Connecting Qu-24 to Aviom

[brendanproutParticipant]

Forgive me if this topic has been discussed elsewhere. I couldn’t find an advanced thread search feature on this forum, or a way to search the Qu forum specifically for Aviom related topics.

I’m a worship pastor at a small church. We have a Qu-24 board and I was just given an Aviom system. The current configuration of the system is using the standard XLR inputs from an analog snake into the board. The Aviom setup donated to us has nothing but 1/4″ TRS inputs going into it. Without tracking down the obsolete AN-16/i-M Mic Input Module, is there a way to use an Aviom setup with the Qu-24? Can I use the QU-24’s parallel 1/4″ inputs as pass throughs to the Aviom, since I’m using the XLRs as source inputs?

[Mike CParticipant]

I am going to say no even though the block diagram kind of looks like the the XLR and the 1/4 are parrelled together but it also show resisters in line for the 1/4 jacks for signal padding.
The Aviom input unit you have wants to see line level input signal, so even if there was output on the 1/4 inch input jack parrelled from the XLR it would be too low in signal level.

You could take the mix outs and feed them into the Aviom unit, on the stereo mix outs you could pan some channels on a stereo mix to the right and others to the left and get two discrete outputs per stereo mix to feed into the Aviom.
You would most likely need to sub mix a couple of the mixes your sending to the Aviom.
Don’t forget you can switch your groups to mixes and gain a couple more mix outs.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Thanks for the heads up on the resistor padding the link between the XLR and the 1/4″ inputs.

That’s a tremendous idea of subbing mixes and using the groups as mixes to capitalize on what’s available. I was thinking we’d have to do that with the drums already. Thanks!

[Mike CParticipant]

Page 41 in the manual goes over switching a group to a stereo mix.

In the mean time start saving up for an Allen Heath ME series monitor system!

[brendanproutParticipant]

I’ve found an alternate approach: The AN-16i input unit that we have, which uses only 1/4″ inputs, does have a bank of 1/4″ pass throughs, so we could use XLR to 1/4″ adapters to take the snake through the Aviom input unit before hitting the sound board, and use the 1/4″ input jacks on the Qu-24, coming from the Aviom.

We’ll still end up using a few of the mix outs to export drums to a single channel, and we’l do that with grouped background vocals as well.

Interestingly enough, it turns out the Aviom AN-16i has a variable setting on its 1/4″ inputs that may make up for the padded link setup, as it lets you change input level to +20dB, +4dB, 0, or -4dB. I’m sure that padding it and then boosting it will probably make for a poorer signal:noise ratio, but I’m going to try it out just to see what it gets us in terms of signal into the Aviom.

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

“The AN-16i input unit that we have, which uses only 1/4″ inputs, does have a bank of 1/4″ pass throughs, so we could use XLR to 1/4″ adapters to take the snake through the Aviom input unit before hitting the sound board, and use the 1/4″ input jacks on the Qu-24, coming from the Aviom.”

The AN-16i only has line level inputs though. I doubt that you’ll get enough level from mic’s. Also, it will not supply phantom power. So you’d probably need a pre-amp unit (x16?) to go with it.

To be honest, by the time you’ve sorted out equipment to make this work, it will still be a pain to work with getting gain structure right etc. Does your church always have someone there who’ll be able to trouble shoot a non standard setup?

Could you get enough from selling your Aviom units, to fund some ME units, which would then give you a system that works easily from the desk?

[brendanproutParticipant]

The Aviom units are on loan, not ours to sell. We’re going to be doing a sanctuary tech makeover later this year, but for now we need to make due with what we have on hand. Someone loaned us their unused legacy Aviom setup, and if we can make it work in the meantime to get rid of the obscene amount of stage wedge monitors we currently require, that’s what we need to do. Not planning to keep the Qu setup any longer than absolutely necessary. But we may have to deal with its limitations through summer and fall.

Moving forward, we plan to sell the Qu-24 as we’ve outgrown it, and possibly get an SQ6 or an M32 so we’d have the capability of using ADAT cards and a MyMix system.

The ME system costs the same as the MyMix but lacks many of the features like multitrack recording on each workstation, onboard stereo effects, the ability to audition other workstations, etc. So that’s not really in consideration, unless the A&H engineers at least build in some onboard effects in an upcoming firmware revision.

[Mike CParticipant]

Other than input channels and card slot options what do you feel you have outgrown in the QU series.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Input channels are a factor, as is the card slot, as you mention. Limited digital and analog connectivity means no real solution to implementing IEMs other than the ME1 system, which lacks the onboard stereo effects that MyMix and LiveMix have at the same price point. I can spend extra to get an input expander that would let me send out pre-board inputs to an IEM system, but that makes for really muddy IEM mixes. They need to be post-EQ to be most useful.

These are simply limiting factors in what is overall a very nice board for its size. No complaints about the onboard capacities that it has. For what it is, it’s a nice sounding board with decent features. We have it and we’ll continue using it until we make budget for a bigger replacement. But at its price point, it should at least have a card slot and be able to use ADAT or Dante. It’s not competitive with the X32 at the same price point.

On the negative side, I’ve not found the QU-24’s onboard multitrack recording to be reliable at all. If I use the available USB connectivity to record using a DAW, then I lose the ability to sidechain effects like Waves multiband compression, which is super helpful for public speaking.

Many of these things can be fixed by throwing money at the problem, but in that it’s a bit like modifying a Honda Civic to be a race car. You can put $30k in mods into a $5k car, and have a car that is still substandard to the one that only costs $10k to begin with.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Back to topic, I did find that the Aviom AN-16i has enough variablity in its input gain structure adjustment to allow for the padded parallel 1/4″ inputs on the Qu-24 to be used as outputs to feed the Aviom system. Since the inputs are pre-EQ and pre-preamp, they’re messy… some have a very poor signal:noise ratio, depending on how much input level is being sent from the source. But it’s functional with the AN-16i inputs set to -4dB.

[Mike CParticipant]

As for the multitrack recording to USB you need to use a fast USB stick. The Sansdisk Extreme has worked well for me the few times I’ve done a multitrack recording.

[brendanproutParticipant]

We’ve used the sansdisk extreme and find it gets all sorts of artifacts and skips when we do multitrack.
It works nicely for simple stereo recording but we had several weeks in a row where our live service recordings were unusable because of the recording issues. Reformatted, tried another two different A&H recommended USB drives, same result. Couldn’t afford to keep wasting time on that so we went to DAW recording.

[Mike CParticipant]

Odd, I use a QU Pac not that that should make any difference though.

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