Sudden power outage on QU serie

[mtkoParticipant]

Hello to everyone,

i have one important question about QU-16 (so basically QU serie). We all know that on the analog mixers there is no problem if power outage suddenly happens…I do not want to have always UPS with me because all musicians do not want to have a lot of equipment on gigs. With analog mixer there was no problem, outage happens and when the electricity come back, everything that was set on the mixer (EQ etc) stayed the same. But what about digital QU mixer? Will also stayed the same?

Let say that I come to gig (I am one man band, I sing, I use about seven inputs on the mixers always), I take let say about 15-20 minutes on mixer before I start with the gig (to set EQ, gate etc for the specific place where I am going to play for around 6-7 hours), I prepare everything for my gig, I start playing, let say that I play for two hours and then suddenly outage happens (due to bad weather or something like that).

In that case, what happens with all the sets that were made before starting with the gig? Do I need to set everything once again (EQ etc) from the beginning? Does something bad happens with the mixer (with the operating system of the mixer or something like that)? That is not the thing that would happen at every gig (I always follow the needed procedure to shut down the mixer) but it can happen let say once per year. And what will happen then? I would not like that something bad happens to my mixer and that I could not been able to continue with gig.

I would like to be prepared to that situation, that I would completely know what to do in that case. With old analog board i have not had to do anything, when the electricity came back, I just continue with my playing without settings anything (that happened 3-4 times in last 10-years of playing around). And know with digital mixer? What will happen?

Thanks for your answer, I would really appreciate if you can provide all important things connected with the theme.

[Flo84Participant]

Hello,

The main advantage with a digital mixer is that you can save the settings and be able to recall them 😉
As the Qu series.

You can prepare your gig at home, save settings and recall them on stage.
Adjust settings in situation and re save them.

If you have a power failure you can recall the settings.

I advise you to read the manual managing scenes for informations (page 58 last revision -9-).

Personally I use a small and light UPS and it has served me more than once …

Best.

[mtkoParticipant]

Thanks for your answer, I really appreciate it!

I know that I can save the settings and be able to recall them, also I would always save the settings after I prepare all the things before the gig. But would there be some problems with mixer? Can sudden outage of the electricity somehow damage my mixer? Can that cause some problems with operating system or something like that? I do not want, that I would play for let say 3 hours, then the outage happens and after it I would not be able to continue with playing, because the mixer report me a problem, or it would not power on or maybe it would not work correctly anymore or something like that.

And like i said, i do not want to travel around with UPS because it is another one piece of all the other things that i need for my gig. Going to digital mixer was important for me because on analog you have just EQ, on digital mixer you have everything you need (so everything you need in one box).

Thanks again.

Best.

[WaihekeSoundieParticipant]

When the QU 16 is re-booted it remembers the settings at powerdown regardless of whether saved as scenes– seems to be pretty good- I lost power and when it returned the desk just re-booted pretty much exactly as was prior to the power loss as far as I could see. This is a MAJOR plus as far as I am concerned.
Some desks do lose all their settings unless saved a scene.

[Dick ReesParticipant]

Save everything to a USB stick if you’re concerned about it.

But if you are in an area where power surges and/or outages are common, you should REALLY be using a double-conversion in-line UPS to protect your investment if nothing else. A strong surge could fry your gear beyond repair.

[DoctorGParticipant]

It has been stated that the QU comes up in the state in which it was powered down, so in your proposed situation, nothing would be lost.

However, if you have implemented security, you cannot change anything on the mixer, except the Main fader, I think, until you log in, and if you log in as the same user, even if a scene is associated with that user, the mixer will retain the configuration it held when powered down. Be sure you understand the security options described in section 10.4 of the user manual.

Heed the above suggestions to save your settings from time to time as you make changes.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

You’ll be fine – recording will be dead though.

I’ve had this when a venue failed to declare a noise limiter

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

I ran a small stage at a festival last year, where I was given power from a dodgy generator that shut down every 20 minutes or so until the power company eventually replaced it after about half way through the day. Desk was fine & resumed where it left off, but each time required logging in, and re-establishing/logging in to my Wifi which was a pain.

I now keep a smallish UPS in the van and use it for desk & router whenever I’m recording, or if I’m on a generator for power.

[AndreasModerator]

Just imagine that: To restore the “current” setup, the console needs to save that data somewhere. This is probably done from time to time or whenever something changed. If outage happens just in that moment, when the console tries to save bunch of data, I wouldn’t guarantee that this always could be finalized in a consistent state. Maybe the console has some kind of circuits to detect loss of power and does not even try to update that information (in order to avoid corruption). I guess there is a reason for the shutdown dialog which basically saves current state and then stops UI operation.
Even that I’m currently running my console within an install where mains is cut without shutting down and the console recovered fine each day from previous state, I wouldn’t rely on that in a live situation (and always have my UPS with me).

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a cache capacitor to preserve data being written internally

[mtkoParticipant]

Thanks guys for all posts. I hope that when something happen with electricity during the gig (what is not predictable and it happen to everyone sometimes) everything will be ok and that i will be able to continue with playing after the come back of electricity. That is really important for me. Thanks again! 🙂

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

My issue involved a dSnake as well, it always came back perfectly. I was seriously impressed (and cross)

[joel77Participant]

I never do a gig anymore without my UPS.

Not only avoids unplanned shut downs, it also helps to keep the power constant and clean.

For me, it is WAY worth the price and having to cart around another piece of gear.

[A3aanParticipant]

I think it’s a good idea to invest in a reliable UPS – what type should I select for my Qu-PAC? Many types available: https://www.apc.com/us/en/faqs/FA157448/

Advise anyone?

[joel77Participant]

I bought THIS ONE

Mounted it in a spare 8 space rack that I have. Strapped it on top of a big, 16 space rack on heavy duty wheels that houses my wireless units.

Works great for me.

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