[BrianParticipant]

To be honest, you should never reply on the internal WiFi transmitter on an audio console. I don’t care what brand of equipment you are using, I mean they are inside a metal case which is designed to be placed to make connecting audio I/O easy, not to maximize the effectiveness of a WiFi antenna. External routers/wireless APs are extremely inexpensive and can be placed to optimize the performance of the WiFi system. In addition, this would solve your “WiFi vs Ethernet” issue because it would be Ethernet 100% of the time.

[BrianParticipant]

This comment is not intended to lessen the importance of your feature request. But since you already are required to have an external device to control the CQ-20B, I would suggest getting a network adapter for that device (most likely a USB to Ethernet adapter) so that you can establish a hardwired connection between the two devices should you find yourself in this situation again.

[BrianParticipant]

So much of this answer will be “it depends” based on your facility, situation, and budget. Honestly I would try to find some local experts to help answer these questions as they will be able to see the room. Possible candidates are local integrators, sound companies, or even audio staff/engineers from local churches that are known for having good sound.

[BrianParticipant]

I would not use DT boxes on stage. Dante is never going to be as fast or as stable as the DX protocol. With something as critical as your main stage’s inputs, I would want to use the most reliable connection. That is the DX by far…… You will still have access to your MixRack & DX I/O over Dante as long as the system is powered on and you have a Dante card within the system somewhere. If you put the Dante card in the MixRack, only the MixRack would need to be powered on to have access to the MixRack and DX box inputs over Dante. If you put the Dante card in a Surface, and/or need access to the Surface’s local I/O over Dante, then the Surface will obviously have to be powered on as well.

You should read the multi-surface white paper that A&H has released: https://www.allen-heath.com/content/uploads/2023/05/Understanding-Multi-Surface-ISS1.pdf In fact, there is a whole set of good papers listed here: https://www.allen-heath.com/white-papers/

3. You only want ONE network connection within the DLive MixRack & Surfaces. So connect either the MixRack or a Surface to the network (obviously the MixRack makes the most sense IMHO), but don’t connect more than one of these to the network. As you noted, the GigaAce connection will handle the data transfer between the different DLive devices.

[BrianParticipant]

Another vote for this – lack of integration is keeping us from putting in 2 DLive consoles in our halls… we may get pushed to DM-7s since yamaha seems to move faster on wireless integration updates.

Really?

You realize “integration” simply means seeing the signal and battery levels on the console instead of another display? It’s certainly nothing critical, especially in a permanent install where the RF environment should be pretty stable. Don’t get me wrong – having this integration is a “nice have”, but it certainly not a “make or break” feature IMHO.

[BrianParticipant]

Not only that, but A&H doesn’t release feature updates that often. Let’s look at the Avantis which was the last system to be release prior to the CQ. The Avantis was released in Dec 2019 and the first “feature” release was in March 2021. That’s 15 months between initial release and the first feature release. Obviously the CQ is going to be on it’s own schedule, but don’t expect anything to be released very quickly.

[BrianParticipant]

Or do you mean to set each input to the livestream Aux to post fader?

That is correct. What I meant by “post fader” is that each input being sent to the broadcast aux is being sent “post fader”. This way, any fader movements that FOH makes during the service will also be applied to the broadcast mix “automatically”.

If you have a dedicated person to mix the broadcast feed, you would want to send each individual input to the broadcast mix “pre fader” so that changes being made at FOH would not affect the broadcast mix. This is how most “how to” posts talk about setting up the system, and I am going to bet this is how your system is currently set up. The problem with setting it up this way then there isn’t a dedicated broadcast engineer is that the broadcast mix will never change during the service because no one is monitoring it. At least by setting it up “post fader”, the mix will change along with any FOH changes. Now it’s not going to be perfect all the time, but it should be better than having a static mix that never changes the entire service.

[BrianParticipant]

That is not normal behavior. Either it is a “settings” issue, or there is something wrong with the console. Can you please post screenshots of the various settings pages that would be helpful? At the very least we need to see the pages for the lead vocal, a couple of the other input channels that “duck”, and your outputs.

[BrianParticipant]

The Director software is literally just a “remote control” of the MixRack. The Director software does not handle any audio transmission and therefore “audio” is simply not part of the Director Software. In other words, the Director software does not need, nor does it support any audio transmission with the MixRack. This also means that unlike a actual Surface device, you do not need a GigaAce connection with the MixRack for your computer. Actually it is physically impossible to create a GigaAce link with a laptop because there is no GigaAce computer card or software/drivers. All you need to do is connect the laptop to the same computer network that the MixRack is connected to. That can be done in a variety of ways – WiFi, a hardwired network connection, or as Julian Tinao mentioned, a Dante connection where the Dante card has the “internal network switch” turned on, or is otherwise plugged into the same computer network as the MixRack via the Dante Control port on the Dante card. (The “internal network switch” simply makes this connection inside of the Dante card so that you don’t have to make two separate connections to the console’s Dante card).

