showstack / software / qsys-designer
Q-SYS Designer
Windows design and deployment software for the Q-SYS platform: you draw the DSP, control logic and touchscreen UIs as a schematic, then push the whole design to a Core. Widely specified as the audio and control brain of venues, theme parks and installed AV.
Protocols it speaks
| Protocol | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| aes67 | bidirectional | Cores stream AES67 as multicast alongside the native Q-LAN transport. QSC's capacity tables count Q-LAN and AES67 network channels together and list no separate AES67 feature licence. |
| dante | bidirectional needs licence |
Dante on a Core is the Software Dante feature licence, sold in channel-count tiers from 8x8 up to 512x512 depending on Core model and QDS version. |
| ltc | bidirectional | Stock schematic components: the SMPTE LTC Reader decodes LTC from an audio input per SMPTE 12M and exposes timecode fields as control pins for Lua; the SMPTE LTC Generator is the encoder counterpart. |
| ptp-1588 | bidirectional | PTPv2 (IEEE 1588-2008) on multicast 224.0.1.129, UDP 319-320. It is the clock for Q-LAN and AES67 and is documented as time-sensitive traffic the network must prioritise. |
What to watch for
Third-party control needs Named Controls. A control that has not been selected and named in Designer is simply not visible to QRC (TCP 1710) or ECP (TCP 1702), which is where integrators lose hours to the API cannot see my fader.
QRC and ECP connections drop if the client goes quiet: QSC require traffic at least every 60 seconds. A keepalive or polling loop is not optional in a long-running integration.
Designs are not backward compatible. Anything using hardware, features or properties introduced in a newer QDS release may not open in an older one, so the Designer version on the commissioning laptop is part of the system documentation.
Control licensing moved. Scripting Engine and UCI Deployment were paid feature licences; QSC state licences are no longer required for Q-SYS Control capabilities on v10 and above. Quotes written against older documents will be wrong in both directions.
Dante is a licensed, channel-limited software feature on a Core, not a given. Match the tier to the actual channel count and Core model before promising anyone a Dante path.
The Timeline component that plays audio files against an external LTC input is still marked BETA in v10.4: functional, but not feature complete and subject to change. Do not hang a twenty-year attraction on it without a fallback.
OSC does not appear in QSC's documented network services. Field OSC integrations are third-party plugins or sockets opened from Lua, so treat OSC as something you build rather than something you enable.
Designer is Windows only. QSC's requirements list Windows 11 x64 and note testing inside a Windows 11 VM under Parallels on Apple silicon, but a Mac-only crew has no native option.
Typical use
- Building the audio DSP, routing, paging and BGM for a venue or attraction
- Lua, Control Script and Block Controller logic tying AV and building systems together
- Timecode-triggered show events driven from the SMPTE LTC Reader
- Custom touchscreen UCIs for operators and front-of-house staff
- Offline design and emulation before the hardware exists on site
- Exposing Named Controls so a third-party controller drives the system over QRC or ECP
Sources
- Q-SYS Help - Network Interfaces, Services & Protocols — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - Licensing (Software Dante channel tiers) — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - SMPTE Linear Timecode Decoder — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - Timeline [BETA] component with External LTC Input — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - Q-SYS Remote Control Protocol (QRC) — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - External Control Protocol (ECP) — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Help - Software Requirements — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Scaling & Feature Licenses — QSC, LLC primary
- Q-SYS Designer Software - free download, Lua control of external devices, emulation mode — QSC, LLC primary
Understand the mechanism
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