Re: Mute Group Mechanical Protection
One thing that I have always had a deathly fear of is accidentally hitting a mute group button with headphones or a pen or my elbow or something. To avoid the mortification that would result from having the PA go dead in the middle of a show from this cause, on other consoles I've glued a little plastic bumper strip that would prevent unintentional activation, but the tight spacing of the little grid of mute buttons on the X32 seems to preclude that.
However, a little thought and some spare plastic have resulted in this:
There happened to be a strip of Tuffak or Lexan on hand that was almost exactly 2" wide, and this piece is 3.25" long. The holes are .75" diameter, and I used a Forstner bit to cut them. The top row is .75" from the top on center, and the other two rows are 7/8" apart on center, as are the two columns. The holes are big enough to contain the buttons without interfering, and also leave the numbers visible.
Tuffak and Lexan are unbreakable varieties of Plexiglass-type material, but can be cut. Regular Plexiglass can crack and break, but this stuff won't, even with the narrow bits that are between the holes.
The second pic is to show how thick it is compared to the buttons; a thinner piece would probably work, but this is what was on hand.
I'm not sure of the best way to attach it permanently. The perimeter seems too small for glue/silicon caulk, and screws would require getting inside the console. I'll wait until the warranty is expired to do anything like that. For now, clear packing tape is holding it in place.
So this is something I'd like to see on the X32 from the factory, but I'm not going to wait. This was the third one I made, and it took about a half an hour.
I'm hoping they at least give an option in a future firmware update to toggle the mute group behavior to resemble something that those of us with analog consoles are more accustomed to...
Hope you're doing well. 