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Author Topic: New Allen & Heath SQ Series  (Read 167457 times)

Scott Bolt

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #80 on: October 31, 2017, 08:54:10 PM »

I’m starting to think about the successor to my trusty Roland M480. I was looking at D-Live but it was a big stretch financially. This could be the answer.
Only thing I’m not particularly keen on is the chromatic metering. Appears to be one LED that changes colour as the level changes. I understand it’s built to a price point, but as someone mixing theatre decent metering is a big deal when hunting for a faulty radio mic. I’d really prefer at least a 5 step led meter. At this price point though I guess I can’t complain too much.

I’ll be really interested to see the capabilities of the scene recalls. Particularly the ability to set the recall scope and also to see if DCA assignment, layer layout and DCA labelling can change on a cue by cue basis. That’d make for a fantastic console for regional theatre work.
I noticed the same thing.  I will be a little less kind than you and say it was just a stupid place to save a few dollars.  Really?  A single LED? 

As for this price point, the X32 has 5.  Si Expression has 4, Impact has 4, Qu has 3.  This mixer is more expensive than all of these mixers and has 1?

On the positive side, the mixer is going to sound great I am sure.  That is what really counts, but it is a shame they botched this detail IMO.
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Bob Leonard

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #81 on: October 31, 2017, 10:37:04 PM »

It could be a multi color LED Scott, and that would be fine. Also, I don't know if this board is similar to the Si series in this case, but I see there are output LEDs to the right of the screen. Maybe they follow fader select similar to the Soundcraft products. I just need to know if I'm starting to clip, and if I needed fine increments of output I'll look at the on screen bubble, but no clip = I'm fine.
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BOSTON STRONG........
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Peter Morris

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #82 on: November 01, 2017, 03:31:20 AM »

It could be a multi color LED Scott, and that would be fine. Also, I don't know if this board is similar to the Si series in this case, but I see there are output LEDs to the right of the screen. Maybe they follow fader select similar to the Soundcraft products. I just need to know if I'm starting to clip, and if I needed fine increments of output I'll look at the on screen bubble, but no clip = I'm fine.

Hi Bob - have a look at the link to the video I posted above.  The LEDs are multi-color, the output meters are PAFL and there is also metering on the screen. 
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Douglas R. Allen

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #83 on: November 01, 2017, 05:39:28 AM »

Hi Bob - have a look at the link to the video I posted above.  The LEDs are multi-color, the output meters are PAFL and there is also metering on the screen.


I'm sure multi-color meters are fine for most people. But if they are like me color blind then its not as easy as one would think. The different brightness of the color need to be stand out different for me to see it. I see things the same way as if your looking at a black and white tv.

Douglas R. Allen
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #84 on: November 01, 2017, 08:43:52 AM »

I’m starting to think about the successor to my trusty Roland M480. I was looking at D-Live but it was a big stretch financially. This could be the answer.
Only thing I’m not particularly keen on is the chromatic metering. Appears to be one LED that changes colour as the level changes. I understand it’s built to a price point, but as someone mixing theatre decent metering is a big deal when hunting for a faulty radio mic. I’d really prefer at least a 5 step led meter. At this price point though I guess I can’t complain too much.
Remember that these desks have fewer faders than channels, so even if you had a 10-segment meter, you would only see the meters for the channels assigned to the layer you were looking at.

A&H has a solution though - a full meter page.  Press the third button from the left under the screen and the display switches to show meters for all 48 input channels at the same time.
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Mark Amber

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #85 on: November 01, 2017, 08:44:11 AM »


I'm sure multi-color meters are fine for most people. But if they are like me color blind then its not as easy as one would think. The different brightness of the color need to be stand out different for me to see it. I see things the same way as if your looking at a black and white tv.

Douglas R. Allen
That might be annoying. I assume green appears brighter than yellow and still brighter than red... So it might be hard to differentiate "no signal" from "clipping" in a sufficiently well lit place.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

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Peter Morris

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #86 on: November 01, 2017, 08:51:51 AM »

Remember that these desks have fewer faders than channels, so even if you had a 10-segment meter, you would only see the meters for the channels assigned to the layer you were looking at.

