PSA A&H QU users Update

maltingsaudio

Just released by SSL a nifty multitrack recorder which integrates seamlessly with the QU range , its not a DAW, cost me £15 but just load the template and record your shows and deal with the results later in a DAW. 
https://www.allen-heath.com/harrison-livetrax/

Danny1969

Very useful ...  got an outside gig with a QU16 on Sunday so will try it out
 Thanks 

shufflebeat

Looks interesting, will explore.

Thanks for the nod.

Danny1969

Well our QU16 refused to boot up at the gig on Sunday. We got over it by sending on  band member 25 miles home to get a little 8 channel A&H and got that hooked up very quickly.

We brought one of the first QU's in the country, back in 2012 ish, before there was even a remote mix ap for it so ours is about 12 years old. I suspect the internal switch mode PSU has given out ... which all do after around 10 to 15 years ish .. especially if they have done a lot of sunny outside gigs. I will strip it down next week and put the findings and repair process on the community repair thread on here. 

maltingsaudio

Danny1969 said:

Well our QU16 refused to boot up at the gig on Sunday. We got over it by sending on  band member 25 miles home to get a little 8 channel A&H and got that hooked up very quickly.

We brought one of the first QU's in the country, back in 2012 ish, before there was even a remote mix ap for it so ours is about 12 years old. I suspect the internal switch mode PSU has given out ... which all do after around 10 to 15 years ish .. especially if they have done a lot of sunny outside gigs. I will strip it down next week and put the findings and repair process on the community repair thread on here. 

Was just about to ask how it went!! Oops feel your pain sorry to hear that . Going to use the software in anger this weekend at a 3 day festival will report back. The festival is Awamu Together in High Wycombe if peeps are interested 

shufflebeat

Just had a quick explore at home.

So far the Livetrax software doesn’t seem to do anything that Reaper doesn’t do better.

I’ll continue the cork-sniffing when time allows.

maltingsaudio

shufflebeat said:

Just had a quick explore at home.

So far the Livetrax software doesn’t seem to do anything that Reaper doesn’t do better.

I’ll continue the cork-sniffing when time allows.

No the idea with livetrax is you just do a recording then edit in reaper or whatever , but can play everything straight back into the QU as a virtual soundcheck. It’s the simplicity and integration which makes it really useful

shufflebeat

maltingsaudio said:

shufflebeat said:

Just had a quick explore at home.

So far the Livetrax software doesn’t seem to do anything that Reaper doesn’t do better.

I’ll continue the cork-sniffing when time allows.

No the idea with livetrax is you just do a recording then edit in reaper or whatever , but can play everything straight back into the QU as a virtual soundcheck. It’s the simplicity and integration which makes it really useful

Thanks for the reply.

I do take your point but I can do all that with Reaper anyway. Having paid £60-ish (if memory serves) for that I’d suggest holding on to that extra £15.

For others that will be a very worthwhile investment, of course.

Ta for the original heads-up.

maltingsaudio

@shufflebeat agree if your used to reaper and happy with it. I'm no fan of recording full  stop,however currently at a festival which they wanted recording,just done 5 acts, all I had to do was boot computer plug into qu  usb, tell the software I wanted to record 16 tracks arm them all press record and then save the result. The files are then to be given to a proper editor for sorting out. Works for me no extra routing or information had to be put in , and worked first time. 
Trying to get the amps networked together properly in another proprietary software took an hour this morning 

shufflebeat

@maltingsaudio:

Point well taken.

Stratavarious

Interesting.. my CQ saves multitrack to SD card but you have to redirect each track input to the SD replay them, if that is automated, be useful. But I can connect straight to reaper too already.

maltingsaudio

Update.
Recorded 3 days worth of the Festival and used about 50 GB of data. The process was quick and easy didn’t have to worry about any settings just name the session arm the tracks press record stop and save file then just open a new session and repeat.

When I got home and decided to have a play with the results, found out a few things.

First you couldn’t load the files back into the software without being plugged into a QU. 

Second, when all plugged in and file loaded , couldn’t play back file until I’d disarmed the tracks, this was user error, I just stopped and saved the tracks on the show and didn’t disarm the recording befor saving.

Third, to playback the tracks , go to USB source on the QU and globally patch the inputs to USB streaming not QU drive, again user error , but once done , the files played back as they were recorded, the virtual soundcheck function.

Fourth, there is an easy audio export tab, to export the stems or all audio in various formats. Quickly exported one file as an mp3 to listen and no audio. Realised that when you do the export, the output tab on the software needs to be set to stereo playback if you want to listen on another device. If you want the stems to import into your DAW then set out put to multitrack play back. 

So the stems you record have any processing on them you’ve added during the live Mix ie compression etc. 

The software is not a DAW, you can’t add any plug ins or bounce tracks or do inserts like you can in Reaper Logic etc, it is just a record and playback system, but for an idiot like me very impressive, useful and easy to use . The global downside I suppose is it’s Allen and Heath specific but adding other manufacturers protocols would add another layer of complication and price. It is only £15!

shufflebeat

A report back from the field and the merest sliver of humble pie.

I had my first (belated) chance to play with LT at a theatre gig the other night. There were two bands and stage time was limited so I had decided to do a basic sound check and then do all my house-keeping on headphones. I had initially planned to use Reaper but hadn’t managed to set up a template before the event and got hammered for time worse than I’d imagined, but rather than forego the opportunity completely I decided to spark up LT, hit record and see what happened.

