Custom drivers for MacOS?

CQ CQ Feature Suggestions
1

My CQ is fantastic and checks so many boxes for my band’s use case. I use the audio interface functionality of the unit to trigger edrums through a VST in Ableton, in addition to the CQ doing its traditional duty of running all of the other band inputs, main mixes, and monitor mixes.

I’ve noticed a pretty big difference in audio interface output latency with Windows vs MacOS. On Windows, at 128 sample size / 96k / CQ ASIO driver, I get a fantastic 1.5ms output latency (see pic). On MacOS, at a 128 sample size / 96k / CoreAudio, I get a lukewarm 4.34ms output latency (see pic). As my Mac is my live rig computer, this isn’t super ideal because there is additional latency elsewhere in the signal chain (scan time latency, midi latency), all additive, so it can make my edrums in my monitor start to feel a little mushy.

I know that audio interface development probably isn’t Allen & Heath’s core business, but is there a chance we could have some resources assigned to the potential development of a MacOS / CQ driver? CoreAudio is OK, but other folks like RME, Motu have MacOS-specific drivers which I would imagine help improve latency performance on their interfaces.

Details of my rigs:

Windows desktop

  • Ryzen 2600X
  • Vega 64
  • 16 GB RAM
  • Ableton running from 500GB SSD
  • CQ-20B connected into motherboard USB-A port

Macbook Air

2

You might have to wait until they introduce such on DLive, then Avantis, then SQ, possibly even Qu before you get it on CQ. The product will have been superseded by then!

3

Well a different perspective would be that

  1. They advertise all of their mixers for “Home & Studio Recording”,
  2. (I imagine) that since the CQ is running 96k FPGA, the interface architecture across all of the product lines would look pretty similar and maybe not a lot of extra work to bring the feature to all of them,
  3. Such a feature might be an even bigger value proposition for a prosumer as opposed to someone buying a higher-tier device. Now that there’s a prosumer device that can handle 96k, there could be an opportunity to grab some of the cross-section of the market that has a use case for live and studio applications.

Just thinking out loud. Not that I’m biased lol.

4

It would be nice if we could choose which channels to use as the apple main sound device, I’m having to use Bluetooth to get to the mixer as cannot choose the channels I want.

5

That is strange. Macs are always used for pro audio as they are designed with that purpose in mind. Apple own Logic Pro probably the best DAW and as far as I know, Core audio is an integral part of the Mac OS (is it still OSX) and does not require additional drivers.

Has anyone else had problems in a Mac?