x32 studio Users

Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Wonder how it sounds. Any update?

Well, due to a tight budget the guitar player records all the rhythem guitars as DI tracks on his own for later reamping . So by now, if have to wait until he's finished so that we can go on with the Vocals.

Meanwhile I recorded a demo, where I used the X32Rack. I mixed the song solely with my MacBook, Studio One V2.5.1 with beyerdynamic DT770 headphones. Normally I just use the MacBook for live recording, but I was courious if I can get a decent sound out of it. Never tried to mix with it. I must say, that Studio One performs better on Mac than on PC. Anyway, the band is fine with the result - mission accomplished;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/DO You REMEMBER.mp3

Christian
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Well, due to a tight budget the guitar player records all the rhythem guitars as DI tracks on his own for later reamping . So by now, if have to wait until he's finished so that we can go on with the Vocals.

Meanwhile I recorded a demo, where I used the X32Rack. I mixed the song solely with my MacBook, Studio One V2.5.1 with beyerdynamic DT770 headphones. Normally I just use the MacBook for live recording, but I was courious if I can get a decent sound out of it. Never tried to mix with it. I must say, that Studio One performs better on Mac than on PC. Anyway, the band is fine with the result - mission accomplished;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/DO You REMEMBER.mp3

Christian

I think everything that related to sound editing works better, with lower latency and multi coreaudio outputs on a mac. But it just stops here the advantage of apple vs windows. I really like windows but I had many issues with asio drivers and multi playback with this driver and I quit doing sound editing and recording on windows platform. Everything else (I work as advertising art director) I do with a windows machine and I'm very happy with it, a lot better/improved user interface.

Nice and powerful mix, I always pay attention at low frequencies because I think its the most difficult to do a good mix in this frequency area, and you nailed it. I also think it was a good idea with the lower intro, and after that to begin directly, full power, nice surprise. Like the snare. Just a matter of taste: I had used a low cut on the guitars (just for the sake of a better separation), But maybe the style require a guitar with more low end.

Did you rely only on compressors and effects of x32? Did you use other vst plugins at mix? mastering was made also with vst plugins or out of the box compressors?
I will be very very happy if I will achieve this recording and mixing quality with my x32. Right now I just discover it. til now I just use some Native instruments sound card, Ableton and Macbook pro. Everything is new for me with out of the box mixing and possibilities. I'm on a abrupt learning curve but I'm confident :)

When you recorded the instruments did you use only the gain from A/D converter? And at mixing time you reroute the signal to x32 preamp and eq? this is a good way to record with x32?
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Well, when working with the X32 in the studio, I normally use the build in preamps. I do have some of the fancy stuff like Neve 1073, Telefunken valve pres and such. So I know first hand that the impact of micpres to the overall soundquality is highly overrated in my eyes. I know, that sounds provocative, but I really belief that first of all you need a good song, than good musicians and a good song arrangement. If one of these three fails, you will never get a serious result. Nothing wrong with the X32 pres, in fact I really do like them and I think you can really achieve professional recording results with them and the X32 in general!

Everybody has its own idea of recording. Personally I was very soon sold to "in the box" mixing. Never understood the desire to mix your DAW tracks back trough a desk. Maybe when doing some acoustic music, or other music genres, that does not need heavy tweaking. But the deal breaker for me is "total recall". Mixing in the box is the easiest way to recall an entire song. So I use the X32 mainly as a soundcard, but with the advantage, that you can set up highly elaborate monitor cues for the musicians in no time and with nearly zero latency. That is just great! You got your build in talkback mic, can mix Mixbus cues and P16 cues, tweak the monitor signals with EQ/Dynamcis/FX for the musicians, all in "no time". I can say by now, that even when our nice Harrison analog desk is back from recapping, I will buy a X32rack or Core for the studio. And I'm quite confident, that it will be used a lot here. Especially on productions with tight budget. The X32 is a real time saver in the studio, at least for my personal style of recording.

Concerning VST plugins...Yes, I use a ton of them. Basically there is no mix in the last years, where I not used the FabFilter stuff, the Waves CLA classic compressors and the Waves SSL stuff. Concerning this demo production, I made a little screencast, that shows some of the plugins that I used during the mix. Because it is a demo recording, I mixed and mastered the song all in one. It is all about time saving here;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/S1_MixdownRemember.mov

Christian
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Well, when working with the X32 in the studio, I normally use the build in preamps. I do have some of the fancy stuff like Neve 1073, Telefunken valve pres and such. So I know first hand that the impact of micpres to the overall soundquality is highly overrated in my eyes. I know, that sounds provocative, but I really belief that first of all you need a good song, than good musicians and a good song arrangement. If one of these three fails, you will never get a serious result. Nothing wrong with the X32 pres, in fact I really do like them and I think you can really achieve professional recording results with them and the X32 in general!

