Hi, I’m going to recommend, because I learned the hard way, that the default USB out not place main mix L and main mix R on top of output channels 1 & 2 respectively, thus making inputs 1 & 2 completely inaccessible via the DAW (minus somehow scraping them out of the main mix).
Especially on the QU-5, the default is effectively throwing away 2 precious channels that could be recorded individually. Moreover, this particularly doesn’t make sense because while you only have 16 in, you have 32 out - so main mix L & R could have been dropped on 17 & 18 or 31 & 32 respectively.
Lesson learned on my part, but effectively throwing away two primary channels (of course people are going to want to use 1 & 2!) doesn’t make sense (IMO).
I say that so far loving my QU-5 (albeit documentation/videos would help). Awesome beast.’
Unfortunately, I can’t verify this myself, but I’m sure you’re at a patchbay here, where you can patch your USB recording channels as you wish - for example, also swapping Main L and R for Dir Outs Ip1 and Ip2.
At least, that’s what the user guide says:
|| I/O | Outputs | USB
There are 32 USB output sockets available to patch to.
And one more tip: Only patch as many channels as you intend to record; otherwise you would also record unnecessary tracks.
Yes, as you indicate it’s easily fixed and I had done like you suggest after putting out the original post. I moved my L&R to 31/32, though I’m not sure I’ll ever use it. Maybe it’ll bite me again if I ever decide to fork out the same cost as a mixer for a DX168 add-on.
Agreed - want to keep what I’m passing to what’s needed for the reasons you indicate.
From my perspective, the idea behind this is that most users want to make a quick stereo recording of their main LR mix onto a USB stick much more often, and for that, this mix needs to be routed to USB 1 and 2.
And those who want to record multitrack can switch to channels 1 and 2 in just a few seconds and then have a 1:1 patching of their channels for the recording.
If you don’t constantly use multitrack recording, it might even make sense not to patch any input channels there by default.
Then you’ll immediately see in your recording window that something is missing and you can quickly patch only the channels you actually need.
At least that’s how I’ve set it up on my SQ.
I cannot verify this with my coming QU-6 as it’s still likely a week away from arriving, but, Is this still the default for 2026? Even if it is, I believe we can re-write the channels in one shot:
Making that your default scene and saving it would not be a bad idea.
If recording to the DAW, isn’t it 32 in.32 out irrespective of sample rate NS 16 IN/OUT OF CAPTURING TO THE sd CARD AT 96kHz? So where does one reroute the main L/R to and could we not use one of the mixes to set up something as a default?? Thats the kind of newbie questions I will be able to finally answer once I get mine… maybe, lol
If one really needs the full 32 inputs, yeah, it does present some challenges at least for newbies like me. I could see me wanting to reserve channels 1&2 on the #1 & #2 faders for PC system audio and still have access to all the USB channnels that I could ever need.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding something as a non-native English speaker, but you can certainly create scenes with your own default settings.
And again regarding the first two USB record channels:
The “Main L+R” preset isn’t just useful for stereo recording to a USB stick; but many audio programs on connected PCs or similar devices also only use stereo, and by default, only the first two channels.
So consider stereo recording or/and streaming as the more common use case for the average user, and recording 32 input channels or also mix channels, as the less common, more advanced users case.
And this user group shouldn’t have any problem with a repatching.
