Category Archives: news

dBS Solutions recently supplied audio to the Manchester show on Rhiannon Giddens UK tour.  The North Carolina born singer song writer, began on her tour to celebrate the launch of her new Album ‘Freedom Highway’ a solo album with much of her own original material.

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dBS Solutions were pleased to be providing audio for Joanne Shaw Taylor’s Manchester show as part of her Uk tour last week in the beautiful Bridgewater Hall.

Joanne is a british blues rock guitarist and singer from Wednesday in the black country and described as Continue reading

To celebrate the launch of our new logo and rebrand, we thought it would be great to give away some stuff! To be in with a chance of winning a pair of Tascam TH-02 headphones, an all-new studio condenser microphone and some dBS Solutions swag, follow us on Facebook, and like this post or why not tell us what you think of our new look by commenting?

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Albert docks Liverpool

We’ve just got back from a fantastic weekend at the Liverpool Albert docks once again supplying all the audio for the Pirates festival. Myself and the team here at dBS Solutions were thrilled to be asked again following the success of previous events.

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Digico SD9T on Urine Town. Designer: Findley Clayton.

Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts is one of the UK’s premier performance training establishments, teaching not only those on stage but those that support the Arts, lighting set and costume designers, sound engineers, designers, and directors.

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dBS Solutions are delighted to be providing full production for this years Bury Transition Festival. The festival provides lighting and sound around Bury with live artists, sound sculptures and storytelling within the town’s garden areas. The events creators, The Hamilton Project contacted dBS after our work on Liverpool’s Pirate Festival. The event organisers were looking for a company with the right attitude to immersive arts events to provide sound, lighting, staging and power to a number of sites through Bury. 

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dBS Solutions were pleased to be providing the PA system for L30’s Million Musical Firework Display at Netherton Activity Centre this bonfire night. Our friends, Sirotechnics designed the display for Sefton’s local authority and when they had experienced audio that didn’t live up to the fabulous fireworks on previous events, Sirotechnics Director Simon Harding knew who to call. “The dBS Solutions team are awesome guys to work with. All Top notch.”

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When the big planned UFC fight over at Manchester Arena needed a last minute audio system for an open workout, the arena’s Head of Events, Miriam Stone knew who to call. When an unforeseen venue change found the organisers UFC without a sound system, Miriam called dBS Solutions on the day of the event and by 14:00 our engineers were on site setting up in the Arena.

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Martin Audio dealers dBS Solutions are pleased to be hosting an introductory session for Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts students this week, in the beautiful Paul McCartney Auditorium.

The session led by veteran live sound engineer and long term MLA user Simon Honywill will introduce Martin Audio’s revolutionary Multi Cellular Array technology to the next generation of audio engineers, serving as a grounding in the theory of the systems along with practical rigging in the field.

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We’ve just got back from a beautiful weekend on Albert Docks looking after production for The all new Folk on The Dock Festival.

The sun was shining as over 82000 fans descended on the site over the Bank Holiday weekend. They where met with Folk from across the spectrum along with some great traditional sea shanties including the first ever performance of “Our Liverpool song,” a specially commissioned Sea Shanty for the modern day, written by Jason Ellis and Kathryn Rudge.

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We are pleased to announce that we have recently moved into our new home in the beautiful Cheshire countryside.

The new site over in High Leigh just off the M6 motorway is three times the size of our old place allowing us to dedicate more space to sales, demos & training areas along with more space to prepare hire kit.

If your passing on the M6 and would like to call in for a tour and a coffee feel free.

Our new address is Unit 5 Brook Farm, Swineyard Lane, High Leigh, WA16 0SD. All our numbers and emails remain unchanged.

This week dBS Solutions where very proud to have been asked to assist with suppling audio for the press conference in Warrington for the Hillsborough family support group following the juries findings.  Its been such a honour to be involved in something that has helped bring closure and clear the names of so many families.

