Onboard compressor on qu16

[volounteerParticipant]

@mikec
Not quite so.

I do complain about the documentation but never recall doing that about the Qu capability.

I certainly would have used a Y cable myself but that was so obvious I did not mention it.
Was it you or @SteffenR who said it would be very hard to do on a Qu.
Clearly it is not that hard if you have one more channel and use a Y cable.

True my experience is mostly in a home studio setting.
But I was not the one who earlier was saying parallel compression was all nonsense, would not work, nobody uses it, yada yada,
nor the one erroneously claiming it would cause feedback and other assorted problems.
True, I read a lot, but at least I understand what I read unlike some others in that original discussion.

Lagniappe for Dado

select the channel , push the correct button in upper right, and go to the adjustment screen and see the compression control parameters. Be sure you have the compressor inserted in the ksm137 channel strip.

[Mike CParticipant]

I do complain about the documentation but never recall doing that about the Qu capability.

Wow, you really do need to go back and read some of your old post.

I certainly would have used a Y cable myself but that was so obvious I did not mention it.

Not buying it, with everything you post you would have actually explained how to do if you actually knew!

Was it you or @SteffenR who said it would be very hard to do on a Qu.

That was me, not to hard to do it on a single source input, to apply it to an complete mix (where it is more normally applied) say all of the drums it would take some work around.

[mixsitParticipant]

“…even out the difference between a rather lower volume of closed hihat vs roaring sound of them when played open.”
Not hearing it but I’d suspect -compression won’t be a solution.
For a test, try riding the mic level while playing to see how much lower the level on the open hat would need to be.
Just ‘flashing back to studio mixing -when a player’s control isn’t happening on the track, in the mix it would be like ‘a little to bring the closed hat in, off/out if ‘open is too loud (it’s going to be all over the kit pair anyway.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mikec

I am not selling anything. And insult (again) noted.

So you admit you said it was hard to do then showed us how easy it actually was. Thanks for being honest.

[Mike CParticipant]

So you admit you said it was hard to do then showed us how easy it actually was. Thanks for being honest.

As I eluded to earlier it is harder/tricky, you would need to get creative, ect. to do some form of parallel compression to a mix group as in the entire mix of drums or even
the full LR mix on a QU and even more so on a QU16.

The articles you linked to were about applying NY/Parallel compression to entire mixes/drum tracks, no so much to just a single source.

Now as I most recently posted and explained to apply a form of parallel compression to a single input is a fairly simple process. Now is it even worth doing it to a hi hat input????

It’s easy to cut paste articles, now tell us how you would actually apply parallel compression to an entire drum mix on a QU and more specifically on a QU16 without any out of the box processing.

[DadoParticipant]

Ok guys, another question. My new mics haven’t yet arrived so I played a bit with compression with my snare. For now, I can’t figure out of apply compression so I can hear how it affects the sound if I am listening through mixes. When I plug into the phones, that is listening the complete L/R I then hear what compression does to the channel in question.
So, how can I get this to work on mixes as well?

[volounteerParticipant]

@Dado

Did you push the mix button?

Then set the PAFL?

More details in the manual and here https://community.allen-heath.com/forums/topic/mix-routing-to-headphones

This might help you too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PKH5j4hfS0

[volounteerParticipant]

@mikec

While Discussing a similar topic as here I note that I am not the only one who finds the manual insufficient.
Here is a similar comment from another user:
“Sometimes in the manual there are things that are omitted” possibly also from the link I gave Dado.

Note that I also omitted to tell him how to turn the Qu on when I did not tell him to use a Y cable.
And yes, there was even a question I have found that asked how to turn the Qu on.
Not everything is intuitively obvious to new users. Even once you were new to all this too.

As to the other comments: I answered Dado who said he wanted to use compression.
I could be an arrogant bully and not post any links but I try to point folks in the right direction but not spoon feed them.

And WRT my original thread I said I needed upwards compression and all the ‘experts’ told me how stupid I was.
Some said it would cause feedback. Links I posted proved that was nonsense when they finally learned something about NY compression.

