X32 Discussion

re: X32 Discussion

brian kozicki said:
I'm using the desk for inputs 1-16 then 17-24 are sent out via firewire to my macbook pro running logic so I can use waves desser on vocals. So I'm using card input 17-24.

Using 24 channels of input from an analog snake. I get that it should be a digital trim when it comes back into the desk.. but what I'm asking is there there any way to adjust the preamp level besides switching back to desk input 17-24 then back to card input 17-24

My signal flow for channels 17-24 being.. snake>analog desk input>X32 firewire output to macbook pro>macbook pro output to X32

Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

If you are only using 24 channels, you could of course route back to 25-32. or use 25-32 as inputs and route back to 17-24.
Another way, if you don't need inserts on all of the channels, is to route inserts via aux to card, but that would limit you to four external inserts. Yet another way would be to mix the channels that need processing to one or more subgroups and do the inserts there, same limitation in number of independent inserts, but you would have the opportunity to let the lead have his/her own processing and let the backing vocals share processing.
Or we could ask to have the insert routing extended to include the card (something I think would make sense for a lot of applications), but that won't help you now.
 
re: X32 Discussion

Update: Gig No.51!

There is a common prejudice about the Germans.
People belief, that all Germans are living in smurf villages, listen to brass music and love beer and sausages.
Well, time for reality check part II.

Tobi and I had a three hour drive among with the band, to play a gig in small village in the "Sauerland" region. We came with our two X32 (one for FoH, one for Monitor) to make some history:).
The promoter said, there will be about 1.000pax, what was definitely not the case, but we thought, this could be a nice event for checking the mon/foh X32 setting anyway.
Turns out, that sometimes prejudice will be affirmed. In the end we were around here-->


50% of the stalls were selling beer and the other 50% (well, you guessed it already) sausage and meat products.





Idyllic world scenario





our "support act"...the local traditional brass band:roll:




The Band gear, waiting to be setup on the stage. Two X32 cases right in the middle of it. And one beer stall in close vicinity.





I placed my X32 in the back of ...(you guessed it already) another beer stall.





Tobi joined the Band on stage.




The Band began to play, and most of the audience were more into beer&sausage at first sight. But it was getting better from song to song.
We hooked up the two boards with one CAT5 cable and all band inputs went directly into Tobi's desk. I had direct talkback to all monitor sends, very nice.
Rock solid and easy to operate, once you set up the two desks correctly. Tobi already posted a step by step, how to set up the desks. Works like a charm!
The band obviously enjoyed the monitor sound and I was happy, that I don't had to do eight ways of monitors from FoH.

After a couple of songs, the audience noticed, that there is in deed a "band on stage":)~:)~:smile:



The band played about 3,5 hours with some breaks and the promoter already booked the band for the next year.
Anyway, hooking up two X32 in a master&slave configuration is a nice possiblity and puts you directly in control of the show.
I recorded the complete gig on a USB flashdrive. Here is one song, directly out of the desk.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21028604/Radio7_LD.mp3

After lots of sausages and less beer, we left and we did not forget congratulating Tobi, because today it is his birthday!
@Tobi: Thank you again, you did an awesome job with the monitors.

@All: Have a nice Sunday!
Christian


PS: Honestly...not all German villages look like this. So don't be disappointed, that we don't live the "Eternal Oktoberfest Dream";-)
 
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re: X32 Discussion

You have just got to keep posting these gig reports, the content is written in both a humerous and informative way. This one really made me smile. The thought of an "eternal Oktoberfest" begins to feel a bit nauseous after awhile as I tried that once for a few days in Munich, the reults of all that beer and sausage were not pleasent. I like the song a lot, that vocalist is really good.... post a few more, as well as the continued excellent support to us all. Still waiting for the X32 although I've now received the P16-D and P16M mounts from Studiospares, the P16-Ms will be with me tomorrow from Thomann, the iPad has arrived from eBuyer and been set up with XiControl. The church has had the Cat5e laid in and terminated (for the in-ear initially and then S16 when it arrives in late October). Still need to put a wireless router in, wonder if wireless g will be OK rather than n as I have a spare DG834G. All I need now is the X32 from Thomann due in this week...... then a long learning curve for a wholly analogue team. I've been playing with an old DDX3216 to try and get myself ready for the X32 in terms of principles. I had a couple of hours 'play' on an X32 at a Guitar Center in Florida whilst on holiday which was informative as the sales guy there ran the sound for a church in Celebration. Still not really clear on 'sends on faders' and how I use DCA groups.

