Reply To: High School: Qu vs iLive

[Gus]

MacMusicGuy,

I’m in a high school setting also.

Last fall we purchased 2 Qu-32 and a Qu-16. 32 at each high school auditorium and the 16 in our portable rig.

My crew and I had looked at all of the less expensive digitals over the past year and landed on the Qu series. We are working to train more students on audio and lighting so I wanted consistency between auditoriums and something that students could get skills on in a short time. Decided on the Qu because:

32 channels and 32 faders… they don’t have to work in layers to do the basic work
Only 3 layers… channel, output and custom. Custom fader lets my adult engineers create a really friendly layer.
Touch screen and display that helps students operate and visualize EQ, Dynamics, etc.
18 channel recording to a USB drive and 32 channel in to a laptop right out of the box ! No additional cards to buy.
Plug and play digital snake and personal monitors.

We have large stage productions as well. If they need more than 32 channels we side car the Qu-16 and combine the necessary outputs. No, not Y cables !

We love the consoles. The only thing that I hope they fix is the inability to move or insert scenes. It is easy to select and re-call scenes with the soft keys. But, the inability to add/delete/arrange scene order is really a compromise for a show.

Gus