Old 01-16-2011, 04:19 PM   #1
pixeltarian
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Default behringer X32 console. wow.

first look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb07v...layer_embedded



it really is a 'game changer'
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Old 01-16-2011, 04:32 PM   #2
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that looks great!
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Old 01-17-2011, 02:31 AM   #3
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It looks like it'll be pretty cool for a lot of people, but I don't think it's going to be a game changer.. especially at $2499.
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Old 01-17-2011, 03:00 AM   #4
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http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=72597

Well the AES50 integration for one is awesome. And if the pres, conversion and QC are good, at that price, it's just a steal...
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Old 01-17-2011, 12:20 PM   #5
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It looks like it'll be pretty cool for a lot of people, but I don't think it's going to be a game changer.. especially at $2499.
that's the whole point. that's why it's a game changer. it's like... 1/5th of the cost of any other console with that much functionality.
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Old 01-17-2011, 02:17 PM   #6
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it looks really interesting. but it is not going to be a surface controller also, is it? "just" a standard
mix console ?

yea, it looks really great! and for that price? i'm wondering how are this dynamics and EQs on board?
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Old 01-17-2011, 07:59 PM   #7
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Looks very similar in concept to the Presonus StudioLive consoles, a hybrid software/hardware console with comprehensive processing on a one-channel-at-a-time basis.

$2500 is not a bad price at all for the capability, but I would not want to be an early adopter of a piece of Behringer kit at that price. I'm not religiously anti-Behringer, but in my experience the quality of their preamps, interconnects, and so on is spotty. Behringer gets widely derided as cheap junk, but in my experience their biggest problems are not with sound quality per se, but build quality, which trickles down into sound quality. Noisy pots, spotty connections, poor shielding, etc.

Especially for a device like this, with a lot of complexity and moving parts, I would very much want to hear how it held up after a year or two of live venue use. $2500 is frankly a great price just for 32 competent preamps and an automated control surface alone. But if those preamps are going to get scratchy/noisy/muffled, if the automated faders are going to get spotty/sticky, etc, then quantity starts to become meaningless, especially in studio applications. Better to spend $2500 on a good 2-channel preamp that can be easily re-sold for $2200 than spend $2500 on a million channels of dirty, noisy, unreliable sound with a bunch of digital functionality that will be obsolete in 2013.
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Old 01-17-2011, 10:27 PM   #8
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I wouldn't buy it if I needed it to go on the road, but if it was just going to sit in one place I'd jump on it.
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Old 01-18-2011, 12:01 AM   #9
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Well, there is nothing that I can find on their site about it yet, but in the video it looks like it has motorized faders, at least in the master section....

If this thing has the ability to be used as a control surface AND has touch ability, unlike their BCF-BCR2000 controllers, I think they just might have a winner on their hands.
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Old 01-18-2011, 02:23 AM   #10
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all motorized faders.

I think it can be used as a control surface for 32 channels, but I have no idea beyond that ( major question though ). I'm looking at Euphonix myself since I need a control surface more than a console really, and they now support Windows. As far as Reaper and Euphonix working together I have no clue. I need to research that.
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Old 01-18-2011, 03:51 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by yep View Post
Looks very similar in concept to the Presonus StudioLive consoles, a hybrid software/hardware console with comprehensive processing on a one-channel-at-a-time basis.

$2500 is not a bad price at all for the capability, but I would not want to be an early adopter of a piece of Behringer kit at that price. I'm not religiously anti-Behringer, but in my experience the quality of their preamps, interconnects, and so on is spotty. Behringer gets widely derided as cheap junk, but in my experience their biggest problems are not with sound quality per se, but build quality, which trickles down into sound quality. Noisy pots, spotty connections, poor shielding, etc.

Especially for a device like this, with a lot of complexity and moving parts, I would very much want to hear how it held up after a year or two of live venue use. $2500 is frankly a great price just for 32 competent preamps and an automated control surface alone. But if those preamps are going to get scratchy/noisy/muffled, if the automated faders are going to get spotty/sticky, etc, then quantity starts to become meaningless, especially in studio applications. Better to spend $2500 on a good 2-channel preamp that can be easily re-sold for $2200 than spend $2500 on a million channels of dirty, noisy, unreliable sound with a bunch of digital functionality that will be obsolete in 2013.
This was pretty much my point. Sure, the price is good for the functionality/feature set.. but I can't imagine it becoming a staple for the reasons stated by yep.

$2500, in my opinion, is probably more than most would be willing to 'gamble' on a piece of gear.. especially when a large analog desk, a decent interface, and a laptop can be had for not much more.

