SQ6 FW1.6 no Arm on SQ Drive

[CCW]

I updated our SQ6 to Firmware 1.6 a few days ago. Today we noticed that the soft keys that we had programmed to operate the SQ Drive recorder worked differently. Pressing the “Arm” soft key started the recorder. So did pressing “Record”. On further investigation, I saw that “Arm” is no longer an option for programming a soft key - just “Record” and “Stop”. I assume that removal of the “Arm” function is deliberate, but can’t see it in the FW1.6.1 or FW1.6 release notes.

[SQuser]

Yes, this isn’t a bug, but unfortunately a new feature. (
And they just forgot to mention it.

[CCW]

Thanks for the confirmation.

[andee]

Caught me out too. Thought I had armed ready to record, then hit the next key to record - which actually paused the recording. Worked out what was going on pretty quick but lost the opening track of the performance.

[robinhow]

Not sure why it’s unfortunate. Both the SQ drive and the USB-A are permanently armed at the same time. And it’s in the release notes. So, what is the point of ‘arming’ it?

[SQuser]

I can only repeat myself once again:

@SQuser

Unfortunately, for the user, it means that you now only see the remain time once you’ve already started recording.
Furthermore, a flashing “Attention - recording has not started yet” was certainly a valuable warning for many – myself included.
And couldn’t you even pause recording if necessary?

A&H’s reasoning was that they wanted to avoid the possibility of anyone changing the patch after arming.
But wouldn’t it have been more professional to block channel changes while the arm (or pause) is active?
In any case, I hope this new, rather regressive “feature” will be withdrawn again.

[guy-johnson]

Because that’s a better way of doing it. I makes the drives (and in the old days, tape machines) to stabilise. With a big drive, it can take a while for the OS to ready it for recording. So, instant recording; no waiting for the drive (platter or SD) to be ready.