Layers and faders: How free is free?

[moebiusParticipant]

Didn´t really understand it from the v1.3 reference guide:

“There are 6 layers of assignable fader strips”
I understand the assignments are stored on scene level.

Does that mean that each layer is completely modular so I could do the following:

fader1 – 5 are for the bassline

SCENE 1 – LAYER A
fader1 = volume of analog in 1 on the main bus
fader2 = aux send 1 to outboard analog fx
fader3 = return of said fx to main bus
fader4 = send MIDI CC to said fx for whatever parameter, maybe delay feedback
fader5 = control EQ in channel 1, let say level of the low shelf

SCENE 1 – LAYER B
Same thing, but for a different instrument, maybe something delivered via DANTE, that sends to some DAW hosted VSTfx, also now adding fader 6,7,8 to control some parameters on the VSTfx?

And have a 4-band fully parametric EQ on 8 of the other faders, as EQ-WFG encoders only cover a single band at a time? I think of playing with frequency and Q of 2 or 3 bands simultaneously for example.

[moebiusParticipant]

So after watching these:

Allen & Heath SQ-6 Digital Mixing Consoles Review & Tutorial

SQ First Look Webinar – November 2017

I think that yes, what I proposed above can be done, at least most of it. Loved the GEQ faderband. My head is spinning, the SQ seems to solve so many challenges… Shut up and take my money ^^

[Mfk0815Participant]

Hmm, maybe this will now disappoint you. But you only can assign input channels, fx return, bus masters, dca master and midi processing to the fader layers. But not particular processing parameters of channels, busses or effects like EQ gain, freq., decay time and so on.
If you are plan to use a SQ6 or SQ7 you can use the soft rotaries for some, not all, parameters. Please have a look at the reference guide V1.3 for details.

[moebiusParticipant]

Hey, thanks for the heads up and good morning btw 🙂

I double checked, and yes, it´s not as free and not as complete as I would like it. Dang. It´s a good thing you told me, as I didn´t yet get into the details – and we all know who is in there.

Would have been too good to be true and make the value of the SQ explode, as it could replace many DAW controllers. But then again, maybe that´s a nice feature request for a future fw upgrade: Turn the MIDI channel strips into soft encoders, freely assign MIDI CC and Notes.

But that´s not a show stopper: if I can´t get to internal FX processing parameters via channel strip, I´ll simply use external FX (DAW/digital outboard) when there is need for any automation. And mapping of the MIDI data sent by SQ will be mangled by Bome translator if needed (in case plugin or hardware does not support learn mode).

[SteffenRParticipant]

The MIDI faders send what you configure… and you can save the configuration in a scene.

[moebiusParticipant]

Hi Steffen,

I had my first hands-on yesterday just for a short time, so I may have not found it. The reference guide mentions fixed assignments, like MIDI Faders 1-32 map to CC 0-31. Is that just an adjustable default, ie could I send CC99 on MIDI Fader 17? It´s a different story for the soft rotaries, but there is just 0, 4 or 8.

I think about functional mixing vs. channel-centric. The idea is to build a group of faders to control a synth, f1 being the (stereo) channel controller on desk, while f2-fn would control a few things important on that synth like cutoff, frequency, bit of ADSR and slide. As many older synths can´t learn CC-parameter mapping, I´d either need some software in between to do the conversion (BOME of course, don´t know AH DAW Control yet) or create the right CCs directly at the source, which would be much preferred. That may be a feature request “assign arbitrary CC numbers to MIDI strip faders” same thing for buttons, but with notes.

Also, for creation of “synth edit” scenes, transforming the SQ into a MIDI controller box, the 0/4/8 soft rotaries are not exactly enough :).

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