It's certainly a bold move on their part nonetheless. I may not be on the edge of my seat awaiting this console, but I'm eager to see if and how other manufacturers respond.

Time will tell.
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Old 02-10-2011, 09:45 PM   #12
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This product still does not seem to be for sale anywhere, but I had a couple of recent experiences that are relevant:

I got a chance to try a Presonus StudioLive console, and it was frankly awesome. The integration and thoughtfulness of capability-to-price ratio is outstanding. The two things I would have thought of as limitations on such a piece of kit turned out to be well-addressed:

- Having only one channel strip to work on at a time was actually fine, as the switching was very easy and intuitive. You can have independent settings for all channels operating in real-time, you just highlight the channel you want to adjust and do all your effects, dynamics, and eq tweaking in one corner of the console, on one channel at a time.

- Non-motorized faders are almost a complete non-issue. The recall system is brilliantly integrated with LEDs that tell you where the faders were.

Presonus seems to have nailed the 80/20 approach in terms of achieving large-format, expensive console functionality with a minimum of expense by pushing most of the functionality into software and using only the components necessary to give easy and intuitive knob-and-fader tactile control. It works and "feels" like a true mixing console, but it's really a control surface/interface. As per usual with Presonus, the sound quality was fine, while the build quality seemed a bit questionable for genuine "live" use (especially if taken on the road), but it's a pretty impressive piece of kit, especially for the price. (The included StudioOne DAW software is not half-bad, either).

The other relevant tidbit is that I also saw a Behringer control surface with motorized faders that absolutely sucked, for one primary reason: the faders were noisy. (they were also slow, which negates a ton of the purpose of automated faders IMO)

I never even thought of this, but having the equivalent of 16 or 32 motorized dimmer switches in a recording studio is potentially a serious problem. No wonder good automated consoles are so expensive! You not only have the acoustical noise of motors, but also each of those motors is an inductive source of EMF to seep into your patch cables, guitars, etc. The more those faders are flying, the more little magnetic fields you are generating.

We all know that the weakest links in any audio chain are knobs, faders, interconnects, etc. Anything mechanical and not soldered down is subject to noisiness, scratchiness, intermittent weirdness, HF loss from capacitance between pieces of metal, and so on.

Think about anything in your studio or instrument collection that involves knobs, and then consider how much it would cost to install motors behind each of those, and then consider how much it would cost to buy and install motors that were silent, fast, smooth, reliable, and thoroughly shielded for EMF... suddenly it starts to make a lot of sense that Penny and Giles motorized faders cost $100+ apiece-- these are precision components.

Great software might be expensive to develop, but you only have to build it once. Mechanical components still have to be manufactured one at a time, and 32 flying motors in a recording studio is potentially a huge problem unless the manufacturing specs and tolerances are very precise... you can't just stamp that stuff off a sheet-metal machine and expect it to operate with silent precision for ten years.

The Presonus approach seems to basically minimize the mechanical components down to the bare necessities to achieve the tactile interface and functionality of a full-featured mixing console, while pushing the hard work into software. It does a very good job of this, and manages to skip a lot of knobs and components without much impeding the workflow: it's a control surface that feels and works like a mixing console.

The Behringer approach here leaves me extremely skeptical (although I would be happy to be surprised)... it seems to be the typical Behringer approach of packing in the biggest nominal feature list possible at the lowest possible price. Sometimes that works, and Behringer does achieve some very capable gear at very low price points. But sometimes it sucks, and Behringer also produces a lot of worthless garbage that has a great feature list at a very low price, but that is essentially unusable.

