Behringer XR18 X-Air

[musicman7722]

Got mine up and running and did my first gig last Friday night. I used my Apple external router and everything went fine. I dig the form factor. Put it on the floor nect to the drums. Had a labeled card attached to the mixer handle so the players knew which channels to plug in. They were all amazed at how neat it made the stage.

More soon.

 

[jad]

I gigged mine for the first time last night. Pretty loud rock cover band - 4 vox, drums, wireless bass, 2 wireless guitars, keys. Powered mains, subs, and monitors. We run our own sound at small venues like this one. I brought a laptop and external router but never got them out. I ended up controlling it with my Ipad all night, set up on a mic stand. I did not set my Ipad to stay on all the time, so when it went to sleep it would disconnect. It almost always reconnected cleanly upon restart but 3 or 4 times it either hung, or would show the faders for a bus although the mains were selected. A restart of the app fixed it each time. Musicman7722 mentioned a card for channel connections, I marked the channels on mine with laser printed address labels trimmed to be as small as possible and leaving the channel numbers uncovered. I asked my band mates to start the cable runs at the stage box and work outward during set up, so any extra mic cable length didn't end up in a rat's nest by the drums.

Set up through sound check went flawlessly. Guitar player set up his monitor mix with his android phone, and singer did his with an android tablet. I set up the drummers monitor mix and my own. After the mixes were set, I rang them out myself. It was pretty much a "set it and forget it" night, as usual. I don't think anyone touched their monitor mix during the gig, although I did notch out a bit of a ring that cropped up in the lead singer's monitor in the first set.

What did I like? This mixer is much more feature rich than my analog rig. I used to run 2 monitor mixes because that's all I had graphic EQs for. Based on video evidence, the extra monitor mixes resulted in a better vocal performance. I used to have only one multi FX unit, now I have 4. I look forward to leaving the big mixer case and rack at home (until they sell). With the stage box form factor I find that I can use shorter cables for the backline than I could with the analog mixer set up next to me at stage right. I did run a couple of thirty footers around the edge of the stage for the lead singer's mic and monitor. Being able to tweak the mains from the room with the Ipad saved a bunch of time and gave better results than hopping on and off stage to make adjustments. Having the RTA for ringing the monitors sped up that process a bunch. This particular small stage felt much roomier without a big mixer next to me.

What didn't work so well? The problems with reconnecting from sleep mode weren't a huge deal, but they did hold up the break music for a tense couple of minutes. Setting up 4 new monitor mixes and a FOH mix took a little while, but that's mostly a one time deal, since I have the scene and snapshot saved on all my devices. It seems like leaving the RTA on slows down controller responsiveness.

What will I do differently in the future? Probably plug in my Ipad and leave it on all night, or just bring my Win7 Ultrabook and hardwire it after sound check now that I see that no one wants to change monitor mixes once the show starts. I'm considering picking up a drop snake to run to the front of the stage so I can use short mic cables everywhere. I have an antenna extender coming that will get it up off the floor, but so far that's a solution in search of a problem. I'll probably not mute the break music channel in the future, I'll just control it at the source.

 

[musicman7722]

I had my ipad set to stay on and it never disconnected. In fact I set it up for 2 days in my garage and checked it every so often. It never disconnected. Mind you I had an apple wap that I used with my DL1608. I will give myself 2-3 more gigs and then put the DL up for sale. I think I will pickup an 8' mini snake to plug into the aux and main outs and run that back behind the stage to connect my PA and monitor tops cables. This just makes one neat cable running back vs. 4. My band is a very quiet 4 piece with all singing. I picked up a pair of TC-Helicon FX150 powered tops for side fills. These sit on mike stands and are 150 watts. I run the mains into them and we use them with thew main mix as our mons.

 

[musicman7722]

Oh one note. I like the gains being digital however my fingers have a hard time with a rotary pot on the glass surface. One time I was adjusting the guitar gain and it went to max OMG the feed back. From now on I will bring my ipad touch pen to adjust the gain pots.

 

[seamonkey]

Oh one note. I like the gains being digital however my fingers have a hard time with a rotary pot on the glass surface. One time I was adjusting the guitar gain and it went to max OMG the feed back. From now on I will bring my ipad touch pen to adjust the gain pots.

Tuna Knobs

Suction cups with a little wiper that touches the screen
Or you could do little suction cups and train your fingers, your thumb rests on the suction cup nipple while your finger tip touches the screen as you to a twisty action. Could be handy for adjusting multiple knobs at once.

I will say also that for some interfaces, if you put your finger on the knob and slide it up or down, left or right, it usually just turns the knob you started on, but it doesn't work so good for multiple knobs at once.