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This month sees dBS Solutions investing for the first time in Allen & Heath with their QU Series of mixers to service our growing need for compact tour-able mixers.  With two shows this month alone leaving us to be flown around the world in suitcases finding something that sounds great and fits in a case under 30KG was crucial. The QU series has USB streaming and midi over USB from Qlab which is great for us so combined with a midi button box also powered over USB the whole system can fit in a Peli case in an aircrafts hold.

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With festival season just around the corner, we thought it would be great to share some tips on creating the most decisive and helpful stage plots and information to help with those all important change overs and ensure you get the best from the festival sound team.

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Mathew Barrow as The Wolf from little red riding hood.

Its been a great end to the year with several theatre shows going out with sound supplied by dBS Solutions.  Miracle on 34th St UK tour and the Dubai production along with a fantastic new production, the UK Premier of Red Riding hood.

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Theatre sound specialists dBS Solutions where thrilled to be working with producer Paul Taylor Mills on this exciting concert in the heart of London’s West end. Continue reading

dBS Solutions where pleased to be asked to provide the audio systems at this years Edinburgh Fringe for Momentum Venues at St Stephens. This exciting new venture houses three performing spaces providing the location for shows such as Ushers the front of house musical, There’s a Guy Work’s Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis and many more.

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dBS Solutions where pleased to be supplying audio equipment for the Hong Kong production of Seussical The Musical this November. Originally produced by Sell a Door for the West End last year, and produced out in Hong Kong by ABA Productions, this exciting vibrant childrens show is a real hit with Dr Seuss fans world wide. dBS Solutions director Christopher Bogg sound designed the original London production and was thrilled to be asked back for the Chinese revival.

Much of the sound equipment was sourced locally through Mad Music, a company we have now developed good links with for future productions in Asia. dBS Solutions did however supply all of the shows playback requirements with dual redundant Qlab systems and control along with our radio mic capsules to ensure the consistency of the shows sound across the world.

Thanks goes to Danny Clare for his work on the shows preparation, George Chapburn the shows console operator, Can Dog and all at Mad Music and staff at HKPAs Lyric theatre for their invaluable help.

When the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra joined forces with Manchester Imperial War Museum North to tell the true story of world war one solider Arthur Burke, the BBCs Special projects manager called upon our lighting designer Christopher Bogg to assist.

The collaborative project composed by Richard Taylor and with book written and directed by Di Sherlock was performed within the war museums main gallery space in traverse which brought a unique set of challenges. The project also featured video content across all of the walls behind the audience of original footage from the archives designed by Soup Collectives Mark Thomas.

Christopher explains “although the space was equipped with some theatrical lighting, much of this was in use for the museums main exhibition, still open during the day times. We where able to use carefully selected fixtures from the in house lighting rig augmented with dBS Solutions lighting equipment” Equipment ranged from ETC source four profiles, to Robe 300 spot fixtures and wireless DMX by Wireless solutions. The museums opening meant that there where very tight turn around times between the museum closing and our performances beginning. Much of the lighting system designed was done so in such a way that it could remain in place during the day times connected together with wireless control systems keeping turn arounds to a minimum. Much of the rigging, focusing and programming happened through the night.

The event was a huge success with attendance from many world war one connections including the relatives of Arthur, the stories main character among other veterans. The performance was also filmed by the BBC and broadcast on BBC Radio Manchester.

Thanks goes to all our dBS Solutions crew on the show, Danny Burrows, Martin Winton and Christopher Bogg. Also to those at the BBC and IWMN for their invaluable help, Laura Willson and Ric Douglas

Birmingham Hippodrome theatre again asked dBS Solutions to supply this years Summer in Southside festival over August. The event spanning four weekends across the month saw dBS engineers look after the multiple sites across the city supplying PA systems ranging from speakers on stands for music playback all the way up to large scale systems for live music, DJ play back or musical theatre performances.

Each weekend saw the squares around Southside filled with various acts, artists and unusual happenings. The festival was very well received by the Birmingham public. dBS Engineers Chris Taylor, Damian Breeze, Matt Chisholm, Craig Stewart and Danny Burrows on site across the weekends.