$2500 is a significant amount of money, and is enough to buy competent but less-fully-featured digital mixing consoles from other vendors. Sound quality and audio functionality has been getting cheaper and cheaper over the past couple decades, but this Behringer device seems to have an awful lot of moving parts.
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Old 02-11-2011, 03:52 PM   #13
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Quote:
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... $2500 is a significant amount of money, and is enough to buy competent but less-fully-featured digital mixing consoles from other vendors. Sound quality and audio functionality has been getting cheaper and cheaper over the past couple decades, but this Behringer device seems to have an awful lot of moving parts.
With the last digital Behringer console (DDX3216) the problems were not at all with the moving parts. It was more the mic preamps and the powersupply was also a weak part.
The concept of the new console (available ~3. quarter 2011) is at least for live use genius. (32i/16o onboard, AES50, Ultranet etc.)
If Behringer doesn't fuck up the mechanical and electronic part, other manufacturers of digital consoles will have a hard time, and i can imagine many bands using it instead of 'been-20-years-on-the-road, don't-touch-AUX1, channels-1-7-12-are-fucked'-club consoles with their often questionable sideracks (if any).
As for studio use: For the bedroom homerecorder it will probably be too expensive and a (project)studio will most likely think twice before buying a console with cooling fan and 'Behringer' written on it.
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Old 02-13-2011, 12:19 AM   #14
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With the last digital Behringer console (DDX3216) the problems were not at all with the moving parts. It was more the mic preamps and the powersupply was also a weak part.
The concept of the new console (available ~3. quarter 2011) is at least for live use genius. (32i/16o onboard, AES50, Ultranet etc.)
If Behringer doesn't fuck up the mechanical and electronic part, other manufacturers of digital consoles will have a hard time, and i can imagine many bands using it instead of 'been-20-years-on-the-road, don't-touch-AUX1, channels-1-7-12-are-fucked'-club consoles with their often questionable sideracks (if any).
As for studio use: For the bedroom homerecorder it will probably be too expensive and a (project)studio will most likely think twice before buying a console with cooling fan and 'Behringer' written on it.
I don't want to go too far down the road of arguing hypotheticals, but I'm kind of surprised to hear this initial optimism specifically for live applications. It's been a awhile since I did live sound for a living, but I keep in touch, and my experience is that flying-fader digital consoles tend to be looked on with something close to horror by FOH sound techs unless you're talking about rarefied, big-budget tours with redundant DAW rackmount systems and dedicated travelling sound engineers.

If anything this breed of hybrid software-based digital console seems to be primarily a tool for home/budget studios, with the ability to use it in occasional live sound for poorly-supported gigs.

But I can't imagine choosing such a thing for a primary FOH console when reliable analog mixers from Mackie, Soundcraft (or Behringer, for that matter) are available for the same price. What use does a FOH mixer in a nightclub really have for motorized faders and onboard digital reverb? How is motorized fader recall useful when you have to mix it live anyway?

If anything I would have thought the opposite: that this was primarily of interest to budget studios who wanted to break away from mouse/keyboard mixing...

Do bands now bring their own mixing consoles to grimy bars with junk equipment? If so, where do they put the existing console? Do they re-route all the snakes at soundcheck and leave it set up for the other bands?

I've done stuff where the band had its own rack and brought its own rackmount mixer and sent stems to the FOH mixer to keep their sound intact, and I have definitely seen the band's tour manager or soundman work the console for their set, but this notion of showing up at the corner bar with your own full-blown console is new to me...
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Old 02-13-2011, 12:45 AM   #15
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How is motorized fader recall useful when you have to mix it live anyway?
Step 1) Sound check the last band
Step 2) Save a scene
Step 3) Repeat steps 1-2 for each additional band until you reach the opener
Step 4) Recall the appropriate scene during changeovers

Also: Theatrical applications where you want night-to-night repeatability and the ability to step through scenes.
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Old 02-13-2011, 07:36 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by yep View Post
I don't want to go too far down the road of arguing hypotheticals, but I'm kind of surprised to hear this initial optimism specifically for live applications. It's been a awhile since I did live sound for a living, but I keep in touch, and my experience is that flying-fader digital consoles tend to be looked on with something close to horror by FOH sound techs unless you're talking about rarefied, big-budget tours with redundant DAW rackmount systems and dedicated travelling sound engineers.
I don't know about the situation in the USA, but here in Germany you simply can't avoid digital consoles. They are all over the place.
Last year i ran into anything from 01V to M7CL, DiGiCo SD9 etc.
You can find them on the town fair stage, the dedicated 'rock stage' and (although they are usually ~10 years behind the time equipmentwise) even in some clubs.
The horror of the FOH guy may well be a result of the fact that as opposed to analog consoles there is no unified user interface. Every manufacturer does it in it's own way. Know one and you know all doesn't work well here.

Quote:
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If anything this breed of hybrid software-based digital console seems to be primarily a tool for home/budget studios, with the ability to use it in occasional live sound for poorly-supported gigs.
I don't understand this.
Aside from the user interface any digital console is basically the same, be it some 01V or DDX3216 pocket calculator or some DiGiCo, Studer or iLive flagship:
A bunch of hardware controlling/controlled by software.

Quote:
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But I can't imagine choosing such a thing for a primary FOH console when reliable analog mixers from Mackie, Soundcraft (or Behringer, for that matter) are available for the same price. What use does a FOH mixer in a nightclub really have for motorized faders and onboard digital reverb? How is motorized fader recall useful when you have to mix it live anyway?
I think reliability isn't the problem. If i have to choose between jumping through hoops all evening (be it because the desk is too small or partially fucked) or using digital, i go for digital in a blink of an eye.
As far as the motorized faders are concerned, in addition to analogy's post they are simply neccessary, because most digital consoles have less faders than channels, so you have to switch layers, what would be impossible without motorized faders.

