I've already been mixing shows on larger D-Live and also the SQ6 & 7 at festivals in the last years. The compact SQ5 is equally good. With proper configuration I don't miss the extra soft-buttons and encoders of the larger consoles. For now, there is still a lot of display info missing anyway on the Soft Rotary displays.
The DEEP plug-in purchases do add another big cost to the desk, but the quality, especially compressors, is amazing. My Waves plug-ins now remain in the studio. I use an AR2412 stagebox with this as the complete package needs to remain compact. It always sounded good with the GLD, and even better with the SQ series.
The screen and strips are readable in daylight.
Another factor for the decision was that A&H support is excellent.
Bad points:
-I dislike the very limited 6 characters available for naming the channels. Even the X32 was much better here.
-When transferring Showfiles & Scenes on a laptop, they do not contain the file-names that are visible on the console display itself, so it's a lot of guesswork when transferring from offline editor. So much easier with Yamaha or M32 scenes.
-Additional DEEP-packs too expensive.
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