When dBS Solutions, was tasked by Sell a Door Theatre Company to design a sound system that would take the touring version of the hugely successful, long-running West End show Avenue Q the length and breadth of the UK, the company’s Director Chris Bogg was faced with a stiff challenge. The size of venues the production would be visiting varied enormously; and on tours of this type, where truck space is at a premium, touring the minimum amount of kit, while keeping the production scalable, was crucial.

Chris designed a system based around the New Martin Audio XD12 speaker with front fills and delays being delivered by the DD6 compact cabinets recently added to stock. All of the processing for the system was undertaken by XTAs DP226 processors wirelessly controlled from a tablet PC system. Monitoring for the 6 band members was undertaken by the p16 personal monitor system allowing for each band member to have full control over their monitor mix. All radio mics where Sennheiser systems with DPA 4061 mics hidden in each actors hair line. This allowed for crisp defined details from the cast vocally whilst staying desecrate to those audience members in the front rows.

The audio console was a Midas Pro 1 system with remote stage boxes for the band. The whole show has been programmed scene by scene allowing the faders and channels needed to be brought to the operator via population groups. Scenes and sound effects as well as the shows video animations are played back and controlled from the custom built dBS Solutions Qlab systems.

The show has been touring around the country to great houses and reviews alike Its still not to late to catch this show in Portsmouth and Birmingham running until September 20th before heading to Hong Kong in September.

dBS Solutions have been Warrington Music Festivals production supplier since the festival started so we where thrilled to be working again this year on the event which has been really gathering momentum over the last few years. This year the main stage in the old market place was supplemented by a big top over in Bank Park with nights ranging from A heavy rock night on the Friday, The annual Proms in the Park run by the 75th engineers regiment and cumulating in Warringtons youth carnival on the Sunday. With all the different styles of music and acts the system had to be flexible to provide both the detail needed for orchestral amplification and also the sound pressure level for the heavy rock events.

dBS Director Christopher Bogg specified 8 stacks of our Ohm TRS system with MC2 E series amps to drive the system. Desks where Yamaha LS9s along with Ohm wedges to compliment the front of house sound. Lighting was a mix of pars for colour washes and white light with Robe Robin 300LEDs and Chauvet Colourdash Quad battons.

Main stage audio in the market place was comprised of 16 Martin Audio W8LM Line array speakers with 8 WS218x subs along with some in fills. Monitors where LE1500s with W8DVQ on side fill duty. Consoles where all Midas Pro series.

Lighting on the main stage again saw our Robe Robin 300s and 600s washes and spots along with Chauvet Slim Par Pro pars Atomics and Sunstrips.

dBS Solutions engineers Danny Claire, Simon West, Martin Winton, Chris Bogg, Danny Burrows, Sam Edwards, Keiron Murphy, Al Johnstone,Zak White, Dan Williams and Damian Breeze where on site to ensure all went smoothly.

dBS Solutions where approached back in November to help design and arrange the lighting, audio and effect needs of Hamleys London for the launch of their Manchester store in the Into Trafford Centre.

dBS Solutions are pleased to announce that we will be suppling sound and lighting design, equipment and staff for this months tour by the band 911.

dBS Solutions where this year asked to design and supply the sound for the annual pantomime for accountancy giant Price Waterhouse Coopers. The organisation have a history going back twenty eight years of organising and performing pantomimes for children. Their shows have in the past been broadcast to hospital childrens wards and cinemas up and down the country and are performed at the Peacock theatre, Sadlers Wells West end home. Price Waterhouse Cooper staff feature in every roll within the production from cast, orchestra to stage management, props and costume.

This years production of Cinderella played at both the Peacock and Edinburgh Kings theatre. The shows Lighting designer and Production adviser David Clair asked dBS Solutions director Christopher Bogg to get involved back in October. When looking for a company to take the show on, dBS Solutions were Davids first choice.