Quote:
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If anything I would have thought the opposite: that this was primarily of interest to budget studios who wanted to break away from mouse/keyboard mixing...
... or the other way around. I have done live mixes(+recording) with 26ch from stage using REAPER/FF800 operated with mouse/keyboard. No problem.

Quote:
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Do bands now bring their own mixing consoles to grimy bars with junk equipment? If so, where do they put the existing console? Do they re-route all the snakes at soundcheck and leave it set up for the other bands?
Yes and no. If i know in advance that the system is usable, then there is no need to bring the own stuff. If i know (from the owner or from other bands' tourblogs) that there could be problems then i use my own stuff (given that the PA system itself is usable). As of yet i always have found a place to set my stuff up and plugging some 8ch XLR snakes into the multicore takes 5 minutes and all is good. If there is another band (what is rarely the case with our bar/club gigs) they are free to use my desk or the one of the house, replugging the multicore to the house desk takes again 5 minutes, and is easily done while the bands are changing on stage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by yep View Post
I've done stuff where the band had its own rack and brought its own rackmount mixer and sent stems to the FOH mixer to keep their sound intact, and I have definitely seen the band's tour manager or soundman work the console for their set, but this notion of showing up at the corner bar with your own full-blown console is new to me...
In times where a full blown console (including siderack) takes hardly more space than a small 19" rack this is imho the best way to work.
Especially in the corner bar gig situation:
A halfway decent PA system and some 16ch (or worse: 8ch) mixer.
In situations like this i'm happy to bring my DDX3216 or even REAPER, grab a small table and set up my FOH.
(For my main band i need 26ch from stage + 4ch at the FOH)

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Old 02-14-2011, 06:08 AM   #17
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I recall Presonus saying that it would cost $1000,00 to add good quality motorized faders to StudioLive 16.4.2. Yamaha said just about the same thing about N12/8 (but they also said that EMF would be a problem too)...

Its too good to be true so I dont trust it. And it would take a great number of positive reviews to change my mind.

I own some Behringer products and they are great, but they are much cheaper and less prone to failures. I also owned 2 analog consoles from them which had so-so pre-amps and some intermitent noises that would disappear after power off/on. The noise floor was also terrible.

Its too much money and too risky.
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Old 02-15-2011, 10:26 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Martins View Post
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=72597

Well the AES50 integration for one is awesome. And if the pres, conversion and QC are good, at that price, it's just a steal...
In my experience pres and QC are Behringer's weak points. The last Behringer mixer I used, you could turn a pre all the way up, then run the fader up and use it as a white noise generator (really not kidding), until the "tape in" crapped out and started buzzing (about 6 months).
I used to work for an equipment manufacturer (who has already been mentioned in this thread), and as anyone who has tried to build thier own FX pedals or Pres or anything like that, good componants cost good money. There are not many ways around that. I would be very skeptical.
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Old 02-15-2011, 12:03 PM   #19
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Frankly, I would have been more excited to see a 24 track control surface only ... like 3 BCF2000s in one long case. A BCF2000 is only worth $200. I'm sure they could put together a 24 track model for $400 or so. How many people have connected (or tried to connect) three BCF2000s to their DAW?
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Old 02-16-2011, 08:36 PM   #20
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Frankly, I would have been more excited to see a 24 track control surface only ... like 3 BCF2000s in one long case. A BCF2000 is only worth $200. I'm sure they could put together a 24 track model for $400 or so. How many people have connected (or tried to connect) three BCF2000s to their DAW?
So then we can conclude that it IS possible to build an 8 ch controller with moving faders. How is the reliability of the BCF2000?
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Old 02-16-2011, 08:44 PM   #21
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I've been using mine for 2 or 3 years with no issues.
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Old 02-18-2011, 08:28 PM   #22
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Step 1) Sound check the last band
Step 2) Save a scene
Step 3) Repeat steps 1-2 for each additional band until you reach the opener
Step 4) Recall the appropriate scene during changeovers

Also: Theatrical applications where you want night-to-night repeatability and the ability to step through scenes.
Um, wow. This is going to sound unintentionally condescending, but have you ever done live sound in a working venue with multiple live acts?

"Sound check" is to make sure the mic placement and feedback control is good. Unless we are purely talking about DJs, the "sound" and relative level of the band is going to change drastically from song to song, as well as being vastly different in front of a packed, sweaty house of screaming, bass-absorbing fans than it was at the empty 6pm soundcheck.

I spent years working as a live FOH mixer. Maybe there are massively big-budget stadium tours with separate techs to control repeatability in specific speaker feeds, where they could do the live mix like a studio mix in that way, but I never encountered them, even dealing with some pretty famous major-label acts.