 

[musicman7722]

I was PM'd by a thoughtful member who said I could just treat it as a slider.

 

[pfschim]

still no word on the XR16 mixer ? I know this thread is for the X18, but I just don't feel like I need 16 mic/pre inputs. When we provide our own PA we get by (more or less) with 5 mic/pre inputs today and a single aux (monitor) mix out, so the XR16's 8 (plus 8 more unbalanced in's) and 4 aux outs would seem to be plenty - and a pretty nice step up in terms of ins/outs as well as other features that a digital board can provide.

When I look up the XR16 on SW or MF, I keep seeing availability dates pushed out. This has been going on since Jan. Does anyone have any idea when this particular mixer will actually be available for purchase ?

Ultimately, I may end up with the X18, but it is not my first choice.

 

[jimfist]

If you can't wait, consider the Soundcraft Ui16, same format and comparable price.

 

[pfschim]

If you can't wait, consider the Soundcraft Ui16, same format and comparable price.

the Soundcraft unit looks good, thanks for the tip jimfist. I see that there is even a Ui12 as well. I am not a live sound expert in any way, would you say that the Soundcraft mixer is comparable to the Behringer (or Mackie DL series) in terms of features and functions and quality ?

 

[jimfist]

Soundcraft has been a big name in quality mixing consoles for decades. As reliable and quality a company as you'll find. I've owned and or used the daylights out of a number of Soundcraft analog desks over the years. A good friend who does a lot of high profile local sound rentals uses a Soundcraft Si Expression 24 input digital mixing console. It's good stuff, trust me. Both he and I also regularly use the Mackie DL1608 for smaller, lower profile gigs, and it also works fine and is worth considering if you don't mind being married to iPad/iPhone control over the mixer. This is actually the main reason why I'm moving away from the Mackie (the mandate that you must only use an iPad, and no other control such as computer, android, MIDI control surface, etc.).

I've been MIA on this thread that I've started due to the fact I've had a lot of things (good things!) going on in my personal life that have been taking up a lot of my spare time. In fact, tonight I just downloaded the latest XAir Edit version for my laptop. It looks to be shaping up nicely and I think I'll be ready to test drive this thing at a gig soon. I'm sort of caught in between, though, as I want to use a Surface tablet to control the X-Air, but don't own one yet. I do have android and iPad, so those may suffice, but I'd prefer to have all of the features 100% available via the Edit software. I also want to make sure that I've got the wired/wireless network stuff down for when I do start to gig with the X-Air so I'm not caught with my pants down.

Looking good, though.

 

[pfschim]

Thanks for the additional info.
I really liked the Mackie upfront, but seeing that it does not have the wireless router integrated in the base unit - that is a negative for me. I have an ipad, but it's a newer version with the lighting port and that drives the cost of the Mackie units up significantly.

the Behringer drew my attention because it has the wireless router integrated into the base unit. It looks like the Soundcraft mixer does too.

all of this is very interesting to me. Just want to make the right decision based on a pretty weak level of experience with live sound gear.

 

[jimfist]

I don't know. According to Musician's Friend, these will be shipping next week. Looks like the XR16 should be readily available soon. Give them a call and see what they say. Sweetwater is also a good vendor.

 

[pfschim]

well, that was kind of my point in the first post .. all vendors have been saying pretty much the same thing for several months ... expected to ship at some fairly near date and it keeps moving out.

 

[jimfist]

No matter which way you go, you'll need to bone up on your skills and understanding of the concepts of sound mixing with any of these newer digital mixers. They ALL are surprisingly sophisticated little devices compared to what you'd typically get in a similarly priced analog mixing board. I'd say that the Mackie stuff has the most user friendly learning curve and ipad app, with solid features (but only 2 track recording). I haven't used the Soundcraft control app, so no idea how it compares. The Behringer software (X-Air Edit) could be a little confusing for a novice IMHO. A little clunky, but I personally have no problems with it as I've been using digital mixers for over 15 years. My biggest concern has to to with how quickly I can move around the virtual controls of the tablet applications. They've gotten better, but none are as fast as a knobs and faders console. JMHO.

 

[pfschim]

got it. I actually do have some experience with mixing, and more or less understand the working of mixing boards. I just don't consider myself a pro level sound guy in any way. I hoping that some of the new features (feedback killers, pre-loaded eq curves, ability to save room settings) will help someone like me who is familiar, but not expert.

