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Author Topic: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30  (Read 5343 times)

Chris Grimshaw

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Hi all,

I've had my QSC TM16 for a good few years now, after buying one shortly after they came out. It's served me well in a lot of ways. I usually set it up next to the stage, and mix from a couple of iPads displaying 16 channels between them.

The things I like about it are:
- Straightforward workflow
- Multi-track recording
- Form-factor
- It's not a black box. You can still mix from the desk itself if the network fails catastrophically.

The things I'd like the next desk to do include:
- Having portable faders
- Increased channel count
- Subgroups
- Side-chain compression
- Digital I/O.


The portable faders bit is a big deal to me. I prefer to mix on faders, but there isn't always room for a full-size mixing desk at the FOH position for a given venue. There's also the issue of running power to/from FOH. At the moment, my FOH position is entirely self-contained: I have a 20Ah USB battery to keep the iPads going, and that's it.

QSC has done something clever with their TM30 Pro, where you can connect a set of faders to the iPad via USB, and it's all taken care of. The faders usually require 12v DC power, which can still be done by battery.

The only thing I've seen online that gets close is with an X32 and some XTouch faders. However, that setup also involved a WiFi bridge and a laptop to configure it all. The XTouch faders also require mains power. It's nowhere near as sleek as the QSC setup.
Of course, the X32 world does have options to add external stage boxes, but I don't think I'd bother to go there myself - it's rare that I want more than 16 channels.

The thing that seems to put people off the TouchMix desks is the analogue gain controls, but I don't have a big problem there - for multi-act festivals, I'll be at side-of-stage helping with the changeover anyway, and I'll set the analogue gains during line checks before walking back to FOH. It's very rare that I make a return trip.

So, it's looking like the QSC TM30 Pro is the thing to get. It's not perfect (no digital I/O, no expandability, analogue gains), but it seems to fit my priorities quite well overall.

Any thoughts on this? I like to think I have a pretty good handle on what's out there, but if there's another desk that ticks more of the boxes, I'd love to hear about it.

Cheers, all.
Chris
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Bob Stone

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2019, 11:25:38 AM »

Watching this...will be interesting to see what options are out there.

Assume you've made the usual rounds, Allen & Heath Qu or SQ? Soundcraft UI or SI? Mackie DL? Midas M or MR? As far as Behringer might have come with their digital offerings, I could never stomach buying a mixer with Behringer in the name.
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2019, 12:07:47 PM »

Yeah, I've made the usual rounds:

A&H Qu doesn't have scribble strips but was okay otherwise. Similar work flow to...
A&H SQ - spent two days and around 12 bands on this desk, still didn't feel particularly at home afterwards. I could probably get used to it, though.
Soundcraft UI is a black box, which I don't want - if the router goes down, there's literally no control.
Soundcraft SI looks okay, but haven't used one in person.
Mackie DL would be a downgrade, IMO, from the TM16.
Midas M32 was pretty good when I last used one, but that was a while ago.
Midas MR are black boxes again


The A&H SQ, Soundcraft SI and Midas M32 all appear to be good offerings, but none of them seem to allow a bank of wireless faders to be added. That's the dream for me, and has been since I started mixing on glass - it'd be a best of both worlds, and I'm a little surprised that there isn't a race to offer such things.

Chris
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dave briar

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2019, 12:15:47 PM »

The A&H SQ, Soundcraft SI and Midas M32 all appear to be good offerings, but none of them seem to allow a bank of wireless faders to be added. That's the dream for me, and has been since I started mixing on glass - it'd be a best of both worlds, and I'm a little surprised that there isn't a race to offer such things.
Amen.
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Taylor Hall

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2019, 12:42:16 PM »


The A&H SQ, Soundcraft SI and Midas M32 all appear to be good offerings, but none of them seem to allow a bank of wireless faders to be added. That's the dream for me, and has been since I started mixing on glass - it'd be a best of both worlds, and I'm a little surprised that there isn't a race to offer such things.

Chris
I assume you mean physical faders? While it's not "officially" supported, you can control the X/M32 and SC Si via OSC, but I'm not sure of any wireless devices that would necessarily fit that bill as far as faders go, there are plenty of wired versions though.
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2019, 05:08:24 PM »

I assume you mean physical faders? While it's not "officially" supported, you can control the X/M32 and SC Si via OSC, but I'm not sure of any wireless devices that would necessarily fit that bill as far as faders go, there are plenty of wired versions though.

