“I have never screamed and laughed so much – sometimes at the same time, I think – in my life”
SCREAMING IN terror or laughing hysterically. There’s a fine line between the two, as I discovered when I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain in California after NAMM a few years ago. Steve Connolly, (PSNEuropepublisher) and I spent an afternoon there jumping on and off the world-class rollercoasters. January is extreme off-season at the theme park, so Steve and I managed 11 coasters in five hours, with no queues and no hassles (read=no kids). And in those five hours, I have never screamed and laughed so much – sometimes at the same time, I think – in my life. Imagine my delight when, on a bus trip to Wisseloord Studios during IBC, I was chatting to Jeff Levison of Iosono and learned that we have a mutual interest. Jeff’s job sometimes involves consulting with park designers to design ways of enhancing the audio experience of thrill rides. And when Jeff has spare time? He heads to the biggest, scariest coaster in the park and rides it. And rides it again. And he loves it. Hence Jeff and I spent that (rather more sedate) bus journey sharing our experiences of Colossus, Deja Vu, Tower of Terror and other rides and coasters. It was only proper then, that I should ask Jeff to contribute some of his favourites to this month’s cover feature, starting on p52.
Cover note: Column, top: Mick Anderson (left) and Svetly Alexandrov at ViRAY launch Column, bottom: London Roadcast in the Olivier Theatre at the National
And, seeing as Halloween coincides with press time for this issue, we’ve ramped up the scary factor elsewhere too: L-Acoustics replaces the Frankenstein PA system at the Olivier on p44; vampires with TiMax on p46; and what it’s like to work for Roland Hemming on p48 (...only joking, Roland).
Dave Robinson Twitter: @psneurope IN THIS ISSUE...
NEWS 4 APRS announces Fellowship recipients 5 Major deal for Outline and PRG 6 Industry appointments 8 Key pro-audio events and expos
TECHNOLOGY 10 Product review: Lauten Audio Atlantis FC-387 mic 12 New Products 14 Feature: Ravenna comes of age
Show review AES 2012
p18
STUDIO 20 Permission given for Church Studios conversion 22 API seals HHB deal 23 Lewitt Audio microphones make a name 24 Horus and Pyramix shine in Rome
BROADCAST 27 PSI Audio kit selected for 2014 Winter Olympics 29 New names at BVE North 30 Bringing interactivity to radio with RadioDNS 32 Feature: Radio studios
LIVE 37 Coda Audio launches ViRAY 38 Trio of major announcements from Bosch 40 L-Acoustics and DiGiCo at Italian charity concert 42 UEP introduces sales division
INSTALLATION 44 L-Acoustics slays PA monster at the NT 46 TiMax tracks vampires 48 Roland Hemming looks back on 25 years 51 Exeter Forum deploys Harman kit 52 Feature: Theme parks and thrill rides