X32 Discussion

[Michael Roper]

Cable issues

Had an inconvenient issue this weekend, when my 30m Cat5e cable that I bought to use for my S16 decided not to make/hold a connection back to my X32. I'd only used the cable once before, last week, and it worked fine, but someone mustn't have rolled it up properly after the event. That said, it still worked to plug my laptop into a router, but obviously the AES50 connection has a lower fault tolerance. This cable was just a standard Cat5e one that I got from a electronics store, while I wait to get a proper shielded tour-grade cable on a drum - suddenly I don't have any reservations dropping a few hundred dollars on a single cable!

I ended up using a shorter Cat5 cable, with the X32 stuck side of stage, and ran the show from xControl at the back of the room - life saver. The other odd thing was the routing to the S16 went a bit funny, and while I was getting all the inputs into the desk okay, nothing was coming out of the XLR outputs, even though I could hear it in the headphones on the S16 itself.. had to drive the FOH and wedges from the local outputs on the desk in the end... I managed to reset it all and get it working afterwards, and grabbed a Cat6 cable for the interim, which is a bit tougher, and works fine - though I'm the only one that's allowed to roll it up now!

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: ipad or ipad mini

but constant this disappears and then it asks for: select a network. If I choose the correct network, most of the time this comes back and the status changes to green, connected

Hmm - I know Apple does some auto-detection to try to detect wifi guest networks/portal authentication web pages by doing a specific DNS lookup, but I don't think it will cause the "pick a network" box to pop up. A quick way to test is go into Settings --> WiFi and turn off the "Ask to join networks" option. That thing always drove me nuts and its one of the first things I kill on any iOS device. I suspect if you turn that off it should stop prompting you, and should stay connected hopefully.

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: Protected Scenes

Well, I don't see any evidence that scene protection is going to be implemented for the X32.

Huh? It's only been a couple of months. A little quick to judge? I understand YOU have an immediate need but that does not mean it will never get implemented - especially since that is purely a software feature. It's just a matter of figuring out how to add it without cluttering up the UI (not as trivial as it sounds - any appearance of flipness on my part is unintended!).

Personally I'm more bothered by the inane mute group functionality but I'm not going to declare they don't appear to ever be willing to implement because they didn't immediately kiss my foot when I first complained

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: HPF and LPF Crossover Curves

Some may object vehemently to using the crossover on-board the X32.

only because they are trying to save your gear. And the "some" who are vehemently objecting are the ones I would listen to the most in these matters.

To appease the purists

Appeasement really isn't the point - more like decades of experience and knowing when cutting corners is a reasonable risk and when its not. It was probably learned the hard way by smoking some gear themselves. I dont think they will mind if you blow your speakers - other than mourning the senseless and needless destruction of gear. I remember when I was younger and my parents or older aquaintences tried to warn me about doing stupid stuff - and typically I ignored them and payed the price. Sometimes the only way we pay attention is to get our own lumps the hard and painful way.

I still plan to use my stereo two-way stage-based crossover for regular shows but for small venues, I am looking for ways to lighten the gear and lower the complexity of setup.

Well I guess if you blow your mains and/or amps that will lighten your load and simplify your system

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: Theatrical Use

I recently ran a children's version of A Christmas Carol using scene recall via midi.
I used Multiplay audio cue software as the trigger, that's the screen on the left in the photo.

Thats awesome! I like the price of Multiplayer too. Was it hard figuring out the midi commands?

 

[Kevin Wright]

Re: HPF and LPF Crossover Curves

For me it's BW24 every time. Back in the analog days there were phase issues that dictated that steep Butterworth filters might not be the best, but with digital filters, ability to align with delays etc, etc, the steepest filter wins in a sub-top application. It might be a different story alltogether when getting elements in a box to play nicely together.

Awesome. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. I figured steeper was better. I was using BS24 (Bessel?) but will try the BU24s instead.

