[GeoffParticipant]

If you only want to mute the post-fade sends and not pre-fade, assign the channels to a DCA. When that DCA is muted, all the post-fade sends will be too. If there are a lot of channels that need to be muted individually, you will burn a lot of DCAs, but it will do what you want.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

OK, here’s an idea.

Configure MTX 3 to be MONO

Assign Main L and R as the only inputs to it, at 0dB gain.

Then assign a spare Soft Key to PAFL that matrix.

The downside is that it won’t work for stereo sources or buses (when PAFLing them), but at least it covers your Main mix, and you don’t actually have to burn a channel strip, just a Soft Key.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

” Shouldn’t the ability to mono your mix be a part of every mixing console?”

You’d think so, but there have been plenty of broadcast consoles that didn’t include this feature. The first day we put a new Studer On Air 2000 to air, we had a problem with out of polarity audio (turned out to be a jackfield normalling error) that resulted in silence from the mono FM transmitter. The new Wheatstone consoles we installed at the new plant 10 years ago also didn’t include this feature, although with a user defined button and some clever programming, we were able to implement it. Of course operators have to actually use it.

For the Studer, I built this little box a few days later, and plunked it on the top of the console. STEREO is straight through on the two pairs of XLRs. MONO takes + from one channel and – from the other to create a mono sum at the differential input of the powered speaker.

Geoff

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[GeoffParticipant]

The ATEM inputs can be switched between MIC or LINE. But even set to LINE they are a little hot for my liking. I built a 2x TS to 1/8″ TRS cable with 10 dB of attenuation in each channel and that has worked fine. Adjust the ATEM input gain to get a good reading on its meters. The QU has peak reading meters, while the ATEM has peak hold meters, so they won’t look the same, but this should clean up the audio.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

It looks like you could do this with the L-Pol/R option in the Stereo Image settings (Processing>Preamp) for the stereo pair. What you don’t get is an L/R-Pol option, although you can invert the right channel if you don’t mind also flipping the two channels (R-Pol/L). I haven’t actually tried this on the console, but SQ Mix Pad seems to indicate that it’s possible.

Instead of making a stereo pair, you can always gang two (or more) channels, but then the input gains don’t track.

Never mind. I thought I was looking at the SQ forum.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

I made the ASSumption that you were sending individual channels to the IEM system, but perhaps this is not the case, and you are sending stems (pre-mixed inputs) instead.

If you want to feed the IEM system from AUXes, what you’ve shown will ensure the feeds to the AUXes from each channel are Pre FADE. The master fader for the AUX will adjust the overall level to the local outputs, but you wouldn’t normally be moving them when mixing.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

Direct out pick-off point is set on the routing page. It’s global, but that shouldn’t matter for this application. There are quite a lot of options, but all channels will be the same.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

It’s not exactly what you asked for, but creating a ganging group and only selecting “delay” as the attribute will accomplish this. It also means the delays will track if you change one later, which may or may not be what you want.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

This may be (mostly) a gain staging problem, as you say.

An easy way to get more gain on an output is to engage the compressor, set the threshold all the way up, and then add 10 or 15 dB of makeup gain. If that’s too much level, turn down the threshold until you get some gain reduction happening. You probably want a “leveller” of some sort on the streaming feed anyway, so that can be a start for dialing it in.

There is an outside chance that you have a ground loop between the console and ATEM, although the ATEM uses an external supply and doesn’t really have a ground, unless it’s getting one from one of its input sources. If that’s the case you’ll need to put a transformer(s) in the path to break that loop. In the setup I’ve been using for more than a year, there was no audible hum without a transformer, but every situation can be a bit different.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

Unfortunately, the manual is rather vague about how to save the whole channel.

You do it from the screen that shows 8 channels at a time. Select the one you want to copy with the SEL button, then touch the LIB button and save it into a USER slot. Channel settings can be recalled the same way, from the 8-channel screen.

I had been wondering about this. Thank you mfusa for prompting me to figure it out.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

I think you are correct that the meter approximates a PPM, at least for the attack part of its operation. The top of the green LEDs is roughly +4 dBu on analog outputs and -18 dBFS on the AES output, when measured with a steady tone.

When I played a snare drum hit from a live recording, and adjusted levels until I was consistently hitting the top of the green, the analog PPM was reading +4 and the AES meter was also peaking to about -18 dBFS.

If you adjust input gains to light up the top of the green, you’re leaving almost 20 dB of headroom, so the danger of clipping should be nil. Whether that’s the sound you want is another matter.

FWIW, it works fine for me.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

But should it only use Pins 1 and 2 of the XLR, as Mike indicated above? Why would the reversed signal (Pin 3 of a balanced XLR) need to be grounded?