Any help/views gladly received.

Mike
 
re: X32 Discussion

Mike, SOF is the use of the faders in place of an aux mix's knobs. Just like mixing for house, you can glance down and see what is up (and how far up) in an aux. You can toggle between main/aux or the aux mixes. Sometimes this feature is called "fader flip" or "flip mode." Can be a real time saver and sanity checker.

DCA groups are pretty much like the VCA groups in analog mixers. If you're unfamiliar with that, IIRC Allen & Heath has an article about mixing on VCAs on their web site. You might want to google for it. VCAs differ from traditional audio groups (or "submasters") in that they control the levels from the internal signal path of the assigned channel rather than the output level of a hard-wired summing bus. It affects only signal level, it has no impact of routing. Think of it this way: groups/submasters are for signals you want to *process* as a group; VCA/DCAs are for signals you want to *control* as a group.

The use of VCA/DCA groups does not limit or change your use of traditional groups. You can still assign the kit or panned toms to a stereo group for additional dynamics processing; vocals to groups for some overall dynamics or EQ, etc.

The one caution I offer is that you need to understand how DCA assignment will affect the signals to the personal monitoring systems. If you have keyboards assigned to a DCA and you pull that down a little, does it change what the player hears?
 
re: X32 Discussion

+1

Thanks Christian I really enjoy your posts :)~:)~:smile:

The quality of sound on the mp3 is really good, it shows the capabilities of the x32 perfectly. The band is really good as well, but I must say that the balance of the mix is excellent, well done. It's no surprise you get so any gigs .

Would you be willing to tell us more details about that track for us novices ?

What mics were you using, peq settings, effects etc. there's nothing like learning from a pro :)

Kev
 
X32 Input Map thoughts

Hi all!

I had a bit of a nightmare gig last night. I have a Soundcraft LX7 (I think) desk for live shows and I was also using a Lexicon FX unit for reverb and an Alesis MidiVerb 4 for vocal delay splashes.

The first issue to hit was an obvious dry joint on the snare drum channel. It kept dropping in and out of the mix and I had to keep tweaking the XLR connector on the back of the desk. Not fun. The second issue I noticed was that the MidiVerb wasn't registering anything on its left channel on the meters, even though it was returning stereo to the desk. The final straw (and the one that REALLY hacked me off) was the Lexicon reverb popped a pre-amp half way through the show and refused to accept any input. I think it was a temperature issue because when I removed the Lexicon from the rack the chassis was red hot and it didn't smell great. The room was very warm - ambient of 30C maybe. Nevertheless, we soldiered on and I don't think many people noticed the problems. Bit stressful for me though!

So that brings me back to the X32. It's time. Thomann nearly have stock and I'm going to order one tomorrow. What I was wondering is could some of you X32 owners have a quick look at the attached picture showing my proposed routing options for the band? I'm wondering if this setup is possible, particular with pairing channels on the P16 mixers. Can I pair Odd & Even as well as Even & Odd?

The system is based on using our old 24:8 copper multicore until such time as we can afford to upgrade to the digital snake. I figured I can run a long CAT5 cable from the UltraNet port on the X32 back to the stage for the P16s and that would then become my digital multicore when we upgrade.

Furthermore, to explain the 'stageboxes' column; I have two 8 channel stageboxes which will go either side of the drums, centre stage. These go to the multicore stagebox on the side of the stage which in turn goes to FOH. Also, I have a Behringer 8 channel DI box (these are labelled DI (X)) and a single DI box because the guitarist is far away from the rack DI.

I thought this might be an interesting and educational exercise for the forum in general. Something for the experts to get their teeth into and the novices to marvel at the routing options of the X32. See what you think.