A word of caution though, particularly if the tops are not powered and somewhat able to protect themselves: Just in case a scene recall sends full range to the tops, one is better to use the sub level for extra thump than bringing the eq up and thus potentially sending a lot of low frequency material to the tops. If one wants to be extra cautious, assigning the tops to outputs that are not assigned by default and hooking the subs up to output 15 and 16 is likely to leave you quite safe (and awfully dull sounding) in the event of a return to default.

Very good advice, as well. I think if the tops depended on the crossover for protection, then I would not take the chance with the onboard setup. Fortunately, that is not the case for me.

 

[Wayne Swearingen]

Monitor out cabling

I'am about to be the new owner of an x32! I've been though most of the 183 pages of posts here and dont recall this exact question. Currently on my Presonus board I have 1/4" outs to my monitor feeds. I know the x32 has 1/4 but it seemed like they were more for outboard rack gear. Can I patch those 1/4 outs to one of the 16 main xlr buss outs or do I need to buy new cables (or adaptors) to convert and use the XLR's? I'm sure it'd be more obvious once I get the board, just trying to be preemptive before it gets here.

Thanks!

 

[Kevin Wright]

Re: HPF and LPF Crossover Curves

only because they are trying to save your gear. And the "some" who are vehemently objecting are the ones I would listen to the most in these matters.

...

Well I guess if you blow your mains and/or amps that will lighten your load and simplify your system

Eric, you're absolutely right. It just takes one board reset to ruin perfectly good equipment. I get that. I threw out the "appeasement" line thinking I'd avoid something I typically see in forums, which is you ask how to do "A" and you end up with a bunch of reasons why you should do "B" instead. All very good points but not really answering the original question on "A". So my effort obviously backfired...~;-)~:wink:

But you raise an important point and I am curious. If the crossover is not needed to protect equipment, would that lessen your concern about the onboard crossover. I am using Mackie SA1532z as my tops. They are powered and designed to handle a full range signal. We added a couple of powered subs because the Mackies seemed to lack some of that bass-end punch. We send our signal through a DBX crossover split at about 120Hz. If the X32 handles the crossover duties and suddenly sends full signal through either speaker, I figured I was safe. But my experience certainly pales in comparison to so many patrons of this thread.

I understand there are other pros and cons - and I thought they were well explored in the earlier exchange - but you got me thinking about whether I am missing something in terms of destroying our equipment.

Thanks.

 

[Kevin Wright]

Re: Monitor out cabling

I'am about to be the new owner of an x32! I've been though most of the 183 pages of posts here and dont recall this exact question. Currently on my Presonus board I have 1/4" outs to my monitor feeds. I know the x32 has 1/4 but it seemed like they were more for outboard rack gear. Can I patch those 1/4 outs to one of the 16 main xlr buss outs or do I need to buy new cables (or adaptors) to convert and use the XLR's? I'm sure it'd be more obvious once I get the board, just trying to be preemptive before it gets here.

Thanks!

Congrats on your upcoming X32 ownership! I joined the ranks myself a couple of weeks ago and I am still enjoying the ride!

I don't have the board in front of me but a quick look at the XControl software confirms that you can assign any of the mixbuses to the Aux outs 1-6.

To clarify though, the 16 XLR outs on the X32 are also completely assignable to any of a number of sound sources, not just mixbuses. In fact, by default, Outs 15 and 16 are assigned to Mains L and R.

 

[Pauly Mel]

Re: X32 using P16-I inputs?

Uh-oh....I _think_ I just got bitten by my own assumption....

I have a few P16-Ms, and a P16-D, and (of course the x32)

One of my racks has a bunch of preamps, guitar amps emulators, and midi sound modules. Getting the outputs from all these to the X32 meant a lot of cables, so I got myself a P16-I and installed it in the rack, with the outputs of 8 of the devices going to it...The assumption being I can just use a cat 5 from the rack back to the x32... Connected it up to the X32.... and here is my 'uh-oh' moment..... Seems theres no way to use the P16-Iinputs from the desk? There are two options....
1/ I'm a gronk and made an assumption (that the inputs from the P16-I can be routed back to the x32
2/ I'm a gronk, and cannot figure out how to route back to the X32.