Everybody has its own idea of recording. Personally I was very soon sold to "in the box" mixing. Never understood the desire to mix your DAW tracks back trough a desk. Maybe when doing some acoustic music, or other music genres, that does not need heavy tweaking. But the deal breaker for me is "total recall". Mixing in the box is the easiest way to recall an entire song. So I use the X32 mainly as a soundcard, but with the advantage, that you can set up highly elaborate monitor cues for the musicians in no time and with nearly zero latency. That is just great! You got your build in talkback mic, can mix Mixbus cues and P16 cues, tweak the monitor signals with EQ/Dynamcis/FX for the musicians, all in "no time". I can say by now, that even when our nice Harrison analog desk is back from recapping, I will buy a X32rack or Core for the studio. And I'm quite confident, that it will be used a lot here. Especially on productions with tight budget. The X32 is a real time saver in the studio, at least for my personal style of recording.

Concerning VST plugins...Yes, I use a ton of them. Basically there is no mix in the last years, where I not used the FabFilter stuff, the Waves CLA classic compressors and the Waves SSL stuff. Concerning this demo production, I made a little screencast, that shows some of the plugins that I used during the mix. Because it is a demo recording, I mixed and mastered the song all in one. It is all about time saving here;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/S1_MixdownRemember.mov

Christian


Wow, thanks for the vid!!! It will help me a lot to see the style of mixing, sends and vst's.
So basically you did not use the compressors and eq's of x32? or you use them both? I see a lot of fab filter there (witch I alo like it very much)

About mixing and mastering in the same project, did you have enough cpu for this? I'm confronted often with this issue. only for mixing I have 50%+ with Ableton. MacBook Pro i5 8 gb RAM. This was another reason for buying X32, for extra processing power for eq, compressors, reverbs, etc. I use to export the mix, and create a new project for mastering with vst's.
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Hi Dragos,
I just use the preamps and XUF card of the X32 and record everthing straight into Studio One. Once in the box - I stay in the box in nine out of ten productions.

Concerning CPU this was the only surprise with the Mac for me. I have an i7, 8GB RAM MBP and a Windows studio PC with i7, 8GB RAM too. The PC is tweaked for audio production and the difference in processing power is huge! My MBP has about 30% less CPU power. So I had to transform two tracks to real audio to lower the CPU load. You can see in the video, that there are two kick drum channels and two snare channels. Kick2 and Snare2 had one instance of Drumagog5 running, which I had to transform. That would have been no problem at all on my Windows PC. Therefore the overall performance seems to better, smoother and more stable on the MAC. Like I said, after 18 years with PC I'm just exploring the DAW-MAC-Universe:-)
In addition, I try to avoid to buy CPU hog VSTs. I demoed the Softtube TSAR-1 reverb plugin. This thing is insane, it sounds great but the CPU load is way too high for my taste. So I skipped the idea of purchasing this one;-)
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

I am using the X32 usb 32 i/o option, with Cubase 7 in my studio. I am trying to complete the signal chain by getting the audio from the X32 directed to the stereo out BUS in Cubase, for mastering purposes.
Any ideas?
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

I am using the X32 usb 32 i/o option, with Cubase 7 in my studio. I am trying to complete the signal chain by getting the audio from the X32 directed to the stereo out BUS in Cubase, for mastering purposes.
Any ideas?

on the x32 discussion forum I read once that some use to record with usb stick from x32 and import the stereo track back in daw. other option would be to use the routing options if you do not need all 32 tracks. I cannot guide you with the last option, Im still new to mixing and in the process to discover x32 :D. If somebody read this may please enlighten us? :)
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

I am using the X32 usb 32 i/o option, with Cubase 7 in my studio. I am trying to complete the signal chain by getting the audio from the X32 directed to the stereo out BUS in Cubase, for mastering purposes.
Any ideas?

That doesn't seem right, are you sure that is what you want to do?

If you are playing back tracks in Cubase, mixing and processing in X32 and want to get the X32 mains back into Cubase for recording a master track, that is fairly easy, but you need to be a bit more specific about what you are actually aiming to do.
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

That doesn't seem right, are you sure that is what you want to do?

If you are playing back tracks in Cubase, mixing and processing in X32 and want to get the X32 mains back into Cubase for recording a master track, that is fairly easy, but you need to be a bit more specific about what you are actually aiming to do.

