Qu_Drive Backing Track Issues

[highroverParticipant]

I did a show last night which required backing tracks for singers and dancers. I used a QU-24 with the tracks saved as WAV files to a Western Digital Elements 500Gb hard drive. The Tracks were named 1.Blah Blah, 2. Blah, 3. Blah Blah etc. The hard drive is formatted for and only used on QU desks.

I had two issues:

When selecting the next track, the titles were all jumbled up on the screen i.e.not in the order I would have expected, so it took some time to find the next track.

When starting the track, a second or two of the previous track played before the track that I wanted started to play. It also did not play the last couple of bars from one of the tracks.

Other than that, the show was great but these issues caused me some embarrassment.

Any ideas why these things happened and how can I make sure that it doesn’t happen again?

Cheers
Iain

[Lee7Participant]

From experience I would suggest you use another device for backing track playback as the QU playback system is limited at best. I only use the inbuilt player for our bands intro music, and even that isn’t faultless. At the end of the file it plays some loud hiss that isn’t even on the file itself, so now I use Apple Airplay from my iPad. But to do that you will need an Apple router with a built in 3.5mm audio jack.

🙂

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

I’d use something else as well, which is a shame – the playback ought to work well enough for this…

[robbocurryParticipant]

I use Qu-Drive playback week in and out faultlessly and have never experienced the issues mentioned, that is:
1. Hiss or noise at the end of my tracks
2. Playing a portion of the previous track.

I’m using a USB pen drive so no seek issues like you might have with an HDD, especially if it needed defragged?
I convert all my tracks to .wav via iTunes to WAV 48k/16.
This was more or less “pooh poohed” by another forum member a while back who wanted perfect files from his DAW and didn’t want to take an extra step by using iTunes conversion. It works and it’s flawless!

There is a program, I think Andreas highlighted, called “FAT Tool” which allows you to reorder your tracks alphabetically making selection easier.
As I said, Qu-Drive works perfectly as expected for me every time I use it. I have to do a tiny bit of extra prep to my USB pen but the results are well worth it.

[SteffenRParticipant]

I use my laptop with USB directly connected to the desk for most playback and background music tasks.
I have special playback software for this, QWERTY-Go

https://www.siraudiotools.com/Qwerty.php

since the driver is multi client U can use the ASIO for playback and the WASAPI or WDM for background music as I did last night…

I will try this sometimes with my very cheap windows tablet, will let you know how it worked

[robbocurryParticipant]

Just a point to add to my previous comment. Over the years I’ve been using various media types for playback:
DAT, MD, CD, laptops, file players and more recently iPods with line out docks/adapters.
The same file played back directly via Qu-Drive as opposed to ST1 or ST2 always sounds better (punchier and cleaner) to my ears.
Yes I use good leads and the settings are the same. Why it sounds better could be for a multitude of reasons, file encoding, AD conversion, moon phase etc.😉
The fact it sounds better and with a low profile USB pen always inserted, makes for a quick setup, is the reason I have persevered with it. Soft key control is a further enhancement if required.
Anyway, that’s my 2p worth on the subject👍🏻😉

[Author]

Posts