re: X32 Discussion
Hi all,
I've only had my X32 for 2 weeks, and so far only run one concert with it. Pleased to say that everything went smoothly, and there certainly seems to be unanimous agreement from everyone who's used an X32 that the sound quality is superb, and I completely agree - especially for the money! I found that XControl and the XUF interface worked perfectly for me straight away too, but certainly the ability to set-up scenes offline in XControl and then sync them to the console at a later date will be very useful in the latest version.
Anyway, the way I set everything up did lead me to a few pitfalls, so perhaps one of you might have some feedback on possible workarounds. I'll describe the basic scenario:
Inputs: 3 Beta 87s on stage, 8 channels of radio mics, various mics to cover a choir, stereo outputs from 3 separate keyboards, LR from V-drums
Outputs: LR via digital output to DCX2496 feeding mains and sub, monitor for singers on stage, monitor for band, direct outs to PC via XUF card
On the console, I had Vocal, Keyboards, Drums and Choir mixbuses, with all the stage mic inputs and radio mics going to the Vocals bus, etc. The drums didn't really need to go to a bus, but it meant I could have all the main levels on the RHS on the console that way. Ideally, I wanted Reverb, Exciter and a GEQ on the Vocal bus. I could have Reverb and either Exciter or GEQ easily enough - using one as an insert and then the other assigned to the bus itself, but I couldn't think of a way to use all 3. On an 01V96 you can route the output of one FX to the input of a second FX, so you can create a chain to do what I was after. Couldn't find a way to do this on the X32, but I might be missing something! Any ideas?
Because all the EQ and dynamics processing of the keyboards and vocals were done on the buses, I wanted to send a mix of those to the monitors, not just using the dry signals from the input channels. So the only method I could come up with at the time, was creating a Matrix for the band monitor and another for the stage monitor, and then fed the relevant mixbuses to the matrixes in varying levels. It worked fine for that particular concert, but I don't think you can change the mixbus sends to matrix from post/pre fader which was a bit of a pain. I couldn't help thinking that there must be a better way to arrange it!
When you've been using an 01V96 for years, it's amazing how much you appreciate the scribble strips!
