USB Backup

[joel77]

Hi All,

Long time A&H user. Bought my first A&H analog mixers starting with a GL2 decades ago, then GL2200-24 and MixWiz 16. Went digital with a QU32(2016) and SQ5(2021). Love ’em! Recently acquired a CQ20B.

Long story short, I had created a Scene for the band I was mixing on the CQ20B, was getting ready to do a show at a busy casino, could not get the mixer to connect to the external router, somehow reset the mixer and lost my Scene, 20 minutes before show time. I decided then and there that I needed to backup the Scene to a USB thumb drive (which I’ve done succesfully with both QU and SQ mixers).

Later when I fire up the mixer at the shop, insert a new USB thumb drive, format it, I discover that the CQ won’t backup Scenes to the USB drive. After doing some reading here, I discover that I have to backup Shows with Scenes already in the Show folder. Strange, since I’ve been backing up Scenes on both my QU and SQ. Never backed up a Show on either one. OK, so it’s different, no problem.

So last night I was about to setup a Show, when the mixer tells me that in doing so, I’ll lose all my Scenes. Is this right? If I have Scenes that aren’t in a Show folder, they’ll be deleted when I create a Show? If that’s the case, why does the CQ even let me create a Scene that’s not in a Show folder?

This doesn’t sound right to me. What am I missing? Appreciate any input.

Joel

[Max A&H]

Hi Joel

When you recall a Show, it’s true that the Scenes that already exist on your CQ will be overwritten. This is the same as you’ll be used to on your Qu and SQ – as the console only stores one Show with Scenes (100 on CQ) stored within it)
If you store a Show on USB, the Scenes from your CQ will be stored within that Show.

I’ve attached a screenshot from the CQ User Guide which hopefully will provide some more clarity.

Cheers,

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[SQuser]

Or to add to that:
Scenes were always part of shows on your SQ too, but unlike the CQ, you could also save scenes separately on the USB stick.
That’s just not possible with the CQ, but that’s not a bug.

[joel77]

Thank you much. Appreciate the confirmation.
I’ll just have to rebuild the scenes I already have and start again with scenes in a show folder.

[musicnorfolk]

The response here by SQ User has I think answered one of my questions about the file structure on a formatted USB drive on the CQ20b (probably on all the CQ ranges). The format creates a Scene folder of the USB drive but it is always empty even after you have saved scences from the CQ20b. Clearly the formatting process is universal across the Allen Heath mixers which use a USB port but whether the structure is fully used depends on the firmware and software saving the files. Based on the posts here the CQ never saves scenes independently of SHOWS so all saved scences sit in the SHOW folder on the USB drive.

I had a similar issue regards losing my scenes before a gig and thought I was covered as I had backed up my USB drive directory structure to my intel iMac running OSX 15.2. So I simply copied the SHOW folder back to the drive under the AHCQ folder. But this still didn’t work as the Mixpad software could not see the file. Still haven’t discovered why but Im guessing that maybe the mac OSX has added a hidden system file to the USB drive when the copy back was done which stopped the CQ or the Mixpad software from seeing the SHOW folder.

I noted that when I then saved a new SHOW folder the save from the CQ named the folder as SHOWxxx1 (so it saw SHOWxxx0 as on the drive) but on the mixpad screen it only displayed the name I had named it with 0000 and not 0001 in the name label bottom right corner) but was actually loading the data from the SHOW0001.dat file from the drive as it could not read SHOW0000.dat which was in the SHOW folder I had copied from the iMac.

So further investigation for me as to what the issue is here before I get confident about my backup strategy from USB stick to computer.

My next troubleshooting step task : Look at the USB drive with the OSX system displaying any hidden files to see if any appear on the drive which might be throwing the CQ software out of whack lol.

David

[joel77]

Thanks for that info David.

I haven’t been back to the CQ since posting this. I’m just glad I only have one scene on the mixer. Won’t take that much to rebuild. Might try saving some of the info to the Library. I need to learn to use that anyway. Might be a good way to “get my feet wet”. And I’ll be sure that I setup Show folders for different acts, with Scenes built into the Show folders. Shouldn’t have this issue again. Which, as it turns out, is user error, not the mixer. There I go assuming again!! LOL

Still seems strange to me that we could backup Scenes on the QU and SQ series (without having to build them in a Show folder), but then I’m no software programmer and certainly am not complaining. I love Allen & Heath mixers. They have always been good to me. Easy to setup and use and I’ve always loved the sound I get from them. …… well, there have been a few acts that sucked, but even a $50,000 mixer wasn’t going to help the talent (or lack thereof)! LOL

I’m not sold on the built in wireless of the CQ mixers. Works great (mostly) in the shop, but fails me every time I work a busy room. Or at the very least is unreliable, in my experience. I bought a longer antenna on the recommendation of someone here (if I remember correctly), but even that doesn’t help. All I had to do was spend a little time learning to setup an external router and throw one in the bag. No problem, I’ve been using external routers since I bought my first QU in 2016.

Hope you get your issues figured out.

Here’s to a great year of awesome music!

Joel
Glaser Audio Productions, LLC

[musicnorfolk]

Not sure how you reply to someone on this board so they will see it.

Anyway thanks joel77 for your response, Im still chasing down the problem I had with copying my SHOW folder back to my USB pen drive from my computer and getting the CQ to see the contents after the copy. Ive no idea why my USB drive file suddenly didn’t communicate correctly with the mixer. All the files were still on it and readable on my computer, just not via mixpad.
However as reset was probably somewhere in the issue, it could be that the mixer needed turning off completely and the mixpad software rebooted to get them all in step to communicate with each other. And I couldn’t say for certain whether I did this.
Anyway doing some more constructive and detailed tests on this to see if i can discover the answer.

I did see during my reading that the CQ software is not designed to save Scenes to the scene specific folder only to the SHOW folder as part of the SHOW save, thats different to the SQ range which does save scenes separately.

Im also trying to understand whether the card format and speed issues which relate to the SD dive and compatible storage cards of which there are several A&H articles covering it, also apply to USB pendrives.

I know the USB B port is only running at USB 2.0 Highspeed standard in its comms to the computer and I’m presuming that speed is also the highest speed that the A drive will communicate with any external pen drive attached. So file loss / corruption may occur if the external storage is too fast?

Any observations from your own or other readers experience welcome.

Cheers
David

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