April 2nd, 2026
I’ve decided to move up to a full digital mixer, so I started the process of seing what was out there, and after about 100 hours of researching, I found it, the perfect mixer for my needs. It did everything that I wanted, and more… it had all the preamps I wanted… and more. It had all the processing needs and features that I could ever want… and more. It was the QU-5, but right away upgraded to the QU-6.
It was perfect… almost. The mixer of my dreams ended up coming from the factory with a defect, fader #17 that vibrated loudly. At the least, it was annoying, at most it intruded in to my recordings. I tried another mixer of the same model, that one did it too. The dealer where I purchase it from did the research and they told me that for some reason a firmware update is needed to address it and that the QU-5, QU-6 and QU-7 models all had it. I was dejected and very disappointed, I *really* liked the QU-6!
That said, no matter how much I liked it, I was not going to live with a mixer that came from the factory with a known defect and wait months or years waiting for a fix. The next model down definitely did not meet my needs and the similar model moving up was over $2000 more expensive, which is ridiculous, even if it was even more amazing.
So, I made a compromise… fewer faders but higher quality, more effects, greater routing and better preamps were accepted by moving up to the SQ-5 and NO fader 17 issues!. Even at that this model was much more expensive. Peace of mind has a price, and so that difference was paid. Here-in starts another challenge. Allen & Heath take 2 weeks to deliver any new mixer, so on top of the 2 weeks that I waitied for the first QU-6, the week I wasted getting to test the 2nd QU-6 and now the 2 more weeks waiting for the SQ-5… thats over a month of time wasted!
Well, during that time I got a chance to get a little familiar with the SQ-5 via YouTube, the online PDFs and installing the MixPad SQ on my iPad. The QU-5 was simpler and easier to use but I am looking forward to using the more advanced features and enjoying the higher quality results.
Here are a few images of my mixer. If you click on the image, it opens larger in a new tab :
This mixer will offer me conveniences and possibilities that my Mackie 1640i cannot and though I thoroughly enjoyed the Mackie for many years, I feel it’s time to move up and on.
As of the first week of Aplril, I will be using this mixer in all my audio/video projects and look forward to making the best music I have ever made in my life!
April 2nd, 2026
OK, it’s been 24 hours with the SQ, and this thing is a BEAST. The design of the QU is more recent, more refined, but compared to the SQ… well, let’s just say that even with the drop from 24 faders down to 16, there is nothing to regret. This thing jus exudes a higher level of quality. The faders move so much faster and smoother, the preamps seem clearer to my ears, but the knowledge that I earned with my time on the QU is of little use on the SQ. They do things similarly, but not the same, and so I fall back down to the start.
To that end, I purchased a small video course and I need to go through it from start to finish, doing a hands-on at the same time as I follow the video and once I do that a couple times, I should be good to go for the most part.
I enjoy the learning process and every “win” gives me knowledge and that makes me happy.
More to come, but in the meantime, here are a series of tutorial videos from Allen & Heath themselves:
April 3, 2006
So, since today is going to be a very busy day, thanks to it being Good Friday, I got up at a very early 4:30am and went downstairs to lay a little. I accomplished 2 important tasks… I set up communication on 32 channels so that it can capture output from my mixer in to Reaper. The 2nd task was to set up Reaper so that it can not only send info via the USB connection back to the mixer, but also install the MIDI Controller files and set up things so that my mixer can control the faders of Reaper. Finally, I reprogrammed layer “F” to see the MIDI channels and then setup 2 of the softkeys so that I can shift the banks forward and back of layer “F” to be able to work with no matter how many tracks I have in Reaper (I mean no matter… even like 300 trakcs or more!).
It’s starting to get more fun!
Next step, set up a separate mix so that I can use my stereo IEMs (In-Ear-Monitors).
After that, I should be ready to make my first tests and then start making videos… I’m excited!