Seeking advice/recommendations: replacing iLive-T112 with SQ-7 system

[Sam]

We have been using an iLive-T112 with iDR32 system in our church for the past 14 years. After our iLive surface touch screen died recently, we have just been limping along but now we would like to replace the iLive system with a new system and would like to get some advice from all of you in this community who have had similar experience or a comparable situation. What products and system configurations would you recommend or not recommend? What are some of the things you would recommend that we watch out for? We are thinking of replacing our iLive-T112/iDR32 system with a SQ-7 and GX4816. Would you recommend that or something else?

Our iLive-T112 surface is in the control booth in the back of the sanctuary and there are 16 connections in the back of the surface for plugging in our wireless microphones, CD player, ProPresenter iMac, PowerPoint PC, iPod, iPad, camera, etc… and we are finding that we are using all 16 input connections and don’t have any additional input connections for adding more things (e.g. more wireless microphones). Will I find myself having a similar limitation with the SQ-7?

Currently our iDR MixRack is located next to the stage. All the microphones on stage, the floor monitors, main speakers, musical instruments, subwoofers, etc. are plugged into the iDR32 MixRack. We are using 19 of the 32 channels of the MixRack.

How many things can I plug into the SQ-7 board itself? and how many things can I plug into the GX4816 stage box? How is the GX4816 connected to the SQ-7? with a CAT5 cable? any expansion cards required? I don’t need a Dante card, do I? When will I ever need to have a Dante card?

How many channels can the SQ-7 handle? Looks like the SQ-7 has 33 faders and 48 channels right out of the box. But looks like it can be expanded to handle more channels. Is that right? What is required to do that? If I use a SQ-7 together with a GX4816 how many channels will I have? 48 + 48 = 96 or other? I don’t really need 96 channels. We need roughly 20 inputs at the SQ-7 and roughly 20 inputs at the GX4816.

Thank you in advance!

Sam

[Søren Steinmetz]

The SQ7 can handle 48 channels total, just like SQ5 and SQ6

It has 32 XLR and 4 TRS jack on the back.

You can connect the GX4816 with a single Cat 5E or better cable, via the buildt in S-Link/GigAce port on the console.

You can mix and match the 48 processing channels freely between the GX and the console.

Sounds to me you will not be needing a Dante card for your situation.

[Brian]

All of the SQ consoles (SQ5, SQ6, and SQ7) have exactly the same processing power (total number of mixable channels, total number of busses, FX racks,etc) . It’s similar to the iLive system in that regard where there were different sized devices available, but they all had the same processing power. The main differences between the different models is the number of physical faders, custom buttons/rotary knobs, and analog I/O on the back of the console.

This means that all SQ consoles have 48 mixable channels. However you can easily add more than 48 physical XLR inputs to the system. If you added a GX4816 to a SQ7, you would have a total of 80 analog XLR inputs available to use (32 on the back of the SQ and 48 available on stage). However this doesn’t increase the total number of mixable channels available in the console. You will still be limited to 48 channels, but you can source those channels from any of the 80 available analog inputs in this example. Obviously if you actually had 80 inputs plugged into your system, you could still only mix 48 of them.

I do want to warn you about one pretty big limitation to the SQ series that most people don’t learn about until they have already purchased the product and put it into production. Although the console has up to 12 stereo mixes available for monitors etc, the system supports a maximum of 8 mobile devices connected at a time. This means that if you expect your musicians to mix their own monitors, you can only have 8 devices connected. I know in a lot of churches, the musicians are set up to mix their own monitors using mobile devices, so it is important to know about this limitation. It may or may not be a problem in your situation. Please keep in mind that using the A&H ME personal monitors, or a third party monitor option (like Aviom or Klang) would make this limitation moot because people would control their mixes in a different way.

[Sam]

Thank you! Soren

[Sam]

Thank you! Brian

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