What recording software do you use to track from the USB B port on the back of the mixer?
The reason I ask is prompted by my getting distortion and garble on my recording this past weekend when using Tacktion.
I recorded three sets with 20 tracks. The first was just fine, as previous recordings had been. I pressed stop and then record when the next sets began.
All tracks wrote to disk and I was able to export them into Pro Tools at home.
Sets 2 and 3 had distortion and garble on all tracks.
The laptop is a MacBook Pro.
The best I can determine is that the sample rate somehow got off after pausing between sets.
Doesn’t the SQ hand out the sample rate ? That’s troubling if somehow things went askew on either the SQ or laptop/software end.
Today I downloaded Reaper and managed to get the same distorted garbled sound until I poked around in the preferences to assure a sample rate of 96k.
Let me know what has worked well for you and if you have encountered any distorted garbled recordings.
I am using Reaper on several Windows PCs and Windows Laptops. First, with the original firmware I had troubles but since 1.2 no problems so far. I have also an older MBP 13“, I think late 2009, which works great with my other consoles and interfaces but not with the SQ when I tried it right after i bought the SQ last year. I have to confess that I not tied it again since then, maybe I should do that in the next days.
Now I am using the S-Dante card for recordings and the USB stuff is now only used for playing stereo tracks via SQ Drive.
I use Reaper on an old MacBook Pro and have had no problems with 16 channels. I have stop/started many times. Don’t understand why you had to “poke around” to set the sample rate to 96k. If you use Reaper and/or any other software, Apple’s CoreAudio will ensure the sample rate is automatically set to 96k as long as your device setting is CoreAudio. If you are using another interface to your laptop, then yes, it would be necessary to choose 96k as this is the only sample rate the desk uses.
Perhaps the USB Cable you are using is not the best. Don’t know what else to suggest.
I have only made preliminary tests with my new SQ5. Propellerheads Reason has a very small footprint, and is generally a well optimized DAW, so I have tested multirack recording with it two times now. Flawless recording performance on both tests so far.
I also seem to recall reading about a new(ish) multitrack recording application on gearslutz, it seemed perfect for the job, it wasn’t a DAW at all, just a multitrack recorder, but sorry to say I forgot the name of the software…
@Bob,
That distortion you experienced is most likely not due to the software you used but the write speed of the drive upon which you recorded your material. This is a known issue with regards to recording on SQ and QU consoles. I too have experienced this occasional distortion when recording to a laptop drive from the USB-B port on my QU 16.
On the other hand I have had nothing but success when doing multitrack recordings from the QuDrive (SQ Drive on the SQ consoles) simply using USB drives with fast write speeds. I’ve just finished doing multitrack recording testing on a SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 250Gb drive in my QuDrive and it performed flawlessly - 18 tracks recorded for 45 minutes. I purchased this drive on a recommendation of a venue that also purchased this model and tested it on their SQ 5 console with perfect results. All I must do is transfer files to the DAW of my choice.
If you still want to use a laptop and recording software, you might want to explore using an external drive connected to your laptop for your recording destination rather than the laptop’s internal drive. Using a faster, dedicated external drive might solve your problem.
Having just installed Reaper, I’ll work with it this week with the goal to use it to record a show this coming weekend.
Greg … my “poking around” led me to the Project Settings where it was advised to check the Project sample rate box even though it should be automatically set via Apple’s core audio as you mentioned. I’ll also check the USB cable.
Monki … thanks for the tip on the RecAll software. Reminds me of the Capture program that Presonus offered. Quick, simple, effective. That may be just the trick since I really don’t need a DAW on the laptop.
I have a nice external drive that I have successfully used on the SQ-Drive out, but I need to record more than 16 tracks.