Allen & Heath are no newcomers to the digital mixer market. What's new is their push to develop less-expensive mixers that still maintain the flexibility and sound quality A&H has become known for. The new Qu series is A&H's least-expensive digital mixer line; it consists of the Qu-32, Qu-24 and Qu-16 (32, 24 and 16 channels respectively), plus the compact Qu-Pac.
This review focuses on the Qu-Pac, which differs from its littermates primarily in the absence of physical (motorized) faders. Each Qu-series mixer has a touch screen for user input, with the Qu-32 having a seven-inch screen and the rest a five-inch screen. The combination of physical faders, traditional mixer shape and touch screen allow the Qu-32, Qu-24 and Qu-16 to strike a balance between digital flexibility and a familiar analog feel.
Qu-Pac, in contrast, breaks with convention and demands a purely digital mixing approach. Even Qu-Pac's shape is non-traditional, which may evoke an inquisitive, “huh?” when you first see it. Imagine a thin mixer with top-mounted jacks folded thrice and stood upright. In the middle of the mixer is a space that helps the unit run cool without a fan, makes Qu-Pac easy to pick up, and looks nifty to boot. Rack-mounting is an option with the provided hardware.
Most inputs and outputs sit on Qu-Pac's densely packed back panel. The main 16 analog inputs have both XLR and TRS ¼-inch jacks, and flow into AnaLogiq preamps with fully recallable settings. Also on the back panel are a pair of stereo inputs on 1/4-inch jacks and an XLR talkback. Analog outputs are generous: stereo main and 10 mix outputs (all XLR), 1/4-inch two-track and Alt Stereo outputs. Qu-Pac's last analog input is an 1/8-inch stereo jack on the front panel for portable players and smart phones. Nice touch.
Which brings us to the digital I/O side of Qu-Pac's personality, where things get very interesting. A USB Qu-Drive jack sits on the front panel for stereo or multi-track playback and record, firmware updates, saving user settings and libraries, and more. If you plan to record more than just the stereo mix, this port really needs an actual USB hard drive. USB thumb drives just can't keep up with the data rates of multi-track recording.
The back panel has a second USB port—this one for connection to a computer. With Mac or Windows drivers installed, Qu-Pac will stream 32 channels of audio data in both directions—simultaneously. This makes it possible to record multi-track audio while adding tracks to the mix, turning Qu-Pac into an impressive audio hub for live recording. Finally, Qu-Pac has a dSnake connector to attach a remote stage box with additional analog I/O. Attach the A&H AB168 (for example), and Qu-Pac offers an impressive 32 inputs and 24 outputs with less than 100 microseconds latency.
Qu-Pac's shape is non-traditional, which may evoke an inquisitive, "huh?" when you first see it.The digital I/O side of Qu-Pac’s personality? This is where things get very interesting.
The mixer's front panel has three control areas, the primary one holding the touch screen, main interface buttons and rotary knob. This is where most mixer control happens, from setup to tweaking actual channels and routings. To the left of this the soft key area, you'll find three columns of five buttons ready to control numerous aspects of the mixer. These user-configured functions include triggering mutes, starting and stopping USB audio playback, entering tap tempo, engaging a talkback mic, and more. Blank areas next to each column of buttons allow you to place and write on a strip of tape, which is the only way you'll be able to remember what each button is assigned to do.
Across the bottom of Qu-Pac are 16 selection buttons. Whereas the 15 soft keys map to mixer functions, the select buttons map to inputs, outputs, mixes and groups. Tap a select button, and its assigned mixer element comes up on the touch screen. Old-school strip of tape #4 sits under these buttons to track what each custom slot is assigned to. To add even more options, you can populate the “Qu-Control” touch screen page with user-defined buttons.
You can name each of five banks of buttons (or tabs) for clarity, then define up to 15 buttons per tab. That 75 buttons offering one-tap control over any input, output or mix level, as well as mute groups, sends, assignments, matrices and more. You can even trigger any hardware soft key button. Once you get the lay of the land on Qu-Pac, you can start configuring the soft keys, custom channel layer and Qu-Control area to put most mixer parameters within one tap. You can't control everything in the mixer, but the options offered are good ones. A&H will likely add more functions in the future (like bringing up specific mixer bank displays, or tweaking channel effects parameters). In theory, most anything in the mixer could (and should) be able to be mapped to these controls.