That being said, you also don’t need to connect your computer to the Dante audio network unless you want to send Dante audio to/from the laptop. It is common that you might want to do this to multitrack record on the computer, or play back tracks from the computer on the MixRack, etc,. But if you don’t need Dante audio on the computer for some reason, there is no requirement that the computer connected to the Dante audio network. If you want to use Dante Controller to set up the Dante network, then obviously the computer will need to be connected to at least the Dante control port or the computer network that the Dante card is plugged into if the internal network switch on the Dante card is turned on.

Hopefully that helps explain the situation.

[BrianParticipant]

Based on your other posts, it seems this is for a church.

First, are you sure the church is actually wanting to use a stereo output for their FOH speakers. Just because there is a pair of speakers on the L&R side of the room doesn’t mean the system is set up to output stereo. In fact, many church sanctuaries have their seating so that a stereo image is only heard by very few people and by mixing in stereo it simply means people don’t hear things that are panned away from the speaker in front of them. Therefore it is very common for PA systems to be using “mono”. In this case, the system might only have the speakers plugged into the right output and there isn’t a speaker plugged into the left output. As MikeC mentioned, it could also be a routing issue where the speakers are both set up to receive the right signal.

Now ideally the system should be set up to use mono FOH outputs instead of one side of a stereo image. That way you don’t have issues like this were panning can negatively affect the FOH audio.

Second, if you decide to use a stereo output for the FOH speakers, you need to walk the room and determine how much panning is appropriate. If the church has a center isle, then no one is sitting in the “sweet spot” of the stereo image. A large portion of the congregation will tend to hear only the audio coming out of the speaker in front of them – especially the closer to the speaker they are sitting. This means if you pan something hard to the left side, the people on the right side aren’t going to hear that audio at all. Even if you pan something 75% left and 25% right, this means the people on the right will hear that audio level at a level 50% less than normal. Most won’t hear the audio from the left side at all.

Keep this in mind when you are making panning decisions.

[BrianParticipant]

To answer original question….. looking at the block diagram for the GLD-80, it does appear that you are insert a source (“Ext IN”) directly into a matrix. According to the diagram, this can be a local input, input from the I/O card, or an FX rack. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that you can insert a group or buss however. Therefore, if you have several audience mics that you want to push through to the broadcast mix, you might need to use a FX rack. Combine all of the desired audience mics in a single FX send going to an FX rack, and then choose a FX that can be “transparent” and not actually have the FX turned on. It sounds like you can take the output of this FX rack (which isn’t doing anything) and insert it into the matrix.

Now for an unsolicited explanation on how our church handles our broadcast mix. Like you, our church does not have a dedicated broadcast mixer” and effectively have an “unmanaged” broadcast mix. Here is how we handle it……

First, you don’t want to use the L/R mix as your foundation for the broadcast mix. The sound in the room is going to be different than what is needed for the broadcast because of the ambient audio in the room that isn’t present in the broadcast mix. Therefore you’ll definitely get better results when you can dial in a broadcast mix with different send levels than what FOH is doing.

This is how our church does this. Set up a dedicated Aux for the broadcast mix (which sounds like how you handle it currently). However you want to set this up as a “Post Fader” mix which is counter intuitive from most of the advice you’ll see about setting up a broadcast mix. You should add the audience mics into this aux just like any other source.

During rehearsal, the FOH engineer should dial in the FOH mix to their liking and then switch over to the broadcast mix to dial in the mix there using the broadcast mix send levels (mixing while having selected the broadcast mix buss). Ideally this is done on a per song level and saved as a scene (ie song 1, song 2, etc), but it can be set once for the entire service (although your results won’t be as consistent song to song this way). But by dialing the FOH mix first, and then switching over to the broadcast mix, you can effectively set the foundational levels between inputs on the broadcast mix to achieve a “good mix”.

Then the FOH engineer goes back to mixing FOH as normal (ie stops mixing on the broadcast faders). However now any changes made to the FOH mix will also be made on the broadcast mix too. If they need to push up the guitar during a solo for example, it will be changed on both mixes. If there is a quiet piano only song and the FOH engineer needs to bring down the vocals to match (or bring up the piano) then these changes are made on both mixes, etc, etc, etc.

While this solution isn’t as good as using a dedicated broadcast mixer, it is MUCH better than trying to use the same L/R mix that is being heard in the room as your foundation for the broadcast.

[BrianParticipant]

.

[BrianParticipant]

I’m not familiar with the QU series specifically, but on other A&H systems the scene file does not include 100% of the console’s settings. It has about 98% of the settings. There are a few that are not saved when a scene is saved, but only at the Show level. For example, routing is saved at the scene level, but the stereo linking settings are saved at the show level. This is because changing the stereo link settings “breaks” audio on these systems and therefore A&H doesn’t design it to be changed during a show. Scenes are designed to be loaded during a show, while a show file is designed to be loaded once and the same show file used for the entire event.

The best way to learn what is saved under a show file vs scene file to to refer to the reference manual for the console.

[BrianParticipant]

+100 for this. It is a much needed feature in all A&H consoles.

[BrianParticipant]

While A&H does tend to monitor this forum, this is NOT the official support group for the company. I would suggest that you “submit a request” on the mail A*H website to ensure this is reviewed by the proper channels. https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new

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