I'm trying to record in Cubase ( which I've done) Mix the tracks in the x32 (which I've done) Then return the tracks back into the output bus of Cubase to the final mix down. (which I haven't done) I seem to be getting an audio loop.
 
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Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Also I'm getting what sounds like a sample rate snapping sound on my recordings.. Without knowing what exactly what the bite rate is in the x32, I've been recording the x32 into Cubase 7 with Cubase set at 48kz 24 bit.

Thoughts?
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

I'm trying to record in Cubase ( which I've done) Mix the tracks in the x32 (which I've done) Then return the tracks back into the output bus of Cubase to the final mix down. (which I haven't done) I seem to be getting an audio loop.

Yes, I sort of guessed that. What you want to do is record to a master stereo track. You set up your 32 tracks to play back to the 32 outputs (which you have done) and then you set up an extra recording track (stereo or two mono) and record from input 1&2 (or whatever ones you want to use) on the X32 you route your Main L+R to the two tracks/interface channels you have decided to use.

In Routing - Analog out, route Main L and Main R ( or a couple of mixbuses that you set to subgroup) to two outputs and preferably set them to Pre Fader tap if you use the main fader for monitor level. In Routing - Card out, you set one of the banks to Out 1-8 or out 9-16, depending on your other routing.
Now what you don't want to do is to send your Cubase master bus to the X32 and then return it to itself to create a loop, so you might as well not assign your channels to the master bus unless you also do a raw mix in the daw. I'm sure you get my drift


Your sample rate is probably correct, but you can easily check in the Setup - Config tab of the mixer. You also need to go into Devices in Cubase and select the sync there, it is probably default at internal clock, you want to clock it from the XUF-interface when recording. When mixing down, you might be able to let Cubase do the clocking (can't remember) but it should work with the card as source for this purpose as well, in which case there is no need for any extra fiddling.
 
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Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Thanks for the routing pointers. In terms of the clicking problem - the default 'internal clock' setting in the XuF devices set up window of Cubase, is not changeable. If I select 'externally clocked' below that, nothing changes. Still clicking and snapping.
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Your sample rate is probably correct, but you can easily check in the Setup - Config tab of the mixer. You also need to go into Devices in Cubase and select the sync there, it is probably default at internal clock, you want to clock it from the XUF-interface when recording. When mixing down, you might be able to let Cubase do the clocking (can't remember) but it should work with the card as source for this purpose as well, in which case there is no need for any extra fiddling.

Thanks for the routing pointers. In terms of the clicking problem - the default 'internal clock' setting in the XuF devices set up window of Cubase, is not changeable. If I select 'externally clocked' below that, nothing changes. Still clicking and snapping.
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Thanks for the routing pointers. In terms of the clicking problem - the default 'internal clock' setting in the XuF devices set up window of Cubase, is not changeable. If I select 'externally clocked' below that, nothing changes. Still clicking and snapping.

OK, it is more than six months since I have had Cubase connected to X32, so details are a bit vague at this point. Assuming the sync is actually up and running, see if increasing your buffers help. Other than that, search for Christian Boche and Cubase or hope he can chime in, I can't seem to find what he wrote about Cubase setup.
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Well, when working with the X32 in the studio, I normally use the build in preamps. I do have some of the fancy stuff like Neve 1073, Telefunken valve pres and such. So I know first hand that the impact of micpres to the overall soundquality is highly overrated in my eyes. I know, that sounds provocative, but I really belief that first of all you need a good song, than good musicians and a good song arrangement. If one of these three fails, you will never get a serious result. Nothing wrong with the X32 pres, in fact I really do like them and I think you can really achieve professional recording results with them and the X32 in general!

Everybody has its own idea of recording. Personally I was very soon sold to "in the box" mixing. Never understood the desire to mix your DAW tracks back trough a desk. Maybe when doing some acoustic music, or other music genres, that does not need heavy tweaking. But the deal breaker for me is "total recall". Mixing in the box is the easiest way to recall an entire song. So I use the X32 mainly as a soundcard, but with the advantage, that you can set up highly elaborate monitor cues for the musicians in no time and with nearly zero latency. That is just great! You got your build in talkback mic, can mix Mixbus cues and P16 cues, tweak the monitor signals with EQ/Dynamcis/FX for the musicians, all in "no time". I can say by now, that even when our nice Harrison analog desk is back from recapping, I will buy a X32rack or Core for the studio. And I'm quite confident, that it will be used a lot here. Especially on productions with tight budget. The X32 is a real time saver in the studio, at least for my personal style of recording.

