Allen & Heath CQ-18T. This is the mixer to get...

[D. Gauss]

There's been several "what mixer?"  threads lately.  If you're having trouble deciding what to get (and have the cash), I'd say the A&H CQ-18T is a super small, power monster that is pretty hard to beat.  Just picked one up yesterday.  Built like a tiny lightweight tank and super easy to use.  Did i mention it is small and weighs considerably less than a gallon of milk? Compared to the usual suspects out there (Behringer Xr-18, etc.), here's (IMO) the main things that really set it apart from the others:

 

-Built in WIFI router that actually works.  No need to bring a router, and unlike the useless wifi on the Behringers, this one is strong (both 2.4 & 5) works quite well.

-Built in color touch screen.  You can easily control everything and see your settings without need for an ipad or phone. But of course you can use them too.

-Built in mapped rotary controls.  There's 3 rotary controls that automatically map to controls on every screen.  e.g. you can turn the channel volume down with an actual knob (or still use your finger on the touch screen if you prefer)

-Built in 96K multitrack recording to SD card.  Pop in a $7 dollar SD card and record 18 discreet channels, plus your master mix, and your submixes. (24 tracks total)

-Simple, tabletop style format like an analog mixer.

 

For almost 10 years, i've been using an A&H Qu-Pac (which i absolutely love and thought was small at the time), but the CQ-18T does 90% of what my QU-Pac does at about a third of the weight, and does some things the Qu-Pac can't.

 

It ain't cheap though. $1200 bucks is a damn lot of dough to put out when you can get the ubiquitous XR-18 for $750.  But, to me, the on-board screen, tactile knob control, lack of need to bring a router, and ability to record without a computer help soften the sticker shock.  Hard to tell in the below pic, but the mixer's footprint is smaller than the laptop i'm typing this on  (13.6 x 9.5 inches).

 

[Macsaint777]

I absolutely love mine. I use it in the studio as my keyboard mixer.. but I have used it live for 5 events as well and it is solid. I'm so impressed, that I plan to upgrade all our Presonus SL series to A&H for all 4 Church campuses I oversee. 

[JoJoB3]

A&H fan as well. Owned and used quite a few since the early 90's.
Note this model offers no DCA, mute groups but also no configurable I/O mapping (this might be important to some).
But size, weight and basic function plus one can record without use of a computer is nice.

[D. Gauss]

6 minutes ago, JoJoB3 said:

Note this model offers no DCA, mute groups but also no I/O mapping (this might be important to some).
 

 

Technically yes (my Qu-Pac has them), but....

if you use the mixing station app (and everyone (imo) should use that app no matter what digital mixer they have), you can set up both groups and DCAs.  Also, word is the next firmware update will likely have mute groups. In the meantime:

 

 

[D. Gauss]

55 minutes ago, Macsaint777 said:

 I use it in the studio 

 

It's so light, i actually brought mine into the studio last night for a band tracking session i've been engineering/producing.  Fed six submixes into the A&H from my DAW interfaces (two Motu 16As), sent 4 outs from the A&H to the headphone amps, had the bandmembers download the A&H CQ4You app on their phones and said, "here, control your own damn headphone mixes."   

 

[ImproKeys]

1 hour ago, Macsaint777 said:

I absolutely love mine. I use it in the studio as my keyboard mixer.. but I have used it live for 5 events as well and it is solid. I'm so impressed, that I plan to upgrade all our Presonus SL series to A&H for all 4 Church campuses I oversee. 

How do you deal with the XLR only channels as inputs regarding keyboards?

[zxcvbnm098]

I've been considering the Soundcraft Ui24r for some time now...not familiar with this at all. I like the number of inputs on the Soundcraft, but this look pretty slick for sure...

[Macsaint777]

1 hour ago, ImproKeys said:

How do you deal with the XLR only channels as inputs regarding keyboards?

I don't have that many boards anymore, so not an issue for me.. but I'd just use adapters if I needed to. 

 

1 hour ago, zxcvbnm098 said:

I've been considering the Soundcraft Ui24r for some time now...not familiar with this at all. I like the number of inputs on the Soundcraft, but this look pretty slick for sure...

I sold my Ui24 and bought this and don't regret it at all. Ui24 can be buggy and just disappears from the iPad/Mac/iPhone at random... but I really like having the built in screen here, as well as iPad control. Sounds better too actually. 

[JoJoB3]

1 hour ago, ImproKeys said:

How do you deal with the XLR only channels as inputs regarding keyboards?