Yeah, physical faders.

Here's a bit of the video: https://youtu.be/Yj6cke1DPw4?t=386
They've set up a small FOH with an iPad and a fader bank, and it's controlling the desk over WiFi.

I haven't seen anything that can rival that.

Chris
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Mark Scrivener

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2019, 05:45:09 PM »

.....
Soundcraft UI is a black box, which I don't want - if the router goes down, there's literally no control.
....

Not true. Run a Cat5/6 cable from the UI to your FOH position and connect to a computer with a large touch screen. People are running large multi day festivals this way with the UI (see the UI facebook page). And while there are ways to "rig" physical faders, nothing official from Soundcraft.

Russell Ault

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2019, 05:58:27 PM »

Not true. Run a Cat5/6 cable from the UI to your FOH position and connect to a computer with a large touch screen. People are running large multi day festivals this way with the UI (see the UI facebook page). And while there are ways to "rig" physical faders, nothing official from Soundcraft.

That still requires some kind of out-of-box control. If the network fails on an X32 Rack, you can still run the console (painfully) from the front of the box. If the network fails on an XR (or UI, etc.), which I've seen happen, then you're totally out of options.

-Russ
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Mark Scrivener

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2019, 06:18:02 PM »

That still requires some kind of out-of-box control. If the network fails on an X32 Rack, you can still run the console (painfully) from the front of the box. If the network fails on an XR (or UI, etc.), which I've seen happen, then you're totally out of options.

-Russ

True, but we could say the same thing about the Dlive Mix rack or any other stage box where the mixing happens in the stage box. And if you have a dumb stage box that is just sending everything back to the console then loosing the connection means the whole show goes down....So either way it is a trade off....unless of course you have something like the X32 rack as you point out....but easy enough to just run dual network cables so you can switch over should their be a problem. Or if you are really concerned, many of these boxes are cheap enough you could have a 2nd ready to go as backup.

Ryan McLeod

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2019, 11:11:54 PM »

You could also simply skip the network entirely and connect a USB touchscreen directly to a Soundcraft UI-24, or use both a wifi tablet and the touchscreen for local control.
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2019, 12:47:30 AM »

FWIW I've finally seen an act using a TM30 (for monitors).  I've never touched one, but this was the first Touch Mix I've seen in the wild.

If it works for your needs go for it.
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #11 on: August 13, 2019, 03:58:14 AM »

Not true. Run a Cat5/6 cable from the UI to your FOH position and connect to a computer with a large touch screen. People are running large multi day festivals this way with the UI (see the UI facebook page). And while there are ways to "rig" physical faders, nothing official from Soundcraft.

Mark, I'd like to reiterate that I'm currently running my FOH entirely wirelessly, and I intend to keep it that way. Some of the venues I work at don't have the option to run cables to/from FOH.

You could also simply skip the network entirely and connect a USB touchscreen directly to a Soundcraft UI-24, or use both a wifi tablet and the touchscreen for local control.

Adding a USB touchscreen to a UI24 feels like we're building a TM30 out of parts. Is there any advantage to going that way?


A lot of the gigs I work on are outdoor family festivals in a field or car park. Setup and tear down on the day, and I'm usually acting as stage manager, FOH, and monitor engineer, while also supplying the PA. Bands on for 45 mins, 15-minute changeover, usually from midday until well into the evening.
I've been doing that (with reasonable success - many bands have told me it's the best sound they've had, both on-stage and off) with a TM16. I can make it work, but having physical faders would make mixing much easier.

Most of the time, I can find a small table and chair to set up my small FOH with. Couple of iPads, log on to my WiFi, connect to the big USB battery, and that's my FOH build done.
Without running any cables to/from the stage, what I'd like to do is make it so I've got physical faders to mix on. The TM30 does that by connecting the faders to the iPad via USB, so it's really acting as a control surface for that iPad. This approach is straightforward and, usefully, modular: I could run 4x iPads with 4x fader banks, and have 24 channels plus subgroups at my fingertips.
I can't see anything on the market right now that can touch that.

Tim, there's a TM30 on eBay in basically-new condition at the moment, so I'm close to taking your advice.

