SQ SQ-Drive

[TonyParticipant]

Great! Thanks again for the info regarding your recordings. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.
Regards, Tony

[EthanParticipant]

Yann, a 2015 macbook pro has a built in SSD, so you should have no problem. The problem (at least in my case) was Logic settings. Take a look at this thread for more info: https://community.allen-heath.com/forums/topic/collection-of-wishes

Basically, in Logic you need to change the “Project Settings” to be 48khz instead of 44.1 or whatever.

[monkiParticipant]

I need to invest in a external USB 2.0 HDD for multitrack recording with my SQ-5.

Do you reckon this one would work well?
WD MyPassport AV-TV

thanks

[andrasarParticipant]

Hi monki,

check out this link.

QU compatible Devices

There are some SQ related devices mentioned as well.

[monkiParticipant]

thanks, but there are very few items on that list that state multitrack compatibility with the SQ. What’s worse, all ”Tested by A&H” lines in that sheet are timestamped to a date preceding the release of the SQ-series. Guess I will have to contact A&H directly.

I would appreciate the SQ desks getting their own compatibility sheet, as multitracked 96k recording requires much more grunt and performance.

[Bo JamesParticipant]

Has anyone recorded out of the SQ drive straight to an SSD? Is it stable?

[monkiParticipant]

I will be getting an external USB SSD on Monday, I’ll let you know how it works as a SQ-drive when I have had the time to test it a few times.

[PiersParticipant]

I used the SQ drive (via SSD) & multitrack recorded a 2 hour show the other night.
It worked perfectly.. 👍

[stylosParticipant]

hi Piers,

what brand/model ssd drive did you use?

[PiersParticipant]

The drive was a Samsung M3 1TB.
Was a bit of a pain formatting via Mac OS (so that the desk could format it itself, but once done it recorded all the tracks with zero errors.

Hope that helps.

[stylosParticipant]

thanks piers

[monkiParticipant]

What parameters did you use in disk utility to format the drive, if I may ask?

[PiersParticipant]

I’m now running OSX Mojave. I did have some formatting issues using the OSX disk utility, running Sierra at that time. Hopefully High Sierra fixed the mounting issues when trying to format an external drive in the MS-DOS (FAT) format.

Anyway, if you open disk utility and go to the erase tab once you’ve selected the drive to format. By default, it’ll want to format in the ‘Mac OS Extended (journaled) format, but just change the format tab to ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’.. Then, connect the drive to the mixer and reformat from there.

Hope that helps 🙂

[JTRJAMMERParticipant]

My experiences with USB-B to laptop and USB SQ-Drive:

– 1st attempt was multitrack via USB-B at 96kHz to Macbook Pro 2016: Using OS X High Sierra, Logix Pro-X, and the local SSD drive I couldn’t get more
than 10 tracks to record without locking up. Haven’t had time to experiment to see what limited this, or try another DAW like Digital Performer, or use
an external USB drive connected to the Macbook. Appreciate anyone else’s experience.
– 2nd attempt was via SSD, Seagate Backup Plus 1TB connected to SQ-Drive. Recorded 2 hours, 16 tracks, worked perfect, good recording
– 3rd attempt again with Seagate SSD, 16 tracks, little over 2 hour session, I pulled the drive too soon after stopping record so the SQ-Drive hadn’t finished
writing the tails on the files, ended up with 16 files of 512b, fail. However, connected the drive to WIN10 machine, ran error correciton and it rebuilt the files
successfully as raw wave files. Then had to import/export into/out of Audacity to create the final head/tail of the files to be recognized as wave files, success and
again good recording.

Lessoned learned, when using the SQ-Drive be sure and wait till the yellow USB activity light stops blinking before you pull the drive. This can seem to take forever. I’m now shopping for an UPS, but haven’t timed it to see how long it really takes to completely write out a 16-track 4 hour session so I can make sure the UPS will run long enough to complete as with UPS run time adds to cost of the unit. The only thing that seems a bit wonky at this point is the start/stop of recording, probably my own impatience, but it can get a bit confusing whether you are still running or not. Also, given the length of time to finalize the files I wouldn’t recommend trying to stop for a break and then re-start as the files my not have been written out by the time you need to start recording again, just my perception and again appreciate anyone else’s experience with this.

[airickessParticipant]

@JTRJAMMER – There is a little red circle at the top righthand corner of the touch screen on the SQ that appears when you are recording. If the SQ is armed for recording but not yet recording then a little PAUSE symbol appears next to the red circle. I believe these symbols persist on the screen when you change to any other view on the touch screen (even though I have changed screen views I haven’t gone through every single screen while recording).
A decent-sized capacity UPS should give you more than enough time for your drive to finalize tracks, unless you’ve many devices on the UPS, which will decrease its run time.

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