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D&M Holdings acquires Calrec Audio -- D&M Holdings Inc has acquired console manufacturer Calrec Audio. 'The acquisition of Calrec is an important step in our stated growth strategy to expand into new markets, specifically commercial audio/visual,' said chairman and CEO Eric Evans. 'With Calrec, we're adding another premium brand to the D&M family -- one that places us firmly in the broadcast market and serves the most prominent customers throughout the world such as the BBC, ITV, NBC, CBS, Fox, MBS and Asahi.' D&M Holdings includes Denon, Marantz, McIntosh Laboratory, Boston Acoustics, Snell Acoustics, Escient, ReplayTV, D&M Professional and D&M Premium Sound Solutions. It has also targeted expansion in other commercial AV markets such as recording, live music performance venues, film production and public spaces. Commercial AV businesses, including automotive, will account for approximately 25 percent of D&M's worldwide revenue in 2007. 
Producer/engineer Mick Glossop has been recording using the Enhanced Audio M600 universal microphone mount. 'Every now and then in pro audio, a bit of perceived wisdom is completely turned around. One such case is that of microphone mounts,' he said. 'We don't generally pay much attention to this issue, but the Enhanced Audio M600 shows that it really does make a tremendous difference to the sound of the microphone.' 
Guangdong TV, Beijing TV and the Shanghai Media Group are installing large-format Vista 8 audio consoles into new OB vehicles that are being prepared for live broadcast and production duties at next year's Olympics in China. The vehicles for Beijing TV and Guangdong TV are both High-Definition vans, following closely in the footsteps of CCTV in Central China, the country's biggest broadcaster, which chose Vista 8 for its latest flagship HDTV vehicle. Jinan TV, Heilongjiang TV in Jarbin (pictured), Inner Mongolia TV and Dalian TV are all launching new HD vehicles for live broadcast and production. 'It is rather remarkable to see five HD-format OB trucks under construction which are all specifying Studer Vista digital audio consoles,' said Rico Fung of ACE International, Studer's import agent for China. 'In every case, it is Studer's reliability that proves the decisive factor in the tender, together with the ease of operation and the exceptional audio quality of the consoles.' Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF) has built its radio production and broadcast operations around Netia's Radio-Assist suite of digital audio software products. 'Production processes within national broadcast organisations seldom change over time, so the transition from analogue to digital represented a significant shift for us,' said Laurent Flemal, technical director at RTBF. 'We found, however, that the advent of digital tools did not bring as much of a revolution to our business as did the introduction of Netia production tools. Our current workflow evolved around the use of Radio-Assist, which has become the backbone of radio production at RTBF.' The software was first installed at RTBF in 1999 and has grown into an automated production and playout system incorporating most Radio-Assist modules. It is employed at all levels of radio production at all of its sites, including facilities in Brussels, Liège, Mons, Charleroi, and Namur. Radio-Assist terminals are available in every recording studio, newsroom, and on presenters' desks. 
Kore, the West London studio of George Apsion, has upgraded its outboard stock to include a custom rack of Vintage Neve modules. The six units are input modules from an 8068 console. 'We have always positioned ourselves as a great tracking room,' said George. 'If you want to tempt people out of their bedrooms or rehearsal spaces you have to offer them something really special that they would not normally have access to. These units have bags of character and history attached to them and they run rings around most modern units.' 
In the first of two console purchases at London's Sphere studios, an SSL 4072G+ was sourced from Soundtrack Studios in New York and installed into Sphere's Studio Two. The room's monitoring was also brought into line with Studio One and upgraded to a custom Munro M4 5.1 system with control via Audient ASP510. Studio Three also benefited from the dollar exchange rate as an SSL 4056G+ was purchased from The Hit Factory in New York. The control room's front wall was also rebuilt to incorporate soffit-mounted half Munro M4s. 
London post house Editworks has installed an SSL C300 to accommodate a sharp increase in 5.1-channel work as high-definition television proliferates, according to dubbing mixer Adrian Smith. 'Selling high-definition television includes supplying an enhanced audio experience, so the future growth in television audio postproduction will be a steady increase in 5.1 material,' he said. 'As operators, we need consoles that make that requirement easy.' 'As dubbing mixers we have to master all of the equipment we work with so that our time can be spent being creative. Choosing the right equipment helps you achieve that,' he said. 
David Kahne acted as producer and recorded and mixed much of Paul McCartney album Memory Almost Full. Adam Noble and Geoff Emerick also worked with him during the recording phases on some of the material. Using his Dangerous Music system, where he recently added a fourth Dangerous 2-Bus for 64-channels of analogue summing, Kahne also used a Dangerous Monitor and Dangerous MQ in his system for speaker control, input selection and metering. 