I guess we'll see soon enough. Spoke with bandmates last night at rehearsal and the general will seems to be to pick up one or another of these newer digital mixers and give it a spin as soon as next weekend. We are totally outrunning the capabilities of an older Mackie 8 channel board with just one aux out. For reasons I won't get into too deeply (we have members who are in the media end of the business), we have ready access, and the attention of a reasonably wide range of vendors who are more than happy to help us out with gear (mixers, main and monitors) - so its really a matter of picking the best way to go.

thanks for your insight and tips

 

[Sky Hook]

Dear oriah86,

The X AIR Mixers are designed to be a stand-alone unit that you can place anywhere you need and be controlled remotely in the venue, eliminating the need for a snake. That said, the X AIR Mixers are not able to be chained together as you asked. If you want more channels with similar functionality of the X Air mixers I would suggest looking into an X32 Rack or even an X32 Core.

I'm an "Out of box" thinker mostly because I can never seem to afford the box I want. I understand the X AIR Mixers are not designed to be ganged together but... theoretically could you take the output of one and bring it into the Line Input of the second?
I think the bigger issue would be trying to control them from a PC/iPAD/Tablet etc... Can they be programmed on two different IP addresses? if so,easier on a PC rather than the tablet type, couldn't you have two internet windows one logged into the 1st and the other logged into the 2nd.
I am thinking of a church application where every dollar saved is both desired and a blessing. There are many both physical financing and political issues determining the budget.
I personally love the x32 and would love to have it at this church as i did at my previous. However, even if I went with the x32 core and one 16 channel digital snake we are looking at about $300 more than two X AIR XR18 units and we would need two 16 channel digital snakes for our application and now we are at $1200 more.
So my two questions are:
1) Would my idea for connecting them and operating them work?
1b) And if 'Yes', would it be two convoluted and too difficult to manage 3-5+ times a week probably for several years?
2) Is it one of these cases where just because you can doesn't mean you should?
Thanks in advance for reading this and providing some feedback (no pun intended).

 

[BassikLee]

I see two big hurdles with your proposed "linking" of two. First is control. Worst case, you have to control each with its own dedicated surface. That's not a huge deal. Tablets are cheap. The biggest issue is the fact that you'll now have, potentially, several monitor mixes available, but the ones driven by the first mixer can only have that mixer's inputs in them, while the ones driven by the second can have the second mixer's channels, plus the combined "submix" input. Let me clarify. For the sake of this example, we're going to use mixer A for all the instrument inputs. Drums, bass, gtrs, Keys, horns, what have you. So, we mix all that down to "band, stereo", into mixer B. This one handles all the vocals for the music portion of the worship service, as well as the spoken word mic inputs. Great right? Yep. Now, the drummer's monitor mix needs him in it, as well as bass and keys. No electric gtr(he's too loud on stage), but a fair amount of acoustic, AND he'd like to hear the lead vocal stuff, the choir, and all the spoken word. That's gonna be your issue. If you drive all the monitors from the second, "master" mixer, you can't control individual channels from the slave mixer in the monitors. That reason alone MIGHT be enough to justify waiting for a single mixer that will do it all.

 

[jimfist]

It seems to me that the most logical use for a sub-mixer would be to accommodate a very large drum kit with lots of toms and aux percussion. Generally speaking, a boatload of toms (timbale, octabans, bongos, etc.) can be considered as a stereo pair grouping. You either want to hear that grouping in a monitor mix, or you don't. Nobody usually asks for more Rack tom #2, but less of floor tom #1, am I right. Of course, I would assume that the key components of the drum kit, if mic'd, would need to remain with the Main Mixer (kick, snare, HiHat/OH mic, sample or loop triggers, etc.).

Otherwise, I think it is far better to have all 32 channels in a single mixer (X32 with expansion module in the Behringer realm), or the Mackie or Presonus 32 input rack mixers. I just don't see a great benefit to the convoluted things you'd need to concoct to make this all work, other than the above mentioned dedicated drummer's toms/aux percussion submix.

 

[seamonkey]

I'm an "Out of box" thinker mostly because I can never seem to afford the box I want. ...

Look for youtube videos on XR18 with Waves Tracks Live (free)
I dont know for sure but I suspect you can have multiple mixers connected to it.
I can mix interfaces with ASIO4ALL and make them look like one big one.

In this case, it's like a light DAW, but uses the mixers for input

Aedour may also have some options.

 

[jimfist]

Look for youtube videos on XR18 with Waves Tracks Live (free)
I dont know for sure but I suspect you can have multiple mixers connected to it.
I can mix interfaces with ASIO4ALL and make them look like one big one.

In this case, it's like a light DAW, but uses the mixers for input

Aedour may also have some options.

Interesting. Are there any latency issues caused by the round trip through software?