QU-32 Mute button

[Sven]

I have used the QU-32 in my studio now for almost a year and I am extremely happy with ease of use and sound quality! Lately, I have encountered a problem:

When I turn on my QU-32, everything is normal, then I recall my standard scene, turn on my DAW (Cubase 10) and then my channel 11 is muted and I can’t unmute it. If I mute channels 9-14, soft 1 and soft 2 also lit up and I can’t unmute 9-14 either. If I then change scene, I can shut soft off soft 1-2 and then I can unmute 9-13, but channel 14 remains muted.

The QU-32 seems to be working OK until I connect it to my computer and DAW so I guess there is no HW problem. I also use the DAW control feature.

What is going on here? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help I can get.

Cheers from Sven at Groovy Grove Recording Studio in Sweden

[Alex A&H]

Hi Sven,

This sounds like you may have mute/DCA groups assigned which is causing this behaviour.

If you select a channel and press the Routing key, you can then press on the Mute/DCA Group Assign tab in the top right of the screen, followed by the Fn key.

This gets you to a page where you have an overview of assignments to each DCA and Mute group, so I’d recommend having a look through to see if any channels have been assigned by mistake.

Alternatively, you could go to the global filter in the Scenes page and block the Routing changes for the Mute/DCA.

I hope this helps!

Thanks
Alex

[Sven]

Hi Alex and thanks for your reply. I have tried this now and it doesn’t help. Here’s another clue: When I press “S” (for Solo) on any channel in Cubase, the Soft 3 button lits up. I can turn it off but it doesn’t change that I cannot unmute one channel (today it’s channel 11).

Best regards, Sven

[Alex A&H]

Hi Sven,

It sounds like, in this case, that Cubase is sending out MIDI to the Qu. To test if this is the case, please try changing the MIDI channel on the Qu in Setup > Control > MIDI and see if this changes the behaviour.

If it doesn’t, please start a ticket at support.allen-heath.com for further assistance, as we will need to look at your setup in more detail.

Thanks!
Alex

[Sven]

Alex, I think that did it. Now it’s MIDI channel 2 and consequently MIDI DAW Control Channel 3. I believe this is what it should be, right? I wonder if this got muddled up when I updated the Qu-32’s firmware.

I will keep you updated.

Big thanks sofar. You guys are great. Quick and informal support means everything to a nitwit like me. 🙂

//S

[volounteer]

@Alex

Is that all in the manual? Or we supposed to intuit how to do such things?

[Alex A&H]

Hi Sven,

If it stopped the problem then that’s fine!

Updating the firmware shouldn’t have affected this, as it is Cubase sending MIDI to the Qu. If you go into Studio > Studio Setup and look at the MIDI ports in Cubase, make sure Qu MIDI ports are inactive, as this will be the root cause.

Please do let me know how you get on
Alex

[Sven]

Hi Alex,
OK, it works just fine now. However, there are some phenomena which surprise me a bit. If I activate (click on) a track in Cubase, the mute button on the corresponding channel is lit up. I can unmute it so it is not a problem. The second thing is that if I press any of the Solo buttons in Cubase, the mute button on channel 13 starts blinking, again I can make it disappear. Qu MIDI ports are now inactive.

Sven

[Alex A&H]

Hi Sven,

There’s definitely something strange going on here.

I’d suggest starting a ticket for this so I can get some more detail on your setup and look into why this is happening in more detail.

Thanks!
Alex

[Alex A&H]

@williamadams

I think everything I’ve mentioned that is specifically about the Qu is in the reference guide. Is there something missing?

Thanks
Alex

[Sven]

Alex, I just lost DAW control. There is now so much weird stuff going on I wouldn’t know how to describe it in a ticket. Do you have an upload facility so I can send you a short video? That would be a fast way for you to see what is going on.

[volounteer]

@Alex A&H

There seems to be a lot missing.
You could say it is there and if I meditated on it enough it would be clear. Maybe it is me and not the manual.

OTOH many people say many things in this forum and I wonder where they got that info as I do not recall it being in the manual.
So if it really all is in there I will just keep reading and hoping it becomes clearer. I suspect some of it is buried under something else that I do not think to look at.

Full Disclosure: I am a degreed engineer with a PE license (not sure the UK equivalent) and have written technical documentation as well as used it. While A&H documents are good for engineers having written them I find them falling short of what non engineers need. But these days it is probably far better than what other products offer with their stuff. I just wish there were more and it was a bit better.

[Mike C]

There seems to be a lot missing.
You could say it is there and if I meditated on it enough it would be clear. Maybe it is me and not the manual.

OTOH many people say many things in this forum and I wonder where they got that info as I do not recall it being in the manual.
So if it really all is in there I will just keep reading and hoping it becomes clearer. I suspect some of it is buried under something else that I do not think to look at.

Full Disclosure: I am a degreed engineer with a PE license (not sure the UK equivalent) and have written technical documentation as well as used it. While A&H documents are good for engineers having written them I find them falling short of what non engineers need. But these days it is probably far better than what other products offer with their stuff. I just wish there were more and it was a bit better.

Equipment manuals, in this case the QU mixer manual will take you so far after that is where true experience comes into play as to how to apply what you read in the manual.
I have used and set up many QU’s in ways not exactly taught in the manual but applied from my experience.

Oh..by the way I am really tired of hearing about your engineering degree!

[volounteer]

@Mike C

Sorry about that. Next I will start telling you about my PhD too and teaching at the uni.

I know some manuals only take you so far. It is not experience that I lack but simple clear facts about the Qu.
It may be good for being written by engineers, but it falls far short of what proper documentation should be.

[tom42]

Hi Sven and Keymaster,
I’m facing a similar phenomena conerning the mute buttons using my QU-16 as DAW Controller for Cubase 10 Artist.

The Qu-16 is connected to Cubase (Mac) as Generic Controller via USB-Midi. Doing this almost every function of QU-16 is connected successfully to Cubase (Faders, Pan, EQ, …) an it’s a lot of fun to do mixing!

Now the Problem:
The mute Buttons in direction QU-16 –> Cubase work fine: in Cubase the mute status of a channel follows the mute Buttons on QU-16.

But in reverse direction Cubase –> QU-16 only <muting> of channels works fine – the mute Buttons will be activated when I mute the related channels in Cubase.
But <un-muting> doesn’t work, it seems not to be sent to QU-16 or the desk won’t understand the command … or my configuration is wrong at that point.

I assigned the mute-buttons in Generic Controller using the ‘learning function’, MIDI channel and MIDI address are recognized and set correctly when I press a mute button on QU-16. The MIDI Status is shown as ‘Note on’ which seems correct to me. The Flags are set to ‘Receive’ and ‘Tramsmit’ which should also be fine.

Firmeware Version is the latest, v1.95.

Because all other functions work perfect, I’m wondering what’s the problem with the mute buttons and I hope you can help me.

Thanks in Advance & many greetings
Thomas

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