Concerning VST plugins...Yes, I use a ton of them. Basically there is no mix in the last years, where I not used the FabFilter stuff, the Waves CLA classic compressors and the Waves SSL stuff. Concerning this demo production, I made a little screencast, that shows some of the plugins that I used during the mix. Because it is a demo recording, I mixed and mastered the song all in one. It is all about time saving here;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21028604/S1_MixdownRemember.mov

Christian

Hi Christian,
I am using an X32 with Cubase 7, and I am having syncing issues. I am getting the dreaded snapping sound in both recording and playback. I have the X32 configured on 'Local' and have tried many permutations on cubase in the device set up menu. No success. ASIO drivers in the synch control panel don't appear, and it is defaulted to 'internal' clock for the 'clock source' and that cannot be changed. I have been investigating word clock devices but X32 doesn't have the BNC connector. Per Sovik suggested I ask you.
What is your set up? And have you had the popping and snapping issues? Thanks.
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Forgot to mention levels, had to set up Reaper on a new computer today and didn't have my templates. Awful until I remembered to turn the outs down by 10 dB, can't remember how it was done in Cubase.
 
Re: Anyone using WDM drivers?

Hi Christian,
I am using an X32 with Cubase 7, and I am having syncing issues. I am getting the dreaded snapping sound in both recording and playback. I have the X32 configured on 'Local' and have tried many permutations on cubase in the device set up menu. No success. ASIO drivers in the synch control panel don't appear, and it is defaulted to 'internal' clock for the 'clock source' and that cannot be changed. I have been investigating word clock devices but X32 doesn't have the BNC connector. Per Sovik suggested I ask you.
What is your set up? And have you had the popping and snapping issues? Thanks.

Hi Jamie,
let's see what we can do on this. I guess, you are an PC and not MAC, right? First: This may sound silly, but are you sure, that you have installed the right X32 driver for the XUF card? There are two drivers, one for USB and another one for FiWi. Also be sure, that the right connector (FiWi or USB) is selected in the X32 (setup-->card-->interface).
If you open the control panel of the Behringer driver (USB or FiWi - that one, what you are actually using): Does it recognise the X32 at all?
It should display the ID Nummer of the desk AND it should also display all available XUF in- and outputs! If you start Cubase, please be sure, that Cubase AND the X32 match the same sample rate (both 44,1 or both 48kHz)!
If this is the case, you should be able to change the default Audio driver to the X32 ASIO driver within Cubase (under "VST-Conncetions"). "Internal" as clock source is right, no need to switch to external. The desk is sync master and the X32 is sync slave. Now you just have to add tracks, select the X32 inputs and you should be good to go.

If the ASIO driver does not appear in the VST Connection, than I'm quite sure, that you are using the FiWi port. This might be a FiWi chipset incompatibility. Be aware, this might even happen with a TI- FiWi chipset, rare but possible.
Anyway, did you tried both connections USB and FiWi? If not, do so. Like I said, if the board once get's recognised in the XUF driver panel with ID number AND all In/Outputs - than any DAW should display the XUF Asio drive in the driver selection.

Maybe this helps.
Keep us updated.

Christian
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Sorry Jamie and Christian, I sent this subtopic on a stray tangent. Jamie has got sync and it appears to be OK, as "internal" means that the sync source is the internal sync source in the XuF card, so no need for any corrections there. Having to select sync source probably only happens when more than one device is connected.

If the X32 and the project is both set at the same sample-rate, that should be about all that is needed for the sync to be right. There was this tip earlier about switching to the other interface and back on the X32 to get everything to line up and be recognized, ie if you are in USB, change to FiWi and then back to USB or vice versa.

The problem is most likely buffer size and/or levels, what appears to be normal levels within the DAW seems to be too hot for the interface.
I run my direct outs at -10dB, but can't remember how that was done in Cubase
 
Re: Using X32 with Cubase 7

Sorry Jamie and Christian, I sent this subtopic on a stray tangent. Jamie has got sync and it appears to be OK, as "internal" means that the sync source is the internal sync source in the XuF card, so no need for any corrections there. Having to select sync source probably only happens when more than one device is connected.

If the X32 and the project is both set at the same sample-rate, that should be about all that is needed for the sync to be right. There was this tip earlier about switching to the other interface and back on the X32 to get everything to line up and be recognized, ie if you are in USB, change to FiWi and then back to USB or vice versa.

The problem is most likely buffer size and/or levels, what appears to be normal levels within the DAW seems to be too hot for the interface.
I run my direct outs at -10dB, but can't remember how that was done in Cubase

Thanks guys, but all those options have been explored - switching back and forth to both Fiwi/usb, new cords, and then, I even went and got a new console from the dealer.
Now it appears to be worse.