Cheers, all
Chris
« Last Edit: August 13, 2019, 04:03:31 AM by Chris Grimshaw »
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Mark Scrivener

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2019, 04:18:48 AM »

Chris,

I'm sure the TM30 is a great unit, and if it works for you, go for it. I've never used the TM30 but if you are happy with the TM16, then I'm sure you would like the TM30 as much or more.

Now since your thread is titled "talk me out of a QSC TM30" I'm going to tell you two things that I personally find concerning about the design....which may or may not be factors for you.

1. Physical gain/trim knobs. Since they appear to be actual pots (not rotaries), it would not be possible to remotely adjust the gain on a channel. Granted you shouldn't be constantly adjusting channel gains, but I did find this aspect of the old Presonus Studio/Live mixers extremely annoying the few times I've had to use them.

2. The built in screen is small. Not a huge deal, but working on larger screens spoils you fast.

That said, the TM30 appears to have all the processing bells and whistles one would expect from a modern digital mixer. No idea about the workflow, but assuming they didn't make radical changes from the TM16 then that should be a non issue for you.

There, that's the best I can do talking you out of it.... :-)

Taylor Hall

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2019, 06:59:14 AM »

Yeah, physical faders.

Here's a bit of the video: https://youtu.be/Yj6cke1DPw4?t=386
They've set up a small FOH with an iPad and a fader bank, and it's controlling the desk over WiFi.

I haven't seen anything that can rival that.

Chris
Your control surface would still need to be wired either to the console itself or a computer running a DAW which is then connected to the console. All the devices they showcase in that video are not wireless. Like I said in my other post, you can do the same thing with other consoles already. If anything, QSC is late to the game having only just added this feature in their latest firmware.
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Luke Geis

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2019, 08:31:12 AM »

If you know me, I'm not a fan of the TM series, but that is not important. The Behringer X-Touch does require an IEC power cord, but it certainly pulls little power and is compatible with just about every piece of gear known to man. You can get an X-32R ( rack unit ) that can be controlled from the front of the unit if need be if the network does go down, which should be rare seeing as you have to have your own external one anyway. The X-Touch can then do most all of your needed functions from layers, EQ, DCA's and whatnot. It is probably the best option if you need a small potent rig that checks almost every box of desired options. Low power consumption too. If the X32R and the X-Touch pull much more than 100 watts I would be surprised. As best as I can tell the two combined would pull about 90watts. You would have a nearly full working surface, the ability to run via iPad, and if shit hits the fan you can still control it from the front panel of the mixer box. It is expandable even. Want 32 channels, just get another 16 or 32 channel stagebox. Just my 2 pennies.
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Nathan Riddle

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2019, 08:56:17 AM »

If you REALLY want to keep mixing fully wirelessly but have physical faders. Seems to me your options are Behringer X-Touch like Luke is suggesting or midi control and a midi board in the DIY/cheap camp and dLive on the expensive route.

I got my dLive CDM32 earlier this year and really like it. Haven't mixed on it a ton, but it is absurdly powerful for what I do.
Combined with the IP8 I can mix a whole show completely wirelessly and have physical faders at my mix location if I wanted to.
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Dan Richardson

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2019, 10:48:15 AM »

SC has done something clever with their TM30 Pro, where you can connect a set of faders to the iPad via USB, and it's all taken care of. The faders usually require 12v DC power, which can still be done by battery.

Mixing Station Pro can do this with several brands of mixers. I've used it with X-Airs. I believe he has it working for X/M32 and Qu. SQ, Si, and GLD are all in various states of completion, so I'm not sure of the status of their MIDI support.
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2019, 11:04:33 AM »

Mixing Station Pro can do this with several brands of mixers. I've used it with X-Airs. I believe he has it working for X/M32 and Qu. SQ, Si, and GLD are all in various states of completion, so I'm not sure of the status of their MIDI support.

Hi Dan,

That's really good info, thanks. I'll do some reading up.

Chris
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Jeff Lelko

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2019, 07:42:47 PM »

If you REALLY want to keep mixing fully wirelessly but have physical faders. Seems to me your options are Behringer X-Touch like Luke is suggesting or midi control and a midi board in the DIY/cheap camp and dLive on the expensive route.

