The mixing desk, the only one of its kind in New Zealand, significantly increases the studio's capability as a major recording facility for albums and live performances.
The console and associated top-line equipment is believed to have cost almost $1 million.
It is understood the university provided more than $600,000 through a special equipment fund grant.
The humanities division also contributed.
University officials yesterday declined to discuss the costs.
The purpose-built former Radio New Zealand recording studio was already outstanding in its size, being capable of recording large groups of musicians, Otago music department head Prof Henry Johnson said.
"We're introducing 21st-century technology to a vintage 1960s studio built originally to record an orchestra."Members of the university's music department have established the New Zealand Music Industry Centre, in collaboration with music company dunedinmusic.com.
The new centre, announced by the university yesterday, will enable the department to engage with the music industry and foster research and recording and pursue other commercial opportunities.
It is hoped the centre will, in the long term, help enhance overall career and employment prospects for University of Otago music graduates.
"We want to promote Dunedin as an industry hub, with the university and local music industry driving it," Prof Johnson said.
"It's fantastic that we have this opportunity to interface between university education and people working in the music industry."The new music console had been bought from Solid State Logic, an English firm co-owned by British rock singer Peter Gabriel.
The mixing desk can record from nearly 100 inputs or microphones at once, meaning it can handle big bands and orchestras.
It is also planned to link the machine to the high-speed fibre-optic KAREN network, through which the country's universities share information.
This will enable "real-time" collaborations of groups of musicians between Dunedin and a film or music studio in any other major city in New Zealand or even abroad.
Dr Graeme Downes, a senior lecturer in music, said the new console, combined with the KAREN network, would help eliminate "the tyranny of distance", enabling music researchers and other Dunedin musicians to collaborate on creative projects more widely with fellow musicians elsewhere in the country or overseas.
