FRONT of HOUSE • November 2018 • Road Test: Allen & Heath SQ-7

I cut my teeth mixing on Allen & Heath analog mixers. I liked their ruggedness, versatility and the way they sounded. Today, with the SQ-7 digital console, Allen & Heath is poised to continue that legacy well into the future.

The big brother to the SQ-5 and SQ-6, the SQ-7 weighs just 39 pounds. It’s a powerful contender in the compact digital console market, offering 48 input channels with 32 onboard preamps, 36 buses and 12 stereo Aux or Group mixes. The SQ series’ 96k Hz FPGA processing core delivers low-latency, high-res performance, while perks include a built-in Automatic Mic Mixer function and the ability to operate as a 32x32 USB audio interface with MIDI DAW control. A built-in “SQ-Drive” allows for 96 kHz multi-track record/ playback to an external USB drive for virtual sound checks, system setup and music playback.

The SQ-7 has eight stereo effects engines with dedicated stereo returns, with a full complement of onboard effects — classic reverbs, gated verbs, modulators and delays. The SQ-7 also supports Allen & Heath’s optional “DEEP” plug-ins on all 48 channels and all mixes. Effects can be assigned to one of four effects buses or as an insert on any of the mixes, groups or individual channels. For example, I set up a gated reverb as a snare channel insert without taking up an FX bus.

The front panel has 33 faders (32 selectable “fader strips” and a master), a colorful touch screen display, dedicated buttons and knobs for channel processing functions, along with myriad user-assignable softkeys and rotary encoders. The rear panel has 32 XLR inputs, 16 XLR outputs, two sets of ¼-inch stereo inputs, two ¼-inch outputs, AES stereo digital output (XLR) and a configurable footswitch jack, along with a network control port and USB audio port. A dedicated EtherCON RJ-45 jack connects to Allen & Heath SLink stage boxes, personal monitor mixers or a second SQ console (FOH and monitors). Add a DX168 AudioRack and expand the SQ-7 to a full 48 mic inputs.

A rear I/O slot accepts SQ option cards including Dante and Waves SoundGrid or a second SLink connection. A power switch and IEC AC connector for the internal power supply round out the back panel. With all the processing going on under the hood, the SQ-7 is fan cooled with two quiet fans located on the bottom side of the sloped front panel. Additional venting is under the fader bank and at the top of the rear panel. If you plan to use a traditional road case with doghouse, make certain the case design does not block the fans and airflow.

The console incorporates built-in, configurable networking and a free SQ MixPad control app is available. Operation requires no more than an iPad or Android device and a wireless router. Like the console, the app screen can be “customized” with fader strips and buttons to match your workflow.

The bottom half of the front panel contains the fader strips, each with a PFL, Select, and Mute button. Associated with each fader strip are two LEDs. One is the typical input peak LED. Rather than the traditional LED channel bar graph, the second is a chromatic LED that changes color based on the amount of signal present. Like many aspects of the SQ-7, this LED can be customized by color and variation to behave as you see best.

Next to the first fader strip are six fader-layer select buttons (A-F) along with push-switches for Copy, Paste and Reset selected parameter. Above them are three special buttons (PreFade, Assign and CH-toall mix). I found these very useful. Use the “PreFade” button along with select buttons to choose between pre- or post-fader for an aux mix. Holding “Assign” and pressing the channel select buttons lets you quickly assign channels to the selected mix. Pressing “CH-to-All Mix” allows user to quickly see where a selected channel is routed.

The master section has a single stereo fader and mix select buttons (L/R and 12 mixes). The first eight have lighter blue buttons and the last four have dark blue buttons. . Why? Well, for guys like me who like to mix down to groups instead of using DCA’s, the SQ-7 gives you the best of both worlds. In the default configuration, the console is set up to use mixes 9-12 as traditional bus groups. But if you don’t need or want bus groups, a configuration menu lets you convert the bus groups to aux mixes or vice versa, as long as the total doesn’t exceed 12.

