Mixers/Consoles new sound board and qlab

[techiesfixit]

Our university recently purchased a Personus A1 series mixer. How would be the easiest way to connect a mac laptop so I can run qlab through the board?
Thanks for your help.

 

[JJBerman]

Easiest way I know would be to get an xlr to 1/8 inch cable. Then plug the xlr into the board and the 1/8 inch into the headphone jack of the laptop.

 

[TheaterEd]

I personally would like to know what I would need to output 4 different audio outputs from qlab to a sound board.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Easiest way I know would be to get an xlr to 1/8 inch cable. Then plug the xlr into the board and the 1/8 inch into the headphone jack of the laptop.

Be extraordinarily careful doing it this way because if turned on, phantom power will fry your laptop's audio card. The "best" way is to buy an external USB sound interface, but you can also use adapters to go to a line in or some boards also have RCA inputs for recording devices.

 

[oneeyedpug]

Doesn't the Personus A1 series have fire-wire input on the back? you can just hook your computer right up to the board.

 

[AlexDonkle]

Doesn't the Personus A1 series have fire-wire input on the back? you can just hook your computer right up to the board.

Ditto, it has a Firewire 800 jack on the back, which most Mac's have as well (Apple was the company that originally developed Firewire). This is by far the best way to connect to that board.

 

[JJBerman]

I agree that my earlier comment isn't the best way, just an easy way. I would agree that a usb or firewire sound interface is a better way to go. Depending on what you buy, you can have very many outputs from q lab to the board.
If the board is the presonus studio live AI board then yes it has firewire ports on the back. However in my smartphone research, I have only found that those ports are recording only. Could be wrong just haven't had the chance to look it up on an actual computer.

 

[AlexDonkle]

From Presonus A1 website "FireWire s800 recording and playback interface"

 

[JJBerman]

Then probably the cheapest option that also gives you lots of flexibility is buy a firewire cable that can go between the console and the laptop.

 

[StradivariusBone]

I agree that my earlier comment isn't the best way, just an easy way. I would agree that a usb or firewire sound interface is a better way to go. Depending on what you buy, you can have very many outputs from q lab to the board.
If the board is the presonus studio live AI board then yes it has firewire ports on the back. However in my smartphone research, I have only found that those ports are recording only. Could be wrong just haven't had the chance to look it up on an actual computer.

I've gone that route too, it's just scary if it's your gear that's on the mic line!

Does that board interact with their StudioOne DAW? I'm not familiar with their consoles, but we use the FireStudio boxes to take channels off our analog mixer for recording direct to a laptop. There are outputs on those, but I've never had the need to configure them beyond a throughput for video recording.

 

[Chris15]

Noting of course that the modern Retina Macs don't actually have FW800 ports...
So add a thunderbolt to FW800 adapter to the shopping list if the mac is fairly new...