We got through the gig and the next day I had time to explore what I’d managed to capture. My expectations were low because all I’d done was create a session, patched in the channels directs to USB, armed the tracks and hit record. I had no idea if anything was getting onto the laptop.

All was perfectly behaved and well recorded with nothing missing or duplicated. Very impressed.

Observations:

I’d not looked at my output settings which had been post-EQ, I should have tweaked that to post-preamp which is one global adjustment in “Direct Out” on the SQ.

I realised later that in LT settings I could:

- Set the SQ to name tracks
- Hit record/stop with a soft key set to MMC control
- Drop markers on the fly to make differentiation easier after recording
- Incorporated scene changes into the recording process (not clear what the benefits would be but worth exploring)

I still think I could do a lot of this with Reaper (or pretty much any other DAW) and if you’re a super-user with instinctive keyboard shortcuts then that’s a fine option but I must admit to having underestimated the value of integration in LT’s design and will be exploring further.

My experience backs up that of @maltingsaudio pretty much 100% but may have glimpsed some solutions to your reservations, will report back again.

Overall, deffo worth the price if it fits your flow.

maltingsaudio

@shufflebeat I realised later that in LT settings I could:

- Set the SQ to name tracks
- Hit record/stop with a soft key set to MMC control
- Drop markers on the fly to make differentiation easier after recording

I’ve never got that far must have a look! As I said it’s handy software for me . I hate recording anything and for it to be so easy to get something usable is ideal. I have struggled with reaper ,mainly because I loose the will to live setting up templates , great when they are done but a pain to remember everything you need on/ in one.
Quick question were you using 96 or 48 processing ? Do you think It makes a difference?

shufflebeat

I was on 48kHz and I think the difference would be irrelevant to my purpose. In some applications 96k limits the number of tracks that can be processed but IIRC it’s 32@96k which would normally be plenty anyway [on reflection it may be less, but still enough].

Still, no need to worry about it because 48k gives me enough data to stretch my tiny brain to it’s limits.

shufflebeat

This is useful:

https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/articles/26667597200657-Using-Harrison-LiveTrax-with-Allen-Heath-consoles

Keith @A&H has done a webinar vid with Qu/LT which explains much of the process but don’t have time to hunt it out now.

shufflebeat

I may have some play-time on the SQ next week, otherwise I’ll set up the Qu Pac at home and have a good old poke around.

shufflebeat

A few points to update.

I used LT with an SQ7 to record 30 tracks for about 1hr20mlns. Setup was fairly instantaneous. [edit] With the SQ set to USB-B rather than SQ-drive [/edit] using the “record” template which suggested the default 32 tracks. The SQ asio driver was already on the Lenovo laptop from previous adventures.

Hit “arm all” and “record/play” and forget.

Listening back today recording seems to have been pretty seamless. I USB’d the laptop to the desk, set to USB-B rather than SQ drive as required and connected all channels to USB input, easy enough in the I/O page but even easier on the iPad. I dropped a few section markers on the arrange screen to differentiate songs and the “ranges” appeared in the text panel on the right of the screen allowing me to flick easily between songs.

So far so good but two downsides:

I exported stems to send to the band and that length of recording took over an hour to render and ended up with 30Gb of audio files, the entire session showed only 10Gb including raw audio. Will need to explore further.

It seems that a session recorded on the SQ can’t be played back via the Qu, which would be disappointing if it turns out to be the case. I’d’ve thought swapping I/O drivers would be a trivial matter, particularly given the common lineage, apparently not.

The feature which seems to suggest the software can request track names from the desk don’t seem to work but any subsequent changes to channel names on the SQ are shared with LT, just not “en bloc”.

Sound is as you’d expect and, although features are basic this is a positive as it does one job really well, I have Reaper for everything else. 

maltingsaudio

Just added SQ to stock and gave it an outing on Friday with live trax, results very much as per @shufflebeat experience.
Notes: you can’t playback qu recordings on sq due to the sample rate. SQ is 96 and Qu is 42 (or thereabouts) SQ5 will only output 32 channels to usb so if for example your using ST1 or ST2 you have to patch them on the I/O screen to a channel between 1 and 32.  Nb usb playback is routed to usb channels 1 and 2 on usb output by default. This caught me out initially as lost kick and snare until I realised!

shufflebeat

For clarity:

“Qu has an integrated multitrack USB recorder, providing 18 channels of 48kHz, 24bit recording and playback straight to / from your USB key or hard drive”

https://www.allen-heath.com/hardware/qu/qu-pac/

“The default recording format is WAV 96kHz 24bit Interleaved. The sample rate can be switched to 48kHz in the Setup > Audio > USB page (V1.5+).”

https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4402940155793-SQ-Understanding-SQ-USB-recording-and-playback

Recordings made with onboard facilities can’t be swapped between Qu/SQ but anything recorded on an external device (laptop) should connect to USB in/out without problems, track numbers permitting, of course.

[further edit]

Livetrax has an option to switch between multitrack and 2ch playback from your PC so recordings can be previewed and markers/sections can be demarcated for playback later, either 2ch or multi. Very useful for setting up virtual soundcheck.

Grateful for the original heads-up, MA.

shufflebeat

Duplicate postage.