[DavidParticipant]

One important thing to add. I use a QU32 as the centrepiece of my home studio, both as the audio interface and the DAW control surface (I also have an Avid Artist Control for transport control etc.).

The USB interface is not really full-duplex as I have always understood it. It’s quoted as 32 in / 32 out full-duplex, but actually each of the desk’s channels can be either an input or an output, but not both (as you would get in a traditional inline desk, with a record and monitor path). What this means is that you sacrifice two of your input channels to get a stereo main out from the DAW into the mixer (for tracking I use channels 31 and 32 as a stereo pair, and I have a second return from the DAW on 29 and 30 for click and to provide a second headphone mix if necessary).

So I actually get 28 inputs and 2 stereo DAW returns. It works really well for me – the interface runs at a low latency and I’ve had no glitches of any kind, and the DAW control surface works well (with the limitation that the faders are not touch-sensitive). However, I would not have been able to get away with a smaller desk (the QU24 or QU32), because of the above duplex limitation. If you need more DAW returns (e.g. for different headphone mixes, patching in analog outboard) your channel count can get eaten up very quickly.

Cheers,
David

[DavidParticipant]

Is it just me or is everyone making this too complicated?

1. Connect QU to PC via USB

2. Set up QU routing to send L/R mix (or whatever you want to record) to USB channels 1 + 2

3. In MP3DirectCut select QU USB channels 1 + 2 as the input

4. Start MP3DirectCut recording when you’re ready

Or am I missing something?

[DavidParticipant]

Hi, I’m using the QU32 with Cubase 7.5 on Mac, as the centrepiece for my home studio.

You need to make sure that in ‘Device Setup’ you have four Mackie Control instances under Remote Devices. You need to configure the MIDi Input and Output of each to the ‘DAW Control MIDI’ i/o from the A&H DAW Control app.

See the attached screenshot. Beware that the assignments need to be:

Mackie Control -> DAW Control MIDI 4
Mackie Control 2 -> DAW Control MIDI 3
Mackie Control 3 -> DAW Control MIDI 2
Mackie Control 4 -> DAW Control MIDI 1

That should work. You can also set up Generic Remote devices under both Mac and Windows, but I’ve not explored this much as the basic A&H DAW Control app works pretty well for me for the moment.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,
David

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[DavidParticipant]

Dave,

Thanks for the clarifications – I’m really looking forward to finally getting mine (I’m waiting to build a new studio around it).

As with any other place in the world, some Chinese factories produce to high quality standards, some much more variable. One of the things I do is manufacture ridiculously over-engineered guitar slides, made from solid tungsten carbide. I source my carbide from the EU or USA, but they are made down the road from me in London, in a specialist workshop. I looked at manufacturing in China, where around 80% of the world’s carbide originates. And yes, it would be cheaper, but by the time they have been shipped round the world, duties paid etc. not by nearly as much as you would think.

And I don’t believe I could achieve anywhere near the level of quality I do at present. I inspect each slide – if there is any blemish or issue, it goes back into the workshop there and then to be sorted – and can assure my customers that every one is absolutely perfect. Not sure how I would do that with a factory in China…

I spoke to some guys in the UK who manufacture quite high-end products out in China for import to the UK about how they deal with this type of quality issue. The answer… they don’t – they accept the variable quality and let their customers raise it if it’s unacceptable…

Anyways, I hope when I finally get my QU32 that the quality is up to that of the QU24 I returned – which felt extremely solid and worked flawlessly.

Cheers,
David

[DavidParticipant]

…still waiting for mine – looks like it could be the middle of October!

Could you expand on your comment re: the fader knobs? I (briefly) had a QU24 before returning it and ordering the 32 – are you saying that the fader knobs on the 32 are different – inferior?

I had assumed they would be the same as the QU16 and 24… and I also assume the change means that the 32 is made in China. *sigh* one of the reasons for me choosing the QU in the first place was that it was British-made… How does the quality measure up to your 24?

Oh well. I am still very impatient to get mine and get my new studio set up!

[DavidParticipant]

I had a play with assigning the QU to Cubase controls via the ‘Generic Remote’ MIDI assign facility. I discovered something interesting – when all faders are assigned to MIDI in the custom layer, the EQ and other controls continue to operate on whatever channel was selected prior to flipping to the Custom layer.

I can follow the logic of this – often you may not want to assign all channels to MIDI – but would it not be great to be able to switch the whole console to a MIDI control surface in one go?

I did try to select an unused channel (one of the matrix mixes that I’m not currently using) prior to flipping to Custom Layer and assign the rotary encoders to Cubase functions via MIDI Generic Remote but didn’t have any luck with this – nor could I get the master fader to control Cubase’s main L/R level (though I could assign any other fader). However, I’m sure I was just missing something (I’ve not delved deeply within Cubase for a long time now) and I didn’t have long to play with it – as I had to pack up the QU-24 to return it. I’m now QU-less 🙁 and waiting for my QU-32!!

I’m building a new home studio, and am feeling very happy about using the QU-32 as the centrepiece – I love the QU-24, and doubt I’ll ever need 32 inputs, but the relatively modest additional outlay for the larger LCD and an 8-fader motorised control surface makes complete sense for my needs.

I’ll do some more investigation on the MIDI mappings when I get my console – and will share whatever I produce… but looks like QU-32 availability may still be a couple of months off…

[DavidParticipant]

Dave,

I’m using Cubase 6.5 on an Apple Macbook Pro (OS X 10.7). It works flawlessly (within its current limitations re: fader banking, and I guess touch sensitive faders would have been the icing on the cake). Basically, I absolutely love this desk in the studio, and it has transformed my workflow in a really positive way.

I haven’t done any investigation of the QU MIDI implementation beyond connecting via the A&H DAW Control utility, but it’s interesting that many of the knobs and controls send MIDI data – is this also the case when the Custom Layer is selected and set to MIDI? If so, then there’s future potential for control of DAW EQ and plugin parameters too, and this could be easily coded into the A&H utility (or indeed it would be fairly trivial to code a third party version).

I noticed that the 1.5 firmware is now out! I will upload it tonight and give it a whirl – very excited to be able to bank faders to access all of the tracks/channels in my projects, and also interested to try the MMC implementation (though I suspect it won’t really replace a dedicated transport controller).

…I’m also thinking of swapping my QU-24 for a QU-32… Although I would only really use the additional 8 faders for DAW control, £300 more for an 8 fader motorised control surface, two more groups and larger LCD seems like very good value to me… Plus, I think it looks the absolute business.

Cheers,
David

[DavidParticipant]

Hang on… I just read it properly. If it really does fader banking and MMC transport control then I’m pretty much sorted…

…and I no longer need to GAS over an Avid Artist Transport…

[DavidParticipant]

Fantastic! That will get me half the way there!…

…I will be posting lots more about the QU16 / QU24 as a studio centrepiece, as I think this use case is not well discussed online and may be putting people off purchasing the desk. I have learnt a workflow that is great for tracking but have not yet mixed a big ‘ITB’ project – I’ve only had my QU-24 since Saturday. Perhaps I will wait until firmware 1.5 and then post my thoughts.

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