[volounteerParticipant]

@NakAttack

You could do that. But why not just unplug one and plug in the other one when you want that one?
Or like garyh said get a switching device to pick the one you want.

You cannot change between connectors on the menu, only select the channel itself.

I do not recall seeing anything in the alleged manual. Nor in the pdf user guide I downloaded.
It *might* work if only one device were on at a time. But I do not recommend doing it that way.
RTFM carefully to see if there is such a warning.

[volounteerParticipant]

@alang

Based on the documentation I say no.

The Qu24/32 system block diagram clearly shows R being connected to L until a plug is inserted in R.
No outputs on the diagram show anything but separate L and R plug connections directly to just L and R respectively.

I recall seeing what you said about input and the diagram confirms it, but searching for that as text I did not find it anywhere.
So it is possible that somewhere there is text that contradicts the diagram for stereo outs. However, I seriously doubt that the QuPac is different.

Found the QuPac diagram https://www.allen-heath.com/media/Qu-Pac-block-diagram_V1.8_1.pdf

It is essentially the same as the Qu 24/32 was.

If you want one mono out can’t you just use a Y connector ? Amazon has them at about 4/$20.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mike C

We only have to appease the music director. He does not share his thinking with us.

The kids band brought in their own gear for VBS and it was LOUD!. But they were at the very front and really did not bother us nor did our level change what was heard as our mikes were behind them.

My only problem was they kept playing when the pastor was trying to talk on his wireless mike that came through FOH. I had to nudge his mike and the mains up 10 dB so he could be heard over the performers.

That was the less usual situation. Normally on Sunday I notice no problems unless somehow we get a squeal. Not sure what the operator du jour did besides lower the main fader. Squeals are very rare so I am not sure which mike(s) mike be the culprit.

We have four hanging mikes and 2-3 on booms. IF there really are floor wedges in front of the choir then they might get into those mikes. I suspect it is the loft monitors that are getting into the mikes. But to be honest this is all inference as the MD has not documented any of this or shared details of the total operation.

The track music comes out the main speakers hung from the ceiling in front of the pulpit. Supposedly the MD and volounteer du jour tweak the monitors levels and also rehearse any performers to tweak their mike faders too.

I am trying to get the MD to normalise the CDs using a LUFS adjustment program so they all play back as the same loudness and wont need much if any tweaking.

Meters may not be a fix but they are a useful tool to simply making fixes.

[volounteerParticipant]

@markpaman

Roger that.

I thought that if we set the system up with the monitor volume controls at max then the pianist and organist could lower them if they did not need it that loud, which would not affect the FOH or cause feedback issues.

I guess I also questioned, not being a performer, if they really need so many monitors on stage. Plus that one in the Loft.

The tek set up one PEQ for one low frequency but my ears say they occasionally set things where the squeal calls for another higher PEQ so the operator does not have to start moving faders to fix it.

It would also help if they did not have so many open mikes. Not sure why they did that unless it was supposed to somehow simplify the volounteers job. I would have preferred more scenes to do that. Currently we have a single standard scene for Sunday and a simpler one for Wednesday nights. I would have had at least ten scenes for Sunday so we could just keep loading the next one with everything set for that part of the performance.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mike C

I agree that we should go through the whole system and plan the set up better and then tweak everything then finally save scenes.

This set up was apparently done in a hurry on a Wednesday, early in June, to be able to use the next Sunday. Don’t know if the music director or the dealer drove that schedule.

I suspect that the digital is totally new to the music director and he relied on the tech to set it up good enough to start with. Especially since the MD did not seem very familiar with the Qu32 controls and options before the set up day.
The tek did have a lot of experience with the SQ , and by inference the QUs too, but unclear how savvy he was for church application with volounteers using it.

To their credit the basic system was workable on day 1 albeit not as easy as it could have been to use. OTOH I do not know if they calibrated the screen and faders, checked the room for resonances to set up EQ, or other things I would have liked to have seen done first.

The church used to have a 40 channel analog which complicated things a little going down to only 32 inputs. I suspect the digital complicated it more. Not sure how savvy the tek was wrt digital.

There are a lot of myths out there about digital, which I say having studied digital theory in grad school. And some text books by phds even get Nyquist theorem wrong. Close enough for government work, but still shows how they really do not understand digital.

Also many people still do not understand the differences between dBFS , dBu , dBV , dB SPL – A B C M K weighting, VU, LUFS/LKFS, and how they relate in the real world.

And don’t get me started on the sample peak problem myth. If the dBFS never went over 0 and you do the D/A from a level below -12dBFS then you will never have a sample peak or clipping problem. There is no reason to ever run digital too high when you can just turn the knob on the power amp to the right to make things louder. Digital is so far above the noise floor and has more headroom than you will ever need.

There is a real expert at another church who is related to one of our deacons that I told the music director could be used to help with problems.

I am trying to gently educate him on topics like intelligibility, LUFS, dBFS, VU, to ease him away from his analog mindset.

We have some other issues that need documenting as playback from the PC is awkward. The output depends on the input on that PC. We have to know to switch the cable on the pc output or there will be no sound.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mark Oakley

I do not know how the monitors are set up. The dealer and music director did that before anyone else got involved. They used to have a 40 channel analogue board, so some things got rearranged to make it fit on the Qu32 while keeping operation as close to what they had previously, for the current operators.

I suspect that there are a number of changes in many areas that could be made to improve usability and make it easier to use. All I think I know indicates that there are 4 mixes being used for monitors, and one for hearing impaired. Maybe they should use the two matrix instead of all mix for the choir monitors, which a post in another topic on these forums suggested in a similar situation.

