The Ripa International Festival of Sound will take place from September 24 to 27 in Ripatransone, Italy, bringing together producers, recording engineers, music technology specialists and enthusiasts for four days focused on recording, mixing, sound design and music production.
Rather than operating as a conventional music festival or consumer hi-fi show, the event is built around workshops and masterclasses exploring how recorded sound is created, evaluated and refined.
For audiophiles, one of the most notable aspects is Focal’s participation. The French manufacturer will provide high-end monitoring systems including its flagship UTOPIA MAIN 212 professional monitor, creating a direct link between studio production and the playback experience familiar to hi-fi listeners.
Four Days Focused on Sound and Production
The Ripa International Festival of Sound was created by American producer and recording engineer Ronan Chris Murphy.
The event will be held in the medieval Italian town of Ripatransone in the Marche region, with many of the main sessions taking place at the historic Teatro Luigi Mercantini.
While traditional audio shows focus on listening to finished playback systems, Ripa Festival places the production process itself at the center of the program.
Recording techniques, mixing, virtual instruments, sound design and modern production workflows will all be covered, with participants arriving from several countries.
Focal UTOPIA MAIN 212 Provides Reference Monitoring
Focal’s involvement is particularly relevant from an audiophile perspective.
The company will supply professional monitoring systems including the flagship UTOPIA MAIN 212, while specialists from Focal in France are also expected to attend the event for demonstrations and technical presentations.
The UTOPIA MAIN 212 sits at the top of Focal Professional’s monitor range and is designed as a reference system for critical recording and mixing decisions.
For hi-fi enthusiasts familiar with Focal’s domestic loudspeakers, the event offers an opportunity to see how the company’s acoustic technologies are applied on the production side of the recording chain.
FBT Loudspeakers will also contribute to the festival’s monitoring and sound systems.
Exploring How High-Quality Recordings Are Created
Terms such as resolution, dynamics, spatial information and tonal accuracy are commonly discussed in high-end audio, but all of them ultimately depend on the information captured in the original recording.
The festival focuses on that starting point.
Sessions will examine how microphones are positioned, how instrumental tone and room ambience are captured, and how engineers make balancing decisions during the mixing process.
In that sense, the event approaches sound from the opposite direction of a conventional hi-fi show. Instead of asking how accurately a system can reproduce a recording, it looks at how the recording itself is created.
Ronan Chris Murphy, Lij Shaw and Other Industry Professionals
Festival founder Ronan Chris Murphy has worked as a producer and engineer with artists including King Crimson, Steve Morse, Aurora and Ulver.
Nashville producer and Recording Studio Rockstars host Lij Shaw is also scheduled to participate.
Shaw will present a session titled “40 Bands in 4 Days in a Studio Made of Hay,” drawing on his experience recording numerous artists at the Hay Bale Studio built for the Bonnaroo Music Festival.
The program will also include a live podcast session with music manager and publisher Mike Lembo.
Other participants include virtual-instrument and sampling specialists Simone Coen and Luigi Bruti, along with Apple Certified Logic Pro trainer Pepe Gasparini.
Sampling, Virtual Instruments and Modern Production
The festival is not limited to conventional recording techniques.
Sessions such as “Sampling and Sound Design for Virtual Instruments” will explore how acoustic sounds are captured, processed and transformed into digital instruments.
This reflects the increasingly blurred boundary between traditional recording and software-based production.
For audiophiles, it is also a reminder that the instruments heard on modern recordings may originate from live acoustic performances, carefully sampled libraries or a combination of both.
Understanding that production process can provide useful context when evaluating the sound of recordings on a high-resolution playback system.
Free Public Program on September 27
The final day of the festival, September 27, will include a public program presented in both English and Italian.
These sessions will be open free of charge to local residents as well as festival participants, with workshops covering music production, arranging and related topics.
A full festival pass is priced at €100, with proceeds supporting cultural organizations in the Ripatransone area.
Organizers say participants from around ten countries, from Finland to Australia, have already registered.
Connecting Hi-Fi with the Recording Process
The Ripa International Festival of Sound is not a large-scale hi-fi exhibition, but its relevance to audiophiles lies elsewhere.
If the goal of a high-end playback system is to reproduce the music and acoustic information contained in a recording as faithfully as possible, understanding how that recording was made is an equally important part of the listening chain.
Focal’s participation makes that connection particularly clear. As a manufacturer active in both high-end domestic loudspeakers and professional studio monitors, Focal operates on both sides of the recording and playback process.
The Ripa International Festival of Sound will take place from September 24 to 27, 2026 in Ripatransone, Italy.
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