Trantec in conference

Conference and presentation company Aztec Communications have purchased seven Trantec 85000 UHF radio mic systems from Marquee Audio, including several of the new handheld versions, which were officially launched at the PLASA show (I have to say at this point that to be a supplier of state-of-the-art communications gear and call yourself Aztec Communications seems a little bit paradoxical to me, much like calling your cleaning service Illegal Immigrant Hygiene or a temp agency called No O Levels Employment Services). Regardless of name, this outright purchase was a cost-effective solution to the succession of hire charges incurred by the company, as Managing Director Mike Johnson explained. "We use radio mics a lot and have been spending fortunes hiring them in each time. So we decided it was time to buy." It would appear in the course of evaluations that the Trantecs won out on price/performance criteria.

Trantec Systems. (Contact Details).

Tannoy — join the club

Club AM, a new nightclub which opened last month in the Scottish coastal town of Lossiemouth, is the first in the world to install the new Tannoy T12 dual concentric loudspeaker.

The sound and light installation at the club, which was designed and installed by Northern Light of Edinburgh, includes four of the new T12 loudspeakers, with two dedicated Tannoy 15-inch sub-bass units, for the main dance floor system. The system also includes Tannoy's new TX2 controller, which has been especially designed for use with the T12 and looks to give extended high and low frequency response, as well as including a crossover facility for use with additional bass cabinets. Three separate zones in the bar and lounge areas are covered by 12 Tannoy CPA5 ICT (Inductive Coupling Technology) Contractor Series loudspeakers. After a successful opening night, the club owners expressed their delight with the Tannoy system, describing it as "exceptional value for money". Presumably it sounded pretty good as well.

Tannoy Ltd. (Contact Details).

Northern enlightenment

Northern Light of Edinburgh, Crest Audio UK's newly appointed Scottish dealers, have sold a top-of-the-range Century Vx console to The Liquid Room, a new music venue due to open in the Scottish capital's Victoria Street. The 40-channel desk has been supplied with a flightcase and two PSUs. According to Northern Light's Ritchie Rae, who co-ordinated the sale, the console was chosen after it had been on demo at a recent music festival on Glasgow's River Clyde, aboard the famous Renfrew Ferry, which has been converted into a music venue.

Another Crest Century console sold by Northern Light this month is a 40-channel TC 4-buss desk to Chequer Mead Arts Centre in East Grinstead. This is a multi-purpose venue, and the console was chosen because it "more than met" the centre's specifications.

Crest Audio UK Ltd. (Contact Details).

BSS table their findings at Stringfellows

One of London's top installation contractors, Tarsin Ltd. have fitted out a number of the UK's leading club and dance venues in the past 12 months, including a number of high profile installations for the Palace in Luton (pictured below), and Vince Power's Mean Fiddler Group.

As Managing Director, Peter Dyer has detected two growing trends — in one direction towards all-night, LF-pumping dance music, and in the other towards flexible formatting, requiring different system settings for different nights — and has increasingly turned to BSS Audio signal processing equipment.

"We have had an incredible year for work, and all our installations have featured either Omnidrives or FDS-360 crossovers," he reports. In fact, he says he has to date fitted 100 of the latter. "We have been using the famous FDS-360 workhorse without exception for the last four years — it's a great frequency dividing network and we've never had any problems. It was a fairly natural progression, therefore, to move onto their Omnidrive, once it was established."

Dyer cites Stringfellows as a prime example of a leading club that has benefitted from an Omnidrive: "Peter Stringfellow was conscious right from the beginning that if he wanted to get a totally different sound for his table dancing he would require a very different EQ setting. He also expected to achieve this at the press of a button — and so he became an early candidate for Omnidrive." Although with all that heavy breathing, you could probably expect quite a bit of change in harmonic content... at the pull of a neck tie. Pictured above is the Stringfellow rack showing the Omnidrive, not quite as interesting as the other shots supplied of the Stringfellow hostesses, but this is a sober-minded magazine for serious musician-types, after all, not Loaded.

BSS Audio. (Contact Details).