Hello, I have just got a SQ6 and considering which DANTE card to get. I will be recording bands - with drums, base, guitar, keys, vocals and bvs. I also have a vintage 24ch Chilton QM3 (EX BBC). and was also thinking of striping the stems through some old analogue gear. Does anyone find the Midi automation on the SQ acceptable to use it a control surface? (Nuendo13) and does anyone think the 64Ch is worth going for? I was planning on using all the plugins on the DAW and just the SQ for the mic pre amps and the faders for automation. thanks J
The answer is always going to be “it depends”…
I will say that it is very easy to grow to the point where you need MORE Dante I/O than you have processing channels. This is especially true if you plan on multitrack recording your sources and then want to add some external FX (perhaps plugins hosted on a computer for example) on top of that.
For example if you are mixing just 24 inputs/sources (or less), a 32 channel Dante card might be sufficient. You would use 24 of the Dante outputs to multitrack record your channels, and still have 8 channels left to use for the FX routing. However you can obviously see where if you need more FX channels, or expect to mix more than about 24 channels overall, you could quickly outgrow a 32x32 Dante card.
That example doesn’t even take into account the fact that you might add more Dante devices as time goes on too. That tends to happen when people start using Dante and see the flexibility that it offers.
Now in your case, if you really are only going to use the SQ for preamps/outputs and MIDI faders, a 32x32 Dante card is likely more than enough. But don’t discount the fact that you might want to change your workflow and use the console as a “console” in the future too.
This is why A&H offers choices. Obviously you can save some money by buying the lower capacity card, but just make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot and end up limiting your choices because you don’t have enough Dante I/O.