Also a good point

[D. Gauss]

16 minutes ago, JoJoB3 said:

Also a good point

https://reverb.com/item/13903431-2-pc-te013-1-4-female-ts-mono-jack-to-male-3-pin-xlr-microphone-plug-adapter?bk=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJqdGkiOiIyOGRiOThiNS05ZThiLTRlODYtYjE0NC05NGQ0ZmJjYmUzMGQiLCJpYXQiOjE2OTY4NjU2MjYsInVzZXJfaWQiOiIiLCJzZXNzaW9uX2lkIjoiIiwiY29va2llX2lkIjoiOWIzMmQ4YzYtMzczYy00NTU0LWJkM2EtODM2YjMxYzNkMDg0IiwicHJvZHVjdF9pZCI6IjEzOTAzNDMxIiwic291cmNlIjoiTk9ORSJ9.3fz0inXZWRr5z2vgtlqx1JICzHz0a9pYeWmvHYQO9Og

[JoJoB3]

2 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

https://reverb.com/item/13903431-2-pc-te013-1-4-female-ts-mono-jack-to-male-3-pin-xlr-microphone-plug-adapter?bk=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJqdGkiOiIyOGRiOThiNS05ZThiLTRlODYtYjE0NC05NGQ0ZmJjYmUzMGQiLCJpYXQiOjE2OTY4NjU2MjYsInVzZXJfaWQiOiIiLCJzZXNzaW9uX2lkIjoiIiwiY29va2llX2lkIjoiOWIzMmQ4YzYtMzczYy00NTU0LWJkM2EtODM2YjMxYzNkMDg0IiwicHJvZHVjdF9pZCI6IjEzOTAzNDMxIiwic291cmNlIjoiTk9ORSJ9.3fz0inXZWRr5z2vgtlqx1JICzHz0a9pYeWmvHYQO9Og

Mmm...They shoulda made all of them combo xlr. Pretty ridiculous. Just 1 extra yard!

"We need 1 pin, Rodney"

[Spider76]

With my band we use the big (relatively speaking) brother CQ20B.

It has more inputs and channels but lacks the screen, which for my use case it's actually a positive. We'll use a tablet anyway (and our phones for personal monitor mix), so why waste money and space on a screen that will never gat used?

Absolutely amazing piece of gear. It's so tiny it looks like a toy, but punches far above its weight

[D. Gauss]

16 minutes ago, Spider76 said:

With my band we use the big (relatively speaking) brother CQ20B.

It has more inputs and channels but lacks the screen, which for my use case it's actually a positive. We'll use a tablet anyway (and our phones for personal monitor mix), so why waste money and space on a screen that will never gat used?

Absolutely amazing piece of gear. It's so tiny it looks like a toy, but punches far above its weight

 

fwiw, the CQ-18t and CQ20b both have the same amount of mic pres (16).

[jazzpiano88]

I'm not a big fan of A&H, only because of a bad experience with the Zed10.    Its price point should have been my warning where you could back calculate the raw parts cost to be $12.99 US.     So there you go.   Mine got taken out in a power surge last year and is now being used as base for a nesting platform in a tree for migrant birds.   I now equate it with Behringer garbage. 

[D. Gauss]

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

 

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

I'm not a big fan of A&H <snip> I now equate it with Behringer garbage. 

  Hmmmm. Fwiw: https://www.allen-heath.com/rick-wakemans-journey-continues-with-allen-heath/

 

[NewImprov]

The Allen & Heath SQ-6 is the heart of my studio, acting as preamps, a 32-channel, 96k interface to the computer, handles all the routing for monitor mixes and acts as a DAW controller for Logic. I mixed lice shows on the Qu and SQ series for years, and the company I worked for has now gone to their D-Live boards. I love their stuff.

[jazzpiano88]

39 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

 

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

I'm not a big fan of A&H <snip> I now equate it with Behringer garbage. 

  Hmmmm. Fwiw: https://www.allen-heath.com/rick-wakemans-journey-continues-with-allen-heath/

 

Are you saying they have a pro-line that's different than their $300 Zed 10 model? 

[D. Gauss]

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

 

Are you saying they have a pro-line that's different than their $300 Zed 10 model? 

 

The D-Live S7000 is $50,000, and that's before you add another 5 to 20K for mic preamps, etc. A&H has made serious gear for decades.  Much like Yamaha (and even SSL) though, they also have some very inexpensive lines. 

 

[John H Carter]

Another shout out to CQ20B, good sound and low-latency USB audio. Lack of DCA/groups is annoying, it doesn't yet support MIDI control, and tablet layout is a bit clunky, but there's always mixpad.

