This is something I noted in passing- I assigned two soft-keys for “scene previous/next” on my Qu-16. I thought that pressing the soft key would actually change the scene, but instead it required a recall confirmation on the touchscreen! Is this really the case? Because if it is, it debilitates the whole idea of instant scene recall. The extra step means that in theatrical work, the cue is gone because of the extra couple of seconds it takes to confirm the change. Unacceptable. Haven´t checked out how things are with firmware 1.5… any ideas?
I have placed an order for a Qu-24 for my next season at the theater, because the bang for buck outweighs some minor quirks in operation, but this is a serious design flaw, if indeed scene change is not performed by soft-keys alone.
Press the soft key on “Standby” and confirm on “Go”?
I have to admit, I don’t do much theatre these days have never attempted to use scenes that way. Changing a scene on one button press seems a little dangerous to me. I suppose we need it to be a setup option really to keep us both happy.
Well… I really don´t think an inadvertent push of a soft key is an issue with a Qu-console. Qu´s buttons have to be pressed quite firmly before anything happens. On a,say, Yamaha, where the buttons are more of a ´soft touch´-type, and the keys are located in the low corner of the desk it can happen, albeit they are ergonomically in the right place. On a Qu you have to lift your arm to reach the soft-keys, but I understand most users prefer having the mix-select buttons within easiest reach. But I know I´m going to suffer neck and shoulder pains after a hundred two-hour shows with a couple of dozen cues each, hanging my finger over that soft-key… and another hovering over the touchscreen.
I am more worried about missing a touchscreen button, because the screen real-estate is not used efficiently, and the button areas are too small. And you have to lift your arm even more to reach the touchscreen. Perhaps they have left all that empty space to accommodate for more features to come, but most buttons are inconvenient nevertheless. The metering-window, for example, could be a lot clearer to read. Since there are no buttons to press in that window, the metering bars could be a lot bigger, and preferably on a darker background. You can´t really call them “daylight-viewable”. There´s room for improvement in the graphics department, IMHO.
SoftKey assignments are stored in the Scenes, so if you are recalling a Scene that was created prior of the SoftKey setup, it is normal to lose the assignments. You can however ‘Safe’ the SoftKeys in the Scene Global Filter, so that they won’t be affected by any Scene recall.