This is what I do as well with my DM32 and IP8.  That option will set you back about $10K, but as Nathan said, it’s an extremely powerful and versatile solution.  Going with a CDM32 will shave a few thousand off the price.  You’re still going to want a tablet running MixPad at the very least, and preferably something running Director if you won’t have a larger surface on site.  There are going to be trade-offs for each option you consider, but my dLive has treated me very well.  Good luck!
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #19 on: October 17, 2019, 10:09:06 AM »

Just a quick note to say that the TM30 arrived yesterday. A few came and went on the usual auction site, and then this one popped up. Very light use, case and tablet stand included. Put in a low-ish bid (around 40% off RRP for the caboodle) and got it.

Initial impressions are good. My only gripe so far is that it doesn't work with the USB WiFi dongle that comes with the TM16, so I had to fetch the amp rack (where the router lives) and run Cat5 in order to get the iPads connected.

I think I've got another USB dongle in a drawer somewhere, so I'll give that a try.


Some on-location work coming up this weekend, so I think that might be the first gig with it.

Cheers, all.

Chris
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Don T. Williams

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #20 on: October 17, 2019, 07:51:50 PM »

I and others have had bad luck using the WiFi dongle.  You will be much happier (and more secure) using a wireless router.  I'm actually surprised the "dongle" has worked well on you TM16.  I'm in agreement that the analog gain trims are problems.  I use a TM16 for small events, but if there are multiple acts I end up changing a lot of gain setting, even for acts that all use the same backline gear.  That not a problem when every act is throw and go, but if you have a headliner that has performed a sound check early and then a series of acts -wow!
The digital gain adjustment just isn't adequate.
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Dan Mortensen

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2019, 12:23:35 PM »

That still requires some kind of out-of-box control. If the network fails on an X32 Rack, you can still run the console (painfully) from the front of the box. If the network fails on an XR (or UI, etc.), which I've seen happen, then you're totally out of options.

-Russ

That's why you want to have a second mixer, router, iPad-ish thing, and cable present at the gig, so no matter which part of your network fails you have an option.

As I've said many times before, what we get for the money with this gear is multiples of what we spent the same money on six years ago, and the cost of a second kit, together with the cost of the first set, is still less than in the recent old days.

They don't take up much space, either.
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Chris Grimshaw

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2019, 07:32:42 PM »

I and others have had bad luck using the WiFi dongle.  You will be much happier (and more secure) using a wireless router.  I'm actually surprised the "dongle" has worked well on you TM16.  I'm in agreement that the analog gain trims are problems.  I use a TM16 for small events, but if there are multiple acts I end up changing a lot of gain setting, even for acts that all use the same backline gear.  That not a problem when every act is throw and go, but if you have a headliner that has performed a sound check early and then a series of acts -wow!
The digital gain adjustment just isn't adequate.

Yeah, I use a wireless router for most of my gigs - it lives in my amp rack. The TM16 usually sat on top of the amp rack, and was connected via WiFi (QSC-supplied dongle) to the router which was usually only a couple of feet away, and in direct line of sight.

The TM30 doesn't seem to work with that USB WiFi dongle, so I'll be cabling it to my router and doing it properly.

I find the analogue trims acceptable, but I did learn on all-analogue gear. For me, the TouchMix desks retain quite a lot of analogue familiarity while still having the digital feature set. It's a compromise I'm happy with, but I can fully understand why others might not like them as much as I do.


First day out with the TM30 was today - recording a choir in a cathedral. Made use of the USB output feed to send a backup recording straight to a laptop, while also writing to a USB hard drive.

Mics were as follows:
- 2x Beyer MC930 around 1/3rd of the way from the choir to the back of the room, spaced apart
- Beyer MC930 & SE Electronics VR1 as a mid-side array, positioned centre and a little closer to the choir for a bit more direct sound for the "mid".

Being able to split inputs to two channels makes setting up the mid-side thing nice and easy - the TM16 would've needed a lot more work.
Initial impressions are good, but I'll know more when I've got things hooked up to some nice speakers to do the mixing.

Chris
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Andrien (No Last Name)

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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #23 on: October 20, 2019, 09:38:50 AM »

I'm not sure if it still relevant, but the RCF M20 offering seems quite interesting, especially with the direct tethering with Android tablet.
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Re: Thinking about upgrading my mixing desk - AKA talk me out of a QSC TM30
« Reply #23 on: October 20, 2019, 09:38:50 AM »


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