The Volume recording studio

The opportunity to try your hand at being a music producer, producing a classic NZ track. Satellite were part of the team pulled together to create experiences within New Zealand’s first ever major music exhibition — Volume at Auckland Museum.  Our role was to create a true recording studio experience, putting the visitor into a music producer’s shoes. We identified Che Fu’s iconic ‘Fade Away’ track as an ideal song, we brought DJ Sir-Vere to the party as the star producer and took one of Dave Dobbyn’s vintage recording studio desks and digitally engineered a solution. Using Satellite Tag, visitors were able to record a photo of their experience and get a producer rating from DJ Sir-Vere.

Be a part of New Zealand music history

We negotiated the music rights, filmed Sir-Vere talking through the stages of the recording studio and then modified an old-school analogue desk, by adding custom electronics and software – an Arduino prototyping board and motorised faders – which allowed the sliders to be controlled via the software experience. This incorporated cutting-edge digital technology into classic recording hardware. We built the studio environment, sourced the instruments, hung the fairy lights and pressed play.

Bringing it all together

The recording studio project brought together Satellite’s passion for music, our music industry knowledge and relationships, our scripting, filming and editing chops and of course our software engineering expertise. We are thrilled to see how many people have experienced the recording studio and seen it recognised, alongside the Smithsonian in the 2017 international museum awards

In this project

  • Creative Concept
  • Software Engineering
  • UX
  • Scriptwriting
  • Filming & Editing
  • Content creation & curation
  • Embedded Devices
  • NFC technology
  • Install & build skills