Qu Drive Multitrack Playback Patch Question

[BillyParticipant]

How do I patch the 18 tracks played back from my Qu-Drive to the same channels that I patched the output to?

In other words:

– I am using about 14-17 channels on my board, depending on setup. These are spread across the 24 channels on my board. For example, channels 1-3 are vocals, channels 4-7 are blank, and channels 8-10 are guitars, etc. Drums are channels 14-20. Since I can only record 18 tracks at a time with the Qu-Drive, I patched the output as follows:

Channel Track
1

[BillyParticipant]

What I’m trying to ask is this: How do I play, say, track 4 from the Qu-Drive on Channel 8 on my board?

Page 42 of the manual describes “patching” the playback to channels, but it doesn’t cover this question. I tried keeping the inputs for channels 4-7 as “Local” thinking that this would make the next track roll to channel 8, but no luck. Channel 8 still played track 8 and tracks 4-7 were just not played at all.

Thanks in advance for any help / advice! Bill

[BillyParticipant]

my first post got chopped off. Here is how I patched the output to the Qu-Drive
Channel Name Track
1 Vocal 1 1
2 Vocal 2 2
3 Vocal 3 3
4 Empty
5 Empty
6 Empty
7 Empty
8 Guitar 1 4
9 Guitar 2 5
10 Guitar 3 6

Etc.

[DavidCoParticipant]

Hi Billy,

Input patching only selects the source for each channel. The order is fixed.

You could use USB audio output patching to reorder your channels at the point of recording, providing they all use channel 1-18. I’m not sure that solves your particular problem though, as Qu Drive multitrack playback is fixed to channels 1-18 (or 1-16 plus ST1 in the case of Qu16). From here I can only suggest recording externally using USB B, or clear labelling of channels 1-18 consecutively (assuming your use case is to separate groups of input channels).

DC

[BillyParticipant]

DC – thank you so much for your response. That answers my question — the Qu-Drive multitrack playback is fixed to channels 1-18. This seems really odd to me given that we can output patch channels 1-24 (as well as other busses). I want to do a virtual sound check by playing back the Qu-Drive recording through the mixer, but since it routes everything to channels 1-18 rather than the channels where the recording came from, it’s all f’d up.

You mention recording with USB B. I haven’t done that yet. Can you assign tracks from a USB B playback to any channel you want (e.g, could I assign track 4 on a USB B playback to channel 8 on the board)? If so I could accomplish what I want by using a laptop instead of the Qu Drive. . . . I’ll see if I can find anything in the manual but if you happen to know off the top of your head I’d appreciate it!

I will now head to the “firmware suggestions” page and point out this limitation on the Qu-Drive playback. In my mind this is an oversight that should be fixed. . . but who knows.

Many thanks!!
Billy

[DavidCoParticipant]

An alternative thought: You could set up your channels consecutively in CH1-18, then use the custom layer to arrange them as you would have before.

DC

[BillyParticipant]

DC — that is a devilishly clever idea!

But I hope AH fixes this issue so that I don’t have to add further complexity to my setup and use of this board.

To me this limitation is tied to another limitation of the board – the absence of digital scribble strips. I overcame that limitation by creating the very clever magnetic scribble strips that another forum user suggested.

We use this board for just our band, but the setup isn’t always the same. Most of the variation comes from different drum setup. Sometimes we can make it work with one 16-channel snake, sometimes we need two snakes. But we have a chart that shows each mic and where it is supposed to be plugged into the snake and the board — every time. Kick is ALWAYS on channel 14. Toms 1-5 are channels 16-20, but sometimes we have 3 toms, sometimes 4, sometimes 5. When we have 3 toms, there are empty channels for the ‘missing’ toms. Overheads are always 21 and 22. This method allows all of our mixes, FX, groups, etc to be consistent across each show. And my laminated magnetic scribble strips are always correct.

I have thought that maybe we should just get our 5 or 6 different setups organized, and then save the different setups / routing / etc as a scene. Maybe that’s the way the board was designed to be used. But then I go back to the scribble strip problem. In addition to calling up the right ‘scene’ I’d have to have 5 or 6 different scribble strip printouts, keep them all organized, and make sure the correct scribble strips are placed on the board to match the setup for that day. Obviously this would be a total PITA.

So all of this is why I say that A&H dropped the ball on this Qu playback issue. At some point every Qu owner probably thinks “Gee did I blow it by not getting the Board Who Will Not Be Named (but that rhymes with “bare integer sex for tea two)” because that board is so packed with features. So far I don’t think I blew it, but I admit the jury is still out. . .

Billy

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