“The show is not without its Technical challenges” says Christopher. The get in and set up times in London are limited as the venue is in use during the day. Couple this with the shows size and the need for record feeds to an OB truck and we have a complex technical production to load in and tech in a just few days. dBS Solutions prepared as much of the project as we could from our warehouse in Warrington before shipping equipment off to London. This included designing custom built racks for the stage to house amps, radio mics and vital comms equipment. Our Midas sound console was preprogrammed in our unit over the days before the load in from rehearsal notes to ensure every moment within the venue was used wisely.

The system consisted of a selection of Mics from Sennheiser, Shure, Robe, and AKG in the pit with spot monitoring on stands from Yamaha MSP3s and 5s. Radio mics where our Sennheiser Evolution 500 series with WSM software so that our sound operators could monitor the mics progress from both stage and front of house. Other monitoring both on stage and in the pit was provided by Ohm TRS112s and BR6s. The system in London was a house d&b system whilst in Edinburgh was a Meyer UPA system of which we added some of our subsonic speakers from hire stock. Processing was from XTA electronics with Midas Pro 2 series console.

dBS also arranged logistics to London and return from Edinburgh for both audio and lighting along with the local supply of an active splitter system for the record feeds for London. The show was a great success with many cast and creatives commenting of the audio quality. dBS Solutions would like thank lighting designer David Clair, production engineer Matt Wharton, Deputy head of sound Tara Kent, and Sound assistant Kiran Sondhi for all their hard work over the shows run.

We have been spending our time in Birmingham over the last month or two helping the Birmingham Hippodrome to celebrate the opening of the new Library in the City.

The series of events around the four squares in the centre of Birmingham was production managed by Liverpool based Event Design Logistics. Production manager Jon Sims asked dBS Solutions to provide audio systems across the sites for the three weekends.

With a range of challenges across the sites from tight load in and set up times, to broadcasting music across several of the audio systems wirelessly, dBS Solutions project managers Chris Bogg and Chris Taylor where on site to ensure all ran smoothly.

The first weekend saw five PA systems around the city for the weekend of dance. With acts from “Trollies” the performance of choreographed dance with shopping trollies, to the strange abstract Con tatto moving sculptures. Much of the systems where based around Our Ohm TRS systems with either TRS218 subs and TRS112H high packs for the larger locations and TRS112 on stands for the more intimate performances.

The next weekend saw performances of The Iron Man, with our Martin audio line array system, several of our Sennheiser radio mics, a selection of band mics and fold back all mixed on a Yamaha LS9 32 with some Q lab tracks thrown in for good measure. The weekend featured the talents of No Fit State Circus who where displaying a range of circus taster sessions, impromptu stunts and performances all set to traditional circus music.

The Final weekend in September featured both No Fit State Circus and the Wired Arial production “As The World Tipped. A busy weekend saw the dBS Team providing Ohm TRS systems for the circus events and two hangs of our Martin line array from PA towers for the evening Arial shows.

Both events where well attended and the four square weekends where an overwhelming success. Thanks goes to Jon and Stu at Event Design Logistics, dBS Engineers Chris Taylor, Richard Pomeroy, Keiron Murphy, Nick Jackson Phil Carus and Simon West.

dBS Solutions was asked to supply full production for the Cheshire & Warrington Schools games back in July supplying staging, power, video screens and equipment, audio and lighting for the event.

Wow have we been busy! Over the last month or so we have been getting ready for the summer ahead and the result is the addition of the Midas Pro2 to our rental stock here in Warrington.

With our lighting rental stock getting busier and busier dBS Solutions have added more Chamsys MQ100 Pro consoles to our rental infantry. “These powerful moving light desks are capable of 32 universes and offer a wide range of features unrivalled by many manufactures” says dBS Solutions director Chris Bogg.

We have seen a massive increase in requests for these consoles on our events from engineers and lighting designers and with summer round the corner the company has added to its existing stock of MQ100 Pro consoles, and Magic PC Wings.