[Mfk0815Participant]

@volounteer I learned that you love your ‚hammer‘ called upward and/or parallel compression. And therefore every audio problem will become a nail. No one can tell you that the world of the the rest of the human beings is a little more diverse. In this world you can train speaker and musicians can learn to control the sound and level of their instruments (like a hihat). Things to fix problems at the source and not to try to repair that problems later.

[Mike CParticipant]

Ok guys, another question. My new mics haven’t yet arrived so I played a bit with compression with my snare. For now, I can’t figure out of apply compression so I can hear how it affects the sound if I am listening through mixes. When I plug into the phones, that is listening the complete L/R I then hear what compression does to the channel in question.
So, how can I get this to work on mixes as well?

It sounds like you have the compression applied and working on the main LR mix, that’s a good start.
Select the mix or mixes that you want the compressor also applied to, go to the mix routing menue and
then you will want to select “post all” under the channel source window. On that same menue page you
can also select pre or post fade depending the intended use of the mix.

You can also do a channel by channel pre post select and mix assignment on/off selection by using the assign buttons
to the left of the row of green select buttons.
What ever mix is selected the assign buttons will control the assigment per the select button on each channel, holding the assign
button will light up all the select buttons on the channels that are assigned to the selected mix, same thing with the pre button, holding
that will light all the channels for the selected mix that assigned to pre fade, off is post fade.
While holding the assign button and hitting a channel select button will turn that channel on or off in the selected mix, same thing with the
pre button, holding that while hitting a channel select button will switch between pre and post fade for that channel.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mfk0815

I merely suggested he look at it not that it was necessarily the best solution.

Although from his description it sounded like it could be a good solution for him.

Maybe you can train your orators but I guarantee that we have no way to change the ones we have talking to us.
Maybe somebody else could train them but my only way to help the problem is with the mixer and for us upwards compression certainly looked like the best solution if not the only one.

[DadoParticipant]

Update:
I managed to get this to work.
I do not know how I even managed to play before without a mic on the hihat that is compressed 🙂

[volounteerParticipant]

@Dado

so tell us what you did so the next folks reading the thread will know the answer too

[DadoParticipant]

I did what Mike said. Though, there was one more step, had to go to the mix settings thru the layer. In any case just set all to post all.

[slidesingerParticipant]

Parallel compression with a Qu-16. Here’s how I did it on vocals to ‘fatten’ them and give them a little more cut through the instrument mix which includes a four piece horn section.

First the layout:
Vocals are on channels 1-4
Horns are on channels 5-8
Keys on 9
Bass on 10
Drums on 11-15
Guitar on 16

As you can see, the band bought a mixer that is really too small for them, plus no groups. This makes things a little problematic, but not impossible.

First, a little sensible compression on the drums. Not parallel compression here because they already cut through the mix fine. Just enough to give the kick a little extra punch and the snare a little snap.
No compression at all on hat or toms and no overheads (I wish I had room for them, but again, not a great purchase choice for this band. You always want spare channels, so keep that in mind when sizing your board.)

A little light compression on the P-Bass and careful not to muddy the EQ on this one either. You want plenty of highs on a P-bass, so cut out starting around 400hz and under the vocal space to make a little more room, then bring back up in the 4k range. The idea here is just to limit the bass from stepping on other material. So 3-6db of cut or even less on the EQ and 2:1 compression or less.

Now the parallel compression on the vocals: I used a stereo mix out (5/6) and set up the heavy compression piece on that mix buss, then patched it back into stereo input 1 with an xlr-f to TRS cable. I did the same thing to the horns, only less of it. Plus a DCA each for horns and vocals for the uncompressed mix)

The final result is good clean, punchy drums and bass. Keys and guitar in their own space (did very little to them, although because the keys plays horn lines, I put them in the same mix buss with the horn compression, since they come half from the horn buss/DCA and half from the rhythm DCA) Then we have that nice fat horn section (I added a few milliseconds of delay to the compressed mix using the buss delay but not to the uncompressed mix, which only has a little reverb.) The vocals float on top of all this tapestry like cream.

For the external patching part of this, I made short right angle xlr-f to right angle TRS patch cables so that they can stay plugged in when the rack is sealed up at the end of the night.

[Author]

Posts