DPA mics were used in a series of summer events at La Mortella villa on the island of Ischia, close to Naples. The villa was home to English composer William Walton from the 1950s until his death in 1983, and is now used for classical performances that are recorded via DPA microphones to CD and DVD and are available immediately after the event. Salvatore Zocco, product manager for DPA Italian distributor M Casale Bauer, was asked by Dmitri Tereshchenko, who was responsible for the recordings, to supplement the orchestral miking with six 4006s and two 4011s. 'The orchestra was situated on a terrace in front of the audience, and the brief was to keep the mics as invisible as possible,' said Zocco. 'Therefore, I chose a central position within the audience for a 'virtual listener' and worked out the best mic placement for the 4006s throughout the orchestra, using a pair of 4011s to add a sense of distance and ambience.' 
Early in 2007, Irish broadcaster RTÉ purchased two Chromatec AM-xx audio monitoring systems with remote alarm panels and the units have provided constant monitoring of the whole of RTÉ's radio output. 'As the distribution of our programmes gets ever more complicated, the AM-xx gives us confidence that our transmission is working correctly,' said Fergus Carey, senior broadcast engineer in radio technical resources at RTÉ. 'Being able to choose a set-up that matches the programme type also reduces false alarms.' Circuit Research Labs has entered into and closed a Purchase Agreement with Harman Pro North America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harman International Industries. CRLI purchased for $1.5 million dollars cash all its promissory notes and shares of its common shares owned by Harman Pro North America. The notes had been issued by CRLI and its president Jayson Brentlinger to Harman in connection with transactions between the parties several years ago. 'We have enjoyed a great working relationship with Harman over the past seven years, and now with this final settlement we have successfully concluded our purchase of Orban, Inc. from Harman,' said Brentlinger. Belden has completed the purchase of the assets of Lumberg Automation Components from the German-based Lumberg Group. Lumberg Automation is a supplier of industrial connectors, high performance cord-sets and field bus communication components for factory automation machinery. The company's 2006 revenues were approximately US$75 million. Verbatim Corporation and its parent company Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM) has purchased substantially all of the assets of SmartDisk Corporation's external hard drive and digital imaging business. SmartDisk had a 16% share in the US retail portable drive market in 2006. New products releases 
Junger Audio's Level Magic products employ a sophisticated adaptive level control algorithm capable of adjusting the audio level from any source at any time offering Automated Gain Control, Transient Processing and Peak Limiting for continuous unattended control. There's a new range of SDI interfaces with audio DSP for the C8000 modular system. The DSP can run with a 4-channel or 8-channel Level Magic algorithm 
Described as a specialist single-channel preamplifier, phase shifter, compressor and equaliser with advanced analogue features, TFPro's P110 it is said to be a perfect tool for voice recording and tracking. It employs transformer-coupled Class-A 'current mode' multiple amplifiers, a 180-degree variable phase control, a compressor/limiter of advanced optical design with ratios from a gentle 1.2:1, up to full extreme limit, and with switchable 'models' to provide a taste of other historic compressors. The Equaliser has four frequency bands, while a VU meter follows audio input or gain reduction. 
Universal Audio and AMS-Neve have announced the UAD-Nevana X2 for Mac OS X and Windows X64/XP/Vista. It includes Dual PCIe DSP cards and all seven of the UA/Neve classic console plug-ins including the 1073/1073SE EQ, 1081/1081SE EQ, 33609/33609SE bus compressor and 88RS channel strip in AU, VST and RTAS formats. The UAD-Nevana X2 also includes the standard 14 UA Mix-Essentials plug-ins plus a UAD$200 voucher that can be used against any UAD plug-ins at the my.uaudio.com store. 
Stagetec's Auratus is a compact console designed for TV and broadcast use and OB trucks but is also suitable for sound reinforcement and production applications. Features include audio-follows-video functions, extensive optical signalling, eight separately configurable mix-minus buses, and two timers capable of counting down as well as up. The user interface is designed for easy and quick operation and all the key audio channel parameters can be set using dual encoders, like on the Aurus, on the channel strip or from the master section. On the Auratus, the precision meterbridge, which is also a familiar feature of its bigger brother, is enhanced by small TFT displays in the master section. Each of these is dedicated to a specific function, for example, equaliser or dynamics settings. OLED displays located above the faders on the channel strip show the names of the channel's source and the background-layer channel. Auratus has a maximum of 32 input channels, eight groups, one stereo and one 5.1 sum, eight aux paths, and eight mix-minus sums. The DSP engine is accommodated on a typical Nexus plug-in board consuming just 8W since fewer audio signals require less processing than on the company's bigger desks. 