I believe it is used so the performers can all hear a monitor if they are involved in the song performance so they can stay in sync. It is also possible that the piano , or keyboard/guitar on stage is also in the piece. The choir should follow the director and he has his own monitor next to him. But I do not think the choir would ever sing with a CD track, that is usually 1-4 singers up front alone when that happens. And I do not know where the ‘loft’ is or why there is a monitor there. Supposedly it is next to the pipes for the organ. And no reason why they need a monitor there at all if they really have the floor wedges in front of the choir too.

We also have two wedges on the floor on the top step going up to the stage in front of the pulpit. We have a set of monitors that are at the piano, organ, and choir director locations. We have the choir loft, and we seem to have have two more wedges on the floor in front of the choir at the back of the stage. Also there is one monitor meant to feed hearing impaired which is to be upgraded when we can afford it.

The whole set up is a mystery. I just got involved a couple months ago. I would think the front wedges would be good enough with the piano/organ/director set. Those also seem to have volume control knobs so should not be the problem.

I am not on stage so I cant judge how well the monitors can be heard. All I can do is what the music director says to do.

[volounteerParticipant]

@gcumbee

How’s about putting a dbx PA2 or Venue 360 between your mixer and power amps? That’s what I install on all my jobs. I don’t use the feedback eliminator as I rarely need it.

Money. At least for a church it is harder to spend money on more tech. A software plug in would be so much better for us.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mike_c

We had two volounteers which made it tough for them. They have done it for 11 years now.
They alternated Sundays AM but there was nobody for Sunday PM or Wednesday night. And if work takes them out of town it gets to be a problem.

We are training 4 new ones. Some have hobby experience, one went to Full Sail and has some real experience,
one appears to be an artist who is willing to help, not sure about the last one. No guarantee that they all get it well enough and all will keep volounteering.

I suspect the music director will rotate most of the others through Sunday AM with one of the old timers so as to make sure they are all experienced and could do it alone if needed.

It appears that I will be the only one doing Sunday night and Wednesdays. But those nights are not nearly as challenging.
Nor are flubs as damaging to ensuring that people keep coming back and dont leave because of the audio. Without a choir in the evening we can kill those monitors which helps a lot. The piano and organ monitors are not a problem. The only other one is the stage wedges but they are not a real issue either on Weds. or in the evening Sunday.

[volounteerParticipant]

@mike_c

The monitors are redone because the music director often playsback CDs or PC music that he provided for that week.
Or more accurately, he has the volounteers play it while he is on stage directing things.

I am trying to get him to normalise the CDs he burns using LUFS ap so that once we set the level correctly, we can use that level every time in the future and then we won’t have to tweak the stage monitors any longer.

Complicating things is that he is more a musical expert than a sound expert although he does know a lot about using a board.
I suspect that digital dBFS and LUFS and similar new things are still being learned.
Also, he tends to set things by ear not by measurements that show the real levels.

[volounteerParticipant]

That limitation did seem strange. It is too bad that the USB is such a problem.
Maybe they could add an SD card internally that could hold permanent memory like many shows each with 100 scenes.

[volounteerParticipant]

Reasonable suggestions for normal situations.
Thanks to those who replied.

We are a church. We have to use volounteers.
You mix with the volounteers you have not the volounteers you wish you had.
Some are skilled but yet they take a long time setting up do to volume variations depending on what CD we may play that week.

The music director is on stage doing things during the service and not really able to tweak in RT via the Ipad that he has.
Or the one that the dealer will be providing soon.

Also they take an hour every week before the services to tune the mixes to stage monitor to get levels right.
There HAS to be an easier way to do that.

An LUFS meter would certainly speed things up as we could set the output the same every time and do it faster.
An automatic feedback suppressor would also be helpful. I have seen those in use in other places. Would be nice if it were built into the Qu32 also.

[volounteerParticipant]

We buy what is available. So far none of the USB memory sticks we have bought will work.
The Qu does not recognize them. Even after reformatting them on a PC and retrying.

We should be able to use any reasonable memory stick eg USB 3 without wondering if it will work on the Qu.

I can buy any memory stick and it works on my PC. Why does the Qu need special ones?
AH should sell memory sticks or fix the bug in the mixer.

[volounteerParticipant]

@ryan

I would like the manual to have a list of all the acronyms and abbrevs in a list for reference.
Some can be figured out. Some remain a mystery until you stumble upon the answer.

Also explain AH usage which I find in cases to be different from the way I had seen it used in the past.

Finally, I am discovering that the manual does not cover all the details that could be useful.
At a minimum it should show an org chart of all the screens to guide understanding and for reference by new users.

[volounteerParticipant]

You can see the red lines at every clip point in audacity.

As I recall audacity called touching 0dBFS as a clip.
It assumes that in the gaps there will be peaks which is erroneous.

There are NO INTERSAMPLE PEAKS UNTIL YOU CONVERT TO ANALOG.

Talking about them in the digital domain is pure nonsense although way too common especially on the internet.
And if you lower the gain before you convert there is no clipping in the analog world.

My rule of thumb was to keep everything at -12dBFS at all times.
If you want louder turn the knob on the power amp before the speakers to the right.

With 0 on the Qu being equal to -18dBFS I have an extra 6 dB even before my personal safety margin,
so that touching the top light on the Qu does not bother me.

You could keep it all a LOT lower and still have no noise problems.

I am an EE and did digital in graduate school.
There is a lot of nonsense out there which is ‘common knowledge’ that is inaccurate and misleading.

[volounteerParticipant]

Not the way I read the manual.

We play through a CD player and a PC into mono channels on the back of the board.
I think you can link mono channels with some of the other features on the board. Maybe mix or matrix does that.

We are a mono only set up so we convert stereo inputs from CD to two monos essentially; using a Y cable to split the signal into two inputs.

You could also play from a PC into the other stereo input using USBB input.
Plug the memory stick into the PC and play it from there into ST2.

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