Allen & Heath CQ-18T Digital Mixer

The CQ-18T sits in the middle of Allen & Heath's CQ range, an 18-in / 8-out digital mixer that keeps the 96kHz FPGA processing and 7-inch capacitive touchscreen of the smaller CQ-12T while adding channel count, effects, and wireless control. A 7-inch touchscreen with an assigned rotary drives the surface, and 3 custom SoftKeys plus 3 custom rotaries give quick physical access to the parameters an engineer touches most. Four multi-FX engines cover reverb, delay, and modulation across a busier input list.

Built-in dual-band 2.4G/5G AC Wi-Fi with automatic channel selection lets the mixer be run from a tablet or phone, which is useful when the operator needs to walk the room or mix from front of house without a wired connection. Recording runs deep: a 24x22 USB-B interface streams multitrack audio at 48 or 96kHz, and the SD slot records 24x22 at 48kHz or 16x16 at 96kHz. Dedicated input channels handle stereo USB and stereo Bluetooth playback, and a dual footswitch connection adds hands-free control.