Either way I'm a gronk! but can someone please tell me why?

Thanks
Pauly

Can p16-I connect direct to x32 or does it have to go via P16-M?

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: HPF and LPF Crossover Curves

If the crossover is not needed to protect equipment, would that lessen your concern about the onboard crossover. [...] I understand there are other pros and cons - and I thought they were well explored in the earlier exchange - but you got me thinking about whether I am missing something in terms of destroying our equipment.

I'll have to defer to Tim and others. I know for our setup it's definitely a system protection issue. We had an excellent consultant not only balance the room and program our DSP, but explain much of what was discussed here. I didn't get much of it at the time, but the discussion in these threads is brining back many of the points (and warnings!) he raised and it resonated pretty strongly. If your positive that if the console got reset to default settings and you wouldn't damage your gear (it may sound weird, but not kill anything) then I would deem that a potentially reasonable risk. But without scene protection and a way to define a mandatory default scene - i.e. lacking a way to lock settings - I wouldn't feel comfortable using the X32 as a crossover if my gear could be harmed by it being reset to defaults. As you point out, all of our systems are potentially different and it may not be as big an issue for some as it is with others. Per Søvik had some really good thoughts about how to set things up to help mitigate the "default disaster" scenario, so it may not be as black and white...

I know for me, I know enough to be dangerous and not enough to cover every contingency, so I've learned to be conservative in those situations

EDIT: and the main concern seems to be sending lows to the tweeters - vice versa doesn't seem to matter as much

 

[Eric Eskam]

Re: X32 using P16-I inputs?

Seems theres no way to use the P16-Iinputs from the desk?

I'm pretty sure the P16-I exists to allow the personal monitoring system to work with an analog desk. It's not meant as inputs for the X32 - that's what the S16 is for: S16 digital snake If you have an X32 you really don't need the P16-I. Perhaps you were thinking you could use the P16-I as a cheaper alternative to the S16? That doesn't seem to be a good assumption

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: HPF and LPF Crossover Curves

Typically, the electronic x-over or more recently the speaker-processor serves with two different purposes. One of the purposes is to provide the processing for a two- or three-way speaker using bi- or tri-amping. The other purpose is to provide the processing and functions for subwoofers. Allthough both purposes are often served by large a single large processor in bigger systems, many of us live in a world where we are adding subs to a system that is already processed, be it passive, active or powered.
While it is perfectly feasible to construct a full processing set up for an active system, the pitfalls and limitations have been repeatedly shouted from the rooftops, and I'm not going to get into that anymore.
The sub-application, while some seem to be unable to see the distinction, is a different animal alltogether, allthough the principles remain the same. Once you start adding subs to a system, you are often in a situation where the processing isn't readily available, some powered subs send the whole unfiltered signal on to the tops, most powered tops lack a variable low cut, etc, so even the standard manufactured-approved and presumably safe setup can be greately improved by eploying some processing inside the desk. As the number of subs increase, new possibilities open up, and lacking an expensive processor to do the job, the X32 now lends itself well to implement cardio-subs, endfire arrays and what have you. I can now basically take my eight channels of sub amps and do whatever I want with them, I have the outputs, the routing and the processing, all in a desk that cost less than some of the dedicated processors out there.
In a sub application, there are so many ways to add safety for the mains, from ensuring the mains go silent if and when the desk resets, to putting the subs on aux sends ensuring the bass heavy sources never get into the mains in a big way in the first place.

 

[David Clemens]

Re: Theatrical Use

Thats awesome! I like the price of Multiplayer too. Was it hard figuring out the midi commands?

Not to bad. The usual quirks of making electronic devices talk to each other, but the midi part was fairly straightforward.

http://www.behringer.com/assets/X32_MIDI_Implementation.pdf

The midi document above gives most of the info needed in the first section.
Basically you need to make sure a couple options on the appropriate midi input on the remote tab are switched on.
In my case that was the card midi so I checked the boxes for midi rx, tx and enable midi scene recall.
I also switched off confirmation of scene load on the global page. (Don't warn me just do it!)

