New to Allen & Heath, Our church just purchased a SQ6 and DX 168 stage box. Have the stage box but anxiously waiting on the SQ6. We are upgrading from an XR18. Worship team has out grown it and we needed to upgrade, I have been trying to learn from you all via Forum, YouTube and Google.
I do have a question, Can you send your main audio to FOH speaker via Slink and then use the CH 11/12(main L/R) as regular aux/monitor sends?
Too bad that your stage box came in first without the mixer!
Big jump from an XR18 to a SQ6!!
Yes every output on the SQ and the stage box is fully patchable to any mix output.
The 1/4" outputs on back would those be good to run a mix to a FM transmitter. We have some members still come that don’t do Facebook, and listen in the parking lot.
We are getting in ear monitors, hybrid of wireless and wired. Also have a stream feed that i fed off of the XR with a Dante Avio 2 out adapter, which helped tremendously with the audio of the feed.
If you haven’t picked out your IEM hardware yet, I would highly recommend the Behringer Powerplay P1 for your wired headphones. They are great cheap little units and have mono or stereo in and out and can run off a 9v battery or a wall adapter. We use the battery option (just to have one less wire per musician on stage) and the units get used about 4 hours each week. I think we have replaced the batteries once in about 8 months. They just seem to last forever on battery power.
Currently all our backline musicians use these while our 4 singers use wireless units (Sennheiser G3 IEM).
Don’t have a definite on the in-ear, yet. We had priced to the board the ME system from A&H. Think Worship Minister is leaning to a hybrid mix, some wireless and some wired.
Question: Can the soft rotaries control a channel volume. EX: First layer taken up with vocals and instruments and such. Second layer would contain Pastor’s mic, another lapel mic, and computer for music. Could the soft rotaries control the volume of those channels on the second layer. Basically worship team is playing and pastor gets up to talk and needs a touch bit more volume, reach up and tweak the rotary knob and done.
Don’t have a definite on the in-ear, yet. We had priced to the board the ME system from A&H. Think Worship Minister is leaning to a hybrid mix, some wireless and some wired.
Question: Can the soft rotaries control a channel volume. EX: First layer taken up with vocals and instruments and such. Second layer would contain Pastor’s mic, another lapel mic, and computer for music. Could the soft rotaries control the volume of those channels on the second layer. Basically worship team is playing and pastor gets up to talk and needs a touch bit more volume, reach up and tweak the rotary knob and done.
Yes you can, for instance assign all of the band inputs instruments and vocals to a DCA group, and then assign that DCA to soft rotary.
Personally I would just assign that DCA fader to all the needed layers so it is always on the surface.
I would look at it more like when the pastor gets up to speak over the music to turn the overall music level down.
For in ear monitors hardwired or wireless look at the SQ You monitor mix APP. With that APP you can set it up so the musician can control only their monitor mix.
If you have the budget for the ME system, it is definitely better. One major advantage is that it doesn’t use up aux counts on the board. If you need a decent number of independent IEM, this is definitely helpful.
So we decided to go with PSM300s. We are getting 11 sets, Lead vocal/guitar (sings), bass, drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keys (sings), rhythm (sings), then Vocals left, left center, right center, right (designated mic to position for ease of sound tech knowing who has which mic. Most likely running mono.
Right now we are going to pace the transmitters in the rack located in the sound booth approx 70-80’ away.
I plan on patching Main L/R(Aux 11/12) out to the DX168 Output 1 & 2 for the mains. This will open channel 11 & 12 aux for IEMs, if i’m thinking correctly?
I guess the easiest thing to do then would just patch each IEM to an aux out 1 thru 11. Plan on using the SQ4You app so each individual can setup their own mix with the help of sound tech if needed.
Or is there a better way to do this without using all the auxes. We do have a stream mix and a FM transmitter mix also. The stream is a dante AVIO 2out dongle and FM just mono.
It would be great to have the DX012 expander but that will be a future purchase.
I seen the loop out on the PSM300, and thought that all the vocals could be connected together from one mix, but then they could not adjust their in ear mix cause it coming from one source, Right?
Thank you all for your help.
A few things here…
Your drummer could use a hardwired IEM, a battery powered headphone amp, a Behringer P1 is $60 and works well.
Actually anyone who is already tied to an instrument with a cable and does not move much could go hardwired.
Think about the number of mixes you really need, could anyone share the same mix, like maybe the back up vocals, maybe keys and rhythm.
Keep in mind one transmitter can send to any number of receiver packs.
To save your board mixes you could use some of the Allen Heath ME series monitor mix pod stations.
