Save Shows on Desk

[AREA51Participant]

Dear all,

this request is so basic that I think there is a reason why this wasn’t implemented till now…
I can understand that this feature is working on dLive and SQ is a minor brother… and I stop here.

But really, it’s very important for so many reason to have the possibility to save, recall shows on the desk, first of all there are still a lot of issues with usb sticks (I use only the best listed…) and in a local rental company as we are, our desks are used by many sound engineers, staff or externals, for different shows in the same period or the desk can go out for rent…

Ok as we all know everyone should check and reconfigure the desk everytime but really.. these are amazing machines, overtaking this limit can really be very smart to use it (in particular for the less experts givin them a user with pre-programmed whole configuration as parachute) and I’m sure that anyone is working with SQ is thinking about it… We don’t need thousands scenes in only one show… We need a lot of Shows with Scenes inside

😉 all the best guys!

[volounteerParticipant]

That limitation did seem strange. It is too bad that the USB is such a problem.
Maybe they could add an SD card internally that could hold permanent memory like many shows each with 100 scenes.

[AREA51Participant]

ahahah I though there was more people interested in this topic… so it’s just me that everytime my mixers come come back home I have to check audio configurations 😀 ahahah

[KeithJ A&HModerator]

Hey @maxmaff,

You’re right in that there’s a reason for this, and it’s due to hardware.
With SQ, it will always be the case that managing multiple shows is either through using a USB device or (with the recent update) through SQ-MixPad’s offline mode.
(I actually have shows on my android phone now 🙂 )

Cheers,
Keith.

[AREA51Participant]

Dear Keith,

thank you for your prompt answer, I don’t know what hardware limitation is on the base of this matter but in this case the concept of Shows and local scene and libraries are losing a little bit the sense for me (I mean in the way we are using our desks) 😀

I would like to do this exercise, assuming that we wouldn’t like to manage every time audio configuration and I/O patch recalling something already stored, to let you enter in our point of view.

If I well understand with the concept of Shows on USB, every sound engineer that is using our desks should remember to save on his own usb stick the current show with scenes and libraries because tomorrow the next engineer could recall his own Show wiping and overwriting all the desk.. local scenes included. In this case the local scene are useful only for the current show and they have to be stored at the end of every Show that you would repeat.

On the other hand we can avoid to use Save/Recall Shows (for me should be renamed simply as “SQ Memory”) and use only Scenes and I/O patch libraries to associate the whole desk configuration in 2 files and they can be kept both on desks and on our personal usb sticks. I’m thinking also on the fantastic concept of users… I give them a quota of scenes that maybe tomorrow someone could delete forever.. (?)

At this point, could it be possible to include in one library file the complete audio configuration (mono/stereo I/O) and I/O patch, inputs, outputs, mixes, tie line, usb, etc.. (instead of only input patch library)?

I’m not mother tongue so I hope I have well explained the conflict we have on SQ’s daily use managing these matters.

Thank you in advance for your help and attention.

Massimo
(happy owner of SQ5 SQ6 and a couple of DX168)

[Anonymous]

@KeithJ A&H
Hi Keith
Where do I find how to store Shows onto Android phones?

[KeithJ A&HModerator]

Hi Massimo,

The main different types of storage are shown on pg50 of the reference guide (https://www.allen-heath.com/media/SQ_ReferenceGuide_V1_4_0.pdf#page=50).
You will see there are 3 types:
Console specific (saved in the SQ) – these are settings that belong to that particular desk.
Shows – these are intended for use on a per-show basis. So if you take the console to multiple venues or it is used by different engineers, you have a show for each. These are not instant, as they include configuration and lots of ‘setup’ type parameters. They also contain all the scenes you might want to use during that show, and your own libraries. With SQ, a show file is intended to stay with the engineer and live on a USB (or mobile) device.
Scenes – these are instantly switchable without any audio dropout. They contain different mix settings and patching. Using global/scene filters and safes, you can decide what is actually recalled when a scene is loaded. Therefore, it’s possible to use one scene to recall patching and another to recall the mix 🙂

There are also libraries as you say – it is not possible to store all the I/O in one library, and the concept of an input patch library is not something we’ve ever done before, but as this was possible we felt it made things like virtual soundcheck quicker and easier (otherwise you’d be using the scene+filter method as above). There are many different types of library, but as with scenes, all are stored with the show. There’s more information on the different library types here (https://www.allen-heath.com/media/SQ_ReferenceGuide_V1_4_0.pdf#page=57).

So I think I understand what you’re asking for, but some things have to stay with the show (mixer config for example) and some things can be switched with scenes. You mention having everything in two files, but you already have it in the one show file! So it seems you’re only looking at a different way to get around the fact that the SQ can have one show loaded at a time – but adding this extra storage in the desk would have cost you more than purchasing a USB device, and wouldn’t be portable or easily transferable to SQ-MixPad on a computer…

@nzdave – You can store shows on an android phone with SQ-MixPad! Just pull and then store the show and you can push it back later (or even edit it away from the desk). All the info you need is in SQ-MixPad help, but if you have any difficulty, just contact us using support.allen-heath.com. 🙂

Cheers,
Keith.

[AREA51Participant]

Thank you Keith,
at the end I have to decide in which way we will use our desks on matter of scenes and shows. My worry is just to avoid losing my job just because one night I can forget to save “My Personal Show” and the day after another engineer just upload his own show.

In my original Idea I thought that somehow it could be possible (in a future update) to keep safe the “internal” Show (with scenes and configurations) and load a new one without deleting the “internal”. As the desk could manage 2 shows but 1 at a time (maybe splitting 150 scene per each).

But if I well understand this is not just a software issue but a kind of hardware limitation.

Anyway I love them 😀
Cheers
Massimo

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