Outboard Effects Setup

[Dick ReesParticipant]

Steven…

I think you’ll find that running the Qu and navigating the myriad pathways will be much simpler when the features are applied to specific purposes rather than learning the entire “map”, then using that knowledge. IOW, concentrating on the “why” will illuminate the “how” by giving you a working context.

It is the context that will be most important.

I play music on many different instruments and constantly receive requests for lessons. When I ask people what they want to play they often focus on the instrument. I refuse to teach the instrument independent of the music and I will offer to you that things will make sense on the Qu when you understand the “music”.

You”ll ned to study up on all facets of sound, acoustics, musical arrangement and mixing to take full advantage of any mixer. I express it thus:

Anyone can buy a Stradivarius. Only a violinist can play one.

You have to be that violinist. Good luck.

[StevenLMorganParticipant]

Thank you Dick and I agree.

While I was able to leverage the QU-16 for a live performance with 8 vocalists on MDCs, preamps, multi-tracks and K12s within literally one hour and record 7 vocalists with tube LDCs, preamps and studio monitors within a few hours, I understand that I am skimming the surface and my feeble attempt to create a realistic reverb and the addition of an outboard reverb with my specific use-cases has highlighted what I have not yet learned.

Hopefully working through consultations with George will unlock some of the myriad pathways for me.

[Dr. JParticipant]

GCumbee – would you be willing to post some of your vocal chain effects for the QU-32?

I am having a rough time finding anything that beats my TC Electronic M-One XL.

I want the QU-32 effects to be superior in tone and function over my M-One but I haven’t found that yet.

Hopefully you can help.
Thanks!

[dpdanParticipant]

Hi Dr. J,
please bear with me….
if I may add my honest experience of… yikes! 40 some years of recording and mixing everything from the USA President Ronald Reagan to Sheryl Crow, I have always been a real lover of Lexicon reverbs, mainly the Lexicon 224 and 200. I still have my Lexicon 200 that I purchased at dealer cost ($4,100.00 USD) back in the eighties seen here, and YES it still works and sounds incredible.

Not necessarily off topic but,,, a little over a year ago, I replaced my Mackie DL1608 with a Mackie DL32R, and I love it. I use it mainly for jobs like wedding receptions and corporate events. I find I would always rather use my Qu24 and AR2412 with REAL FADERS and knobs as opposed to an iPad, but making life as easy as it can be as a priority, I use the Mackie iPad mixer much of the time unless of course it’s a concert, then I want the QU setup for sure.

When I had the DL1608 Mackie mixer, I could not believe how horrible the reverb sounded…. worse than a Yamaha SPX90 if you can believe that. I just refused to use it, but I had a TC Electronics M-ONE dual processor reverb unit from a school sound system rehab job and used it because it was lightweight, and one rack-space. It provided a way for me to still be free to roam with the iPad but have access at any moment to two different reverbs, medium room on Aux five and big room for ballads on Aux six. While it did eat up two aux sends and two inputs for stereo return, it was superior to the built in crap from the Mackie.

I continued to use the TC M-ONE with the DL32R, but like everyone who purchased a DL32R, I too was expecting that the effects were alloted more memory compared to the little DL1608, but nope… same crappy reverb. The delay works and sounds great, but the reverb … OH MY WORD!! get me outta here.

So, you are NOT alone, I agree with you, even the Qu mixer’s reverb, and in fact the GLD reverb is poo poo in comparison
to the TC, and of course the Lexicon will make you cry. So, it’s not like all this cool new technology let’s us do jobs and fit everything into a car, I still carry around an external reverb because to me… the reverb must sound beautiful if it is naked and all alone at the end of a phrase or song. I have no idea what goes on under the hood of these digital consoles as far as memory is concerned, but I do know that the reverb demands a lot of memory if the reverb tail is going to be smooth and silky.