I would have replied to this earlier, but my SQ5 was at the warehouse and unavailable until today. I’ve been meaning to do some testing to see how the outputs behave when unbalanced and this is the chance to do it.

I started by generating a 440 Hz tone internally and sending it to the L/R bus. Then I assigned the L/R bus to analog outputs 11 and 12 and also the AES output. All bus processing (EQ, dynamics) was bypassed. I measured analog levels with a McCurdy ATS-100 Extended Range VU/PPM meter and AES with a WBS POD-22 Loudness Meter. For sake of simplicity I’ve rounded off the results to the nearest dB.

If I increase the gain until the console meters’ last green LEDs just light, it is sending out +5 dBu on the analog outputs. The AES output reads -18 dBFS. If I unbalance the analog output )short pins 1 and 3), the level into the meter stays the same. If I disconnect pin 3 however, the level drops by 6 dB. The AES output of course does not change through all this.

This all seems to imply that the console uses a cross coupled output topology. The two legs are normally symmetrical, and out of polarity with each other, but if one is shorted to ground, the other doubles its gain to make up for the loss. This is handy for balanced TRS outputs, so that their gain stays the same and nothing is damaged if a TS plug happens to be plugged into them.

Up to this point all these tests were done with a bridging (>10 KΩ) load. If the load is reduced to 600Ω (unlikely, but not unheard of), the level drops by 13 dB when pin 3 is disconnected, 7 dB lower than the bridging example. With both legs connected, but pin 3 shorted to ground, the level stays at +4 dBu. Losing level isn’t necessarily a problem, but unpredictability is, IMHO.

The other gotcha with unbalancing the outputs is that it will change the maximum analog output level. In order to produce the analog equivalent of 0 dBFS, the analog outputs need to produce +23 dBu of undistorted sine wave. With everything balanced, the audible clip level (I was just using my ears, not a distortion meter) is a fraction of a dB below +23 dBu. With one leg shorted to ground it’s +22 dBu. Not bad, I was expecting it to be a full 6 dB lower.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

No worry about phantom power, that’s only on the mic inputs. You are connecting to the line outputs.

Unless you are using the TRS A and B outputs for something else, I think this would be a perfect application for them. You can use an off-the-shelf cable instead of building something custom.

I think the TRS and XLR outputs have identical drive circuits (they both have a maximum output spec of +22 dBu), so it shouldn’t really matter which you use.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

You should be able to find a mini TRS to 2x 1/4″ TS cable without too much trouble.

I searched for “mini TRS to 2x 1/4″” and found dozens available on-line.

That doesn’t fix the level mismatch though. If you have a spare matrix that you are not using, run your desired output bus to it, reduce the gain by 10 dB (or whatever you need) and then assign that matrix to output ports A and B in the IO patch. If you adjust the matrix gain to whatever you need (so the meters on your output bus and the ATEM input match), you can then remove that matrix from all layers in the console, and nobody else can change the setting by mistake.

As you suggested, the headphone output is a bad choice for this job. Not only is the level variable, but if you solo something (PAFL) the signal sent to the ATEM will change. My personal preference is to use the L/R bus to feed the stream or recorder, if that’s part of the setup. I then use a mono (or stereo) bus for the PA feed, and monitors are fed from the usual buses. This approach is counterintuitive for many operators who are primarily doing live sound, but I feel it has several advantages. The main meters on the console show me the level to tape (or stream) unless I PFL something, and what I hear in the headphones is normally the record feed. I can use my ears in the room to hear what the PA mix is. If there are extra mics in the stream that are not in the PA (audience mics), just don’t assign them to the PA bus.

Geoff

[GeoffParticipant]

I’ve done this with the 2-TRK output of a QU-16. It would be the same for the TRS A and B outputs of the SQ5.

To unbalance the outputs, I simply used TS plugs instead of TRS. The signal for each channel then goes to a ~10 dB pad, and then to a mini TRS plug and into the ATEM. Line in on the ATEM is something in the range 0f -10 dBu, and then you can fine tune things with the input gain control. Save this gain setting before you shut down the ATEM or it will default to its normal gain setting the next time it is powered up.

The -10 dB pad for each channel is just a 3:1 resistance divider. I think I used a 5.1K series resistor in the output and a 2.7K shunt across the input of the ATEM. The values aren’t critical, just make sure they are the same for both channels. I like to build these kind of pads into a pair of XLR connectors. That way you aren’t trying to stuff 2 wires and some resistors into a mini TRS plug (an impossible task!).

I could have used the ALT outputs of the QU and simply turned down the level control for that output, but I wanted to ensure the console meters were indicating my actual send level, and I wanted to send the L/R mix, not some other output.

Geoff

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