New Zealand’s Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) has completed a series of studio upgrades with the installation of an Audient ASP4816 mixing console in Studio A, bringing analogue back after a 13-year hiatus.

Music Technician Brad Morgan explains that the original studio centred on an analogue console: ‘Its age and maintenance downtime was becoming an issue and in 2003/2004 the decision was made to go to Pro Tools HD with a Control 24. The workflow was simple and an in-the-box solution was convenient for staff and students. ‘Fast forward 13 years, and the decision to create a hybrid system uning both analogue and digital workflows was welcomed with open arms. External gates/dynamics and effects racks that had been in storage for many years would now be reinstated.

The annual Gold Rush Music Festival marked another successful year last weekend with a no-holds-barred hootenanny at the Rawhide Western Town Events Complex in Chandler, Arizona, just a few miles southwest of Phoenix. With the wild-west style vibe of the venue as its backdrop, the weekend-long dance music and hip-hop mash-up was a high energy, and occasionally dusty outdoor dance party featuring more than 50 artists across four stages, including headliners Deadmau5 and Steve Aoki.

Sound Image Phoenix provided PA and full production service at Gold Rush’s main stage. ‘With this type of music, it’s all about the bass,’ says Production Manager, Chris White. ‘There’s a lot of energy below 50Hz and it’s important to keep it tight and impactful across the entire dance area without falling apart six hours in.

Capital Sound closed a busy summer season at London’s Hyde Park with Proms in the Park and Live in Hyde Park over a single weekend in September.

Hosted by Michael Ball, Proms in the Park is billed as Britain’s largest outdoor classical music event, and includes the traditional Last Night anthems as 40,000 voices join the BBC Concert Orchestra to bring to a close two months of music with a spectacular finale. Headlining the event were Gladys Knight. Josh Groban, tenor Joseph Calleja, Matt Goss, Lisa Stansfield, Albert Hammond and The Wandering Hearts.

Dr Atomic, a 2005 contemporary opera by composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars, explores the inner turmoil of Dr Robert Oppenheimer as he headed development of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos Laboratories. Staged by the Santa Fe Opera’s Crosby Theatre – barely 20 miles from where the first detonation took place – a summer production by the Santa Fe Opera created a three-dimensional soundscape, balancing natural-sounding singing with full orchestration and evocative sound effects.

For the sound design, Mark Grey specified an augmented Meyer Sound loudspeaker system based around four Cal column array loudspeakers that had been recently installed at the theatre.

Written by Sting and Lorne Campbell, The Last Ship is a drama with fine songs bound by interwoven narratives. On its recent return to Newcastle, sound designer Sebastian Frost used d&b Soundscape signal processing technology, with En-Scene a sound object positioning and En-Space room emulation.

‘I went to hear a [Soundscape] demo at d&b HQ in Backnang about a year ago.’ Frost recalls. ‘The experience was inspirational because the biggest thing you want from any system is that it doesn’t tie you down or restrict you in anyway. What I heard was much more than simple panning or delay of sound; you were not just placing sound objects in specific places. This was a more scientific approach… this was the creation of a soundfield within which the creative possibilities appear unrestricted.’