Recording playback and skipping

[DJsyParticipant]

I dont normally use my CQ-20 for recording but lent it to my daughter’s school to record their Carol Concert only to find that the multitrack recording contained multiple point where the recording skipped throughout the event.

On the fly I was unable to work out how to play the test recording back through the headphones during the rehearsals so didn’t pick this up until I got home that night.

Problem 1: any help on how to listen back to the recording through headphones would be appreciate as I could find no way to do it on the day.

The SD card I was recording onto was a fairly new high speed one that I have no problem using for multitrack and have since stress tested it on Logic and also on a M32 board and a Zoom and it recorded fine simultaneously recording 8 channels on the Zoom and 20 on the M32 without dropout so di not think the card was the problem (I also didn’t see the stress monitor budge from the beginning of the green through the recording on the CQ).

The CQ was only recording 6 channels so shouldn’t have been a challenge for it.

Problem 2: I can’t go back in time and save the recording of my daughters concert, but what on earth would be causing such multitrack recording skipping on what would normally be considered good quality kit?!?

Thanks

[KeithJ A&HModerator]

Hi DJsy,

Multitrack playback from SD is covered in the user guide here – https://www.allen-heath.com/content/uploads/2023/09/CQ_User_Guide_V1_1_0_iss1.pdf#page=55&zoom=auto,-361,595
Essentially, you just need to switch the source of any channel you’re recording from analogue to USB/SD and then hit play.

You haven’t mentioned the spec of the SD card, but the CQ uses SDHC.
It’s counter-intuitive, but cards that are marked as faster may not actually perform as well because they work in a slightly different way.
There’s a lot more information here – https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/articles/20018693934481-How-to-choose-which-SD-card-to-use-with-CQ-consoles

If you were using an SDHC card however, please contact us through support.allen-heath.com so we can try and get to the bottom of this.

Thanks,
Keith.

[JohnParticipant]

It’s counter-intuitive, but cards that are marked as faster may not actually perform as well because they work in a slightly different way.

Counter-intuitive indeed! I had incorrectly assumed that the SD card speed requirement were minimums, so I bought a PNY 128GB Premier microSDXC Class 10 U3. With that card, I see regular dropouts in our 16-track 96k recordings.The buffer usage meter on the recording page mostly hovers close to 0, but every 30 seconds or so, it gradually increases up and sometimes then peaks into the red. (Those peaks correspond to the dropouts).

I found an old Sandisk Ultra 32gb microSDHC U1 card. I just swapped that in and I’m testing a recording right now. So far it looks promising (the buffer usage meter looks like it’s staying near 0).

[Lee7Participant]

I have been using the Sandisk Ultra Class 10, 32mb, 80 mb/s and 120 mb/s SDHC cards without any problems. Work flawlessly.

🙂

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