Daly City, CA — Stone Temple Pilots, reunited after an eight year hiatus, are currently engaged in a 64-date summer tour across North America with dual Digidesign® VENUE systems for both FOH and monitors.

Front of House engineer Eddie Mapp is mixing the band on a D-Show® Profile™ console, while monitor engineer Andy Ebert is driving a D-Show at stage side. Mapp, whose live credits also include Evanescence and Zakk Wylde, reports the VENUE system has been a major asset for the tour.

“I came on board with only a few days before the tour commenced,” he says. “These guys have a very large repertoire, but they’re really tight and totally professional, and I was able to just record a full-set rehearsal and use the VENUE’s Virtual Sound Check feature to work on cues and set up snapshots.”

Mapp, a Pro Tools veteran, is already conversant on the VENUE system, having trained under Robert Scovill at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Science. “Robert brought one of the early VENUE systems to the Conservatory, and I was fortunate to learn a lot from him,” he recounts. “I’ve watched the system evolve, and Digidesign’s engineers have done an amazing job. They’ve created a system that’s exceptionally intuitive, and sounds great as well. VENUE is really the most powerful live mixing tool available. It does everything I need it to do.”

VENUE’s worldwide compatibility is also an asset, Mapp observes. “When I was on tour with Evanescence, it was great to know that anywhere we were in the world, we could count on VENUE consoles to be consistent. I’m able to carry my set on a small USB drive, plug in to any VENUE and be up and running immediately.”

He cites VENUE’s deep integration with Pro Tools TDM plug-ins as another important feature. “Being able to use the same plug-ins I’m familiar with and use every day in my own studio is extremely empowering. I can experiment with different plug-ins and settings at home and then translate them directly to ‘real world’ applications.”

The STP dates include several summer festivals, as well as a number of arenas in major cities. “We’ve got a great group of people out here who are ready to rock, so it should be a fun summer for everyone,” he concludes.

For more information about the Stone Temple Pilots tour visit www.stonetemplepilots.com.

About VENUE

Digidesign’s VENUE live sound environment is revolutionizing the art and profession of live sound mixing with studio-quality sound, TDM plug-in effects processing, and direct connectivity to industry-standard Pro Tools® recording and playback systems. For more information about the VENUE line of products, visit www.digidesign.com/venue.

About Digidesign

Digidesign is a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital audio production systems and the winner of the 2001 Technical Grammy® Award and 2003 Oscar® statuette representing the Academy Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Digidesign provides the professional music, film, video, multimedia, and radio broadcast industries with tools for digital recording, MIDI sequencing, editing, signal processing, and surround mixing. Digidesign products are marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide through a distribution network of value-added dealers, distributors, and OEM relationships. Digidesign is a part of Avid Technology, Inc. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) is a worldwide leader in tools for film, video, audio, 3D animation, gaming and broadcast professionals – as well as for home audio and video enthusiasts. Avid professional and consumer brands include Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage and Sundance Digital. The vast majority of primetime television shows, feature films, commercials and chart-topping music hits are made using one or more Avid products. Whether used by seasoned professionals or beginning students, Avid’s products and services enable customers to work more efficiently, productively and creatively. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid® Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. For more information about the company’s Oscar, Grammy and Emmy® award-winning products and services, visit www.avid.com.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 30, 2008 – Nucomm, Inc., a leading provider of digital and analog microwave systems for the broadcast industry, common carrier, cable, government, military and international marketplace, is introducing its upgraded Analog CoderTM 2 modulator at IBC 2008 (Stand 1.A30). Expanding on its original Analog Coder TM that saw its debut in 2001, which had a max data rate of 19.39 Mbps, the Analog Coder 2 is capable of accepting input data rates from 1 to 25 Mbps plus a T1 Data Pack. more

─Yamaha DM2000 and M7CL Digital Consoles Used at Front of House and Monitors─

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.─In late June, Audio Logic Systems of Bloomfield, Minn. provided full production for the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) National Youth Conference held at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Known as the ‘Challenge Conference,’ the five-day event was attended by over 5,400 high school students who were brought together to grow in their ministry maturity level, model outreach and to share ministry training. During the course of the event, the students prepared 250,000 meals for ‘Kids Against Hunger’ and set a Guinness Book of World Records for the Largest Kazoo Band. The event planners made fine arts a priority in all of the sessions, highlighting poetry, dance, drama, and music. National recording artist “Starfield” served as the house worship band for the week.

