Finally, the perfect mixer? [Allen & Heath QuPac]

I think I might have found what might be the perfect mixer for my setup, although I have not had the chance yet to fully test it , due to moving rooms and having to do some prep work before setting it all up. (Hence the question mark)

I wanted something with super flexible routing, great sound and plenty of I/O, so eventually happened upon the new Qu Pac digital mixer from Allen & Heath. Space is in short supply in the new room, so it would have to be very compact, which it is - at the expense of channel faders, but not really a big deal fir me since most of my ā€œmixingā€ these days just involves muting stuff, and besides I can use my ipad if I do need to control the levels on it (amongst other things)

Since buying it I have come to realise that I can now do away with almost all my outboard, patchbays, compressors, fx, because it has fantastic fx and each channel has its own compressor, the flexible routing means that my patchbay is no longer required.

Also it has really powerful precise and great sounding EQ, stereo and multichannel recording and playback to USB drive, as well as tons of options for personalisation.

But the thing that really sold me on it was the fact that I can quite simply route things how I want to without any reasonable limitations, I also looked at a few others but overall the Qu Pac fitted my needs best and is made by a reputable company.

Anyway if you are thinking of getting a new mixer then I think the Qu series are well worth checking out, I actually think it was worth the price I paid just for the 4 fx processors, the reverbs in particular are superb.

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Hi Daren.

Sounds really interesting. Iā€™ve been using the Zed R16 for about 4 years and while I like it, itā€™s not perfect and is handicapped in certain respects with aux send/ret not available in the channels over FW. Iā€™ve also had some annoying quality issues with it.

Curious how streaming a bunch of channels over USB would go? Iā€™m sure thereā€™s a limit at some point. Thatā€™s why I initially went with firewire.

^
Iā€™ve used the Qu series ( 16 + 24 ) pretty extensively for work stuff ( live sound ) over the last 12 months or so & I can attest theyā€™re great !
pretty much unbeatable for the money ā€¦ in fact theyā€™ve become the ā€˜industry standardā€™ live digital mixer once you drop below stuff like Yamaha LS-9 type level.
I love the way for a digital mixer they really do respond like an analogue board when it comes to tweaking EQ etcā€¦ all the Buss outs & processing available on every channel is just awesome.
Congrats Daren - good call :+1:

Daren, Werenā€™t you using a Speck Xtramix at one point? Any negatives in the QuPac compared to the Xtramix?

Howā€™s it been with the QuPac, thinking about getting one as well.

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I buy one as soon as i have the funds. Especially the multi track recording of all channels is just a very super feature - directly to an attached hard drive.

There is currently no other digital mixer at this price range who can do that.

They are not to have on the 2nd hand market , I think that is a very good sign.

I could cry when i see this:

thatā€™s around 1300ā‚¬ at the current rate. In Europe they charge 1700 - 1900ā‚¬ for this mixer. At that rate it already gets interesting to fly to NY.

I suppose Iā€™ll bump this back up rathe than starting a whole new thread.

Just curious if anyone has any experience with this mixer and how you like it. Iā€™m currently reading the manual and finding that itā€™s super customizable.

Hi Sternenlicht,
dont forget US-prices are always without taxes (Mehrwertsteuer), you also have to pay import taxes, so the euro prices are not too far off of what you would pay in the US. And you would get only a warranty in the us.

Cheers,
Goat

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is there an easy way of converting AES to ADAT? Thatā€™s my only gripe with this one - if Iā€™d be able to also connect this to my UA Apollo, thisā€™d be perfect for me as well!

The price is a bit salty for me, but Iā€™m sure the quality and compactness would be worth it

May I ask you a question about the experience you have in your day by day work?

I am searching a mixer too, that should have as much flexibility for routing as possible. Up to now, I have worked with analog mixers/desks only. I would like to know, if this rack-like system could be used efficiently in a studio environment without the need of a tablet or a computer?

Thanks :smiley:

@SoundRider

Yup, no need for a computer or tablet.

@Sternenlicht

I managed to score a used one via eBay a couple of days ago for a good deal. Maybe theyā€™ll pop up somewhere where youā€™re at for a deal?

I wish I had had more dinero what I was looking to replace my mixer. I ended up buying a Soundcraft 16 FXi. It is. Qu-Pac does look good.

Maybe anyone who owns or uses a mixer from the QU series?

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Hi all,

I own a Q32 and Iā€™m happy with the purchase. By the moment Iā€™ve just mixed a track directly to the USB port on a hard disk ( make sure it is a 3.0 version ) and the result is good enough. It creates a 24 bits / 48 kHz .wav file

For the multichannel recording I have to say it works properly recording to the usb hard disk up to the first 18 channels; if you want to record the totally amount of channels you need to sync the mixer with your DAW throw the rear usb connection ( 2.0 version ) and then youā€™ll have all the different tracks recorded into the DAW.

Another thing about multichannel recording to the hard disk is that it works such as an interface would do. So, it will record any incoming sound thatā€™s going to the input channel. That means you have to be controlling all your hardware, muting and unmuting sounds, if you want to have the different tracks as you were planning to record; if not, in my case, I mute and unmute a lot of different sounds coming from the machines directly in the mixer but instead of having the different tracks following the mutes the interface will record all the time sound is going throw the inputsā€¦ so thatā€™s not so good as you could think.

well, any other doubts just ask Iā€™ll try to answer as much as Iā€™ll be knowing this mixer, just a couple of months with it.

Regards!

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Hi again,

Iā€™ve been looking for functions in the mixer such as doing groups and assigning different channels to the same group mix and then send them to the octatrack and itā€™s easier than I thought.
After the control of each channel with parametric EQ, compression, noise gate and panorama you can do a group for example for all the drums and in the channel assigned you can re-EQ and give compression so that means you can have a better control of the mix.

The possibility to take any number of channels and send them to a mixgroup gives you the possibility to sample any of the inputs you have connected to the mixer.

Knowing something else each day.

Cheers

PS: I donā€™t work for Allen Heath

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Could you show us a recording with the Q32 ?

I dont understand your posting, USB 3.0 for the hard disk recorder ? And 2.0 USB for streaming to the DAW?

I read that you can select what to record, i.e. post fader ? (At least i thought that i understand the tutorial this way.) How is the driver performance ? Do you stream to OSX or Windows?

If i understand the tutorial correctly, you could also record the mix bus seperatly?

There are no LFOĀ“s ? For controlling the FX or so ?
Did you compare it to a good audio interface ? Like RME ?

What about latency? Does it have any way of compensating? I bought my first digital mixer last year and while Iā€™m quite fond many of the features not being able to do parallel processing can be a bummer.

A Qu-Pac just arrived on my doorstep today. I can run some tests etc since Iā€™m just beginning to configure it.

I plan on using this as my interface as well, but I donā€™t use plugin instruments all that much, so Iā€™ll primarily be using it without my DAW until I record.

stoked! :joy:

Cheers