Lesson Description
Part A: Building a Basic System
This presents a basic overview of how public address systems works on Q-SYS. Also reviews the inventory items and the PA Router Component.
Video Transcript
Part A: Building a Basic System
0:08
The Q-Sys Designer allows you to create a robust Public Address System that integrates sophisticated paging
0:14
and messaging services along with customizable zones, priorities, and command features.
0:19
The tools to set up a complete Paging system are easy to use,
0:23
and offer almost limitless flexibility so your design will behave exactly the way you want it to.
0:29
It starts with a Page Station, like this one. At its most basic,
0:33
a Public Address system allows the user to speak into a microphone and send a page over the loudspeakers
0:40
“This is a page.”
0:43
You could also send a prerecorded message over the loudspeakers in much the same way.
0:47
“This is a message.”
0:50
You can also configure different zones so that you could send your message to one area,
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“This is Zone One”
0:57
… or another.
0:58
“This is Zone Two”.
1:00
And if other users are also sending pages ..
1:03
… over the loudspeaker. This is a page …
1:06
… you establish Priorities so you know which user is more important.
1:11
Let’s start with the hardware – QSC has a few different models of Page Station. This is the PS-1600H.
1:18
It has a 12-button keypad, a hand-held microphone, four customizable command buttons,
1:24
and an LED screen at the top for basic information
1:27
Different models have different button layouts, or a gooseneck microphone.
1:31
PageStations are connected to Q-Sys with a basic CAT5 cable,
1:35
but you’ll need to connect it to a switch that is POE capable – that’s Power Over Ethernet
1:41
or you could use a POE injector.
1:44
Once your Page Station is networked to your Core, you’ll be able to access it in the Q-Sys Designer software.
1:48
First we’ll add a Page Station to our Inventory-
1:51
We’ll go to the Inventory pane, add a Peripheral > PageStation, and mine is the PS-1600.
1:58
Just like a Core or an I/O Frame,
2:00
we’ll need to link this software proxy to our physical device by properly identifying it.
2:04
I’ll go to the Configurator, where I can see all the Q-Sys devices that are on my network.
2:10
And here I can see there is a PageStation on the network called PageStation101.
2:14
If I hold the Talk button for a few seconds on the device and then cycle through its pages,
2:19
I can verify that this is indeed my Page Station.
2:23
If you want to rename your device you can do that through the Configurator
2:26
I’ll rename mine Training-PS, select Update Settings, and the device will reboot with the new settings.
2:33
No matter what your PageStation is named though,
2:35
we need to use that name for the proxy in our inventory.
2:39
Just click on the PageStation, go to its Properties, and change its name – Training PS.
2:45
To connect it in our design, we’ll need to use its components.
2:48
There are five components that you could pull into the Schematic.
2:51
One is a status component to let you monitor the device,
2:54
these ones down here let you use the auxiliary connections,
2:57
but mostly you’ll need the Mic/Control component.
3:00
This component has two pins – the audio pin is the microphone input,
3:05
and the triangular control pin is the Station Control for the device – Mic/Control.
3:11
These are going to be wired to your master PA Router – if you go to the Schematic Library,
3:16
under Audio Components > Public Address, you can drag a PA Router into your design.
3:22
This router networks your entire public address sytem – it can handle up to 128 Page Stations
3:27
and 256 Zones – you can only use one in your design, so everything gets routed through this one component.
3:33
Audio and control lines come into your router on the left, and are sent to the appropriate outputs
3:38
on the right depending on which zone you want your page sent to.
3:42
If you click on it to see its Properties, you can adjust the number of Station inputs,
3:45
the number of Zone outputs, and you can also add some audio input pins for background music,
3:50
or BGM. In my example I’m going to use 2 stations and 2 Zones.
3:56
I’ll wire my PageStation control to the Router, and if you want to apply some compression
4:00
or signal processing to your mic then you could do that along the way,
4:05
and I’ll wire my two Zone outputs to a Line Out card I have on my Core which will go out to some loudspeakers.
4:13
Let’s add two background music inputs, and we’ll throw an Audio Player into our design
4:21
and we’ll wire those two together, we’ll talk more about that in just a bit.
4:25
For our second Station input we’re going to build a Virtual Page Station.
4:29
You can drag this component from the Schematic Library,
4:32
and it has a lot of the same functionality as a physical Page Station,
4:35
designed to be used on a touchscreen in conjunction with your UCI.
4:38
You can see it only has one control pin, which we’ll wire to our PA Router,
4:43
and you have to provide your own microphone
4:45
I happen to have one plugged in to my Core through my Line In card so I’ll simply wire that to my Station audio.
4:53
So our system may be simple but it’s ready to load to the Core, you can hit F5 or you can use the File menu.
5:00
Now before we configure up our settings let’s check on our mic level
5:04
if you double click the Mic/Control component, well then you can see a few things there.
5:09
You can see the input meter, an LED that tells you if it’s clipping, and a Clip
5:13
Hold button to keep that LED on if there is clipping. And you’ll notice that the mic is always on,
5:18
here look – I’m not touching the button - check check check…
5:21
…check check check, check check check – the mic is always on even when it’s not sending out a signal.
5:26
Now you’ll probably want to adjust your analog gain so that your mic won’t clip,
5:29
you can treat this like a pre-amp on a mixer, and then once it’s digitized then you can mute it or…
5:35
…adjust its gain however you like.
5:37
Alright so we’ve got an operable basic system. Why don’t we take a quick break right there,
5:42
and when we come back we’ll start to configure our Paging settings.
5:45
Thanks, and feel free to move on to the next section whenever you’re ready.
Helpful Tips and Definitions
Part A: Building a Basic System
PoE: Power over Ethernet
Virtual Page Station: Can perform the function of a Page Station without the physical hardware. Can be achieved on a UCI and line-in microphone.
- Hold the talk button on the PS-1600 to verify its IP address
- On the Page Station component and PA Router, the CIRCLE pin represents the microphone and the TRIANGLE pin represents the Station Control.
- A PA Router can accommodate up to 128 Page Stations and 256 Zones.
- On any Q-SYS Page Station, the microphone is always live even though it is not sending a signal.
Downloads and Links
Part A: Building a Basic System