A&H has a solution though - a full meter page.  Press the third button from the left under the screen and the display switches to show meters for all 48 input channels at the same time.

 ;)
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Peter Morris

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #87 on: November 01, 2017, 08:56:10 AM »

That might be annoying. I assume green appears brighter than yellow and still brighter than red... So it might be hard to differentiate "no signal" from "clipping" in a sufficiently well lit place.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

There is a separate peak light  :) ... I have not seen an SQ yet, but I'm sure they have worked all this out.  I don't expect the metering or many of the other features to match our dLive, but its not the same $$$. 
« Last Edit: November 01, 2017, 09:05:52 AM by Peter Morris »
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Frank Koenig

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #88 on: November 01, 2017, 01:03:19 PM »

A&H appears to be on par, or perhaps a little ahead of the others, when it comes to user interface design. I like the slightly irregular placement of controls and different shaped buttons that makes them easier to identify quickly.

But A&H, and many others, are still fast and loose when it comes to representing critical information as color alone. About 10% of the male population (it's lower among females) has some degree of color blindness, and even those with good color vision can have trouble under difficult lighting. One should NEVER represent critical information as color alone. When using color as a supplementary representation, I think one should, to the extent possible, stick to the convention of green = nominal, yellow = warning or critical, and red = never exceed -- which most LED level meters do. For indicating a binary state white = asserted and black = negated.

What really gets me are the screen buttons on Powersoft's Armonia that switch between yellow and brown (different brightnesses of the same color) to indicate asserted or negated. You can't tell what state it's in by just looking at it in isolation. You have to know the shades  ::)

Anyway, rant off. The new desk looks awesome and I love the dLive, the QU-Pack maybe not quite as much.

-F
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #89 on: November 01, 2017, 01:30:48 PM »

A&H appears to be on par, or perhaps a little ahead of the others, when it comes to user interface design. I like the slightly irregular placement of controls and different shaped buttons that makes them easier to identify quickly.

But A&H, and many others, are still fast and loose when it comes to representing critical information as color alone. About 10% of the male population (it's lower among females) has some degree of color blindness, and even those with good color vision can have trouble under difficult lighting. One should NEVER represent critical information as color alone. When using color as a supplementary representation, I think one should, to the extent possible, stick to the convention of green = nominal, yellow = warning or critical, and red = never exceed -- which most LED level meters do. For indicating a binary state white = asserted and black = negated.

What really gets me are the screen buttons on Powersoft's Armonia that switch between yellow and brown (different brightnesses of the same color) to indicate asserted or negated. You can't tell what state it's in by just looking at it in isolation. You have to know the shades  ::)

Anyway, rant off. The new desk looks awesome and I love the dLive, the QU-Pack maybe not quite as much.

-F
Frank, your conventions are reasonable, for sure.

As I mentioned in another place, the SQ series mixers are equipped extremely well for the price, meaning some people are considering them for situations where until recently $20,000 desks were the norm.  The glass-half-full folks are in awe of the feature list for the price.  The glass-half-empty folks are annoyed that the SQ series has only 95% of the functionality of the $20,000 desk they were looking at, such as fewer segments on the channel meters.  :)

The meter page solves this problem with one button press for all channels, and the nature of modern digital boards is that there's so much headroom, gain structure is extremely forgiving, so an absolute level target is much less necessary: if your head amp is within 20dB of whatever your target is, you can almost certainly work around it downstream.

I think my least favorite feature of the SQ is the early-Yamaha-like EQ control scheme - EQ band selection buttons and only one set of knobs.  This is one area where a larger desk like the GLD or DLive has a meaningful ergonomic advantage over the bantam-sized SQ.
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Re: New Allen & Heath SQ Series
« Reply #89 on: November 01, 2017, 01:30:48 PM »


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