New Zealand Symphony Orchestra enters a new phase with Lawo

Professional Audio & Television (PAT), a local Их partner, has closed a major deal with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) for the refurbishment of key equipment for its sound production.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, one of the oldest national symphony orchestras in the world, has been captivating audiences with memorable concerts and recordings since 1946. In 2016, the NZSO was nominated for Best Orchestral Performance at the prestigious Grammy Awards and has recorded music for several film and game projects, including Wish Dragon, The Hobbit, The Lovely Bones, Krampus, Emperor, Escape Plan, Mortal Engines и Titanfall 2.

Recently, with the help of PAT, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has renewed much of its equipment. A 72-fader Lawo mc²96 audio production console sits at the heart of the facility, complemented by a 16-fader Lawo mc²56 console. Both consoles bring together their fully redundant Lawo A__UHD super-compact dual-core DSP resources. The Lawo A__stage boxes feed the audio in and out of a redundant SMPTE 2110-30 AoIP network, and the media network is synchronised by a Meinberg microSyncRX, which offers a “high level of efficiency, versatility and impressive port density”. Everything is managed by the Lawo Home cloud platform, which connects, manages and secures all aspects of the live production environment of this IP-based infrastructure.

PAT has also supplied and fully integrated Объединение технологий‘ HAPI interfaces into the Lawo environment via HOME, as well as into the 2110 network via Microsens fibre bridges. This has boosted I/O capabilities and provided a seamless, unified interface for control room operators and various заядлый ProTools terminals throughout the facility.

A project that looks to the future

А Lawo PowerCore equipped with a Dante IO expansion card and StudioHub XLR patch panels will serve as the central communications and talkback system for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. This system is controlled by Densitron’s IDS Core software via Ember+. Densitron Core will also be used to orchestrate and control lighting, digital signage and video elements between each of the performance and educational spaces. In addition, the Densitron solution will be used to display information about the booking and status of the performance spaces outside many of the Townhall halls and will keep conductors and score readers aware of bar and measure information during performance recordings.

Craig Thorne, NZSO project manager, reckons that, to date, “our Lawo mc²96 and mc²56 production consoles are already the envy of many sound engineers, and once open for business, NZSO Studios will rival the best in the world. Thank you, Patrick, Mike, Stephen, and the PAT team. We are proud to have you as our partners.” Mike Heard, senior solutions architect at PAT, notes that being involved in this project “has already become a career highlight for me.” “Everyone from the construction supervisor to project managers and our own team at PAT has a common sense of care, genuine interest and passion towards an outstanding end-result. I can’t wait for the doors to open and to sit back and listen to the magic on opening night,” he adds.

Finally, Keith Prestidge, APAC region sales director at Их, says: “The whole team at Lawo are honored to be a part of this prestigious project for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Planned, coordinated and installed by our trusted partner Professional Audio & Television in cooperation with the customer and the Lawo team, the NZSO are now equipped with best-of-class mc² production audio consoles along with media infrastructure that is scalable, secure and truly future proof. Thank you to everyone involved for making this project possible.”