Allen and Heath Mixers

[Chienmortbb]

As the Compact Mixer thread either seems to cover Allen & Heath CQ series or Behringer X Series mixers, when either is being discussed, it is of little interest to owners of the other. This thread is aimed at the A&H CQ Series, CQ12.CQ18 and CQ20 but mentions of the SQ series are welcome.

[Chienmortbb]

I might as well kick this off. I was just playing with my mixer (CQ20) at home and ha a play around with the presets. Set flat, the sound with my voice was meh. Using of the presets, my voice sounded a lot more acceptable.

 

In fact, I was really chuffed at how good it sounded.

[warwickhunt]

TBH I've never tried flat EQ on my CQ12, I just used the various presets and they've been pretty close to what is needed.  I did need to fiddle quite a bit with an acoustic guitar preset as it was far too nasal but that was likely down to that particular electro-acoustic onboard preamp.

[Chienmortbb]

2 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

TBH I've never tried flat EQ on my CQ12, I just used the various presets and they've been pretty close to what is needed.  I did need to fiddle quite a bit with an acoustic guitar preset as it was far too nasal but that was likely down to that particular electro-acoustic onboard preamp.

I have only true the vocals and bass presets but both were more than OK. I did add some chorus to the bass and it was nice. 

[David Morison]

22 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I might as well kick this off. I was just playing with my mixer (CQ20) at home and ha a play around with the presets. Set flat, the sound with my voice was meh. Using of the presets, my voice sounded a lot more acceptable.

 

In fact, I was really chuffed at how good it sounded.

 

Hi, thanks for sharing this.

I've never had a mixer with such presets (or felt the need, having learned the hard way on analogue mixers) so it may help me and perhaps others to get a bit more info about how well they work please....

 

How different were the results from the presets vs setting up each channel manually (assuming you did that too)?

Are the presets "black boxes", or can you see what they're doing in terms of EQ, compression & effects etc?

If you can see "under the bonnet" as it were, are there any gotchas to be aware of such as EQ boosts or compression that would raise the risk of feedback in a live situation?

 

Ta muchly,

David.

[Chienmortbb]

Yes you can go in, see and adjust settings and the only thing to beware of is being too aggressive with the compressor or with the Parametric EQ.* Both can cause early onset feedback. You can select either complete band reset or individual channel presets. 
 

* you can also select Quick Setup that will give you a typical Bass Mid, Treble  type tone three knob adjustment for those migrating from an analogue desk,.

 

I will put it on later and dive in more.

Edited March 13 by Chienmortbb

[warwickhunt]

As @Chienmortbb says you can select a preset and then open it and see what the EQ shape etc is doing.  There's generally nothing radical, just obvious cuts/boosts for the given timbre of instrument or voice.

[Chienmortbb]

10 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

As @Chienmortbb says you can select a preset and then open it and see what the EQ shape etc is doing.  There's generally nothing radical, just obvious cuts/boosts for the given timbre of instrument or voice.

Perfectly described.