[brendanproutParticipant]

We’ve used the sansdisk extreme and find it gets all sorts of artifacts and skips when we do multitrack.
It works nicely for simple stereo recording but we had several weeks in a row where our live service recordings were unusable because of the recording issues. Reformatted, tried another two different A&H recommended USB drives, same result. Couldn’t afford to keep wasting time on that so we went to DAW recording.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Back to topic, I did find that the Aviom AN-16i has enough variablity in its input gain structure adjustment to allow for the padded parallel 1/4″ inputs on the Qu-24 to be used as outputs to feed the Aviom system. Since the inputs are pre-EQ and pre-preamp, they’re messy… some have a very poor signal:noise ratio, depending on how much input level is being sent from the source. But it’s functional with the AN-16i inputs set to -4dB.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Input channels are a factor, as is the card slot, as you mention. Limited digital and analog connectivity means no real solution to implementing IEMs other than the ME1 system, which lacks the onboard stereo effects that MyMix and LiveMix have at the same price point. I can spend extra to get an input expander that would let me send out pre-board inputs to an IEM system, but that makes for really muddy IEM mixes. They need to be post-EQ to be most useful.

These are simply limiting factors in what is overall a very nice board for its size. No complaints about the onboard capacities that it has. For what it is, it’s a nice sounding board with decent features. We have it and we’ll continue using it until we make budget for a bigger replacement. But at its price point, it should at least have a card slot and be able to use ADAT or Dante. It’s not competitive with the X32 at the same price point.

On the negative side, I’ve not found the QU-24’s onboard multitrack recording to be reliable at all. If I use the available USB connectivity to record using a DAW, then I lose the ability to sidechain effects like Waves multiband compression, which is super helpful for public speaking.

Many of these things can be fixed by throwing money at the problem, but in that it’s a bit like modifying a Honda Civic to be a race car. You can put $30k in mods into a $5k car, and have a car that is still substandard to the one that only costs $10k to begin with.

[brendanproutParticipant]

The Aviom units are on loan, not ours to sell. We’re going to be doing a sanctuary tech makeover later this year, but for now we need to make due with what we have on hand. Someone loaned us their unused legacy Aviom setup, and if we can make it work in the meantime to get rid of the obscene amount of stage wedge monitors we currently require, that’s what we need to do. Not planning to keep the Qu setup any longer than absolutely necessary. But we may have to deal with its limitations through summer and fall.

Moving forward, we plan to sell the Qu-24 as we’ve outgrown it, and possibly get an SQ6 or an M32 so we’d have the capability of using ADAT cards and a MyMix system.

The ME system costs the same as the MyMix but lacks many of the features like multitrack recording on each workstation, onboard stereo effects, the ability to audition other workstations, etc. So that’s not really in consideration, unless the A&H engineers at least build in some onboard effects in an upcoming firmware revision.

[brendanproutParticipant]

I’ve found an alternate approach: The AN-16i input unit that we have, which uses only 1/4″ inputs, does have a bank of 1/4″ pass throughs, so we could use XLR to 1/4″ adapters to take the snake through the Aviom input unit before hitting the sound board, and use the 1/4″ input jacks on the Qu-24, coming from the Aviom.

We’ll still end up using a few of the mix outs to export drums to a single channel, and we’l do that with grouped background vocals as well.

Interestingly enough, it turns out the Aviom AN-16i has a variable setting on its 1/4″ inputs that may make up for the padded link setup, as it lets you change input level to +20dB, +4dB, 0, or -4dB. I’m sure that padding it and then boosting it will probably make for a poorer signal:noise ratio, but I’m going to try it out just to see what it gets us in terms of signal into the Aviom.

[brendanproutParticipant]

Thanks for the heads up on the resistor padding the link between the XLR and the 1/4″ inputs.

That’s a tremendous idea of subbing mixes and using the groups as mixes to capitalize on what’s available. I was thinking we’d have to do that with the drums already. Thanks!

[brendanproutParticipant]

I’ve been using Trackslive with the Qu-24 successfully to record. I cannot get it to play back on the Qu-24, however.

For recording, I have to make sure EVERY TIME that I launch Trackslive, that I go to preferences in the program and select the audio source to be the Qu-24, because it defaults to something else.

As long as you do that, then you can select the tracks and it records just fine.

Using a 2012 Macbook Pro, OS 10.12, 16GB ram. I use an external hard drive to record to.

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