I tried some USB sticks untill I get mad and just gave up any chance to make a recording with my Qu-16. Now I just bought a Trascend JetFlash 810 wich appears in the list with “OK” in mtk and stereo recording and, guess what? Total trash! Jumps and Drops every 30 seconds. I wont even try it with the Sq-5 I use at work.
Why A&H doesn’t admit that MTK with this method is just impossible? People who counts on that feature like me, has already waste their money. Why should we waste our time too in useless tries?
I have had consistent success stereo recording with the Sandisk Extreme 3.0 (16gb and 32 gb). One tip/trick - format the drive in the device every single time. Also - make sure your firmware is updated, they are trying to stabilize the issue with updates. FYI - my first SanDisk drive was DOA and SanDisk replaced it for free. Make sure your drive isn’t defective overall.
I have an amazing 256gB flash drive that records in multitrack on my QU-16 beautifully.
It is the SanDisk SDCZ880-256G-G46 Extreme PRO 256GB USB 3.1
Screw all the others. This one crushes it.
I run sound for my band, and I have my iPad mounted to my mic stand when we’re performing live using QU-Pad.
I start and stop my multitrack recordings via iPad without even having to touch the mixer. It’s fantastic, and now the only problem with our recordings is the playing! LOL ?
We have had virtually no problems with multi-track recording using a USB3 Seagate Backup Plus Portable 1TB spinning drive. Only a single glitch after hour long recordings once a week for over 6 months (of course, because of Murphy’s Law, it happened during dialog in a play. had to fix the glitch by using bad sound recorded to a camcorder). I also don’t format at each session. After the glitch, I reformatted and no glitches after 4, hour long sessions. It seems the USB interface in the QU’s works best with spinning disk drives for recording. Just get one with a long enough cable to tuck the drive under the board if you’re worried about space.
Cant recommend this enough - cost me about £85 on amazon, I think they might be around £90/95 at the mo. Bloody solid.
Only niggle - QU-SB mis-reports time remaining - it cant seem to cope with a device that can deal with more than 8 hours recording time - just rubbish and short-sighted programming which doesnt affect anything other than a stupid display telling you how much time is remaining. As its quite hard to fill a 250GB even at a festival weekend it doesnt matter.
I have a Sandisk Extreme Go 64GB USB 3.1 and it does not work at all with my QU-PAC, no chance.
I bought a “SanDisk SDSSDEXT-500G-G25 500GB Extreme 500” (Portable SSD) which works nicely so far.
Only niggle – QU-SB mis-reports time remaining – it cant seem to cope with a device that can deal with more than 8 hours recording time – just rubbish and short-sighted programming which doesnt affect anything other than a stupid display telling you how much time is remaining.
My QU-PAC formats the drive using a FAT32 file system which can not store files larger than 4GB, at 24bit/48kHz this means 8h17min. I don’t know what happens if the size of a track reaches 4GB, I suspect the recording just stops.
Thanks for the suggestions. I wonder if these could be partitioned so the extra space could be used for something else.
I’ve been consistently using a pair of SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 32GB thumb drives without any problems.
I always reformat before starting a new recording, just to be cautious. Wish I had time to mess with them more, to see if I really need to.
Respectfully to the non-Allen&Heath folks who have answered: you’re missing my point.
The bottom line here is that for any single USB device, it might be working for some people and not for others, and it might be working this week and not next.
That is not how USB devices work in a computer. When was the last time you plugged a USB storage device of any kind into a computer made in the last three years and had it not be recognized, or fail to format?
A&H are asking us to expect mediocrity. I am really shocked at their unwillingness to respond to this issue.
No you arent alone. If you look back across the last couple of years of threads you will see me moan about it.
As a software engineer with experience of SoC (System on a chip) and embedded linux devices I have seen similar problems caused in the device drivers through clock issues. Unless the hardware is just crap there will be a fault in the driver. I suspect they are not taking standard linux USB drivers - which there may be good reasons for but yes you are not alone in thinking that every single usb device you plug into pretty much anything now is recognised and usable.
The problem is it requires someone to actually care - and I dont think they care about this issue enough - which is a real shame - very costly - and very frustrating…
WRT the mis-reported size and time remaining - this has little to do with the FAT32 file system. This is about free space on the device. The FAT32 fs is able to handle devices up to 2TB on 512 byte sector - more for larger sectors. This is plain and simple shitty code and shitty testing. Even a 32 bit processor can do the 64bit integers necessary to get it right. If you look in the drive stats the figures in there do not report properly a lot of the time.
Yes 4G is the maximum file size - the recording would probably stop at that point but worse still you probably will be lucky to get a usable recording depending on how it deals with the error. Whilst it tells you time remaining on the recording it also tells you time on device iirc.
Like I suggested before: A&H should sell USB-sticks that comply, with guaranteed recording success. Luckily I did manage to find sticks that work, but the not-solving-the-problem attitude is a disgrace, A&H unworthy. My next one won’t be an A&H model, due to the lack of serious responses from the great innovative company I visited about 15 years ago. Things have changed I suppose…
Ok. I give up with sticks and just tried with a Maxtor M3 2 TB HDD. On a 20 minute trial record it perfectly works with no error or problems.
I’ll try longer with a real live recording.
you can take the ‘Transcend jetflash 810 32GB’ off the list.
I have just bought one and it’s not recognised. I can’t even get to formatting it.
I am so confused with all of this. I thought the link to the database was a golden source of what drives will work.
Steven,
Sadly, manufacturers will change components midstream, without changing any model information. So though the list is useful, it is limited.
In your case, you might have chosen the USB 3.1 drive? That one is listed as not working, while the USB 3.0 drive is listed as working.
My strategy: order a few good choices from the list and try them. The ones that don’t work, simply return them, or use them for something else.
you can take the ‘Transcend jetflash 810 32GB’ off the list.
I have just bought one and it’s not recognised. I can’t even get to formatting it.
I am so confused with all of this. I thought the link to the database was a golden source of what drives will work.
Steven,
Sadly, manufacturers will change components midstream, without changing any model information. So though the list is useful, it is limited.
In your case, you might have chosen the USB 3.1 drive? That one is listed as not working, while the USB 3.0 drive is listed as working.
My strategy: order a few good choices from the list and try them. The ones that don’t work, simply return them, or use them for something else.
Allen and Heath have been completely silent on this discussion.
It’s well documented that drives that work for one person, might not work for another. Whether this is because of variation in mixers or variation in drives is irrelevant: it means that you cannot reliably purchase a drive that works.
If I just wanted to record to my own devices, I could record to a laptop. The point of recording to a thumb drive, for me, is that I can tell a band to give me a thumb drive and I can give them a multitrack recording at the end of their set. That only works if the vast majority of drives are supported. Obviously, the set of supported drives is small and unpredictable.
This is true not only for recording, but for playback. If acts want to give me a thumb drive of music to play pre-show, I cannot trust that my mixer will read it. In fact for my mixer - and again, I think there may be variation between units - I have only found one drive so far that it will read. I have tried dozens. I’m just talking about whether it will recognize the drive, not even whether it will play back or record.
I talked to A&H tech support and they were polite but completely useless.