Sound-check, in my experience, is mostly placement-testing and feedback-control. Fader placement might be useful for like half a second into the first song. When the crowd starts screaming, you need to crank the leads and upper-mids to stay above the white-noise roar. When the crowd gets bored/quiet, you drop off the ear-splitting highs and crank up the kick/snare/bass and whatever instrument is kicking ass at the moment.

This notion of set-it-and-forget-it live mixing is either more advanced skill and budget than I have ever seen, or else pure fantasy. The plain reality of live FOH mixing is that the noise floor is changing constantly in both volume and timbre, and that's what you have to stay ahead of. When the audience is screaming and into it, you need to punch up the presence-range clarity to deafening levels to cut through it, and when the audience quiets down, you need to back off the ear-splitting upper midrange and get them back into it with a punchy, bass-heavy clap-along sound.

That's been my experience, anyway.
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Old 02-18-2011, 09:28 PM   #23
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It looks great but after tracking it doesn't seem all that useful for modern mixing. It appears to be a FOH console.

I don't see any facilities for timecode or daw control which makes it a bit of a non starter for mixing in a daw based studio... unless those things will come on expansion cards, maybe. Recording to a USB drive is pretty cool though, assuming it sounds good but I'd probably never record with digital DSP in the studio, maybe from the stage, sure, but something like this, assuming it sounds good... might be cool for some stuff.

Ton of freaking I/O for $2500 though.

Sample rates are suspiciously missing from the documentation. 88-96k? I also don't see any BNC connectors to clocking it to a master clock.

Hmmm... it does have an optional FW card so it appears it will connect to a DAW. I wonder how all that will shake out? If it does have daw control that would be a great deal.

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Old 09-28-2011, 08:59 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yep View Post
I don't want to go too far down the road of arguing hypotheticals, but I'm kind of surprised to hear this initial optimism specifically for live applications. It's been a awhile since I did live sound for a living, but I keep in touch, and my experience is that flying-fader digital consoles tend to be looked on with something close to horror by FOH sound techs unless you're talking about rarefied, big-budget tours with redundant DAW rackmount systems and dedicated travelling sound engineers.

If anything this breed of hybrid software-based digital console seems to be primarily a tool for home/budget studios, with the ability to use it in occasional live sound for poorly-supported gigs.

But I can't imagine choosing such a thing for a primary FOH console when reliable analog mixers from Mackie, Soundcraft (or Behringer, for that matter) are available for the same price. What use does a FOH mixer in a nightclub really have for motorized faders and onboard digital reverb? How is motorized fader recall useful when you have to mix it live anyway?

If anything I would have thought the opposite: that this was primarily of interest to budget studios who wanted to break away from mouse/keyboard mixing...

Do bands now bring their own mixing consoles to grimy bars with junk equipment? If so, where do they put the existing console? Do they re-route all the snakes at soundcheck and leave it set up for the other bands?

I've done stuff where the band had its own rack and brought its own rackmount mixer and sent stems to the FOH mixer to keep their sound intact, and I have definitely seen the band's tour manager or soundman work the console for their set, but this notion of showing up at the corner bar with your own full-blown console is new to me...
FWIW, and I hate to dive into thread necromancy here, but in my market (Midwest US), very few bars have house sound systems or engineers and virtually all bands haul their own frontline and backline...and lighting, more often than not. System quality varies wildly, of course. I've seen everything from powered-mixer-with-speakers-on-sticks to full-on 48-ch Soundcraft rigs with processing racks as tall as I am and EAW-powered-with-MA5000 human liquification units. It's a 50/50 split as to how many of these bring a soundman (I won't glorify it with the term 'engineer') and how many run from stage.

VERY few local bands are getting paid enough to hire in sound and still have anything left at the end of the night. They MAY have been able to scrape together enough over time to buy their own system and run it until it falls apart from old age, though.

The last nice club I saw with a house system (LS9 and powered Meyer boxes) went tits-up within two years. Good sounding rig though, even if the LS9 isn't my choice for a live board. Had fun playing there while it lasted.

Anyway, for bands in a situation like the above, something like the X32 (or the StudioLive, or the 01V, etc.) can be a practical solution to hauling fewer racks, spending less time on interconnect (which is the slowest most error-prone part of load-in/load-out)

This isn't national or regional touring acts, and these aren't 500+ capacity venues...these are local bands and neighborhood bars. The money isn't huge, but like businesses, there are FAR more of them at the bottom end than there are at the top...it's a pyramid. If the product is even nominally usable, it'll sell truckloads. Doesn't mean it will be good, just that Behringer will make money hand over fist. They'll only get one chance, though...if it tanks, they'll have blown whatever little R&D money they spent.