So we decided to go with PSM300s. We are getting 11 sets, Lead vocal/guitar (sings), bass, drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keys (sings), rhythm (sings), then Vocals left, left center, right center, right (designated mic to position for ease of sound tech knowing who has which mic. Most likely running mono.Right now we are going to pace the transmitters in the rack located in the sound booth approx 70-80′ away.
I plan on patching Main L/R(Aux 11/12) out to the DX168 Output 1 & 2 for the mains. This will open channel 11 & 12 aux for IEMs, if i’m thinking correctly?
I guess the easiest thing to do then would just patch each IEM to an aux out 1 thru 11. Plan on using the SQ4You app so each individual can setup their own mix with the help of sound tech if needed.
Or is there a better way to do this without using all the auxes. We do have a stream mix and a FM transmitter mix also. The stream is a dante AVIO 2out dongle and FM just mono.It would be great to have the DX012 expander but that will be a future purchase.
I seen the loop out on the PSM300, and thought that all the vocals could be connected together from one mix, but then they could not adjust their in ear mix cause it coming from one source, Right?
Thank you all for your help.
I think you should reconsider using PSM300 for everyone, especially if it forces you to use mono outputs. Any musician that is tied to an instrument (keys, drums, guitar, etc) can easily use hardwired EIM. Given everything you have said so far, I think using the Allen and Heath ME system for those musicians will be better because it allows you to send stereo feeds without using up any groups/aux mixes on the board. This should free up those busses and allow you to send a stereo mix to the musicians that really need wireless IEM. The total cost will be about the same, but the fact that you can have everyone on stereo IEM is huge.
Mono IEM work, but the system is much less desirable than running stereo. Giving musicians the ability to pan channels allows them to separate the sounds and makes for a much cleaner IEM mix. Our church use to have to run mono IEM when we used an X32 (do to the limited number of busses and outputs), but we have since changed our setup and now run a mix of wired and wireless IEM, but all stereo. The end result is much better.
Long story short, musicians will much rather have a stereo IEM (even if it means they are wired when appropriate) than a wireless mono IEM.
Can the add on SLink card connect to a third party audio snake ike the lyxpro 4 channel audio snake. I figure it has to be A&H brand, but thought i would ask.
Can the add on SLink card connect to a third party audio snake ike the lyxpro 4 channel audio snake. I figure it has to be A&H brand, but thought i would ask.
No that would not work.
I just looked up that Lynxpro snake and it is not a digital snake, it just uses the conductors of a cat cable to pass analog audio.
Personally if I needed just a four channel audio snake I would use standard audio multi pair cable.
The network cable works better than you expect…
The network cable works better than you expect…;-)
I know they work fine and technically at least by cable spec would be better due to
the lower capacitance of cat network cable.
I was thinking more about the robustness of the cable to just lay out on a stage
as the durability of cat cable can go from one extreme to the other.
I would not use ant cat cable with them without an Ethercon connector.
@Bwhite if you do use a cat snake you need shield cat cable, at the very least
for phantom power.
First of all you should beware that there is a Maximum of 3 parallel SQ Mixpad Connections on the Mixer. So making Monitor Mixes by Tablets works fine but has its limits.
Second there are robust cat5 cables with PUR-Mantle that can be used for stage purposes in any length. For Example:
https://www.thomann.de/de/pro_snake_cat5e_cable_10m.htm
Can easily be used with these:
https://www.thomann.de/de/the_sssnake_cat_snake_3mc.htm
However, if you have to use a standard patch field for part of the connection you may have to use Adapters from Ethercon to standard RJ45 there or use a cable with a standard RJ45 Connector on one side (field Connectors may be an Option as a replacement). The cheapest non-invasive way would be a short patch cable and these:
https://www.thomann.de/de/seetronic_se8fd05_01_rj45_ip65.htm
They are meant to be used in a housing or 19" plate but they are robust enough to be used for “flying wiring”. Neutrik has more expensive Versions for explicit “flying” use, but they also will need a patch cable:
https://www.thomann.de/de/neutrik_ne8ffx6_w.htm
https://www.thomann.de/de/neutrik_ne8ff.htm
A cheap Adapter from Ethercon female to RJ45 male seems not to be really available.
Or you can use this at available cat5 Patch Panels and XLR from there to the Mic or whatever signal you wand to transport:
https://www.thomann.de/de/stairville_adapter_pro_xlr_m_rj45.htm
There is also a AR2412 Stagebox that has 12 Outputs or the possibility to cascade two AB168 to get 16 Outputs at two places (for example left and right or front and rear of the stage area). which can allow to use some shorter cables for Mics and other gear as well. That is not much more expensive than the 168 - maybe it would have been the better Product for you.
