to be involved in such a large, significant event as the Global Gathering Freedom Festival. It was a good test for our equipment and for our personnel’s skills. And I can declare with conviction that both the equipment and our staff coped with all the challenges, achieving a great success,” vouched Vladimir Klimenko. “We wanted to make the earth tremble at this festival, and we did. VERTEC was up to the mark as it always is. The audience and performers were delighted with the high quality and sheer loudness of the sound produced by our JBL systems. What can I say? It creates a sort of magic, the magic of JBL’s sound system technology.”

For more information on Touring Services in Belarus, see www.artstudiopro.com

Studer Vista 5 SR Digital Console Installed At Kent’s Ravensbourne College

For two days every year, Ravensbourne College in Kent, is transformed into one of the country’s most exciting and innovative broadcasters, as students go on-air for their annual broadcasting event, ‘Rave On Air’.

The college has some notable ex students including Stella McCartney, Bruce Oldfield and Darren Woolfson, now Group Director of Technology at Pinewood Studios.

Adrian Curtis, VP of Sales for Soundcraft Studer said, “We were contacted by the college to help them with a console for a mixture of live and broadcast applications, given the breadth of requirements they had, we loaned them our flagship Vista 5 SR to cope with these demands.”

Rave On Air is an entirely student-led event with over 5 hours of live programming broadcast over the internet and local digital terrestrial television channels (800 and 801). Attended by broadcasting and creative industry professionals including BBC, Endemol and Channel 4, this graduate showcase gives Ravensbourne students the chance to gain experience of creating and delivering a range of content for broadcasting in real-time. It is also a major opportunity to showcase Ravensbourne talent and help students network and build industry contacts that prepare them for a broadcasting career after they graduate.

The Royal Television Society visited Rave On Air to host one of their regular public events – a conference on 360 degree broadcasting with speakers John Denton (BBC Future Media and Technology, Managing Editor TV Platforms) and Matt Millington (BBC Sport, Video Portals Editor). The Vista 5 SR was used on the live broadcast from the college’s amphitheater. Level 3 BA Sound Design student Samuel Burkinshaw commented on the desk’s Vistonics user interface: "The Studer desk was really easy to get to grips with, and it was great to have Andrew Hills from Studer come down and show us how it worked. It was really quick to set up, easy to understand, and the interface was a joy to use."

The Vista 5 and 5 SR has been quickly accepted by some of the world’s largest hire and tour companies, such as Clair Brothers in the US, and has been used recently on major international tours, including Celine Dion, Katie Melua, Rascal Flatts, Billy Joel, Mylène Farmer and Keith Urban as well as prestigious installations such as The Palace Theatre on New York’s Broadway (West Side Story) and The Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Rave On Air is broadcast over two channels simultaneously, mixing live magazine shows, fashion catwalks and interview spots with pre-recorded dramas, documentaries, animations and quiz shows, all written, produced, directed and masterminded by broadcast students from all levels. The Vista 5 SR allows tudents from all disciplines of the college experiment with new technologies and new ways of interacting with their audience.

Freddie Gaffney, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Communication Media said, "Rave On Air is a unique opportunity and a great chance for our students to stand out from thousands of other graduates across the country. The students this year have met the challenge head on and they’ve really excelled themselves and can justifiably call themselves young professionals. As always, I am very proud to be associated with them."

Next year’s event marks the 40th year of Rave On Air, and the last one at the college’s current campus before it relocates to Greenwich Peninsula in 2010. The new Ravensbourne building will house two HD television studios, digital media studios and production suites, virtual environments and a postgraduate centre for enterprise and innovation. Its proximity to London will encourage even greater opportunities for Ravensbourne students to collaborate and network within the broadcast media industry.