Avid PQ Controller
A four-encoder remote for the Personal Q system. It lets a performer run their own monitor mix from the stage.
Overview
The PQ Controller is not a standalone product. It is the performer-facing half of Avid's Personal Q system, and the documentation is blunt about that. A Personal Q system consists of at least one PQ Rack and one PQ Controller. The controller draws its power from the rack over the same 4-pin cable that carries its data. Plug one in with nothing on the other end and it does nothing at all. That one fact shapes how this gear is bought, sold, and used today.
It gives a performer local control over their own mix. Four rotary encoders with LED rings handle level, pan/balance, solo, and metering for the PQ mixer inputs. Four associated on/off switches handle input status. A fifth encoder governs master output volume. Four 6-character displays label the current input and control. The encoder mode switch toggles the rings and encoders between level, pan, and metering duties for whichever input is currently displayed. Input selection is split across three buttons - Inputs 1-4, Inputs 5-8, and L/R/User - so a performer can page through the whole mixer without touching the console.
Two features show what the design was for. The console call feature lets a performer raise a message on the console display, which is the polite version of waving at the monitor engineer. The lockout switch does the opposite. It temporarily freezes the controller's local controls so nothing gets changed by accident. Its LED tells you who did it: steady when lockout was engaged at the controller, flashing when it was engaged from the console. Lockout never blocks the console from controlling the PQ mixer.
The rear panel is one connector. A female 4-pin PQ Controller cable carries both power and signal back to the rack, and the documented maximum run is 100 ft (30.5 m). For bench testing, a controller can be plugged straight into the Personal Q Rack port on a Stage Rack using the short PQ Link cable. There is a hard limit there too - anything longer than 15 ft (4.6 m) will not work in that configuration. When a controller is talking properly, it shows up in the Devices tab of the Options page as something like "PQ 1-1" and operates PQ mixer #1.
Setup is minimal. Pressing the Setup switch shows the controller's port assignment in the leftmost display, which is the number of the PQ mixer it drives. Pressing it again exits. The same mode adjusts display brightness and contrast. Port number and mixer number are tied together, so a controller's identity is set by which of the eight ports on the PQ Rack it is plugged into.
The documentation is clear about where the controller's authority ends. The Personal Q mixer output graphic EQ, limiter, polarity, and mute status can only be controlled from the console. The controller gets level, pan, solo, on/off, and master volume, and nothing else.
For troubleshooting a used unit, start with the manual's fault list. Confirm the cable is under 100 ft, check power at the corresponding PQ Rack, power-cycle the rack, reseat the cable at both ends, try a different port, and swap in a different cable. If a PQ Controller Fault indicator lights on the rack, or the controller never appears in the Devices tab, one of those steps usually finds it. These are system faults as often as controller faults.
Context on this one is thin. The only period mention in the archive is a passing reference in Mix (2015, p.28), in which an engineer notes using an Avid D-Show Profile - the console family this controller was built to serve - rather than anything specific about the PQ Controller itself. No production years, pricing, or independent measurements have turned up in the available documentation, and the fact sheet for this model is empty of verifiable specifications. What can be said with confidence comes from Avid's own manual: the connector type, the cable limits, the control layout, and the rack dependency. Be wary of any listing that describes it as a standalone monitor mixer. It is a remote, and it needs a PQ Rack.
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