Sorry haven’t been on in a while.
After reading some of the replies, I ran 3 Cat6 Shielded cables, 1 to use 2 for future use or when needed.
Finally got our SQ6 in and been installing it this week. Still trying to figure things out. Do have sound coming from Mains via Slink to Dx169 output 1 and 2. Still just using stage monitors at this time, we did get sound finally thru these via the Slink and routing.
Going to take some time getting things figured out but we will get it.
Question: The SQ6 has 14 outputs on the back. I see that 11 & 12 where for the Main l/r, what is 134 & 14 for. I can not find Aux 13 or Aux 14 in the layer setting page. What am I missing. Would like to use these for a stream mix and FM Transmitter
Any of the desk’s output sockets (1 - 14 on SQ6*) can be set from the IO Patch screen to be anything you want in the same way as you’ve assigned L&R output to 1 and 2 of your DX168 box.
Your choices of mixed outputs are AUX/GROUP 1 to 12 (which could all be stereo), L&R, and the 3 Matrix (which also may be in stereo).
So you need to patch your stream mix, however you’ve set it up, to local outputs 13 & 14.
*Theres A,B and the AES too, which may or may not be useful for your requirements
*Theres A,B and the AES too, which may or may not be useful for your requirements
I like the A & B outs and on the Qu the Alt Outs, being 1/4 inch they can be handy making the jump into prosumer or consumer equipment.
I use AES to drive the system processors.
Sq6 is up and running. We have sound where we would like but needs alot of tweaking. I haven’t been there during service cause of work. Again have some questions.
I patched our Main L/R to the outputs 1 & 2 on the DX168, work fine. On layer B the first two strips are labeled Aux 1 Aux2, that if for local outputs and not the DX outputs, right?
If first is correct then that allow me to still use Aux 1 & 2 for local outputs for IEM’s, Right?
On assigning aux to Pre or Post, Go to Aux then Routing, Channel source is just where signal is being tapped from along signal chain. Assign section is if easy way to assign all channel to or from Aux? Pre-Fade section is where you assign the Aux as a Prefade or Post Fader Aux?
I have two outputs right now 1 stream and 1 FM, I believe i have them set as Post Fader.
Just to be clear have SQ6 in sound booth, DX 168 behind stage as well as an analogue snake with 12 channels coming back to booth. Right now using 4 stage monitors these being plugged in on stage floor boxes which go to the DX box. Have ran cables from board outputs 1-6 to IEMs in our rack for use in the near future (Worship Minister & I thought it would be better to get sound going and close to what we want then switch over and do some training in the mean time.) Have 1 aux for FM and another Aux for stream via Dante Avio 2 Ch doggle.
Thanks for all the great advice from before. I will be back with more questions I’m sure.
If these two strips are the master strips for Aux1 and Aux 2 they are per se not connected to any output. they are just master channels. You can use the IO setup page to assign outputs for these aux mixes. It depends on the configuration of your aux mixbusses. for mono you have to assign one output, for stereo busses you have to assign two outputs minimum. but you can assign as much outputs as you like, depending on the amount of available outputs. so you can assign, for instance, Aux 1 to both, some local output sockets and some output sockets on your stagebox.
2)yes
when you select an aux master and go to the routing page, you can see on the top of the selected aux master a button with a gearwheel symbol. pressing that button shows you the options for that aux. Assign “All on” means all input channels will be assigned. And now Guess what “All off” means. the same for the pre fader setting. and you can choose the tap point for that aux mixbus. Set them to prefader if you want to adjust the channel levels for that aux mix individual from the levels of the main mix. If you want to make them more or less linked, you should use post fader. post fader is normally used to feed some FX busses to keep the mix of direct and FX signal for the indiviual channel constant.
there is no Aux 13 & 14 available on the SQ series, since it only have 12 Aux mix busses. and there are no Aux output sockets. All Sockets, inputs or outputs and local, stageboxes, IO card and so on, can be assigned to all possible inputs or outputs. Again you have to examine the IO Page to define the output patch for your busses (Aux busses, Main bus, Matrix busses). In my configuration out 13&14 are conencted to my local studio monitors and assigned to the listen bus. But this is just an example. It is also possible to assign the Main bus or some Aux mix bus to that output sockets. So, if you do not need local outputs for the main mix you can also use the 14 XLR output sockets and the A&B Jack output sockets for feeding eight stereo IEM systems.
So if you say board outputs 1-6 are connected to IEM do you mean 3 or 6 IEM mixes?