Qu-Pac Buss Combine

[Glen]

There is one thing you guys can do. I have been asking for years to have one additional feature added to the firmware. You should add a buss combine function. This would make the Qu-Pac perfect for hotel ballrooms that divide into many separate sections, with multiple sections used in different combinations. A buss combine function and a Qu-Control user button to activate it would allow rooms to be combined with just one button and operation by hotel employees with no technical skills extremely simple. This would open a whole new market for you and the ability for the banquet manager to combine rooms and adjust levels via an iPad without running to a back room where the equipment is located makes this a perfect choice for any hotel install. Your sales people have always told me that I should do this via scenes, but when you switch scenes, everything changes, even levels you may have just adjusted. A buss combine would not change any other settings. You can use “safe” mode to keep channel settings from changing when switching scenes, but a separate scene would need to be created for every possible room combination, which would be more than you could assign to soft keys for a location with just 5 or 6 ballroom sections. A simple buss comebine would have each room assigned to an output and an easy “combine 1 & 2”, “combine 2 & 3” and so on. I am using other methods to adapt the Qu-Pac for multisection hotel ballrooms, but buss combine would be much easier and the staff doesn’t need to see the digital mixer functions, just the necessary Qu-Control buttons I create.

[Mike C]

How would having all the possible “buss combine” combinations be any different than using preset scene recalls for each combination?
How many total combinations are there that they normally use.

The Qu Q Control app is perfect for installations.

[Glen]

Let’s just consider the Marriott hotel in Melville NY. The ballroom there breaks up into 12 sections, plus a hallway down the center when it is split in half and multiple events can be happening at the same time. We can combine just 1 & 2; 1, 2 & 3; 1, 2, 3 & 4; 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6; 1 & 2 + 3 & 4; 1 & 2 + 3, 4 & 5; 1 & 2 + 3, 4, 5 & 6; 1 & 2 + 4, 5 & 6; 1 & 2 + 5 & 6 and I’m just getting started on one half of the space. Do you see where this can get crazy real fast?

[Mike C]

Yea those zone configs are adding up fast! Still think pre built scenes would work, going in to combine mixes would not be as easy as a scene recall.
Any sort of dedicated install matrix DSP would require built up scenes for each configuration and require a way to recall them.

Maybe build up and save some of the most common used setups as scenes and then
on an as needed basis for complex events build up a specific scene.

Still using scenes but you can set up scene recall’s using MIDI.
The Q control app will only hold 75 control widgets.

[Glen]

The problem is that the hotel staff is never technical at all and they just want to see simple Qu-Control buttons. They will never add a midi device or remember a list of different room combinations, even if the list is printed out, it will quickly get destroyed. All they want to see is a simple “combine 1 & 2” button and then a simple combine 2 & 3 button and so on. Less buttons, simple to understand and hard to screw up. This would be a fantastic market for the Qu-Pac. Every Marriott was built using and FSR combine system and not one of them works correctly. (I travel around doing events) Some of these have been replaced by Symetrix systems that are great, until there is a problem, and I know several that can’t get service or working replacements, because the newer units are not compatible with the older ones. That means they must replace everything at a very high cost. Qu-Pac would do it for less, work better has front panel & remote control and doesn’t require a PC and software to make changes. My install customers love the idea.

[Giga]

Maybe it’s simpler to cook up something like an analog switching panel ? Press once ads a mix, press a second time and it’s gone. Feed all the mix outputs to dedicated switches and spread them out as you/they please.

Giga

[Mike C]

Maybe look the Allen Heath AHM processor

I have used the Q Control app set up with dedicated buttons to fire scene recalls for speaker zone config changes at installs….not as many as you would have but still it works perfect.

[Glen]

There are several ways to do it, just none that would be as simple and easy to explain to a nontechnical staff at the buss combine concept.

[Mike C]

I can’t see how it could be any simpler then hitting a Q Control button labeled “combine 1 – 2. Said button can be mapped to directly load the scene that does that combination.

[Glen]

But that scene when selected may uncombine other rooms, so a scene must be created for every possible combination and that’s way too many scenes and buttons. You can put the channels in safe mode to not change channel settings, but that may also prevent buss assign settings. Say what you want, but there is NO OTHER WAY to do simple room combine than a buss combine function. I have done it other ways at locations with 4 or 5 or even 6 ballroom sections, but beyond that it gets very messy and the other methods don’t work anymore or become very confusing for the user.

[Mike C]

Ok I give you that, I did not not think about the other rooms possible combinations
when say rooms 1, 2 and 3 are combined and in use.
That said keeping the system open to almost any possible room combinations will be tricky
for the day to day casual user to configure.

[Glen]

Additionally, if each room has multiple inputs and you have to create a submix for each room, it gets even more complex. There are 4 submixes and then the Fx sends can be used as additional submixes and even possibly the 2 matrix (but more confusing and not the same functionality) and then you have to combine those submixes, it gets even more complex. Buss combine solves everything.

[Mike C]

The FX sends can not be converted to mixes but the four groups can be.

Using a stage box, in your case it sounds like it would need to be the AR2412 you can patch the mix sources to multiple outputs as needed in any combination. The mixes would
still need to be configured with the needed inputs for the combined rooms.

On the iPad app the IO patching is in the form of a matrix grid where you highlight the grid cross points to make the patch and hit the apply button.

The outputs on the mixer are hardwired but the stage box is fully configurable.

[Glen]

I just did one where I used Fx1 as an extra submix, post fader, simple delay with the time all the way down and the return assigned to the correct output mix or mixes as selected by the user.

[Mike C]

If you have not already done so you can convert the four sub groups to operate as four stereo mixes, giving you a total of 11 mixes.

[Author]

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