In MultiPlay I went into production properties and created a midi patch for the appropriate midi device.
Then I set up cues as needed by inserting midi cues that sent program change messages on midi channel 1.
One minor bug is that the program change message needed to be one less than the scene I wanted to recall.
Not sure if that is a MultiPlay issue, or if the implementation document is incorrect, I remember having the same issue with my Yamaha console and MultiPlay as well.

 

[Lance Richens]

Re: Theatrical Use

Never mind...

 

[Wayne Swearingen]

Re: Monitor out cabling

Congrats on your upcoming X32 ownership! I joined the ranks myself a couple of weeks ago and I am still enjoying the ride!

I don't have the board in front of me but a quick look at the XControl software confirms that you can assign any of the mixbuses to the Aux outs 1-6.

To clarify though, the 16 XLR outs on the X32 are also completely assignable to any of a number of sound sources, not just mixbuses. In fact, by default, Outs 15 and 16 are assigned to Mains L and R.

I found under ROUTING and ANALOG OUT where you edit the output assignment, that all makes sense. But then in SETUP and CONFIG for "Bus Pre-Configuration" do I need to assign here as well? I understand the functions of each, just not sure if I need to assign something specific to get the routing I want. Also, I take it using the 1/4 AUX out null and voids the AUX1-6 in's on the AUX IN FX Rtn page?

Here is a shot of my analog out routing. What I don't understand is why does it list 8 DirOut Aux's when there are only 6?

 

[Mick Berg]

Re: Protected Scenes

Huh? It's only been a couple of months. A little quick to judge? I understand YOU have an immediate need but that does not mean it will never get implemented - especially since that is purely a software feature. It's just a matter of figuring out how to add it without cluttering up the UI (not as trivial as it sounds - any appearance of flipness on my part is unintended!).

Personally I'm more bothered by the inane mute group functionality but I'm not going to declare they don't appear to ever be willing to implement because they didn't immediately kiss my foot when I first complained

Hi Eric.

You have a PM from me.

Mick Berg.

 

[Mick Berg]

Re: Theatrical Use

One minor bug is that the program change message needed to be one less than the scene I wanted to recall.
Not sure if that is a MultiPlay issue, or if the implementation document is incorrect, I remember having the same issue with my Yamaha console and MultiPlay as well.

Maybe it's just the old thing that in the computer world sometimes the first thing in a list is 0, sometimes it's 1.
Mick Berg.

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: Monitor out cabling

I found under ROUTING and ANALOG OUT where you edit the output assignment, that all makes sense. But then in SETUP and CONFIG for "Bus Pre-Configuration" do I need to assign here as well?

The bus pre-config will set the tap point on all channels to the pattern selected. It can then be set independantly on each channel if you prefer. Remember this is the tap point on the input channel sends to the mix/bus channels and has no bearing on what goes on with the outputs.

I understand the functions of each, just not sure if I need to assign something specific to get the routing I want. Also, I take it using the 1/4 AUX out null and voids the AUX1-6 in's on the AUX IN FX Rtn page?

No, what you do with the aux outs will not influence the aux ins, they will still be there, unchanged.

Here is a shot of my analog out routing. What I don't understand is why does it list 8 DirOut Aux's when there are only 6?

You have the direct outs from the six physical inputs plus the two channels of playback off the USB stick.

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: Theatrical Use

One minor bug is that the program change message needed to be one less than the scene I wanted to recall.
Not sure if that is a MultiPlay issue, or if the implementation document is incorrect, I remember having the same issue with my Yamaha console and MultiPlay as well.

Maybe it's just the old thing that in the computer world sometimes the first thing in a list is 0, sometimes it's 1.
Mick Berg.

Midi operates with both 0-base and 1-base numbers, and the software often let you specify what to display (ie if 1-base is chosen, then 1 will be displayed and 0 will be sent. It sounds from the description as the X32 uses 0-base, so this should be selected in the software if available.