@Mike C vc deve estar equivocado, uma questão aqui não é saber trabalhar com os recursos do console, uma questão que ela tem 12 auxiliares e eu no meu sistema preciso de 16. Você está fazendo? Tiro um coelho da cartola? Você freqüenta aulas de engenharia e consegue resolver isso com um SQ?
Our PC and DAW have more capability than the big studios with millions of dollars of gear had in the 60s and 70s.
Probably 80s and most of the 90s too.
If someone cant do it with an SQ then their golden ears are just too picky.
@Mike C you must be wrong, a question here is not to know how to work with the resources of the console, a question that she has 12 assistants and I in my system need 16. Are you doing? Take a rabbit out of a hat? Do you attend engineering classes and can you solve this with an SQ?
WE BUY THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB
WE BUY THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB
And or a creative work around, the kind of things you learn to
do “back in the day”
@junior
Maybe that’s why Beringer’s Wing is gaining the whole market
April fools was 17 days ago bro…
Hmm, the 96kHz mantra is at the end of the day very boring. The WING comes with a bunch of clever ideas and sounds great as well. The build in FX is fine, I would like to have some/many of them in the SQ as well. A&H can take this as opportunity to learn from the competitors and fill the gap to them. 96 kHz alone do not make the job.
But, back to topic. First law of audio enineering is that the console have too less inputs, channels, busses, effects…
if you want to use more than available you need another console, if you cannot switch to another console you have to learn how to do the job with the given ressources. But never blame the manufacturer of the console.
Look at an account of a sensible person who has no passion for the brand and knows how to put the right words. Allen & Heath relies only on 96kz and forgets the rest
It’s really just a matter of want and need.
If you really need more than 12 aux/mix sends
all of the time go shopping for another mixer.
A lot of times want and need are based on who is paying for the mixer in
the first place.
What is your want / need for more than 12 aux/mix sends?
What are you using now, an SQ?
Do you work for yourself with your own equipment or work for someone
else who supplies all the equipment?
The high number of auxes available in digital consoles these days is amazing! Back in the day you had to buy a quite expensive analog console to get 8 auxes. If 12 isn’t enough, then you need to look at Avantis or dLive as they offer quite a bit more.
I’m not sure what the auxes are needed for, but if it’s for monitoring consider adding some ME units as they don’t eat up any of the mixer’s resources.
SQ offers one heck of a lot for it’s price, compact size an light weight though.
Auxes are auxiliary busses, i.e. supplementary to the main LR mix. Therefore you should not be able to assign these to the LR mix as they are separate by design.
If auxes could go to the mains, I wouldn’t have to preconfigure auxes vs groups. A post-fader aux with all faders set at 0 or off would be functionally identical to a group, except it would have more flexibility.
I’m used to building groups out of auxes on boards that didn’t have groups. The number of times I’ve switched sends-on-fader to a group on my GLD and wondered why the faders didn’t move is not a small number.
For me this „auxes cannot be routed to main“ rule has no architectural or design reason but is more a matter of the ideology of A&H and their idea of how mixing have do be done. To change their mindset could be a hard work, I am afraid.
@Mfk0815 - It’s not an arbitrary decision, nor do we ever intend to tell any engineer how to mix, though I appreciate the architecture can influence this quite a bit. Whilst just a picture, the diagram at the bottom of this article ( https://support.allen-heath.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/sq-signal-path ) shows how the processing for the LR and Aux channels occurs in parallel, and Aux → LR would require the signal to go ‘backward’ or more accurately the whole signal path to be extended. So it is this way by design and is one of the reasons for the extremely low latency and coherency of the console.
For example, if we were to have Aux → LR, then you could end up with the following signal paths:
A) Input > LR (<0.7ms)
B) Input > Group > LR (<0.7ms, coherent/sample accurate with A)
C) Input > Group > Aux > LR (>0.7ms)
So in the case of C, do you either ignore the coherency and potentially introduce cancellation/comb filtering, or compensate by adding latency to every other channel?
The former has the potential to ruin a mix without obvious reason to the engineer, whilst the latter reduces the performance of the console, and then do you stop at Aux to LR or is the next request for other mix to mix routing further compounding the issues?
Our mindset is only that we want every engineer using our console to be able to work quickly, avoid pitfalls (especially in the heat of a show) and ultimately get outstanding audio results. We are very open to discussion, but would never implement something that doesn’t improve things for everyone.
Cheers,
Keith.
Thank you for that reply, Keith. So, some questions came in my mind, when I read it.
First, why is it possibleto assign an aux to a channel on the dLive? And second, whyis it not possible to do that on the SQ? Third, there are already situations where the coherence of different paths to the Main bus can be corrupted by the user, think about inserting effects either from the FX rack or, even worse, external ones. The engineer needs to know that to avoid comb filters and so on. And the engineer also have to know the difference off DEEP plugins and FX Rack plugins.