Scott
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Old 09-29-2011, 11:56 AM   #25
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Here in Minneapolis, practically every original music venue has its own sound system. Even some of the cover band bars. It greatly confused me for a while when I heard bands I met on the internet talk about bringing a PA to gigs, I was like "wait, what kind of venue that makes live music their business model leaves it up to the bands to bring something as essential as the PA?"
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Old 09-29-2011, 03:46 PM   #26
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Yeah 99% of venues here in Salt Lake have their own system too. Even the small dive bars have something.
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Old 09-29-2011, 04:02 PM   #27
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Y'all get them to open branches in the Missouri/Kansas area, plzkthxbai.

I wouldn't miss loading the truck at 3 in the morning, that's for sure. If it's just my stage rig, I can carry the amp in one hand and the bass in the other and I'm done.

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Old 09-29-2011, 04:54 PM   #28
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Seattle bars have PAs too but it's hard to get booked even in super dives.

I wonder about the X32 having 4x ADA8000s or something. You could get a cheap used mixer, the 4x ADA8000s, a simple i7 PC + used RME or something. No snazzy faders but that's fear number 2: How do you pop in replacements without unscrewing the entire thing?

Also, who is going to handle support and repairs, the dealer? Behry isn't or hasn't been set up for domestic US support and this is the first sort of costly product I've seen from them. With Presonus at least you can ship domestically. Behry is either in Germany or China so I guess you will have to really trust your dealer.

Not that you're going to be on a major US tour and need same day X32 replacment heh.

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Old 09-29-2011, 06:15 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by yep View Post
This notion of set-it-and-forget-it live mixing is either more advanced skill and budget than I have ever seen, or else pure fantasy. The plain reality of live FOH mixing is that the noise floor is changing constantly in both volume and timbre, and that's what you have to stay ahead of.
HA! That's not how it is in my parts! Most of the places that have their own soundguys take $150 off the top of what the band makes to pay the guy to sit around and drink and hit on girls all night! I've gotten to the point where I won't play with a venue's in-house soundguy unless I'm getting a garunteed flat rate too!

You're talking about what a soundman is SUPPOSED to do, not what (many) DO do.

But that's been my experience

Hey, you guys have been talking about the Presonous Studiolive board, but does anybody have any experience with the Phonic board aiming at the same market? Sorry, I don't remember the model number off hand, but there was a recent review in sound on sound or something I think, and it looked like it could have some workflow advantages over the Studiolive and also costs only around $1500.
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Old 09-29-2011, 06:56 PM   #30
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HA! That's not how it is in my parts! Most of the places that have their own soundguys take $150 off the top of what the band makes to pay the guy to sit around and drink and hit on girls all night! I've gotten to the point where I won't play with a venue's in-house soundguy unless I'm getting a garunteed flat rate too!
Have fun getting that. Being a sound guy is an 8 (or more) hour shift, it's a "day" job for most people who do it, and the folks who do it deserve to get a days wages for a days work. Now, at the same time, he's also supposed to be serving you, and if you have a problem with the service you are getting you should take that up with his boss.
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Old 10-01-2011, 02:59 PM   #31
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I'm just saying that that is what is par for the course in my part of the world. It's not that the soundguys are professionals, it's that the venues are weasles. The soundguys are bartenders and failed musicians, and usually the only guy in the place that "knows how to work the sound" meaning turn it on and plug in mics.

These people aren't to be confused with the real professionals you're talking about.
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Old 10-11-2011, 08:42 PM   #32
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I've house teched about 7 years and also toured ~60,000mi as a musician, so I can both agree and be offended by your statement Kenny We're not all like that, but there certainly are many like that, but venues have a worse track record for being weasels, especially if the house tech is paid from the door. My bands refuse to play places like that, especially since I can often mix circles around them.

The worst thing I'm seeing from venues that spring for a digital console is that they think they mix themselves. I've literally seen the bartender load up the "3-piece rock band" mix, work just the faders for the first song, then walk away. I've also encountered a lot of digital consoles locked to their "magic EQ's". An EQ setting is only as good as the engineer's familiarity with it, and the reason for buying all the bells and whistles is to make them available to skilled use, not to substitute for it!

The X32 looks a lot more like a Soundcraft SI Compact with its small display and knobs to the top left. The SI Compact has a design flaw where you can accidentally hit the button that brings up the EQ layer sideways and pin it under the top panel. Guess what holding down the EQ layer button does? It BYPASSES the EQ! Not the kind of thing you want to happen during a show. The can fix that by putting it in a pull-down menu on-screen, but they haven't yet.

