SQ-6 USB B Recording/Virtual Soundcheck via Tie Lines or IP Direct Outs?

[caharden7]

So I have a SQ-6 for our church and love it, we’ve just purchased a SQ-5 for our second campus that we will be launching soon. Up until this point we’ve had a basic setup of how we use the system utilizing a AR2412 as well as ME-1’s with our PA. I’ve been wanting to take it to the next level with our band and start recording our worship services via the USB B interface to our MacBook for our music director and I believe I’ve figured that out and the way I’ve been doing that is by patching from the Local and Slink sources to the IP Direct Outputs to the USB and into the Studio One DAW on our computer with the SQ as the audio device. Now that I know about Virtual Soundchecks, I wanted to be able to implement them for our band to be able to hear themselves as an audience member and so that I could work on the sound in the room when the band isn’t there. I tried to do my research and figured out to do that I’d have to reroute all the inputs from the local sockets and instead receive them from the USB B instead to be able to play back the tracks, and so I saved two different input patchings in the Library on the I/O Screen to do that and be able to switch back and forth between them. Now to my understanding to do the virtual soundcheck, when I play back the tracks they should sound exactly as the live performance since I’m not doing any additional processing to the signal on the computer and am just playing back the raw (IP Direct Out) recording back into all of the input channels that have all of the processing on them, but it does not and that is my problem. I believe the IP Direct Out source on all the channels are Post-Preamp so no processing should be included in the recording if I’m not mistaken. I’ve been trying to troubleshoot this myself and on these forums I’ve found people recommending using Tie Lines. And if I understand correctly from reading the block diagrams of the signal flow, Tie Lines take the raw signal from the input socket and IP Direct Outs don’t? And how does the Input and Output routing work if I wanted to do Virtual Soundchecks using Tie Lines? I just need a little bit more clarity on this subject and need to know what I got wrong doing all of this. Thanks in advance for the help!

[Anonymous]

Hi Corey,

If you have multitrack recordings in a DAW, you may find that you need to change the output routing of the DAW. By default, most DAWs’ have all the inputs routed to the master LR track. You will need to change the output routing of the DAW to be the in the DAW Preferences.

On the I/O Page of the SQ, you need to assign the input channels to the USB B. You will then receive audio signal from the DAW to the input channels of the SQ to carry out a Virtual Soundcheck. Using this method, the tracks will sound exactly the same as the live performance when being sent to your SQ.

I hope this helps and if you require any further assistance with this, please submit a ticket at support@allen-heath.com and we will be happy to help.

Kindest Regards,
Nicole

[caharden7]

That’s what I did, all the sends of each recorded track out of my DAW are going right back into their respective channels on the SQ, It just wasn’t sounding the same when I played them all back through the input channels they were recorded from. Was using IP Direct Outs the correct way to do it?, or do I have to use Tie Lines?, and if so, how? I’m still not completely understanding the use of Tie Lines yet.

[KeithJ A&H]

Hi @caharden7,

I find the easiest way to think about the differences between the two on SQ as follows:

Input Direct Outputs: Signal taken from a tap off point of an input processing channel (one of SQ’s 48 input channels). Useful for monitoring or recording some or all of the signal processing.
Tie Lines: Signal taken directly from an input socket after conversion (so post-analogue preamp, only phantom, gain and pad settings will affect this). This is before any processing has been applied, including trim or width. Therefore you are not limited by number of processing channels, or affected by anything you do to the mix.

As you say, for virtual soundcheck, you effectively want to ‘pretend’ a recorded signal is the live signal, and for this reason I would suggest making use of Tie Lines.
You just need to route the same sources (input sockets) you are using live to the destinations (output sockets) you are using to record.
Then, as in your case you are using USB-B and a DAW, just send the channels back from your DAW and repatch the inputs from USB-B (as you have been already).
As long as you set the output levels from the DAW correctly (a one time operation and the same for all channels) then you are effectively feeding the input channels with exactly the same signal 🙂

Hope this helps!
Keith.
PS- The following knowledgebase article might be useful too (https://support.allen-heath.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/sq-signal-path)

[caharden7]

Thank you Keith! I will try this next time we go to record.

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