Qu-32 USB-B Streaming Produce Robotic Noise

[Mike StormParticipant]

This forum is FULL of this same issue in multiple threads

It’s also full of many happy users who never had a problem 🙂

A&H have an article online: https://allen-heath.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1002/201/qu-windows-driver-understanding-and-troubleshooting

I guess you have tried the two latency checker tools listed in the article? Would be interesting to see if they show any abnormal activity when the streaming goes wrong.

[philt80Participant]

Thanks Mike,
I agree about the happy users and I love the board except for the USB streaming issues. Since this is a “help” forum I would expect that most people are ticked and stuff is not working but I agree there are probably many happy users.
For sure I’ve gone through that article. My cables are of length and I’ve tried multiple cables both non and ferrite beaded. The usb ports are not front mounted and I’ve tried all the onboard ports (and 2 different riser cards). I’ve turned virus software off and firewalls are off. I’ve also disabled NIC card when recording. I’ve changed video cards (which did work for a while), SSDs to HDD and back, rebuilt windows, updated firmware, updated drivers. I’ve checked the latency only through LatencyMon which gave me the USB driver choking. I can dig up the screenshots if you would like.
I guess the only thing I haven’t tried is turning off phantom power (suggestions of other posts) of which I run 4 mics that need voltage always (drum kit). IMO its kinda useless to have a board that can’t have phantom power and stream to USB at the same time but I’ll give it a shot. I can see if 1 or 2 users have an issue it is weird but I think if more that 10 people are having an issue there is probably something that needs to be fixed.

Thanks for your timne!

[Allen & Heath Product SupportModerator]

Hi Phil,

I can’t monitor the forums constantly so the best way for you to receive support is via your ticket. If you reply to the last response it will auto update the ticket no problem.

Let me speak to the software guys and see if we can some specifics for you.

Regards
Mike

PS: We posted new Windows drivers this week, please download and install if you haven’t already.

[Anonymous]

Yes the forum is full of happy people and I am one of them.
Have just spent weeks recording hundreds of sessions with no issue.
So my issues are fixed.

How I fixed my issues
I reinstalled OSX in both iMacs
Ran very few pluggins in recording mode running 30 tracks!
Reaper and iMac Standard 2012 model i7 processors with 8gig ram dosn’t crash! If you load the iMacs up they just do erratic scenarios.. robotic noise and move tracks in the middle of recording sideways.

I dont know the technical explanation within the iMacs.
But there it is.
I’m sure the same will be for PC

They are NOT race cars unless specifically built for a purpose.

Hope this helps other people.

Cheers
NZdave

[SteffenRParticipant]

and it is important to try different USB ports on your machine
on my laptop all USB 3.0 ports are not working with any audio device
the USB2.0 port does work very good.
it took some time to find out, that the chipset is using a 3rd party USB3 controller

[Allen & Heath Product SupportModerator]

Dear all,

We are keen to learn why some of you are continuing to experience USB streaming noise issues on the Windows platform.

What we would like to do is obtain system reports for those of you who are still having issues to try and more specifically determine where the issues are being introduced. For this we’d recommend a utility like SiSoft Sandra which will produce a full system report of your machine. Please can you email your reports to support@allen-heath.com which will create a support ticket and open up a channel of communication.

https://www.sisoftware.eu/2015/11/19/sisoftware-sandra-2016-released/

Regards
Product support

[AndreasModerator]

I guess free SiSoft Sandra Lite should be sufficient.
Does it make sense to also send reports from systems without issues?

[CesarCatalan.SonidoParticipant]

Hi Everyone, I-m having the following problem.
I record on Pro Tools 12 (happened also in PT10) using Asus latest notebook zenbook pro (i7, 16gb Ram, 512 SSD, 2gb NVidia Graphic Card) and have the exact same digital distortion noise in terms of about 4 minutes intervals. I’ve tried changing the USB cable and nothing.
I’ve experienced this problem and as a result reseted my notebook to defaults, desinstalled every piece of software that’s pre-installed and not usefull. stopped every know system process that might not be desired but and monitored system performance during recording…it doesn’t seem to be a hardware problem but a software/driver issue.
I really need to solve this, I’m located in Argentina were the prices on hardware are EXTREMLY HIGH and the availability is very short, therefore can’t go ahead and buy this, and that just to test.
PLEASE, if anyone has found a solution, hint or anything that is or might be related please get in touch. Best regards, Cesar.

[Anonymous]

Hi
Although I use mac I found a few other issues.
SO I’m curious to know:
How many tracks you are recording at the one time? 1 -10-30?

