The Arts Centre Gold Coast Audio Upgrade

Situated on the coast of Queensland only an hour from the state Capital Brisbane is the Arts Centre Gold Coast complex; one of its major attractions is the Arts Theatre. The Arts Theatre is one of the most spacious entertainment arenas in regional Qld. With two levels of seating, including balcony views, each seat in this 1,139 seat auditorium provides uninterrupted views of the stage.

Enriched with warmth and character, the Arts Theatre presents a unique and delicate combination of modern technology and entertainment in a traditional theatre environment.

The theatre is quipped with an orchestra pit, which can be raised to extend the stage. A world-class new sound-system has recently been commissioned by the Centre Management as part of a major facilities upgrade.

This new upgrade includes the replacement of the old analogue mixing console with a new state of the art Studer Vista 5 unit featuring 56 mic, 16 line and 11 stereo AES ins with further expandability to a maximum of 240 total inputs. The unit was delivered with 32 line outs and 9 stereo & 6 AES mono outs located in the D21m I/O interfaces racks which are connected to the console via 2 x 100m of MADI optical cables. Also connected via MADI will be the new Merging Technologies Ovation Media Server which incorporates a Pyramix MassCore DAW.

The Ovation offers many different kinds of Cue List to organize shows and setups. There are no limitations in terms of the number of Cues and Cue Lists which can be freely organised, resized, tabbed, stacked and spread over the main application window. The user interface is fully customisable, but can be frozen with all menus & editing buttons hidden during show time.

The Head of Audio Richard Muecke stated that he has always liked the Studer Vistonics operating system and had heard good reports about the sound quality from the team at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre who had installed a Vista 5SR 12 months before.

Richard’s first use of the console occurred a couple of days after the training session was completed by Studer’s Australian agents ATT Audio Controls. The training session was conducted by ATT’s support engineer Robert Hindley who in conjunction with Chris Nainby from Totally Technical conducted full system checks and integrated the Ovation multi media server also supplied by ATT.

According to Richard the Studer console and Ovation media server now provide the Arts Centre with state of the art capabilities with 24bit multi track recording, sophisticated playback of audio and video program material via the customisable Ovation keypad and pristine audio performance which will be the envy of many facilities throughout the region. The system provides excellent flexibility required to address the many and varied performances that feature at the Centre from international touring acts, large bands/orchestras, rock acts and corporate presentations.

The Centre’s sound system has also been the subject of an upgrade with a new Mayer system being installed at the same time.

ATT’s Business Development Manager Mr.Travers Falkiner stated that he is proud to have been involved with the project from its inception and intends to visit the Arts Theatre again soon to hear the results for himself. He stated that ATT had also been commissioned to supply 120 acoustic absorption panels to reduce the reverberation within the theatre which is also part of Centre’s on going aim to strive for excellence.