We were very disappointed to find that our new CQ-18T seems to offer only Pre-Fader Meters, not Post-Fader. Our use is for live sound. We don’t have engineers, and we never have enough setup time to mic-check and adjust each channel’s preamp gain (trim). Our ensemble leaders (often the pianist) would like to balance the mix of choir singers and other instruments by eyeing the meters during the opening song. I realize this is not very good, but it is better than using his/her ears amidst the ensemble. It would be good given our resource limitations. Our old PreSonus Studio Live, designed in year 2008, had a button that toggled meters between Pre Fader and Post Fader, so I assumed this would be standard equipment nowadays. We are using Mixing Station, but Post Fader is not available in Mixing Station either.
Google told me this. I don’t have the CQ to test if it is accurate though.
Worth a shot if you haven’t checked here already.
If you use CTRL & F in the manual to search for Post Fader, you might find what you need either.
Link to manual
Unfortunately, this isn’t currently possible.
A look at the block diagram shows that the meter point on the CQ is fix before the fader.
Thank you, @ShadowSound. But I cannot find your screenshot in the manual. It appears to be a conflagration of various sections which explain whether various outputs are fed from pre- or post-fader. I suspect that you clicked the Try generating an AI-assisted answer at the top of the Google search results and got, as usual, a time-wasting and planet-warming hallucination.
I just thought of a way to fake post-fader metering. Maybe I could make a Mixing Station layout which would wire the faders to the Preamp Gain (Trim) instead of the faders. This would actually be quite compatible with our non-technical users’ mental model of a mixer. I’ve seen it many times, that a novice mixer user naturally expects each channel to have one gain control, not two as most professional mixers have with their Preamp Gain (Trim).
There are three drawbacks to this idea, besides the time I would spend:
(1) We would need to re-make all of our Scenes.
(2) The view in Mixing Station would no longer reflect that on the CQ-18T itself.
(3) Mixing Station itself would no longer serve as a simple back-up in case our tablet fails.
So before delving further, I wonder, and could someone please answer: Would it be even possible for Allen & Heath to add a Pre/Post-Fader Meter toggle switch in a firmware update? Maybe add this to the System > Meters tab? How often, if ever, does Allen & Heath add features in a firmware update?
I’d already thought of something similar, because as a workaround, you could also try the following using “Mixing Station”:
You could create a layout there in which, among other things, you display the gain controls as normal faders.
If you set the levels during your sound check so that you set all channels to 0 dB, the meters would be the same as post-fader.
Now you could use the gain controls for mixing, at least during the first track.
Thank you, @SQUser. I think I could I shorten your proposal to say: Use the Trims as Faders and the Faders as Trims. Correct?
Yes, the trims as faders would be correct.
But if the faders (= trims) weren’t consistently remain at 0 dB, the meters wouldn’t reliably reflect the “post-fader” values.
What do you need the trims for?
Yes, the “real” faders would all need to be set at 0 dB in every Scene and never touched. To avoid touching, I would probably not even show those “real” faders in Mixing Station.
To your question, we do not need the Trims (Preamp Gains). On our old PreSonus console, the Trims were hardware only, not re-callable in Scenes. So I set all of the Trims the same and covered all 16 of them with a strip of masking tape.
Our users do understand that our condenser mics are hotter (about 14 dB) than the Shure SM-58 knockoffs, so they should have lower gain/fader settings, just like they understand that these mics need “48V” switched on.
At the beginning, you only mentioned the correction during the opening song.
Because the problem, of course, is that level changes via trim also affect the control behavior, especially of the compressors.
A compressor set up accordingly might try to compensate again the changes made via trim.
That’s a valid warning, but our users don’t use any effects, and rarely make any adjustments after the first song.
My screenshot was from a Google result and not the manual itself. Apologies if I didn’t make that clear enough. And yes, I usually take that AI response with a grain of salt, but seeing as I don’t have a CQ and couldn’t confirm, I posted it with the warning saying I wasn’t sure if it was accurate. The manual showed me a few references of changing meters from pre to post fade, but wasn’t sure if it was what you required. Said I would post it just in case.
Hopefully, based on the rest of the discussion, you can at least find a suitable workaround to suit your needs.
No apology needed, @ShadowSound. You did clearly state that it was from a Google result, which is how I got the clue that it must have been their AI when I couldn’t find it in the manual. The discussions in the manual are how to change the tap points of various outputs or effects inputs from Pre-Fader to Post-Fader, which the AI overstretched to refer to the Meters.