Alas, no button or soft key on Qu-Pac will allow you to actually mix on the thing. Instead, you have to bring up one channel at a time and spin the knob. Like holding a love one's hand with thick gloves on, this approach to mixing feels detached and clumsy. This is where the Qu-Pad app saves the day. Qu-Pad running on an iPad gives you the faders, spacious display area and interactive “feel” (more or less) that's missing from the hardware mixer. Qu-Pad puts nine channels on the screen at one time, each with a colorful level meter and easy-to-adjust virtual fader. Above the faders sits the adjustment area for channel parameters, assignments, global effects and more. Qu-Pad lets you set up three custom areas with faders and groups and other controls, including strips with five soft keys each. With the custom workspaces, the amount of mixing control you can pack into a relatively small space is impressive. Qu-Pad is available for iPad only, a fact this Android user hopes A&H is working to address.
To the Test
After my initial amusement with the shape of Qu-Pac wore off, my next observation was that it’s built like a brick. Qu-Pac is heavy, sturdy and definitely has a high-quality feel. Knobs, buttons and controls feel solid and well-made. The touch screen is colorful, bright and quite responsive. The processing power required to respond to fingers, show meters and change screens is not insignificant, and I’ve used too many devices where it’s clear the manufacturers skimped on DSP in this area. The result is a sluggish, frustrating interface. Qu-Pac has no such problems.
Effects and processing also take DSP, and Qu-Pac doesn’t skimp here, either. I was consistently impressed with the sound of the channel EQ and compression. The latter doesn’t offer a wealth of algorithms, but the ones offered (Manual RMS, Manual Peak, Auto Slow Opto and Auto Punchbag) work well. Delays and pitch effects are very good. Qu-Pac’s reverbs are excellent, with a healthy serving of popular plate, hall and room algorithms. These reverbs have depth, clarity and a lushness that make them a good fit for modern musical styles. Out front of all this DSP are Qu-Pac’s analog preamps and A-D converters, which complement each other to capture excellent sound from the analog inputs. Once in the digital realm, Qu-Pac’s processing and mixing algorithms preserve that sonic quality. Overall, the sound of the mixer is clean and open without being too pristine. I never felt like Qu-Pac was hindered by its 48 kHz, 24-bit digital audio resolution. In short, Qu-Pac sounds wonderful.
The Qu-Pad app is very well done, and it’s much easier to control Qu-Pac with the tablet than the touch screen. Metering is excellent—compressors and gates actually plot gain reduction history on a scrolling timeline. The app is colorful, nicely laid out and fun to use. The Qu-Pad app is not perfect, however. Some adjustments are tricky, since the target you’re hitting is small and the control adjustment range is too narrow. Sometimes the parameter you’re adjusting is obscured by your finger. Qu-Pad’s interface could use a re-think where some of the smaller on-screen controls are concerned (i.e. effects parameters). It’s an iPad --- there are ways to handle this elegantly.
I have a feeling Qu-Pad is a work in progress—something the manufacturer confirms, having released several downloadable software upgrades since the product’s initial launch. I was surprised it wouldn’t control some key mixer functions such as channel pairing, Qu-Drive playback/recording, advanced routing, effects “expert” parameters and a few others. You have to go back to the touch screen to accomplish these tasks. It’s good Qu-Pac users have a touch screen to go to, though, since it acts as a fallback interface should the Qu-Pad app fail for any reason (iPad walks off, network goes down, Deacon Johnson’s teenage son tries to hack in, etc.). Digital mixers with no built-in interface whatsoever are a little harder to trust.
The Qu-You app deserves a mention, because it’s a simple and effective addition to the Qu-World. With Qu-You, performers can control the overall level of their monitor mix as well as four sub-components that make up that mix (“Me” being the most important, obviously). Mute, EQ, and mix compressor threshold are also under user control. Unlike Qu-Pad, Qu-You is available for Android devices as well. Updating Qu-Pac’s firmware turned out to be the trickiest part of the review. I learned that Qu-Pac is quite finicky about USB thumb drives, and I tried eight (!) before I found one Qu-Pac liked. After that the update was seamless. I successfully played back stereo audio and recorded the resulting mix in stereo to the thumb drive, though that simultaneous operation is “not supported” by Qu-Pac. With numerous caveats and restrictions, Qu-Drive’s support of USB thumb drives seems reluctant at best.
Qu-Pac presented a few other irritants that should be addressed in future firmware updates—most of which the manufacturer assures us they are working to address. You can’t disable individual EQ bands. A channel/meter overview is great for getting the lay of the land, but you can’t jump straight from that screen to any channel by tapping it. Channel names are limited to a ridiculously short six characters. There are some pleasant surprises as well. Qu-Pac boasts a great real-time analyzer. You can protect parameters from scene recall at a very granular level. The mixer has what may be the loudest built-in headphone amplifier I’ve ever heard.
In total, Qu-Pac is a serious, pro-quality mixer sitting behind a small touch screen and peculiar shape. Sound, flexibility, power—it’s all there. With the toolset Qu-Pac gives you, there’s nothing standing between you and some excellent mixes.
