The Independent Musician's Library · 2 guides · for the Allen & Heath CQ12
The Live Sound Bundle
Both live-sound guides, together — your whole solo sound handled, not guessed at. The same step-by-step treatment for your two channels: a crystal-clear, feedback-free vocal, and an acoustic guitar that comes out the PA as good as it sounds in your hands. Gain, EQ, compression and the feedback routine — dialled in on the Allen & Heath CQ12, and built to carry to any digital desk with the same features.
By Aaron Norton — independent solo artist, gigging since 2006.
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The two guides together — the second book half price (save £10 vs buying both) · UK VAT included · delivered as two PDFs
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Each guide is also £19.99 on its own — together they're the second book half price. Both are also in The Ultimate Library.
What's inside
- ◆The Vocal Chain — a crystal-clear, feedback-free live vocal — the exact settings, screen by screen.
- ◆The Acoustic Chain — a full, clear acoustic plugged in direct, without a hint of feedback.
- ◆Your whole solo rig — both channels of a singer-guitarist's setup, handled by the numbers.
- ◆Built to travel — dialled in on the CQ12, the same method on any digital mixer with the features.
Live Sound — Latest
Across both live-sound guides — a feedback-free vocal and a clear, full acoustic, with my take and a link to the source.
Electro-Voice's EVOLVE G2 columns put a 1500W amp, an 8-channel mixer and feedback suppression in the box, from £1,290
Gearnews reports the new EVOLVE 30M and 50M G2 columns have moved to 1500W Class-D amps with a Dynacord-powered 8-channel mixer built into the sub, with 3-band EQ and dynamics on each mic channel, feedback suppression, and a sub-mix for monitors out of the aux sends, all grouped and run from an app. For a solo act that is the whole desk living inside the speaker, which is handy at load-in but means your gain and EQ are being set on the back panel or a phone rather than a fader you can grab mid-song. A suppression button is welcome, but in my experience it only does its job when the gain was set properly in the first place.
Gibson and Baggs have built a two-sensor acoustic pickup that keeps the signals apart until after the preamp
Guitar.com reports that Gibson and Baggs (LR Baggs, renamed for their 50th year) have launched HiFi DNA, a pickup system with two sensors that each get their own Class A preamp before anything is blended. Lloyd Baggs’s argument is that combining two sensors before amplification is what makes a plugged-in acoustic sound muddy, and he says it gives the same gain before feedback as their Element undersaddle, which is the claim I’d want to hear in a low-ceilinged pub before I believed it. It ships on Gibson acoustics for now, with a peel-and-stick standalone version promised, so the rest of us wait.
Soundcraft's new Signature Plus analogue mixers put a one-knob compressor on every channel, from £675
Gearnews report that Soundcraft have refreshed their Signature mixers as Signature Plus, in 12, 16, 22 and 32-channel sizes, with Ghost preamps, a three-band EQ with a sweepable mid and a one-knob dbx compressor on every channel, from £675 for the 12. The compressor is the bit I'd look at, because on an analogue desk at that money it's usually the thing that isn't there, and compression is what stops your vocal vanishing when you back off the mic and jumping out when you lean in. You don't get the recall or the feedback help a digital desk gives you, so you're setting it by ear every night, but if you'd rather have knobs than menus, that's not a bad trade.
A three-box rig for small solo gigs — and the bit it leaves out
Gearnews have run a mobile singer-songwriter setup for small gigs, and Marcus Schmahl's three picks are a Sennheiser e935, an LD Systems ANNY 8 battery PA and a Boss RC-5 looper. For a lot of the rooms I play that really is enough to turn up and be heard, and a PA you can carry in one hand and run off its own battery is no small thing. The bit it leaves out is the guitar side, because the piece assumes you've already got a pickup and a jack output ready to go, and that's the part that decides what the acoustic actually sounds like once it's through the speaker.
Triton Audio's Tilt EQ puts 22dB of gain and a tone control at the mic end of the chain, for €90
Sound On Sound report that Triton Audio's new Tilt EQ is an XLR-sized in-line preamp that adds 22dB of clean gain and one knob of tone, clockwise for more top and less bottom, anticlockwise for the opposite, running on 48V phantom without passing it on to the mic. What interests me is where it sits in the chain. Most of us shape the vocal at the desk, but if you're going into a small mixer or a powered speaker with two bands of EQ and a preamp already running out of headroom on an SM58, getting your gain and some shape before the signal ever gets there is another way at the same problem. It's €89.95 and out now.
The one EQ move that stops a plugged-in acoustic sounding plasticky — and it helps your vocal too
Every undersaddle pickup has a brittle spike sitting at around 2.5 kHz, and it's that spike, not the guitar itself, that makes a DI'd acoustic sound plasticky through a PA. I cut about 4 dB there with a narrow bell and it does more for the sound than anything else on the channel. If you sing as well as play, it earns its keep twice over, because 2.5 kHz is the same area a voice uses to cut through — so the cut that tames the honk also leaves the vocal somewhere to sit.
From the bookSony have entered the in-ear monitor market at $119.99 — for a solo player, the price is the story
Mix reports Sony's new IER-M500 is a single dynamic-driver in-ear developed with monitoring engineers, on pre-sale at $119.99 from 8 July and shipping late August. What interests me isn't Sony joining in, it's where the price has landed — in-ears have always been the bit of the chain a solo act skips, because a set worth having cost more than the mixer did. If you're stood a metre and a half from your own speakers guessing at what the room is actually getting, hearing your own vocal properly is the biggest single change you can make to the way you sing.
Ed Sheeran and Orange have built a range of acoustic busking amps
MusicRadar reports Ed Sheeran has teamed up with Orange on the Outlowd ES range — three acoustic amps aimed squarely at buskers and small-room players, from a £149 3-watter up to a 100-watt one with an XLR in for your vocal. That vocal input on the top model is the bit I would care about: for a solo acoustic act it is the whole gig in one box, guitar and voice, no separate PA to lug. Whether it beats a proper little PA in a pub corner I would want to hear for myself, but a busking amp getting this kind of push is no bad thing for anyone plugging an acoustic in.
Your CQ12's Gain and Feedback Assistants are the two buttons most people underuse
Sound on Sound's write-up of the Allen & Heath CQ range nails why it suits a solo act: the Gain Assistant sets your preamp levels for you, and the Feedback Assistant finds and kills a howling frequency at one press, on a 96kHz engine. If you own a CQ12 and you're still doing both by ear mid-gig, you're working harder than you need to.
The pickup that fixes 'boxy' is still the one to beat in 2026
MusicRadar's 2026 acoustic-pickup round-up rates the L.R. Baggs Anthem top — its little internal mic is what kills that boxy, honky plugged-in sound, and the noise-cancelling designs help with feedback on a loud stage. The pickup matters more than the amp; get this bit right and half the battle's won before you've touched an EQ.
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