The posting of this video below is not to promote Mackie over Allen & Heath, nothing of the sort, but only to show how I personally use the TC with my DL32R setup. I have done some live concerts and used the built in QU reverb and it is just OK to me, but it does get me by, but most concerts still get the Lexicon 200 and PCM80 then I am a very happy camper 🙂

[Dr. JParticipant]

Hey Dan! Very nice! Sweet Lexicon too… Yeah I just cannot get the qu onboard effects to respond the way my M-One does.
What I am hoping to accomplish though is to get some forum members here to exchange ideas and patches on the Qu series effects.
Where are the guys or girls at that programmed these effects? I see incredible detail go into this QU board but very little information on the parameters or the people that wrote the parameters…

Some of the parameters are way off the mark and are not natural at all… We really don’t need high pitch metallic sounding flutter / scatter going on with reverbs…

On my M-One XL – I use a parallel Serial configuration where delay is on input one and fed into the input of the reverb on 2…. Using the engine 1 to Engine 2 feed parameter.

The effect is so smooth that you cannot really hear the delay because the repeats are mixed in with the reverb. Super lush smooth tail.. And of course this can be abused if pushed too much but it can take a dry vocal and make it huge sounding… I cannot mix without it.

I have some qu settings that I thought we’re close to replicating my M-One but when I A/B them live – there is no comparison… The M-One take it. I will keep trying.

[dpdanParticipant]

I almost always run the delay output into the reverb too, been doing that for years. I remember one time I was mixing Peter Mayer, (now Jimmy Buffet’s guitarist) when he was an opening act for somebody at Six Flags, and the guy that set up the system was not happy unless he was telling me how to do everything during our soundcheck, I kept saying yea thanks, I got it”. The when he thought he really had me,, he said,,, “just so you know, you got your reverb aux send turned up on the delay return”, to which I replied…. yea, on purpose. Then I gave him a little bit of his own medicine by explaining why, then he sheepishly backed off and said “Oh,,, OK that’s cool”

I am going to set up my QU right now and post the settings I use.

[dpdanParticipant]

hey Dr. J,
here is a youtube video to hear the sound of the two main reverb presets I commonly use.

and here is a link to download the two presets

https://www.dankury.com/Allen&Heath/Dan_Kury_Qu_reverb_presets.zip

I assume you have a dedicated USB junpdrive for you Qu mixer and it’s files,
so put these two presets in your Library folder, but you should do a back-up of your files first.

[Dr. JParticipant]

Dan – wow… Thanks for the files! I downloaded them and loaded them up in my Qu… I tested them using a vocal recording. Seems appropriate for certain styles but as you know routing and eqing of effects can really change things.

How is your routing for the reverb? Just on the channel or to a subgroup? Also do you have any equing on the effect?

I will post a few of my settings here in a bit.

Thanks again!

[dpdanParticipant]

glad to help doctor 🙂

I used no Eq on the effects in those examples.
For live mixing concerts etc, I still go the “old school” way of using a single mono aux send to the reverb and then returning the reverb in stereo of course 🙂 When I mix on the Mac computer in Digital Performer, I use Altiverb and if it is classic music such as a symphony, then I don’t use individual aux sends from inputs but instead, I route all woodwinds to a stereo group and then send that group to yet another stereo track where Altiverb is inserted. I do that for the other three sections of the orchestra too, brass, percussion and strings. The reason for not inserting the Altiverb in each of the four groups is so that I can freely use fader automation of sections’ group masters without Altiverb’s output being jerked around in that fader.

Sounds a little weird, but this video I made quite some time ago describes it better than words… you can skip to 13:08 to see the part about reverb routing.

a picture is worth a thousand words 🙂

[David HaughtonKeymaster]

@dpdan Hi Dan, thanks for these! Would you like to add them to the Qu User Libraries?
https://community.allen-heath.com/groups/qu-libraries/documents/
Harry.

[dpdanParticipant]

certainly!

Thanks, I will be happy to do that 🙂
Love my Qu!!!!

[dpdanParticipant]

just posted, thanks Harry, 🙂

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