The Arts Centre Gold Coast started in 1986 and after a change of name and some additions to the building, it remains as a major venue for the area of South East Queensland. Although located in Surfers Paradise you still need somewhere to go in the evening and with the 1139 seat Arts Theatre, two cinemas, the Arts Cafe, the Gold Coast City Gallery and other performance and function spaces, this is truly a hub of cultural life.
While it is a community based arts theatre, it hosts performances by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Ballet and the Queensland Opera as well as other significant theatrical and musical events. It is also the venue for Australia's longest running Eisteddfod which sees over 60,000 performers grace the stage during the month. This requires a significant investment in technology to cope with the variety and rapid changes of programme so it is no surprise to find some top class equipment installed.
A Meyer Sound speaker system delivers whatever is needed to the audience and the mixing is performed on a Studer Vista 5 with Merging Technologies' Ovation interfaced via MADI to provide the playback of audio as well as control information and timecodes for the rest of the system. Senior Audio technician, Richard Muecke takes up the narrative, "Ovation is very intuitive to use yet there is also a deeper level of operation that is also easily accessible. With the integration between the Studer and Ovation System, we can set up the Studer to act as a DAW and in "dynamic" automation mode the Studer can chase Pyramix which is fabulous.
"We also run the Ovation keyboard which I love. During our musical season Ovation really comes into its own. We record the tech rehearsals on the Pyramix system for 'virtual' mixing when the performers have left for the day and also we usually have a lot of sound effects incorporated into the performances which are handled by Ovation. If I have enough time I will trigger these via midi from the Vista however I also often use "hot keys" and give the Ovation Keyboard to a member of the production to use so I can concentrate on the dialogue and music.
"On a few occasions, I have been required to record onto Pyramix, edit and then export to Ovation as a cue, once about 30 minutes from doors opening. The system works exceptionally well. During our dance season we take the tracks given to us for the performance and load them into Ovation. From here I can top and tail the tracks and change the order easily if required. In these situations, I like seeing the waveform and also the forward and remain clocks. It makes for very easy audio management and it is hard to imagine life without Ovation."
