Insert third party plugins with StudioLive and QLab

[blizzard]

Hey all,

I am in a venue that is using a StudioLive 24.4.2 that is acting as the audio interface for QLab3 on an iMac. I am using three wireless mics that are going into the mixer, and being fed into QLab3 via mic cues. Basically I am going to be using QLab to mute and pan these mics with my effects already on them.

Is there a way to use a piece of software (Soundflower, reaper, Presonus software) to host plugins for effects? This would somehow need to go between the mixer and QLab, but be hosted on the iMac. Universal Control (from Presonus) is running on the iMac as a virtual console behind the 24.4.2 but there doesn't appear to be any way to add plugins or route to/from another piece of software.

Anyone have any ideas how I could achieve this?

Thanks for your help,
Andrew

 

[themuzicman]

QLab 3 supports Au Plugins, under the effects tab in the specific Mic cues. Use at your own risk, certain plugins may render QLab unstable. I would use the Presonus for Mute/Pan, you're going to have a whole lot more system stability that way in case QLab goes down. Send direct outs of the channels you want effects on into QLab and insert AU Plugins. Return those into the desk as your wet inputs.

FYI, Soundflower has been discontinued, Rogue Amoeba has replaced it with a nifty utility called LoopBack which is pretty nice. If you want to still actively use SoundFlower you can get it from Github, but it is back in active development.

If you need to run effects to another program, you can use LoopBack to act as an intermediary to shoot your mic cues into LoopBack, LoopBack into your program, back into LoopBack, back into QLab -- gets complicated, gets messy, system stability gets questionable.

It is unfortunate that the desk has motorized faders, but if you have auxes to burn I would make Dry L/R auxes, Wet L/R auxes, and you get wet/dry this method while still retaining pan control. Then again, I try to not use Stereo L/R and instead burn Auxes to use as level control and pan with Matrices but I don't think the StudioLive has matrices.

The only time I would use QLab to physically mute/unmute mics is if you need multi-point pan control through more than 2 speaker using a bunch of fade cues in QLab.

 

[jwh78]

Another option: In stead of using mic cues in Qlab, use Studio One (or some other DAW) for all your audio processing, and control it via midi cues from Cuelab. That way you can also, if you wish, use a dedicated computer for the sound processing and another one for cueing/control.