Virtual SoundCheck with QU-24

[BriceRDParticipant]

Hi,

Sorry if this has already been discussed in other topics, but couldn’t find the answer to my question, so I decided to create a new topic.

My band and I are the happy owner of a Qu-24 mixer and we recently started to play with virtual sound check in order to tune our sound during live show while being in front of the PA as if we were the audience.

Here is how we do it:
– Plug all instruments to the back of the board. We have DI for bass, digital pedal board for the guitars and e-drums. So no noise on the scene
– Route all the local output into our DAW (in this case Studio One 4.5) so as to perform a multitrack USB recording of each channels on our computer
– Play a couple of songs while recording them
– We then re-route each single channel from the DAW back into the Qu-24 board switching the input from local to USB-B

This is working perfectly, the only issue we have is that when we play back the tracks from the Daw into the board, the sound level is much higher as compared to when we play directly with our instruments. We have no idea why, but this is pretty annoying in order for us to fine tune the level of our FoH speakers for the audience. Any idea why ? It looks like if the gain when we play the tracks back from the DAW is higher than the gain when we play directly with the instruments. Any advice on how to do a proper Virtual Soundcheck with Qu-24 and a DAW (Ideally Studio One) ??

Thanks a lot for your help
Brice

[BriceRDParticipant]

Anybody interested to help ??

[KeithJ A&HModerator]

Hi @bricerd,

Other users here may be able to give you more useful information about particular DAW’s and I must confess to not being very familiar with Studio One, but hopefully can help a little.

The point of a virtual soundcheck is of course to setup all processing and monitoring as if you were carrying out a traditional soundcheck, but by instead recording and playing back individual channels.
With a VSC, it is best practice to record the signal from as close to the beginning of the signal path as possible for each channel, and then play the signal back ideally at the same point, and same level.
As you have found, this can be tricky to achieve because of the routing options and gain staging involved.
You have the direct out gain stage when recording and levels in the DAW plus channel trim for USB input during playback.

Note that preamp gain is only for preamps, when using the USB input this will switch to a trim on the channel and when switching between inputs you will see these change because they belong to the input rather than the channel processing.

So for a reproducible setup, I would recommend the following:

1. If using a ME system – Set your USB output patch to use ‘Insert Sends’ for the output (this leaves the direct out available for the ME system to use to include channel processing if required)
2. If not using a ME system – Set your USB output patch to use ‘Direct Outs’, set your global direct out source to ‘Post Preamp’ and set the Direct Out trims to 0dB
3. Loop the Mix1 output to any line input (if you just have jack cables, you can assign the mix to the Alt Out and connect this to a line input instead)
4. Set this input to local and back off the gain completely (make sure this input is not being sent to Mix1!)
5. Set the SigGen to a 1k Sine @ 0dB and switch it on for Mix1
6. Turn up the gain on your input channel until you see the preamp meter at 0dB
7. Record this input channel into your DAW
8. Play the recording back to the same Qu input channel you recorded from and ensure this is the only thing you are sending/routing to that channel (i.e. avoid sending the individual channel and the main mix to this Qu channel)
9. Switch the Qu input channel to USB and set the trim to 0dB
10. Tweak the send level from your DAW until the preamp meter on the Qu is at 0dB again
11. Get rid of the recording of the test tone and add in the maximum number of channels for your console (so that could be up to 30 channels for the Qu-24)
12. Set up all your input and output routing for recording/playback using the individual channels as you’ve done before
13. Take the send level offset from the channel you adjusted and apply it to every channel, whether that’s with a gain/volume plugin or just the fader level (this will depend on how the DAW works and how you are sending from it)
14. Store this on your computer as your virtual soundcheck template DAW project for reuse

When using this setup, the gain stages are fixed in the DAW and USB playback so don’t touch these again. You need only concentrate on preamp gain, so if you notice something is too quiet or loud when playing back it’s the actual ‘live’ preamp gain that needs adjusting.

Hope this makes sense!
Cheers,
Keith.

[BriceRDParticipant]

Dear Keith,
Thanks a lot for your message. Sorry for my ignorance, but what is an ME system ?

Cheers
Brice

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

ME Personal Mixing System

[ioTonParticipant]

Because I could’t find the reason for this behaviour: panning-law!

https://community.allen-heath.com/forums/topic/virtual-soundcheck-6db-louder-than-recorded-level#post-107867

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law
greetings dd

[Author]

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