For me there are two different major aspects regarding mixbusses. First how to bring signals to the bus. Main differences are pre fader, post fader and subgroup style, where a subgroup can be seen as a post fader bus with fixed level at 0 dB. The second aspect is what to do with the summing signal. If i know that
A) Input → Main
B) Input → Bus(Aux/Subgroup) → Main
Would be aligned as but
C) Input → Subgroup → Aux → Main
Is not aligned that would be the same type of knowledge as the stuff with insert effects and DEEP Plugins for me.
Just my 2 cents.
One last question regarding this issue, Keith
What is the difference regarding latency between
A) Input > LR (<0.7ms)
B) Input > Group > LR (<0.7ms, coherent/sample accurate with A)
C) Input > Group > Aux > LR (>0.7ms)
And
A) Input > LR > Matrix
B) Input > Group > Matrix
C) Input > Group > Aux > Matrix
D) Input > Group > LR > Matrix
Because the second sample is possible with the SQ. When do we start to be not phase coherent?
@Mfk0815 - Great questions!
While the processing algorithms in SQ are the same as those found in dLive they are different systems with different capabilities for different users.
Mix freedoms in dLive do allow you to use a mix as an external input for another, and you can also do some other funky routing like input to matrix and returns to input channels.
Some of this does cause confusion even for dLive super users though and I’m not sure most SQ users would (or should) need to be as careful as you obviously would be with the system knowledge you have.
Referring back to the OP for example, parallel compression using an aux would be the absolute worst case scenario for coherency and so Aux → LR is not the solution.
DEEP processing does not add and latency of course, so there is no need to worry about that, and RackFX are most commonly used as Mix → Return (no coherency concern) or inserted on an individual channel or mix. With inserted FX, there is the wet/dry mix (which can be used without issue), so the only way this might cause problems is if double patching an input and inserting FX on one of the channels. With this setup I’d suggest it’s more likely to have one ‘dry’ and one ‘wet’ version so you would still not be blending two non-aligned signals. (But you’re right, there is some potential for messing things up, it just takes some effort!).
Back on the argument for Aux → LR, the main question I see is:
“What are the use cases for Aux → LR which cannot be achieved through other means and which outweigh the potential for less experienced users to experience problems?”
Thanks,
Keith.
PS - just saw the follow up question, which is explained here https://support.allen-heath.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/phase-coherent-mixing-in-sq
That’s a clear explanation of your reasoning, thanks. I can’t think of a use case I would have that would be worth blowing coherency.
@keithjah
Frankly spoken, I have no obvious use case in mind for routing auxes to MainLR at the moment. That is also true when I work with the dLive, and there I have the option.
And I know that even if I want to do that, I can somehow do a workaround.
Generally spoken is one of the big advantage of digital consoles the possible flexibility of signal processing. Everybody who ever did a customization of the tap points on an analog console like a MixWiz or GL knows the pain to do that. On the digital console it is just a simple adjustment. The more flexibility I have the more I will use it and I will adjust my workflow step by step. „The appetite comes with the eating“ is something we say in my corner of the world.
PLASSE stop compare 96KHz versus 48KHz architectures consoles…
Sorry, i have to state this:
No, at least myself, but i could bet many other people, too, definitely won’t.
I simply see no reason to care about having 48 or 96 kHz on the Console core. Thats just one of many technical Parameters which may influence things I care about, but then i will care on them and not on sampling frequency.
In Fact, at least my personal goal and i think the goal of most SQ Users is to mix Audio for humans, not for bats, dogs or any kind of analyzing device. Humans are “pets” that can hear a maximum of around 20 kHz, maybe 24 kHz as a Baby, but as far as i know there was never detected a human on the whole planet who can hear higher Frequencies.
Most of us use Microphones which are limited to a maximum of 12 up to 20 kHz or synthesizers that use 44 or 48 kHz Sampling Frequency on our Inputs. And most of us generate output that will be shipped to “End Users” with that sampling rates.
So why should I not compare Consoles with 48, 96, 72, 80 or 192 kHz? They all more or less can do what i want. The Sampling Frequency is the way, not the target. In Himalaya Climbing where the way may be the target, in Audio Processing it is definitely not, at least not for me.
Of course, I may care about number of Inputs, features, noise, sound, latencies and many other things. I also may care about file sizes, bandwidth or storage, about a reasonable User Interface, about robustness of the Hardware and last but not least about money.
If SQ is better or worse in some of that points because of using 96 kHz, that’s good, but it makes no difference if another Console would do that with better Software, other Hardware or whatever else may help. In both Cases the result is mainly the same.
So don’t be disappointed there, I and many others will continue comparing Mixers without caring at all about what sampling Frequency they use. We also may compare Cars without caring about the inside color of the gear housing.
@Dilettant
You do not understand enough about digital and what happens with processing.
96 is better than 48, especially if you end up with CDs.
And 192 is better than 96, and 384 is better than 192.
I vaguely recall that once a high end studio even had 786 for their use.
Now if all you are going to do is play live via the loudspeaker then it really does not matter.
But if you record and later process many tracks in a DAW to mix and tweak then the higher resolution is much better to have.
This is far beyond inside color or gear housing this is more like gear ratios and horsepower in the motor and those things do matter to most car buyers.