For some reason Allen and Heath don’t tell you to hookup the ethernet cable to your computer from the mixer. In fact, many companies that produce mixers forget this or assume you know it. Not sure why, but I brought my CQ-18T back thinking there was a problem with the drivers. It took searching through YouTube and a different brand to help me realize that you need to hook up both the USB and the ethernet cable so the DAW on the computer could send signal to control to the desk and back to the DAW.
You would only need to connect the ethernet cable if you wanted to use CQ Mixpad on your computer as well as your DAW. If you’re just using the mixer as an audio interface, you only need to connect the USB cable.
The USB interface is to move audio between the console and a connected computer/drive.
The ethernet interface is to move non-audio data (ie control data) between the console and a connected computer/network.
You need to understand when/why you might need one or both of the connections and use them when needed.
PS - this is the same with pretty much ALL consoles, not just the CQ, or A&H offerings. (Although not every console has a USB connection that functions as an audio interface. But if it does, it works the same way)
I think it is important to not get into semantics and let people know what is a practical requirement for getting your DAW recording to play back through your monitors that are connected to the mixer. It is probably written into the driver that the connection is a requirement because I have tried it on 3 mixers now. For DAW sound to come back through your mixer and into your monitors connected to your mixer, the ethernet cable has to be connected from your mixer to your computer. Any other setup with only the the USB cable hasn’t worked.
…mmmmm…not so sure about needing ethernet. I’ve never used cat5 to loop back and forth from cq to MacBook, just usb. I use wireless to connect control of the cq from an iPad/MacBook though…/s~
Hey there,
No semantics here - the ethernet cable only carries control messaging for the apps like CQ Mixpad or CQ4You. It isn’t required for audio to flow.
If you’re using a Mac, the CQ series is class compliant so no driver is required.
If you’re using a Windows computer, you’ll need the USB audio driver from our website: https://www.allen-heath.com/hardware/cq/cq-18t/resources/
It should be as simple as connecting up the USB and mapping the channels. If you’re returning audio from your DAW you’ll obviously need to switch the channel source on the CQ to USB/SDHC. You can check out the channel routing in this knowledgebase article: https://support.allen-heath.com/hc/en-gb/articles/31464715078929-CQ-USB-B-Routing
If you’re having issues, you can reach out to us in technical support (support@allen-heath.com) or we can chat it through here. But - I suspect there’s something else going on with your setup, as you definitely don’t need the ethernet cable to get the CQ connected up to a DAW.