Not sure if the X32 fell into that trap, but it does look like the knob labels are printed with LED knob indicators, a bad combo. When you put a light over that there is considerable glare from the top finish so you can't see the labels very well, and the brighter it is the less you can see the LEDs. And of course the pre-amps are undoubtedly lack-lustre on a $2500 32-channel console. Could be a good small venue workhorse though, assuming they don't break easy.

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Old 11-03-2011, 05:06 PM   #33
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Any news on that?
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Old 11-03-2011, 06:22 PM   #34
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Any news on that?
Nope.
It's still 'coming soon'...
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Old 01-17-2012, 04:31 PM   #35
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Default Regarding Motorized Faders / Single Channel Strip

Just a few comments regarding:
1). Motorized faders, the ones on the TASCAM DM-24, which is an obsolete console (and why I am looking at what is next), are very quiet. The noise is equivalent to moving the faders by themselves. For example, at power up, the faders go through a calibration phase, and the only noise is that of all the faders going up and down. If you could move all faders at once, it would make the same noise. Also the speed of the fader movement is much faster than you can move the fader manually.
2). Having one channel strip for EQ, assignments, aux sends, etc. works fine "almost" all of the time. There are times when in a panic(example feedback), one forgets what fader layer is on top, or what electronic patching has been set up. Or one starts to tweak an EQ on the wrong input. It happens, but I guess if I were starting at a gaggle of knobs, I might tweak the wrong strip as well.

In gereral, I would not go back to straight analog boards as the tonal control, presets, and flexibility of providing 24 track live recording, a house mix, and four (or more) monitor mixes from one console is just amazing (oh also without mouse clicking and cursing). Nothing like having hardware under your fingers!

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Old 09-13-2012, 06:48 AM   #36
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I bought a Behringer X32 earlier this week and I have to say it is awesome... It works flawlessly with Reaper in remote mode and I was pleasantly surprised by how functional and easy it is to use.

In remote mode, the 8 submix faders operate the faders in Reaper with a bank button that allows you to control faders higher than channel 8 (9-16, 17-24, 25-32, etc...). It can control Reaper's channel mutes and solos, record enable / disable, transport controls - stop, play, rew, ffwd, rec. When you change your channel names in Reaper, it changes the names to match in the scribble strips above each channel on the X32. The 32 channel audio interface is built in and can be connected to the computer either with firewire or USB.

Some people have been complaining why they don't use the 16 channel faders on the left in remote mode, but personally I like having the DAW controls separate from the audio channels so I can make EQ adjustments on the fly.

Keep in mind that I have owned an Alesis Master Control, an Allen and Heath Zed R16, a Tascam DM3200 and this thing beats them all easily. All those other devices were sold on ebay to make room for this...

Also, don't let the complainers tell you it's cheaply made, plastic or whatever... The only thing that is plastic on this is the two side pieces (which is thick and sturdy) and the faceplate over the lcd screen. Everything else is metal, including the top faceplate of the console.

It was easy to set up. I have a windows 7 64 bit pc. I just enabled the mackie control on the X32, added a mackie control under preferences / control surfaces in Reaper, enabled the 32 firewire audio channels and that was it.

The only glitch I had was a problem with my PC, not the X32. You need to roll back the Windows 7 iEEE 1394 drivers to the legacy drivers (which are included with Win7). It was a 2 minute fix, see here:
http://www.studio1productions.com/Ar...Firewire-1.htm

The preamps are designed by Midas, and the design of the X32 looks very Midas-like. It was primarily designed for live use so I would imagine it would work very well for that as well.

I've only had it for 5 days, but so far I'm liking it.
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Old 09-13-2012, 06:56 AM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bbgunn View Post
I bought a Behringer X32 earlier this week and I have to say it is awesome... It works flawlessly with Reaper in remote mode and I was pleasantly surprised by how functional and easy it is to use.

In remote mode, the 8 submix faders operate the faders in Reaper with a bank button that allows you to control faders higher than channel 8 (9-16, 17-24, 25-32, etc...). It can control Reaper's channel mutes and solos, record enable / disable, transport controls - stop, play, rew, ffwd, rec. When you change your channel names in Reaper, it changes the names to match in the scribble strips above each channel on the X32. The 32 channel audio interface is built in and can be connected to the computer either with firewire or USB.

Some people have been complaining why they don't use the 16 channel faders on the left in remote mode, but personally I like having the DAW controls separate from the audio channels so I can make EQ adjustments on the fly.

Keep in mind that I have owned an Alesis Master Control, an Allen and Heath Zed R16, a Tascam DM3200 and this thing beats them all easily. All those other devices were sold on ebay to make room for this...