Early in the production planning stages the conference staff decided to host this event in the round, allowing the audience to be closer to the stage. This proved to be a challenge considering the beams in the exhibition hall are only 30 feet high. Bringing the audio, video, and lighting together for both functionality and aesthetics, required extensive technical pre-planning. The entire show plot was designed in advance and completely laid out in Vectorworks, beginning over one year prior to the event. The design was drawn and carried out by Ed Coutu, Production Manager and Michael Klaers, Lighting Designer at Audio Logic Systems.

Two Yamaha consoles were used at the event: a Yamaha DM2000 digital at console at front of house and a Yamaha M7CL digital console for monitors. The Yamaha DM2000 is still one of the most versatile consoles on the market, and is still my overall favorite as a FOH console when you’re not sure what you’re going to run into,” states Ed Coutu. “I use a Waves plug-in card with an L1-Ultramaximizer on a regular basis for live audio recordings and feeds to video recording. The ability to configure my aux sends and matrix sends in a way that is most functional on the fly, combined with the DM2000 preamps makes this an outstanding console.”

This particular console was purchased when the DM2000 was first released, and it’s one of the first 100 production models notes Coutu. “I think that says a lot for the longevity of Yamaha consoles. The case was custom made to contain a 4-space rack which houses a PC computer and keyboard drawer. Above the lower rack is a work surface, which is always needed at FOH. Above the work surface there is a 5-space rack which holds additional preamps and recording hardware.”

Audio Logic Systems also chose the Yamaha M7CL-48, Coutu adds, for its interface speed as a monitor console. “It’s the fastest digital console available; the speed of operating the console was key because things happened quickly at this event, and there was a lot going on with various dramas, dancers, and speakers. The console enabled Nic Hentges who was running monitors, the ability to mix the band on in-ears and then seamlessly switch to wedges for the drama actors, dancers, and speakers─paramount to keeping everyone comfortable on stage. I have to say that both Nic and the M7CL-48 did a wonderful job!”

The event utilized a d&b Audiotechnik speaker rig consisting of 36 Q1’s, 8 Q7s for downfills, 4 B2s, 8 Q-Subs, Q10’s for frontfills, 8 M4s for monitors, and 40 D12 amplifiers. All amplifiers were controlled from front of house using R1 software. Four Shure UHF-R handhelds were used on the stage with KSM 9s for the vocalists. The musicians in “Starfield” used Shure UHF-R beltpacks for guitars and bass, allowing them to move freely around the stage and interact with the audience in every direction.

Lighting for the event was controlled by a full-size GrandMA at front of house in command of 60 1k pars, 60 ETC Source4 Pars, 48 ETC Source4’s, and 12 Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots. Video for the event was seen on 4 16’x9’ screens. A Broadcast Pix 1000 video switcher (SDI/HD-SDI) controlled the images going to 4 Barco R12+ projectors via HD-SDI. There were 6 cameras in total: 4 on studio tripods with 2 Fuji 70x lenses and 2 Canon 32x lenses, as well as 2 portable cameras. 27” 16:9 LCD’s were used to provide additional video outputs for the front rows of the audience as well as confidence monitors on stage. Rigging support for all lighting, audio, and video was on one complete truss grid. The grid was made using 285’ of 20.5” truss from Tomcat and Total Structures, 130’ of 12” truss from Tomcat, and was hung using 14 1 ton CM Lodestars, and 7 ½ ton CM Lodestars.

For more information on Audio Logic Systems, contact Ed Coutu at Audio Logic Systems, e-mail ed@audiologicsystems.com.

For more information on the Yamaha DM2000 and M7CL digital consoles, e-mail casales@yamaha.com or visit www.yamahaca.com

-END-

About Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc.:

Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc. offers a complete line of integrated professional audio products for the commercial recording, production, broadcast, live sound, and sound reinforcement markets. The company has a dedicated dealer network, intensive field training, and 24-7 tech support in the U.S. and Canada.