One change some may not prefer is the fewer number of encoders dedicated to the parametric EQ section. The fader layers have been upped from three to six, and they’re all now fully customisable thanks to those LCD scribble strips. The 32-fader surface has 16 soft keys instead of 10, as well as eight soft encoders. The mute and DCA groups have been doubled. The onboard USB recording and playback has gone up from 18 channels to 32. The touchscreen size remains the same seven inches, regardless of the console size. The last four have dedicated returns, but you have to give up one of the 12 auxiliaries to access the other four, or use them as inserts. However, only the first four have dedicated FX sends as well as returns. There are now eight onboard FX engines, instead of four. UPGRADE PATHīesides the different core architecture, Allen & Heath has upgraded every key area of the SQ, when compared with the Qu. On the flipside, like the d-Live: SQ runs natively at 96k the channel and bus-processing count doesn’t change with the size of your surface (you can operate the 16+1 fader SQ-5 surface and still have the same 48-channel/36-bus architecture as the 32+1 fader SQ-7) it’s got multi-colour LCD scribble strips fully-customisable fader banks an LED light bar as well as dLive multi-colour knobs, and customisable soft rotaries. Like the Qu series: each console has a healthy collection of I/O on the back the processing engine is onboard (not housed in the I/O rack) and it has a similarly user-friendly interface. A console that could still drop-in as a replacement for an analogue console, but make use of some of that d-Live tech. There was, of course, a huge gap in the middle. It also split the range into two surface ranges the touring-spec S-Class, and the install/smaller rental house-spec C-Class, which comes with a few less knobs and buttons, but still operates the same engine and racks. In the meantime, Allen & Heath overhauled the top end of its digital range with the D-Live series introducing 96k sampling rates, almost doubling the channel count of iLive, and building more professional interfaces and touring packages. The Qu series was a raging success not only was it easy to use, but it had plenty of clarity, too. If you came from an analogue console background, this was about as ‘at home’ as you could feel on digital. You still had to get out the white ‘lecky’ and chinagraph to label up your channels, it had big buttons on its touchscreen, loads of colour, and there weren’t too many layers to get your head around. Knowing this, Allen & Heath straddled this analogue/digital divide on the Qu-32 surface side, too. They could simply replace their analogue console with a digital one, and lose a rack of outboard gear in the process. That way, anyone with existing analogue infrastructure didn’t have to rewire a single cable, drop box, or core if they didn’t want to. Fully digital desks, with a full complement of onboard analogue I/O. Then Behringer’s now-sister company, Midas retooled much of that tech with a ‘Bentley-designed’ chassis that didn’t make huge strides in operability, nor did it turn it into a ‘real’ Midas.Īll of the 32s were ‘bridging’ consoles. Behringer had made its play with the X32 - stuffing every ounce of processing into a package fronted by a crowded screen. When Allen & Heath entered the Battle of the 32s with its Qu-32, it did so in a real Allen & Heath way.
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