At £175 *3 it is less so, and doesn’t do the VLAN trunking.
I’d need to get two additional switches (to do the trunking over the dSnake cable) and possibly a WAP for FOH - although the above should be easily capable of covering anywhere I care about - so maybe just add two vlan switches…
Makes it more like £200
And that’s still not too bad - except that I just lost the convenience of a single device, so I may as well put the VLN switches (and a spare at each location, and a WAP (at each location) onto a shelf for ~£80
If you are going to charge £175 for a piece of hardware it needs to do something valuable (like be a single box solution).
A 1U box with a couple of Ethercon connectors and my total cost is approaching £100, but the “single unit” box is now easier to use (leave the cable plugged into the dSnake under, so it’s one cable in and raise the antenna)
The other end gets a small Vlan switch in place of a WAP and one extra cable…
Hi All, one important thing that may have been missed here is Qu-Pac’s Qu-32 Core.
With an added AR2412 AudioRack you can expand up to 32 mic pres and 24 outs!
I use a shallow rack case and find that my Qu-Pac takes up 1/2 as much space as Qu-16.
Firmware v1.8 introduced a lot more setup functions and control from Qu-Pad which means you don’t need to spend so much time running back and forth to the mixer.
David Giga’s Mixing Station Qu is the most comprehensive Android app that we’ve seen so far and is available from Google Play or Amazon Appstore: Mixing Station
If your tablet device goes down mid-show, you still have control from Qu-Pac’s touchscreen. You could even set up a very simple but powerful mix interface using Qu-Control if necessary!
Here is a photo of what I am using - the bottom rack is 12 space, I thought it was a 10. It all brings the QU-PAC up to a nice workable height . Of course shorter racks would make the whole thing much shorter if you prefer.
Hi Klaus, Bob’s right of course, to clarify Qu-16, 24 & 32 can only handle their designated number of channels whether these are local, remote or USB I/O.
Qu-Pac is able to expand using AudioRacks from 16 mic and 12 XLR out, up to 32 mic and 24 XLR out, depending on which audio racks you use.
HTH.
Thanks.
Harry.
@Harry. Thanks for the info but I’m confused. The AB168 adds 16 mic preamps and 8 outs which gives us 20 outs not 24, correct?
We’ve discussed the possibility of using the QU-Pac’s touch screen to continue setting up or mixing the gig if the wifi router fails, the question is how convenient is it?
Also I don’t understand the QU-Control reference either.
@debzdoodle thanks for the photo.
@audiokla I have only used an iPad Air and have yet to tryout Android apps for QU mixers.
PS I updated my firmware and am looking forward to trying it out tonight.
Adding preamps does not give you extra DSP horsepower. The Qu-Pac has 32 channels of DSP horsepower, but only 16 preamps.
Similarly, it does not give you extra busses and output processing, only extra output sockets that you can route to an output processor of your choice.
"Adding preamps does not give you extra DSP horsepower. The Qu-Pac has 32 channels of DSP horsepower, but only 16 preamps.
Similarly, it does not give you extra busses and output processing, only extra output sockets that you can route to an output processor of your choice."
Is that a reference to the stage boxes like the AB168?
@jakemckown
Hi Jake, I did say that Qu-Pac has Qu-32’s DSP Core and is able to expand using AudioRacks, not specifically AB168, but also AR84 and AR2412 too. This means that I can expand Qu-Pac from to a maximum of 32(mic)in and 24 out, as with Qu-32.
This tutorial video I created a few months ago explains working with Qu-Pac’s touchscreen including the Channel Screen, Custom Layer and Qu-Control Screen: https://youtu.be/t0kCfYwjxxc
Hope this helps and have a good weekend all!
Harry.
That was in response to this portion of your post, “Hi All, one important thing that may have been missed here is Qu-Pac’s Qu-32 Core.
With an added AB168 you have expand to 32 mic pres and 24 outs!”
At last night’s gig I tried a couple of experiments. I put the QU-16 on stage without a table. I left my router inside of the rack case, instead of placing it on top of the case. The rack and case we upstage and stage right… So the router was blocked by an additional wall in two directions. In the hall my connection was great. The hall has a pesky neighbor so I often cross the street and use a SPL meter app to check sound level at her curb. I made it across the street but lost connection about 40’ short of her place, so the router placement did effect the range just a bit. I’ll have to try again in the previous location on the table with it in the case and on stage behind the wall to see which affects it more. I’ll let you know. The point of course is to create a setup that is as close to plug and play as possible with the least amount of steps that is still reliable.
Thanks again for everyone’s input.
Jake
PS At this point I’m thinking that if I switch to the QU-Pac I’ll get a shallow 6U rack for the QU-Pac, my wireless mic setup and the voltage regulator. This should leave half a rack space for the wifi router to go beside the Senneiser wireless mic receiver unit.
On the product/features list I’d like to see a stage box that competed the QU-Pac perfectly. With 16 in and 12 outs. For my purposes I’d like it in a rack configuration, so it would be a new product probably called the AR1612. The AR2412 does this now but gives us 8 more ins, so I think it’s unlikely. And let’s face it, 24 in and 16 out makes for an awesome stage box.
Can anybody think of a circumstance where you would want the QU-Pac at a table and a stage/rack box near the musicians? Recording with a DAW, perhaps?
Thanks for your input everyone.
PS on Friday I spoke to some dance organizers for a dance up north and they are in the market for a mixer. They loved what can be done on the iPad with QU-pad, but we’re afraid that their pool of techs might not all be comfortable with a digital board. The QU-16 came to mind as a solution with a reasonable learning curve. Any thoughts?
Regarding workflow the only difference between QuXX and QuPac+Pad is, that on QuXX you have physical knobs and faders while they are pure virtual on the QuPad (ignoring the few physical things on the QuPac).
Learning curve regarding signal flow, group/mix/matrix use, recording with QuDrive/DAW, connectivity to stageboxes etc. is 100% identical.
I have an AR2412 which (so far) has given me all I need from a stage box.
With the box near the drums, the 24 inputs can be patched as I want on the Qu-Pac (including the stereo inputs), with a couple of outputs to monitors. The Qu-Pac is then usually just behind a PA stack, with vocals & any other front line inputs, and most of the outputs for PA.