Audio-Technica has completely re-engineered its premier Engineered Sound integrator microphone line, introducing more than 30 new models featuring the company's UniGuard RFI protection technology. The series comprises a comprehensive assortment of 21 gooseneck, six hanging, two boundary, a lavalier and a handheld microphone, and uses audio and mechanical design improvements. Other new features include superior off-axis rejection for improved gain before feedback and an 80Hz UniSteep filter. Four new interchangeable elements lend additional flexibility, with cardioid, hypercardioid and omnidirectional elements offered, as well as the MicroLine 90º pickup pattern. 
Klotz Digital's Decennium radio console is networkable and comes with the Decennium audio engine. The standard console is supplied preconfigured for easy installation and console set up. It has fully parametric 6-band equalisers and sophisticated dynamics with limiter/compressor/expander that can be inserted and stored in each channel. A 'multi purpose control element' is integrated in each channel strip. This consists of an endless rotary encoder with integrated pushbutton and a 16-character display and is used for source selection and channel-related parameter settings allowing a better overview and enabling quicker access to them. The MPCE allows each fader module to act as single mini console without the need for a monitor and control module. Therefore it offers space- and cost-saving applications far beyond standard on-air and split console designs, making it suitable for journalists or reporters. 
Sonic Studio's 1.2 release of SoundBlade incorporates hundreds of optimisations and stability enhancements as well as two dozen feature additions, including an 8-channel option for surround work. Combining Sonic Studio's premastering functionality with signal processing, restoration and editing, SoundBlade costs US$1495. It runs natively on Mac OS X and relies on Core Audio for default I-O. 
Rycote's light-weight suspension and windshield system -- the S-Series -- claims excellent wind suppression and vastly enhanced usability. Comprising a one-piece web suspension made entirely of flexible, lightweight plastic, the design eliminates the need for elastics and is engineered to fit all diameters of microphone from 19mm to 25mm. A 'pinch release' allows the user to change the position of the suspension in an instant. The windshield itself features a twist-lock system attaching it to the chassis ring for quick, easy release and the acoustic fur covering is integral and provides no drop in performance with >30dB wind suppression. 
A new design, Omnia One uses Sensus technology (developed in collaboration with Telos) to monitor content and dynamically optimise processing for the target encoder, resulting in fewer coding artefacts. Benefits include a wideband gain rider plus a 4-band AGC allows fine adjustments to create 'signature sound'; look-ahead final limiting, optimised for digital radio, with feedback limiters for the lower two bands and feed-forward for the upper two bands; time-aligned, dynamically flat, 'perfect-reconstruction' crossovers; and selectable phase rotation. 
The URS Classic Console Strip Pro allows creation of hundreds of custom consoles from a palette of input stages, compressor/limiter and EQ choices. Presently, 14 classic console compressor/limiters models and 46 outboard compressor/limiter models are included together with digital recreations of four analogue recording console EQ sections and one vintage programme EQ. 
M-Audio's EX Series EX66 monitor uses a midwoofer-tweeter-midwoofer (MTM) vertical array configuration of 6-inch woofers and a 1-inch titanium tweeter. It employs a dual-flanged rear cabinet port, OptImage II waveguides and DSP for the 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover. 
Mayah's new MPEG-4 H.264/AVC SD En/Decoder IO 8000/8001 has extensive audio and video interfaces and powerful coding capabilities. The IO 8000/8001 allows an even broader application range -- from Mobile TV (DVB-H/DMB) to STL, SNG and other distribution applications. The IO is equipped with one SDI interface and component S-Video and CVBS (Composite) inputs and outputs. Along with the availability of SDI embedded audio, there are interfaces provided to feed the sound to the device: Toslink for switchable ADAT/SPDIF, four AES-EBU and eight balanced analogue I-Os. IBC, Amsterdam 7-11 September 
In Resolution: Paul Sutin's Dinemec Studios -- demonstrating what a modern facility can be. Plus regular columns by Dan Daley and John Watkinson and reviews of the RME Micstasy, SSL X-Rack Mixer, Schoeps Double MS Tool, Korby KAT Blue/KAT Red, Roger Nichols Digital plug-ins, CB Electronics PD-1, Neve 8803, and True Systems P-Solo. www.resolutionmag.com/subscribe/ |