[ThunzieParticipant]

Thanks Stefan, looking forward to your results.

[ThunzieParticipant]

The good news is nobody who’s used the Sandisk Extreme has reported skipping yet. Looks like that’s the most reliable way.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Was the skipping on your hard drive or SanDisk stick?

[ThunzieParticipant]

Davec, fantastic feedback mate, cheers! I guess that pretty much confirms the vibration theory. I’ve had a few gigs recently but our sound guy won’t have his Qu16 at any of our gigs until June. But I’m looking forward to it, and will post my results too of course. But from the recent results of yourself and others with either the HD protected from vibration, or using the Sandisk extreme I’m guessing my results will be unskippy too 🙂

PS: A&H – send us each a t-shirt or something for getting to the bottom of this issue for you 😉

[ThunzieParticipant]

Robocurry you’re right I checked the file size of each track from my last recording and all 18 tracks (.wav files) are the exact same size whether there was any signal going to them or not so I guess it doesn’t make a difference. Based on what you and Tom’s experience with a Sandisk Extreme USB 3 pen drive I’m gonna buy one before my next gig and try it out. Sounds like it might be the winning formula hopefully.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Robocurry, glad to hear you had a successful recording without skipping. How many of the 18 channels were actually in use? All 18 are being recorded whether they’re in use or not as we know but I’m curious to know how many actually had sound going to them during your rehearsal. As I’m thinking if more channels are busy the more data is being written to the disk, am I right?

[ThunzieParticipant]

They can handle a bit of heat but I wouldn’t pack one tight in foam. Mine will be in something like the size of a shoebox lined with foam.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Davec, I wouldn’t just put in on foam, but also IN something. I plan to insulate my HD inside of a foam lined box which I plan to make before my next gig with the QU16, to completely ensure it’s as well protected against vibrations as possible. By the way are you using the 1.4 firmware?

[ThunzieParticipant]

Robocurry thanks for posting that video link, very interesting!! Until now I couldn’t lean toward whether it was a fault in the QU16 or the noise / vibration but this video has swayed my thinking on exactly what caused my (any many others here) skipping. I am now leaning toward loud sound from the front of house / vibration being the cause of my skipping as opposed to being any problem with the QU16 itself, and here’s why:

1. I noted from another thread in these forums that some users reported far less occurrences of the skipping than I experienced. Some guys said they’d get a skip every few min or so, my skipping occurred every 10 seconds or so, BUT ONLY WHILE THE BAND WAS PLAYING and NO SKIPPING AT ALL between songs while only the singer was talking to the crowd.

2. If it were a firmware problem, or any other sort of technical problem with the desk surely the symptoms would be more uniform across all users; some guys have never had the skipping problem, yet others using the same firmware version and approved hard drives ARE having the problems.

3. I have only recorded once from the QU16 to an external HD and the room we were in was a shocker for noise. If anyone here is from Sydney they might know the venue, the North Bondi RSL and it’s mostly glass and hard floors, a very noisy room. Add to that, we are an AC/DC Tribute show and we’re VERY loud through the FOH. The desk was at the back of the room, probably about 15m from the stage, and the volume would definitely have still been very high back there. The hard drive was sitting in a tray right behind the desk.

I won’t have an opportunity to do further testing until the next time we work with this particular desk which unfortunately isn’t until some time in June. But meanwhile I will be making up some sort of foam lined box to house the external hard drive which will insulate it from both volume and vibration. I will certainly report the results here, of course. And hopefully in the meantime someone else might be able to do some testing sooner and report their results.

[ThunzieParticipant]

LOL oh man…. we’re getting some fantastic first hand feedback here but it still seems inconclusive. Eddy_current, it seems from your experience that vibration definitely can be an issue. And then DMAudio shoots that theory down in flames based on his knowledge of such things, but he hasn’t proven anything with these problems we’re experiencing through his own practical tests. Personally, I really need to get my bands next show recorded to use the audio for promo stuff so I can’t take any more chances. So, I’m gonna go the laptop with a DAW route which everyone in this thread who says they’ve done it that way has found faultless. I don’t want to take this thread off track but I’d like to ask those who have used a DAW, you’re just using the same USB output and sending multitracks over the USB, right? I ask because in my previous experience Firewire was recommended over USB for multitrack recording, and Firewire with the Qu16 isn’t an option….so far as I know anyway.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Prodigio, my hard drive is on a very short cable also and when we recorded it at in the case with the desk. For the next gig I will make up a foam padded box which will reduce vibration on the hard drive. But my next gig isn’t for some time. Are you able to try something like that in the meantime to see if it works for both of us?

[ThunzieParticipant]

Prodigio, I’m interested if it’s more likely vibration causing the problem, would your hard drive have been receiving any vibration during the recording? It would be fair to assume vibration from loud music would affect data being written to a hard drive. And like I said previously, skipping only occurred on my recording while the band was actually playing and NOT while the singer was talking between songs. Which to me suggests that vibration could be a cause. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s had more experience with this.

[ThunzieParticipant]

dpdan that did cross my mind as to a possible reason for the skipping only occuring while the band was actually playing and NOT while the singer was talking between songs. I really wish one of the Allen & Heath guys would chime in here because I’d like to know if the issue (which evidently has been widely experienced by many users) was specifically addressed in the latest version of the firmware.

[ThunzieParticipant]

Thanks Prodigio, I saw in another thread that you were having LOTS of problems with this issue. Did the firmware upgrade to 1.4 alone solve your problem or are there other things also?

[ThunzieParticipant]

Thanks for your advice Eotsskleet. Yes, we plan to upgrade firmware in the Qu-16 and the HDD before the next time we try.

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