My church just purchased an SQ-6 which replaces an old 24 channel analogue board.
On the old board we had all the voice channels and instrument channels sent to a sub-group before it got sent to the main LR output. With the new SQ-6, I have so many more groups and DCA’s to play with, that now I am unsure when to use DCA’s and when to just stick with groups.
Currently I have both various inputs feeding into 8 groups, and have a separate DCA also controlling the inputs. At this time it feels that I have just duplicated the DCA’s and groups, and that I could just stick with groups and not use DCA’s at all.
For example I have all the sermon mics(2 mics) sent to a SPKR group, but also have a DCA on these mics as well. Is this overkill?
If you only wish to control levels, then DCAs are a good way of doing this. This does not eat up any busses in the mixer, leaving them free to be used for monitors etc.
If you want to do other things too, you’ll want groups. For instance you can send a group to matrix the outs as well as, or instead of the mains, you can eq a group, you can compress a whole group.
If you want to blow your mind, check out Dave Rat’s video for some of his ideas!
Thanks for the reply, your description of groups is exactly why I use them. Having the ability to run processing on a group of channels, being able to route the entire group to various outputs when I need to.
For the DCA’s tho, my reasoning was that it would be easy for a volunteer to pull up and down the DCA faders and run the board while all the deeper stuff would be done at the group level.
In terms of processing, the SQ-6 has more than enough for the needs of my church so I’m not too worried about taking up processing resources.
It just feels like I’m duplicating what I can already do with groups by using DCA’s.
This has always been one of my favorite mix videos. One thing I could never figure out is if he was sending a pre-fader mix to the groups, which I don’t think you can do on the SQ. Otherwise the changes between the channel faders and the group fader have to be very slight. You can pull the group fader all the way to infinity and take away the compression, but if you take the channel faders down to far (via DCA or individually) you don’t get enough signal to the group fader. So really no way to go all compression, but maybe a blend? Of course maybe I’ve missed something in how to set this up.
It might be worth remembering that signals sent to sub groups and then to the main mix have a greater latency than signals sent straight to main mix. One of the selling points of AH desks is the low latency but it’s still good practice.
Great video, but feels it originates from a time with limited number of outboard comp’s. If for example you have 8 lines for drums, bass, elGtr, AccGtr, Keys, Grand Piano and 4-5 vocals, i’m Not sure it makes sense to compress them in groups, when you can fine tune each comp at channel level. Love the idea of blending pre- and post comp though.
Just came across this and being intermediate user of digital consoles, and just now getting a new SQ-7… How could one go about implementing the method Dave is talking about? I have 3 DCA’s right now. One for drums. One for voices. And the last for all other instruments. Could someone please assist?
It might be worth remembering that signals sent to sub groups and then to the main mix have a greater latency than signals sent straight to main mix. One of the selling points of AH desks is the low latency but it’s still good practice.
That’s why when assigning channels to a group you need to un assign those channels from
the main LR mix if the group that they are assigned to is assigned to the main LR mix.
You will get phase issues otherwise if the mixer routing paths have different latencies.
The QU does for example.
@volounteer - When opened as a PDF, the SQ reference guide has links to jump to sections from the contents (and the small ← in the footer returns to the contents) there is cross referencing with links throughout, and by using the find function (CTRL+F on Windows or CMND+F on Mac) you can easily search through.
Regarding groups and coherency - the diagram at the bottom of this page may help visualise (https://support.allen-heath.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/sq-signal-path).
Note that the tie lines and direct outputs will have a slightly lower latency, and a matrix will add a few samples, but other paths are coherent.
So
input + main = input + group + main
or
input + aux + matrix = input + group + main + matrix
This means you don’t have to worry about phase issues or extra latency when switching processing or routing paths.
(being able to align everything like this also allows one of my favourite features which is the parallel path on every compressor, just sat there ready to go…)
Hi Keith,
in the dLive knowledge base there is one article called ‘What are phase coherent mixes?’. Is it possible to write a similar for the SQ as well? because the document you mentioned do not describe the phase coherent mixes in the same way as it is done for the dLive.
Maybe the product page on your website should also describe this feature as you do it with the parallel path of the compressor. For me it would be an important information.
Just came across this and being intermediate user of digital consoles, and just now getting a new SQ-7… I have 3 DCA’s right now. One for drums. One for voices. And the last for all other instruments.
Could someone please assist? How could one go about implementing the method Dave is talking about?
While I think Dave is interesting and you can glean insight, some of his ideas such as frequency splitting mains on auxes are just too much for me in today’s world. I think the key thing is using groups when you want to process audio together whereas DCA’s are for mixing and especially on SQ5, being able to consolidate to a “money” layer to mix on much of the event. Most of us use groups for stem processing and DCA’s to control the faders feeding into those groups rather than riding group faders; as you turn up the input channel w/ the DCA it feeds into the group and is processed as you wish just as with riding an individual fader. On my SQ mixer I am also mixing IEM for our band, so I am limited in groups. Thus, I have groups for things I wish to process together, such as Drums, Drum Crush, Lead Vox. Others I control directly from DCA, processing only on individual channels, which in my world is Bass, Keys, Backing Tracks. That gives me the best of all worlds on SQ whereas on the D-Live I can have almost unlimited (for me) Groups - there is a reason it costs more! In HOW I have groups for Choir, BGV and more but those are on D-Live and Digico SD. Interesting to me is Robert Scovill (look him up on YouTube) with his idea of DCA grouping by performer - as in the performers guitars and vocal so he’s riding everything associated w/ that performer on one DCA. If I were mixing a key individual artist I might try that but in my bands and HOW, vocals are shared around too much, and doesn’t fit my workflow.
The great news is that at this price point there is nothing out there with the low latency and phase coherent signal path and so you can do pretty much anything and you know it’s going to come out the other end tight and together!
Hey Keith - Another plug for a 1U/2U rack mount SQ engine so band can mix all monitors from that unit and have more groups on my FOH console in a small package. I’d preorder and buy that in a skinny minute and I think you’d sell a ton of them. No preamps needed but do need option for 2nd Slink slot…Thanks!
Hey Keith – Another plug for a 1U/2U rack mount SQ engine so band can mix all monitors from that unit and have more groups on my FOH console in a small package. I’d preorder and buy that in a skinny minute and I think you’d sell a ton of them. No preamps needed but do need option for 2nd Slink slot…Thanks!
I’ll add to that to include a rack SQ model, minus faders, along the lines of what the
QU Pac 32 is.
