How To | Creating and Using Multi-Channel WAV Files for Q-SYS

Updated at February 1st, 2023

Procedure


Q-SYS Core hardware is capable of playing multi-channel WAV files at 48k sample rate. The steps below will ensure compatibility in creating and playing these files.

Note:

Software capable of encoding multi-channel WAV format is needed for this procedure. Wave Agent by Sound Devices is used in this example.

 
  1. Select the WAV files needed for mutli-channel .wav. 
  2. Download and install Wave Agent at https://www.sounddevices.com/product/wave-agent-software.  It is free with email registration.
  3. Open Wave Agent and load WAV in to the program. Refer to Wave Agent documentation on creating multi-channel WAV files.
  4. Once the file is created, load to the Core using Core Manage > Files > Audio (Tools > Administrator > Audio Files if using a Q-SYS Designer version older than 7.1.x)
  5. In Designer, add an Audio File Player then select the number of channels needed for the WAV file  Max is 128.
  6. Run to Core and Save (F5).
  7. Load file into Audio Player and play.

For larger channel counts, be sure that the file size is no great than 4GB per WAV file specifications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV#Limitations

The calculator below is useful to estimate the file size to be created.
https://www.colincrawley.com/audio-file-size-calculator