Also Is your ‘project’ set to 48k sample rate in Protools?
That may sound a silly question however I sumbled upon an old project template [i accidently loaded] set to 44.1k and when I loaded up the mac it reproduced the distortion at about 11 or 12 tracks of recording after about 10 minutes.
I also noticed that when I loaded up certain pluggins thats in tracking mode i reproduced the same scaenario>
From Allen & Heath ablove posting…

Dear all,

We are keen to learn why some of you are continuing to experience USB streaming noise issues on the Windows platform.

What we would like to do is obtain system reports for those of you who are still having issues to try and more specifically determine where the issues are being introduced. For this we’d recommend a utility like SiSoft Sandra which will produce a full system report of your machine. Please can you email your reports to support@allen-heath.com which will create a support ticket and open up a channel of communication.

Regards
Product support

[CesarCatalan.SonidoParticipant]

Hi Dave. thank you so much for your input.

I runned some test with 24 channels, then 10 channels, then 1 channel. The outcome will always be the same, the same noise, more or less the same pattern in terms of the time interval in wich it presents (sometimes around 2minutes after recording started, sometimes between 4 or 6, a couple of times presented after 30 minutes).

About the Sampling rate, yes. I’ve set the clocking to 48khz. Also performed different test with different buffer sizes, nothing changes.

Today I was able to perform some extra testing:

1-Friend’s Acer notebook with Cubase 5. No problems what so ever.
2-Tested my Asus Notebook N501VW with Cubase 5. (same installer than used in Acer). Problems presented.
3-Tested my Asus Notebook N501VW with ProTools 12 and RME UFX interface. No problems at all.

Also some of the test previously performed included (and all of this resulted in having the problem presented).
* Pro Tools 10…problem.
* Deactivating network devices…problem
* Deactivating audio devices, nvidia driver, hdmi digital audio output bus, etc…problem.

So far I think it might be a problem related to the Qu USB driver..therefore I’m going to start testing with prior releases versions of this driver to see if it helps. If you, or any reader, can provide with old versions besides the one available in this site, that would be a great help.

I’ll let you know how everything goes…Thanks!

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Asus N501VW (i7, 16gbRAM, 512SSD Drive, Nvidia 2gbVideoCard)
Pro Tools 10&12.
Qu24.

[Anonymous]

Hi
Well you have certainly tried lots of variables.
Have you opened a ticket with Allen & Heath? and supplied the details of your system usning the Sisoft software?
https://www.sisoftware.eu/download-lite/
support@allen-heath.com
That would be my next move!
Because I {personally] would like to use PC over Mac with the QU.

NZdave

[CesarCatalan.SonidoParticipant]

Hi Dave, Yes I attempted a lot of things, for a lot of time…including short tests and long test (2, 3 and 4 hours testing).

I already opened a ticket with A&H and contacted the Local Dealer here in Argentina. Hope some how someone, me them or a team effort will find the solution for this.

About you wanting to use PC over Mac, what are the reasons for that?

regards, Cesar.

[Anonymous]

I had to learn Mac over the last 4 years for the want of using a reliable [plug and play] Firewire with a GSR desk.
I used PC for 18 years from the Win98 days.
I have found PC just so more speed responsive than Mac with-in ‘what I do’
However now I will use both for different types software.
Each to thier own. 😐

regards
NZdave

[CesarCatalan.SonidoParticipant]

That sounds fair. I still have a XP pentium 4 to run some old things that I like very much.

[CesarCatalan.SonidoParticipant]

Update on condition. Qu24 – Robotic Noise.

*Uninstalled Qu USB Driver v.3.34 and replaced with v2.20.53 available on download page. Nothing changed.
*Also performed a “silent test”…this meaning I configured all corresponding routes and armed tracks for recording but besides not pressing “record” I didn’t feed the Qu analog channels with audio, just stand by. In this case the noise will still appear after a couple of seconds or minutes.
*Repeated the “silent test – stand by” but minimized DAW (ProTools) to task bar and even performed other task (E-mail, Reviewing this forum, other forums)… eventually noise will appear again. This gives me the hint this issue is NOT related to dynamics on the audio on DAC which was something I started to think and ruled out first by exaggerating dynamics on the audio feed to the analog channels.

Please, if anyone can help by providing me details on systems which have or do not have issues that will be extremly helfull.
I’m running short of ideas and things to try…but need to solve this ASAP.

Best regards, Cesar.

P.S. : I have submitted all information to A&H Support, already have a ticket and forwarding all testing data to them.

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