BbAltered Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 Hello. Anyone have any experience using the QSC TouchMix 16 digital mixer with a DAW? As far as I can tell, the QSC TM16 was not designed to work with a DAW: the function was not incorporated into the TM16 OS. QSC does proudly promote the function of recording directly to and playing back from a HD. Interestingly, the QSC TM 30 (a bigger and more expensive unit) does work with a DAW - the function is natively built into the mixer's OS. I see that QSC has now made available on their website 2 apps for using the TM16 with a DAW: 1 app to receive data from the TM16 to the DAW, and one app to send data from the DAW to the TM16. So I'm wondering if anyone here has tried to use the TM16 with a DAW and how does it work. I am sort of astounded that a company would make a digital mixer for today's market, and fail to make it function as the front end for use with a DAW, but include the function of recording to and playing back from a HD. Initially, QSC was telling users who wanted to use the mixer with a DAW to record to HD, and then manually transfer the data on the HD to their DAW. It seems like a weird way to design a digital mixer. My brother is looking for a digital mixer to use with Reaper (which is why this question is coming up). He spent 30 years as a programmer with IBM, and so is highly computer literate. When he learned that the TM16 would not communicate with a DAW without the two additional apps, he went from "I'm gonna get this mixer" to "forget it: that's not what I need/want". Quote J.S. Bach Well Tempered Klavier The collected works of Scott Joplin Ray Charles Genius plus Soul Charlie Parker Omnibook Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life Weather Report Mr. Gone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElmerJFudd Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Have you joined the forums at https://forum.cockos.com/ ? If this is your DAW of choice, getting feedback from users having success with digital mixers is a good place to start. There are many digital mixers that support standards like HUI and Mackie Control, etc. the Behringer Wing and X32 come to mind. PreSonus StudioOne. And others. Just check the specs for: MCU emulation mode optimized for Logic HUI emulation mode optimized for ProTools Typically the Reaper fans have mapped these for their DAW and can save you the work. Quote Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalman Stern Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Why does he want a "digital mixer?" In particular, is he planning to use it for live work as well? Does he want it to provide the audio interface to the DAW? Generally the DAW does its own mixing. One can run monitoring on an outboard mixer to reduce latency, or use it standalone when not recording in the DAW, but it pays to be clear on the use case. The QSC-16 doesn't provide an audio interface to the DAW, so it is just control surface for a DAW in the best case. It can be a digital mixer and recorder on its own, and is intended more for live use. For mainly DAW use, I really don't see why one would get this rather than e.g. an iPad with a control surface app. PreSonus, Allen & Heath, Behringer, Avid, etc. all make mixers that are both control surfaces and audio interfaces. I find most of the primarily live sound ones treat DAW integration/audio interface as a secondary use case and it shows. But they're all serviceable. The Behringer X-touch is both a decent standalone control surface and physical controller for the XR-18 (or MR-18), which is a decent stage box/audio interface. (Yeah, it's Behringer. Good value more than the best you can buy, but it works.) Their X32 line is the bigger badder version and is quite popular. Wing is the latest and most expensive in the line I believe. The Allen and Heath Qu-16 has very nice faders but I haven't used it as an interface. A bit more detail on what he wants would help answer the question. -Z- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BbAltered Posted August 19, 2020 Author Share Posted August 19, 2020 Thank you Mr. Fudd for your reply. I have not yet addressed this question to the Reaper forum. It is on my to-do list. Thank you Mrs. Stern for your reply. My brother wants a mixer for his rehearsal/studio room. As a rehearsal room, the mixer needs to do live sound mixing: accept and balance inputs, and send the signal out to players' monitors. As a project studio, the mixer will also function as the front end for the DAW: accept inputs, do the AD conversion, send the data to the computer, communicate with the DAW, receive data from the computer, do the DA conversion, and send the signal to the studio monitors. The mixer will be used pretty much exclusively in the rehearsal/studio room: it will not travel out. As you point out, there are a number of mixers that have these capacities at a variety of price points, so my brother has a number of options. And he is now exploring those. Thanks again for your thoughts. Quote J.S. Bach Well Tempered Klavier The collected works of Scott Joplin Ray Charles Genius plus Soul Charlie Parker Omnibook Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life Weather Report Mr. Gone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKeys Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 I am tuning in here because I have a QSC TouchMix 16 and love it. I have not recorded live with it but Im thinking about recording rehearsals. My DAW is PreSonus Studio One and I thought it would be great to us the QSC for on site recording and then mix on Studio One!! Quote Jimmy Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. Groucho NEW BAND CHECK THEM OUT www.steveowensandsummertime.com www.jimmyweaver.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b3plyr Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 I am tuning in here because I have a QSC TouchMix 16 and love it. I have not recorded live with it but Im thinking about recording rehearsals. My DAW is PreSonus Studio One and I thought it would be great to us the QSC for on site recording and then mix on Studio One!! I have a TouchMix 8 and it is a true workhorse. I use it with our duo which has such things as vocals, keys, guitar, looper, and drum synth. And I do exactly what Jimmy ia talking about doing. We record our duo live with the TouchMix and then mix in the studio with ProTools or Logic. Transferring the audio is as easy as it gets - the QSC app works great. And I also use the TouchMix for any out of studio recording projects that I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 The Presonus line is probably the best bet, they have a mature DAW platform that is well regarded (Studio One) and they make digital mixers that are very well integrated with their own DAW. A bit Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reezekeys Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Bb, you seem surprised that a company would make a digital mixer and not include features to make it a good front end for a DAW. Here's my theory on why this might be. If I wanted a digital mixer to use on live shows and record them, I think I'd prefer bringing a small hard drive and leaving the computer home. If I was a bandleader or soundman at a show using this kind of mixer, my first concern would be getting the sound right for the venue and the monitoring correct for the musicians. Why add another layer of responsibility and time-consuming setup to connect a computer, fire up a DAW, configure a project, then have to monitor its operation throughout the show to make sure it was running correctly? Just slip a small (NVMe?) USB drive in your pocket, and when you get to the gig, plug it in and that's pretty much it right? Obviously your brother's idea of using a digital mixer just for rehearsals and recording & playing back from a DAW means that this particular QSC mixer is not suited for him. There's probably another brand's model that'll have the features he wants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GabrielStaniecki Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 Hi, I use QSC TM 16 for both, rehearsal recording and live performance, graet workhorse in small box. It was not invented for direct cooperation with DAW but using simple hard drive it is easier than seems to be. You can record up to 19 channels ( 3 stereo) in multitruck mode and easily work on that in any DAW you want. You can playback all tracks and make overdubs in every time, you can prepare tracks in DAW and playback them in QSC. Graet preamps and presets to use. TM 30 has direct connection with DAW if someone is looking for that. I highly recommend both mixers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRNC Posted October 3, 2023 Share Posted October 3, 2023 Well said! I just found that out this weekend as I was going through mixer options for a church choir. The manual says you record to USD/SD and then transfer the files to your DAW. That's kind of like snail mail! It's an awesome machine but, what an omission! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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