Above each fader strip is an illuminated scribble strip. Each scribble strip can support six characters and be any one of eight colors. Compared to some other consoles, six characters and only eight colors may seem skimpy. So, if your lead singer is named Poindexter, you would have to abbreviate it to “P-Dex” or something. Pushing the “View” button toggles the scribble strip from their user-assigned name to its actual input source name. Pushing “View” twice toggles them to show where the source is coming from (Local, SLink, USB, etc.). This is a very helpful troubleshooting tool.

Centered in the top half of the sloping front panel is the 7-inch capacitive touch screen. The touch screen has an interesting turquoise color scheme compared to the soft grays and blacks I’m used to. We’ll see why later. Below the touch screen are buttons to select what the screen displays. These allow you to see: processing, routing, overall metering, FX setup, Scenes, I/O configuration and more. There are also dedicated controls for preamp gain, HPF, gate threshold, compressor threshold and pan. Next to the screen are buttons and knobs for the channel EQ, talkback and a screen encoder knob. This knob illuminates whenever a touch screen parameter without a dedicated control is touched, letting you know that the knob is controlling that parameter. The EQ controls have illuminated knobs for gain, frequency and width (Q). A set of buttons next to the EQ knobs selects which of the four EQ bands the knobs control. Interestingly enough, although the EQ bands are color-coded purple, light green, blue and red on the touch screen, all four EQ band select buttons are yellow. I do like the dedicated controls and their layout for key processing functions, as opposed to having to remember which function an encoder is controlling.

Along with the four-band PEQs, there are graphic EQ’s (28-band) available for the main L/R output, each aux mix and each matrix mix. The graphic EQ can be adjusted by using the touch screen and rotary encoder or simply press the fader-flip button to use the faders. When in fader-flip mode, the scribble strips turn bright red and show the center frequency controlled by the associated fader. Pressing a select button will return the associated “EQ Fader” to its “0” position. A green “In” LED next to the fader flip button illuminates when the graphic EQ is engaged, the chromatic fader strip LEDs illuminate showing signal level at each frequency and a “PK” LED illuminates if you overdrive the EQ. I thought the “In” LED was a nice touch as I have adjusted graphic EQs to no avail, only to find out later it wasn’t turned on. Additionally, the SQ-7 has a built-in RTA with “prominent frequency detection” to aid in finding potential feedback frequencies.

Next to the EQ controls are eight user-assignable rotary encoders/buttons that can be set for specific processing functions on a dedicated input or selected input. At one point, I assigned one to control the compressor make-up gain on the selected input. Additionally, 16 user-assignable softkeys can control functions such as scene recall, mute groups, etc. It would be a nice touch to have a small write-on area below the user configurable buttons, so you could note what you configured them to do.

Like other digital consoles, some of the buttons glow when pushed, but all also include a small, bright LED segment. An LED light bar softly illuminates the board and the set list sitting on it. These LEDs along with the touch screen, scribble strips and button LEDs have user-adjustable brightness — another nice touch.

I set the console up in the shop to get a feel for the controls and routing. The first thing I noticed is how quick this unit started up. Unlike an analog console, the SQ-7 is a computer and needs to start up and load the current configuration. Even though it starts up quick, I always run a digital console on a UPS. I like to say it is cheap insurance in case a punter trips over the power cord to FOH. (Believe me, it does happen). When it starts, it recalls the state it was in when turned off. Select the Scenes button to recall a stored mixer configuration or instantly “zero-out” the desk.

In a traditional console setting, the fader and its associated mute, select and solo button would commonly be called a “channel.” Allen & Heath instead refer to these as “fader strips” and they are not numbered. At first, this was a bit confusing, until you understand the workflow. The SQ-7 has six layers of 32 fader strips for a total of 192 assignable fader strips. Any fader strip on any layer can be assigned an input channel, return, master, subgroup, or DCA. This takes the concept of “User Layers” to a whole new level.

Layer “A” covers the first 32 inputs, layer “B” shows inputs 33 — 48, the eight DCAs, four FX sends and four FX returns, while layer “C” picks up the eight aux masters, four group masters, three matrix mixes and the eight DCA’s. Layers “D-F” are blank — ready to be configured as you please. Scribble strips are color-coded as to function (user-assignable colors of course); unassigned ones are dark. To customize a fader strip layer, simply use the drag and drop setup screen to configure them as you see fit.