Also, don't let the complainers tell you it's cheaply made, plastic or whatever... The only thing that is plastic on this is the two side pieces (which is thick and sturdy) and the faceplate over the lcd screen. Everything else is metal, including the top faceplate of the console.

It was easy to set up. I have a windows 7 64 bit pc. I just enabled the mackie control on the X32, added a mackie control under preferences / control surfaces in Reaper, enabled the 32 firewire audio channels and that was it.

The only glitch I had was a problem with my PC, not the X32. You need to roll back the Windows 7 iEEE 1394 drivers to the legacy drivers (which are included with Win7). It was a 2 minute fix, see here:
http://www.studio1productions.com/Ar...Firewire-1.htm

The preamps are designed by Midas, and the design of the X32 looks very Midas-like. It was primarily designed for live use so I would imagine it would work very well for that as well.

I've only had it for 5 days, but so far I'm liking it.
Tell me more about the usability when mixing back to the console.

I know you have the 8 "VCA" faders, and those faders control Reaper's faders.

But since the console is 32 i/o thru firewire, how do you "bank" the faders on the left?

Can you have the faders on the left showing let's say: channels 17-32 and the "VCA" faders showing 8-16? How does it work? Because this can be a mess while using the console.
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Old 09-13-2012, 07:35 AM   #38
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Tell me more about the usability when mixing back to the console.

I know you have the 8 "VCA" faders, and those faders control Reaper's faders.

But since the console is 32 i/o thru firewire, how do you "bank" the faders on the left?

Can you have the faders on the left showing let's say: channels 17-32 and the "VCA" faders showing 8-16? How does it work? Because this can be a mess while using the console.

Yes, you have a button for the left faders for channels 1-16 and another button for channels 17-32. For the right submix faders you have 4 buttons for DCA 1-8, submix 1-8, submix 9-16, and matrix 1-6. When you choose remote, those same four buttons turn to DCA 1-8, bank select/channel select, record enable, and transport control.

So you can be viewing audio channels 17-32 on the left and controlling Reaper channels 17-24 on the right (or 1-8, or 9-16 etc... whatever you want).

The "bank" controls are simply two arrows - one pointing left and one pointing right. If you are viewing 1-8 and push the right arrow button it moves over to 9-16, push it again for 17-24 etc..., left arrow button to go back. The motorized faders jump to whatever you have set on the Reaper mix screen for those channels.

Here's an image of the controls
http://www.sweetwater.com/images/ite...X32-xlarge.jpg

Last edited by bbgunn; 09-13-2012 at 08:15 AM.
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Old 10-14-2012, 05:58 PM   #39
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bbgunn View Post
I bought a Behringer X32 earlier this week and I have to say it is awesome... It works flawlessly with Reaper in remote mode and I was pleasantly surprised by how functional and easy it is to use.

In remote mode, the 8 submix faders operate the faders in Reaper with a bank button that allows you to control faders higher than channel 8 (9-16, 17-24, 25-32, etc...). It can control Reaper's channel mutes and solos, record enable / disable, transport controls - stop, play, rew, ffwd, rec. When you change your channel names in Reaper, it changes the names to match in the scribble strips above each channel on the X32. The 32 channel audio interface is built in and can be connected to the computer either with firewire or USB.

Some people have been complaining why they don't use the 16 channel faders on the left in remote mode, but personally I like having the DAW controls separate from the audio channels so I can make EQ adjustments on the fly.

Keep in mind that I have owned an Alesis Master Control, an Allen and Heath Zed R16, a Tascam DM3200 and this thing beats them all easily. All those other devices were sold on ebay to make room for this...

Also, don't let the complainers tell you it's cheaply made, plastic or whatever... The only thing that is plastic on this is the two side pieces (which is thick and sturdy) and the faceplate over the lcd screen. Everything else is metal, including the top faceplate of the console.

It was easy to set up. I have a windows 7 64 bit pc. I just enabled the mackie control on the X32, added a mackie control under preferences / control surfaces in Reaper, enabled the 32 firewire audio channels and that was it.

The only glitch I had was a problem with my PC, not the X32. You need to roll back the Windows 7 iEEE 1394 drivers to the legacy drivers (which are included with Win7). It was a 2 minute fix, see here:
http://www.studio1productions.com/Ar...Firewire-1.htm

The preamps are designed by Midas, and the design of the X32 looks very Midas-like. It was primarily designed for live use so I would imagine it would work very well for that as well.

I've only had it for 5 days, but so far I'm liking it.
I have done all of the above, but X32 doesn't control Reaper or any audio passed into X32 from Reaper ???
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Old 10-14-2012, 07:11 PM   #40
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I think you're doing something wrong...
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