SQ physical personal mixing device

[ZachParticipant]

Does anyone know of a physical personal mixing device compatible with the SQ for controlling a specific aux? I’m envisioning something similar to the SQ4You app, but a compact physical device with physical knobs or sliders that taps into one of the auxes on the main console. Our livestream personnel currently use an app for mixing our livestream aux, but physical controls would be much preferred as the crew often has to multitask, and adjusting on a touch screen simply isn’t as fast or convenient.

I’ve looked at the A&H personal monitors (ME-500, ME-1), which seemed really great at first, but these seem to be for creating a NEW mix to output to the musician’s headphones, not for remote-controlling one of the main console’s auxes, do I have that right?

Are there other options I’m missing, either from A&H or third party?

[SteffenRParticipant]

The SQ is not intended to do such things.
Avantis, dLive and AHM series can use wired (IP) controllers. But not the SQ.

Mixing Station can work with MIDI controllers, and you can configure it to use just one mix.

OTH you can use any MIDI device to control some basic functionality.
But it needs preparation and converters or other software.

Resources

[ZachParticipant]

Good to know. Is this an example of what you’re referring to for the Avantis/dLive series?

IP8

Also, do these IP devices sync 2 ways? (Meaning, adjustments on the main console are reflected on the IP controller sliders, and vice versa?)

For our SQ needs, controlling Mixing Station with a MIDI controller seems like the best approach to pursue.

[mfusaParticipant]

+1 on Steffan’s comment. If this is a requirement, look at Mixing Station plus something like the Behringer x-Touch as a midi control surface. Depending on how wild you get, you may start to approach the cost of (likely) the more ideal way to do this which would be to buy another SQ and duplicate the signals with something like and Slink, Dante, or Waves. This is what we moved to after having briefly stopped over on the aux/app method you mentioned.

[ZachParticipant]

mfusa — Like pairing an SQ5 to our main SQ7? I’ve heard of connecting two full-blown consoles likes that but haven’t looked into it yet. Other than price, my main concern is what complexity that might add, or possibly security concerns, as we wouldn’t want the livestream crew to be able to do change scenes or levels for the main mix or any other aux. Would one of the SQ’s be configured as a slave somehow? Or would they both have full control?

[mfusaParticipant]

You could absolutely pair different model SQ’s. I actually use a GLD at FOH and SQ5 at livestream. I use Waves cards in each because I wanted the ability to use SuperRack for processing. So, while you don’t haven’t to do that, consider if you want that ability as part of your expansion plan. Whether you use Dante, Waves, or Slink expansion cards the goal is similar. You are sending a copy of the FOH channel to the secondary board as if that board was totally separate. The new SQ is not a remote control or slave, it’s a separate board with its own inputs (sort of). In theory you don’t even have to use an AH board for the livestream. I started with a Midas M32 at livestream because I just plopped a Waves card in it. Eventually moved to SQ because it was familiar (to GLD users) and more capable than M32. From a security standpoint, this is 1000% more secure than an “app” control of the main board aux because, in theory, that app could take over control of the FOH mix if security settings aren’t locked down. Not possible in this mirror setup.

I’m happy to take this offline and chat with you about our setup. DM me with your phone or email address.

[BrianParticipant]

I think using Mixing Station with motorized Midi faders (Behringer X-Touch, X-Touch Extender, Waves Fit Controller, etc) would be the best and least expensive option. You can build a “top of the line” option like I describe below, or use something as simple as a 10″ Android tablet ($80) and a used Behringer X-Touch Extender ($325). I actually have that myself and it works great. Long story short, you can build something that fits your budget and always add to it later if needed.

If you are looking for the “top of the line” solution, you basically build a “Waves LV1″ clone with a large touch screen and motorized midi faders.
Here is what is needed for something like that:
24” Dell touchscreen – $300-400
Waves Fit Controller – $1200 (You could also use 2x Behringer X-Touch Extenders or something else, but I think the Wave Fit Controller is the best designed device for this application which makes sense because it was designed specifically for the LV1 system)
Old computer (usually free because everyone has one laying around somewhere, but well under $200 including taxes and shipping if you had to purchase a used one)
Mixing Station Desktop License – $20?? (I already own it, so I cannot see the current price listed)

Finally you need to have audio at this mixing location. There are lots of ways to accomplish this. If it’s in the same location as the FOH console, it could be as simply as connecting a headphone amp to physical outputs of the system (Behringer Powerplay P1 – $80). If it’s not, then using audio over cat5 is probably the cheapest way to bring in audio (like a Soundtool Cat4 or Radial Engineering Catapult Mini) – $250-300. Another solution is to use a DX box like the DX88p ($999) to bring a system I/O box into the mix.

So for under $2000, you can have a “LV1 clone” with a nice touchscreen and Midi faders. That isn’t super cheap, but it is certainly is cheaper than buying a second console to mix broadcast on. Again, if that is too expensive, then start out without the Midi faders, use less expensive touchscreens, etc, etc. You can always expand the system later.

Another advantage to this solution is that it will work with any console supported by Mixing Station, not just Allen & Heath offerings.

[ZachParticipant]

We actually have our Livestream aux feeding into a compact analog Yamaha board that combines a few other mics we only ever use for livestream (since we wanted physical sliders for those mics). So, I wouldn’t be opposed to considering the more expensive pairing option down the road if that could consolidate into one board for livestream.

Would pairing a second SQ involve the “tie lines” feature? If so, is it possible to send tie lines to the livestream board post FOH fader (or even based on an aux’s levels) so that there’s less mixing for the livestream team? When I read about tie lines, it seems they’re similar to direct outs and bypass all the processing/levels set on the main board. While that would give full control to livestream, we wouldn’t want that level of control and would prefer to start with the FOH processing/levels and making small tweaks in the levels for Livestream. Please correct me if I’m wrong about tie lines.

I know what I’m asking for might be a bit hard to satisfy. The livestream post-fade aux handles levels well 80% of the time, but we’d like to have physical sliders to tweak livestream for the 20%, without requiring the livestream crew to control anything more for the 80%. From what I’m hearing, it sounds like a MIDI controller with Mixing Station is probably the place to start exploring.

[mfusaParticipant]

I do this via Waves Super Rack so it’s a little different than Slink to Slink. However, my understanding is that, if you expand via Slink then you should just need the one card on the FOH board and can plug that into the Slink port on the new LiveStream SQ.

From there, I believe your use case would have two primary possibilities of sending audio between boards:
1) On the FOH board you would configure a one to one tie line for each input to each I/O card output. This would “share” unprocessed inputs between the two boards. No dependence on fader levels, no processing, nothing just raw audio. This requires you to re-do your EQ and dynamic processing on the livestream board (which is sometimes desired).

2) I believe you could also send the “Input Direct Outs”, for each channel, to the I/O card. You can then configure the tap point for Input Direct Out so you could determine where (in the signal chain) the tap is (post EQ, post dynamics, etc). This should allow you to send processed signals to the livestream board so that there is less to do there.

However, in neither of these cases do I think you have an option to send a post-fader signal per input channel meaning the livestream board will need someone to do a full mix.

In my setup, I use Waves Super Rack (via digital insert) to send audio out of the FOH board, be processed, and then send it back to the FOH board (and duplicate to livestream). I also bring crowd mics into the livestream SQ board. In my setup the folks on FOH and Livestream do their own mix. If your FOH mix is good enough 80% of the time (as you mentioned) then maybe this is overkill for you and using the midi controlled, or touchscreen, app is a good enough next step at this time.

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