It's always a little chilly up here in the roof at Hand Held at this time of year. Well now it's b. freezing and the brass monkeys have all migrated. N17 is not so far from the Artic Circle after all.

Fortunately the bouyant mood of the live music industry has kept us running around in the build-up to the Christmas holidays. In a whirlwind of geographical diversity we've had Robbie Williams touring (very sensibly) in Australia and New Zealand, Muse gigging in Iceland (!?!) and Placebo who finished off their U.S. tour and moved onto Japan.

Closer to home we've had UB40 on the UK and European legs of their world tour, Simply Red also touring Europe, Blue who've been wowing arena crowds in Wembley & Birmingham, and of course, Madness on their annual pre-Xmas UK tour.

Other artists using our mics and ears for one-off shows, showcases and PA's include; Misteeq, Joss Stone, Craig David, Erasure, Stereophonics and Fame Academy winner Alex Parks.

There's been lots of our mics on the telly, (look out for our blue logo on the bottom of radio mics!) We've been at Top of The Pops quite regularly and the challenging MTV Awards in Edinburgh featured a large wireless system from us. We've also been down at Dave Stewart's new venue in Covent garden, The Hospital where a mystery Christmas show has been shooting.

Another source of busy-ness is that fantastic and sensitive piece of the human anatomy known as the Ear. More and more people are taking hearing protection very seriously indeed and we've found ourselves making as many custom ear defenders as we have ear monitors.

Amongst those who we've prodded, poked and counselled are George Michael, Sarah Brightman and the members of Muse, all of whom opted for Ultimate Ears monitors. Alex Parks, Brett Anderson, Basement Jaxx & Mel C have all had custom acrylic monitors made whilst Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden has sensibly sought protection from sustained exposure to very high decibel levels by ordering a set of custom ER15 flat response ear defenders.

Corporate events have grown in scope and style over recent years and this has resulted in an increasing demand for wireless systems from the business sector. However a recent event at the NEC involved Hand Held Audio on a level hitherto unknown. We sent a massive 56 way radio mic system up to Birmingham for the combined Halifax and Bank of Scotland that was the daddy of corporate complexity.

There was the main show that needed a 13 way radio mic system for those singing Halifax workers that we know and love from the TV adverts! But in addition there were a further 15 satellite rooms with an average of 4 radio mics in each. RF Guru was George Hogan who spent long hours putting together a custom frequency plan. Those hours paid off in spades as the event was highly praised for it's technical excellence. Quite an achievement given that another event in the NEC was running 44 channels of wireless at the same time!

The signs are that this year's Hogmanay event in Edinburgh is going to be as spectacular and as crowded as last years Bonanza.

Hundred's of thousands of people annually converge on Princes Street in the city centre to see the New Year in. Public safety is paramount at such huge events and the development of a Public Address system for effective crowd control has been a priority for the police. The event has now run for a number of years and this PA system is now very well refined. At it's heart is a powerful wireless system that has been jointly developed between Edinburgh-based sound contractors EFX Audio and wireless specialists Hand Held Audio.

EFX needed to provide a system that would allow announcements to be made to selected zones in and around the city centre, from a central control point. This was achieved by installing banks of speakers in pre-determined locations and accessing them with high power wireless links. A mixing desk with matrix outputs to the link transmitters provides full zoning flexibilty.

Hand Held's 1 watt links offer up to 1 mile range when used with line-of-sight between directional antennas at both transmitter and receiver. Edinburgh always makes for challenging wireless conditions because frequency availability is so limited. This year Hand Held had to find 8 more channels to cover Radio Mics and In Ear Monitors for Erasure who are performing on an open air stage to the side of Princes Street.

Gomez go for more Ears

Good news for music fans - Gomez are lined up to set out on the road in the January and will play UK dates early in the new year.

While the rest of the band have been using In-Ear Monitoring for some time, the two vocalists - unusally - have stayed with conventional ambient monitors. However Ben Ottewell and Tom Gray have decided that now is the right time for them to explore the benefits of custom earpieces. Talking to Ben and Tom you get the impression that it's more the pursuit of excellence, rather than any inability to hear themselves properly that has prompted the decision.

They will keep their floor monitors and their side-fills and hope to have a very specific vocal-based mix sent to their ears. The notion of clear and accurate vocal separation seemed to appeal greatly. To further that end they have chosen to have Custom Acrylic Monitors specially adapted to accept the Shure E1 drivers. The custom fit will accentuate the vocal intelligibilty that the E1's offer.