To hire any of our Chamsys lighting products for your event, purchase Chamsys equipment or to see what the consoles can do for you call the office and arrange a visit and a demo with our visualisation system.

dBS Solutions have built a great relationship with lighting designer Olly Suckling and the band Hadouken over several years so we were delighted to be asked to supply lighting for the outfits latest UK tour.

Olly designed a compact but flexible system of truss towers using our LITEC TX 30s truss with custom made base and header plates to support a range of Robe LED300 washes, showtec power bricks, and some sunstrip actives added to stock for the tour. This was supplemented by some Martin atomic strobes, GU10 birdies and dimming along with the venues house rigs and one of our look solutions hazers.

Programmed and operated on Ollys own Chamsys system with additional support and wings supplied by dBS the show made for an impressive night.

You can find some great photos of the tour on the Hadouken twitter page @hadoukenUK.

Call the office to find out how dBS Solutions can support your next tour or event today.

dBS Solutions have recently been providing audio and lighting for this years comic relief events.

dBS Solutions invests in Martin Audio Amplifiers

After the success of the Liverpool Lantern Parade the Lantern company was commissioned to produce an event in New Brighton.

dBS Solutions are please to be suppling the audio equipment for Sell a door theatre companys production of Seussical the Musical at the Arts theatre London.

The run will open on December 4th and run until 6th January with two shows a day weekends. Sell a Doors Director Philip Rowntree contacted dBS Solutions to provide all of the shows audio needs over and above equipment in the venue after speaking about a previous project last year and have been looking forward to working together.

Seussical London!

Custom Productions have long since been involved in the summer long season over at the beautiful Gawsworth hall in Cheshire. When this years producers were looking for a new audio partner to work with Customs director John Slevin stepped up and suggested dBS Solutions. Our relationship with John spans several years of successful events so we where only to happy to help design and install a system for this complex yet flexible space within the halls grounds.

Our Martin audio W8LM system was chosen for its rider friendliness with incoming productions and also for its clean reproduction for theatre, rock and roll and speech. The system of 4 x W8LM speakers each side of the stage area was ground stacked upon a single WS218x sub within custom all weather hides. We then provided some delay moon speakers to hang within the grandstand canopy to assist with imaging and intelligibility further back in the stands. All processing was dont from our XTA electronics DP226 units with wireless tablet control.

The season went well with Custom productions receiving several compliments from touring productions on the audio system and we are looking forward to next year.

To find out how we can help you with your next production inside or out call or email the hire department for details.

Liverpool Based audio specialist Sound Concepts contacted us to provide a PA system for the all new band stand in Williamson Square this summer. The event organised by Open Culture was in the square each weekend for around 5 weeks.

dBS Solutions where asked to provide a PA system and some AV equipment for construction machinery company Terex Finlay for their exhibition stand over at Hill Head Quarry.

The event organised by Event exhibition in Belfast saw our speakers out in the harsh elements for the best part of a week with wind, rain and all the british weather could throw at it. All our kit was thankfully covered in our custom waterproof covers and remained dry and safe.

dBS Solutions have supplied radio mics systems and support for the Living Colour Productions musical Baby.

The shows sound designer Elliot Sinclair contacted dBS regarding the hire for the show performed at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool back in March.

The show was just one of eight musical theatre performances that dBS Supplied in March proving that when it comes to theatre, dBS Solutions are truly Setting Hire Standards.

dBS Solutions has supplied the sound system for the Wilmslow based youth group SCAMPS.

Long time SCAMPS Lighting designer and production manager John Slevin from Custom* productions asked dBS Solutions to supply the audio system and additional microphones to supplement Customs stock. Working with Owen Lewis and the Custom productions team, sound designer Chris Bogg suggested a system comprising our new Martin W8LM line array. This suited the room very well and provided clear audio to every seat in the house.

The show was a great success with some great feedback from the group regarding the sound. Your can catch there next production by visiting the web site in our links section.

Photo credit: Tony Loannides