When the Processing button is pressed, the touch screen shows a group of eight fader strips. Depending on what the fader strip is (i.e., input, DCA, FX send, etc.) the screen shows thumbnails of what functions are available. The function thumbnails are active. For example, the PEQ thumbnail would show what has been set for that PEQ. Adjusting an EQ parameter causes it to show up on the thumbnail without the need to actually open the PEQ screen. Touching the thumbnail opens the appropriate full screen for that processor.

When the routing button is pressed, the fader strips now show the signal flow levels and assignments including DCA and mute groups, offering a birds-eye view of the routing. Touching the Mute Assign segment, for example, opens an expanded screen showing what that channel is assigned to. Touching the view button below a mute group or DCA opens an overall assignment screen allowing you to quickly assign and configure channels to mute and DCA groups. Although there was a slight learning curve to understand the concept of fader strips, it all soon became quite intuitive.

Once I was familiar with the SQ-7, it was time for the sunlight test. I do a number of gigs during the summer festival season ranging from weekly concerts on the green to medium-size community food/music fests. Typically, these gigs are outside with a basic pop-up tent for FOH, but a big issue with any digital console is being able to read an LCD screen and lighted buttons on a bright sunny afternoon.

I trotted the SQ-7 into the bright sun. Behold, the turquoise color scheme on the touch screen was totally visible! Those wacky EQ Band colors really popped. And, those LED segments built into the buttons shined like beacons. Even the scribble strips were legible. I was suitably impressed. See Fig. 1.

The SQ-7 sounds great. Like other Allen & Heath consoles, the channel PEQ is very musical. The input stages are clean and have a wide gain range. I also like having an input pad switch along with the channel trim control. The console has an ample gain structure and ample headroom. Gates and compressors were very spot-on. The moving faders reacted quickly as I changed from layer to layer and mix to mix. The controls were responsive and had a solid feel.

The factory channel presets are a great starting point for building a mix. Channel processor configs can be stored for later recall. All console settings can be saved and recalled using scenes and shows. A scene includes the typical console parameters — I/O routing, channel processing, assignments, send levels, names, FX parameters, etc. Up to 300 scenes can be stored in a show file. Along with the scene data, show files include all SQ settings such as chromatic metering settings, global scene filter settings and even the LED/screen brightness settings. Back up the show file to a USB stick, and you’re good to go on another SQ-7.

I had fun experimenting with the builtin effects. The spatial modeling reverbs are lush, rich and musical. Call up a preset and adjust basic parameters or touch the expert button and open up a whole range of things to tweak. The delays have impact without sounding artificial and the gated verbs had some very recognizable British influence.

I got a kick out of the touch screen graphics for the FX processors. Someone at Allen & Heath has sense of humor. Each FX processor has a “front” panel with control settings and “back” panel where you can configure I/O and routing. The front panel graphics include rack ears (some with missing screws), realistic-looking knobs and switches and even some front-panel scratches. The rear panel graphics even have power cord inlets, caution labels and obligatory warnings to keep the processor out of the rain.

This console also has a footswitch jack. To tap tempo with your foot, simply connect a footswitch, assign tap tempo to it from the setup screen and Bob’s your uncle… footswitch tap tempo.

Allen & Heath has hit a home run with the SQ-7. Build quality is spot-on and once you understand the “Fader strips” concept, the workflow is brilliant. This is a well-thoughtout console by designers who know what live sound engineers need. Little touches like the GEQ “In” LED are very useful. It’s easy to navigate and the controls are intuitive and responsive. The flexibility offered in the SQ-7 makes it an ideal choice for the regional sound company, church, educational facility, performing art center and more.

In fact, after using the SQ-7, I don’t think there are enough pages in this issue to fully cover the features and capabilities of this mixer. Other cool things the SQ-7 will do? Try automatic mic mixing, 32-track record/ play to an external USB drive, DAW control, stage boxes, DEEP processors and networking — to say the least. We can save those for another day. But at a street price of $4,999, I’m sold on this one.

Allen & Heath’s SQ series targets the live sound, AV and install market with powerful, full-featured mixers that offer flexibility and affordability beyond anything thinkable in the analog days.