[Dave Keys]

Looks good, although I don't tend to use a mixer live as the Kronos has one built in, or I can use the inputs on the YC73 for a basic 2 board setup. 

Would love our band leader to get a proper mixer like this for the band (but with more sliders) so we can go full IEM and stop spending more time than is necessary soundchecking monitor inputs. 

[zxcvbnm098]

On 4/23/2024 at 12:28 PM, Macsaint777 said:

I don't have that many boards anymore, so not an issue for me.. but I'd just use adapters if I needed to. 

 

I sold my Ui24 and bought this and don't regret it at all. Ui24 can be buggy and just disappears from the iPad/Mac/iPhone at random... but I really like having the built in screen here, as well as iPad control. Sounds better too actually. 

Hmmm....very interesting. Thanks Macsaint....looks like the A&H goes on the wishlist. I have on of the small A&H Zed boards, which I love. Great company, great products.

[Werno]

I've been looking at this and the smaller CQ-12T ($900, 5 xlr/5 dual/ 2 TRS inputs, BYO router, 2 fx engines rather than 4) and am having trouble seeing the downside. You can download the iPad/tablet app and take it for a virtual test drive if you're curious how it's set up and what's on offer, since it pretty much duplicates the built-in screen. Features no one's mentioned yet are:  auto initial level setting with the option of having it continuously adjust itself if things start to overload; feedback killer available on any/all channels; and an auto mic mixing function like w/'Dan Dugan' hardware that's used at conferences for balancing multiple talkers' mics, but probably has musical applications too.

 

I believe that the SD multitracking option supports a 'virtual soundcheck' function- you can pick off the signal from a few points in a given channel- straight off the preamp, post-eq, post-dynamics, as you prefer. By recording a recurring setup pre-fader & everything else, the next time you're setting up the same lineup/gig you should be able to play the SD recording back through the mixer and fine-tune everything fx & eq-wise before the band even shows up. Which in my case would mean we'd actually get to do a sound check, he said bitterly.

[Zalman Stern]

On 4/23/2024 at 10:59 AM, ImproKeys said:

How do you deal with the XLR only channels as inputs regarding keyboards?

TRS inputs are convenient, but generally the professional realm uses DI boxes anyway so there's a lot less call for them than one might think. As others have pointed out, adapters are cheap and easy to get.

 

-Z-

[CharlieLosGatos]

Can you create separate monitor mixes on this?  

[D. Gauss]

Just now, CharlieLosGatos said:

Can you create separate monitor mixes on this?  

 

yes, six.

[Iconoclast]

 

On 4/23/2024 at 12:28 PM, Macsaint777 said:

I don't have that many boards anymore, so not an issue for me.. but I'd just use adapters if I needed to. 

 

I sold my Ui24 and bought this and don't regret it at all. Ui24 can be buggy and just disappears from the iPad/Mac/iPhone at random... but I really like having the built in screen here, as well as iPad control. Sounds better too actually. 

I use a Ui24 as my Studio Mixer. Great for that purpose as the wifi never has to cover a great distance or deal with the co-channel interference of 100 cellphones.  I absolutely love their pre-amps and the software...when the wifi doesn't drop out!

If I was to use it at a deployable stage mixer I'd try a different wifi though. The built in one is just not dependable enough for a show covering any range or dealing with co-channel interference.

[Daniel71]

I have a zoom L20 which is a standalone multitrack recording mixer. You can record and playback tracks from the sd card simultaneously which I prefer.

the cq-18t is better for sure is term of quality but lack this feature.

 

It would be great if they could add this functionality.

[D. Gauss]

47 minutes ago, Daniel71 said:

I have a zoom L20 which is a standalone multitrack recording mixer. You can record and playback tracks from the sd card simultaneously which I prefer.

the cq-18t is better for sure is term of quality but lack this feature.

 

 

fwiw, the CQ-18t has both SD card and USB slots. Depending upon your needs, you can plug a thumbdrive into the USB and play tracks off that, and/or play them off your phone via the mixer's bluetooth.

[kpl1228]

If Allen and Heath ever made a single-space rack mount mixer, that would be something.

[Daniel71]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:49 AM, D. Gauss said:

 

fwiw, the CQ-18t has both SD card and USB slots. Depending upon your needs, you can plug a thumbdrive into the USB and play tracks off that, and/or play them off your phone via the mixer's bluetooth.

 

I spoke with Allen & heath and the CQ cannot record and playback at the same time by itself (standalone), we need to use a daw.