Thanks in advance. :)~:)~:smile:

X32 Input Map.JPG

Kind regards, Andrew
www.mama-genesis.co.uk
www.carillonvideo.co.uk
 
Re: X32 Input Map thoughts

Thanks for your nice words, I really appreciate that!
I find it quite hard, to give some serious tips concernig mixing. I won't consider myself as a "pro". Altthough I can make a living with mixing music live and in the studio, I'm not good enough to do something else than regional bands and events. But I'm fine with that, gives me even more freedom to mix:)
What I do different than other foh soundguys, is maybe the fact, that I like to translate mixing technique from the studio into live mixing. So I use tons of EQ, Compression and FX, if I think the mix demands this. Two years ago I made a mixing tutorial with my SAC rig, showing some not so usual ways of mixing. Maybe look into it. The tutorial is in German, but it is quite clear, what I'm doing with EQ, FX and so on. Here is an multitrack session of a live mix I made with my SAC rig. It has all tweaking in it, that I used during the acutall gig. The only thing, that is different, is the mastering limiter on the mains, which I added later for the video-->

DIE RAKEDE "Live 2011" - YouTube

And below there is the tutorial, that hopefully shows, how I mixed the song:
This part one (staring with drums..skip the first four minutes).

SAC MixingTutorial in German, Part 1 - YouTube

As you can see, I can't wait for the X32 firmware update, that let's you use VST Plugins as digital inserts!! :)

In addition, I strongly recommend any Tips&Tricks tutorials from the FabFilter company! Sure, they want to promote their Plugins, but most of the tricks can be done with the X32 or any other desk too.
There is lot to learn from that. I use some of these tricks in nearly every show. For example to create room for every instrument in a mix.
Maybe start with this one:

FabFilter Pro-Q - EQ Tips & Tricks - YouTube

These one has lot's of tipps concerning compression:

Introduction to FabFilter Pro-C compressor - YouTube
FabFilter Pro-C - Expert mode controls - YouTube


When I started mixing, there was no internet or youtube around, nor even useful books covering this topic. So I taught myself the old school way. Whenever I was at a gig and I liked the sound of something specific (drums, fx e.g.), I went over to the sound guy and bombard him with question in a break or after the gig. Than I tried it on my own gigs, sometimes it worked for me sometimes it didn't. The good thing is, that over the years you collect different solutions to common mixing problems and sometimes it is quite convenient to have one or two alternatives in your book of mixing techniques, when it won't work with the first approach.

Christian
 
Re: X32 Input Map thoughts

Yes, it has been a really nice Trip with our two X32!

nice weather, delicious, exotic meat, beer only a short hop, nothing missed! After the audience thawed the band would have been able to play the whole night!

All in all it was a plain, easygoing job with the band and you, Christian

X32 was easily set up and only late in in the evening i realized that we had two complete mixing desks with sideracks, monitorsplit and recording setup in my compact car!

@Christian: Thank you very much for our funny, interesting and instructive birthday trip to our german upstate!

Tobi
 
re: X32 Discussion

Christian Boche said:
Update: Gig No.51!
<snip>
Anyway, hooking up two X32 in a master&slave configuration is a nice possiblity and puts you directly in control of the show.
I recorded the complete gig on a USB flashdrive. Here is one song, directly out of the desk.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21028604/Radio7_LD.mp3

<snip>

PS: Honestly...not all German villages look like this. So don't be disappointed, that we don't live the "Eternal Oktoberfest Dream";-)
Click to expand...

Sounds great, we will all be a bit disappointed when our mixes coming out of the X32 doesn't sound as good :cry: ;)~;-)~:wink:

Keine Lederhosen? Saving them for Oktober?
 
re: X32 Discussion

Per Søvik said:
If you are only using 24 channels, you could of course route back to 25-32. or use 25-32 as inputs and route back to 17-24.
Another way, if you don't need inserts on all of the channels, is to route inserts via aux to card, but that would limit you to four external inserts. Yet another way would be to mix the channels that need processing to one or more subgroups and do the inserts there, same limitation in number of independent inserts, but you would have the opportunity to let the lead have his/her own processing and let the backing vocals share processing.
Or we could ask to have the insert routing extended to include the card (something I think would make sense for a lot of applications), but that won't help you now.
Click to expand...

Thanks Per.. can you explain more about routing inserts from aux to card? I only need 3 inserts for my vocal channels.
 
Re: X32 Input Map thoughts

Andrew Prince said:
Hi all!

I had a bit of a nightmare gig last night. I have a Soundcraft LX7 (I think) desk for live shows and I was also using a Lexicon FX unit for reverb and an Alesis MidiVerb 4 for vocal delay splashes.

