I know this is an old thread, but the recent firmware that came out last month still doesn’t fix this issue.
The first time I used an SQ-7 and this happened to me, in the middle of a show, I thought the wireless microphone that I had 200 feet away had somehow gone offline. Put me in a bit of a panic.
Even though I know it’s a problem now, it’s still a problem that makes the board lose some of its functionality.
The lack of metering when the AMM is engaged makes it impossible to know at a glance if the microphone is functioning (power switches on wireless bodypacks…), and the lack of PFL when the AMM is engaged makes it impossible to EQ the lavs on presenters before they go onstage. The current workaround is to turn off the AMM when the mics are offstage, but that often invites feedback if the AMM isn’t engaged before the mics go live.
My use case for this is live mixing of things like panel discussions where there are multiple presenters on lavalier microphones. Typical workflow is that the presenters are mic’d up offstage, and EQ is done via PFL (no onstage soundcheck). Wireless systems are usually in play, and power/mute on the bodypacks aren’t guaranteed to be disabled. The AMM is used to increase gain before feedback (that extra 6dB going from 4 open mics to 1 open mic can make a big difference) and help manage the transition between lavs and lectern mics if both are in use.
Our SQ-5 was initially bought for small stream and broadcast jobs with too many inputs for the MixPre that I would use for the really small productions.
Not being able to use PFL and not being able to see signal present on the channel meter LEDs makes the AMM rather useless for that kind of productions. Hence I’m back to the X32 rack for those productions for now…