The first issue to hit was an obvious dry joint on the snare drum channel. It kept dropping in and out of the mix and I had to keep tweaking the XLR connector on the back of the desk. Not fun. The second issue I noticed was that the MidiVerb wasn't registering anything on its left channel on the meters, even though it was returning stereo to the desk. The final straw (and the one that REALLY hacked me off) was the Lexicon reverb popped a pre-amp half way through the show and refused to accept any input. I think it was a temperature issue because when I removed the Lexicon from the rack the chassis was red hot and it didn't smell great. The room was very warm - ambient of 30C maybe. Nevertheless, we soldiered on and I don't think many people noticed the problems. Bit stressful for me though!

So that brings me back to the X32. It's time. Thomann nearly have stock and I'm going to order one tomorrow. What I was wondering is could some of you X32 owners have a quick look at the attached picture showing my proposed routing options for the band? I'm wondering if this setup is possible, particular with pairing channels on the P16 mixers. Can I pair Odd & Even as well as Even & Odd?

The system is based on using our old 24:8 copper multicore until such time as we can afford to upgrade to the digital snake. I figured I can run a long CAT5 cable from the UltraNet port on the X32 back to the stage for the P16s and that would then become my digital multicore when we upgrade.

Furthermore, to explain the 'stageboxes' column; I have two 8 channel stageboxes which will go either side of the drums, centre stage. These go to the multicore stagebox on the side of the stage which in turn goes to FOH. Also, I have a Behringer 8 channel DI box (these are labelled DI (X)) and a single DI box because the guitarist is far away from the rack DI.

I thought this might be an interesting and educational exercise for the forum in general. Something for the experts to get their teeth into and the novices to marvel at the routing options of the X32. See what you think.

Thanks in advance. :)~:)~:smile:

View attachment 4756

Kind regards, Andrew
www.mama-genesis.co.uk
www.carillonvideo.co.uk
Click to expand...


Andrew,

I feel your pain. After hefting a 20U FOH rack up to the back of a theatre and then running two 16/4 analog snakes down to the stage, I resolved to never do that again. The X32 met my requirements.
With regards to your planned use of a CAT5 snake for the Ultranet with analog for the rest, that's what I'm doing with mine.
When the S16s turn up the digital snake will be complete and I can ditch the analog beasts.

As far as your channel inputs, etc go, I don't see any problems there, although the FX have their own returns without affecting your main channel count.
One thing I would look at is drop snakes. Thomann do a 15m 8 channel snake on a reel (£45 iirc).
That makes things a bit more flexible, as you are no longer tied to having your main snake in one position.

HTH.

Karl.

P.S. PM sent regarding a few other related matters.
 
re: X32 Discussion

brian kozicki said:
Thanks Per.. can you explain more about routing inserts from aux to card? I only need 3 inserts for my vocal channels.
Click to expand...

You basically need to do two things,
set it up in routing:
- in the card out tab, assign Aux/Mon to the first block ie 1-8
- in the home tab, assign Aux in to card 1-4

set up the insert in the individual channels config, selecting AUX 1-4

Remember the latency in the computer, you might want to compensate by adding some delay to the other channels.
 
re: X32 Discussion

Wao, Excellent Mix Christian, one question can you upload a picture of the configuration of the delay so it works this way on the vocals..
 
re: X32 Discussion

:D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin:

Just got a text to say that my X32 is in the delivery van on its way to sunny Scotland (on exactly the date they said it would).

Kev
 
re: X32 Discussion

Kevin Hunter said:
:D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin: :D~:-D~:grin:

Just got a text to say that my X32 is in the delivery van on its way to sunny Scotland (on exactly the date they said it would).

Kev
Click to expand...

I am jealous! Did you end up ordering from Thomann? I'm hoping the distributor keeps its word and gets stock to DV247 around September 20th as have a need for it on the 24th!
 
re: X32 Discussion

David Emery said:
I am jealous! Did you end up ordering from Thomann? I'm hoping the distributor keeps its word and gets stock to DV247 around September 20th as have a need for it on the 24th!
Click to expand...

Yes , I gave up on Studio spares and ordered the flightcase bundle from Thomann . The flight case arrivied several weeks ago and I was told way back when I ordered it that it would ship on the 10th and thats exactly when it did. Should be at my house on Thursday :)

Is amazing that Thomann knows exactly when shipments are going to arrive but none of the UK suppliers have a clue when they are coming (apart from DV247 who say the 18th of Sept)


Kev
 
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