X32 Review

[paulears]

For info, the Alliance and Leicester charged £30 for the transaction, roughly 2/3 of the extra discount - it also added 3 days before the Thomann site reported payment arrived and delivery commenced.

[themadhippy]

paul sprocket and Silvester are no longer,santander took em out a few years ago

[paulears]

Yep - but it's not done yet.

http://www.limelight.org.uk/santander.png

[themadhippy]

well bugger me, I was an alliance customer for years,everything on my account has been changed over to sandanader for ages.must just be the commercial side thats holding out.

[paulears]

You're only 50% buggered = because the Alliance and Leicester logo changes to the red Santander one every now and then - kind of reminding you, and the big red changes box has been there from when they announced it. I had the first batch of cheque paying in envelopes with Santander last week - but my paying in book is still A&L - I guess the next one wlll be changed - probably once they use up the old stock. The actual pages where you do the banking stuff are still very much yellow and blue.

[alangeering]

X32: we've been running one in parallel with our older A&H desk for four weeks now. In two weeks time enough people on the team will have been trained and it will become the primary desk.

 

I thought there was a fault with one channel when I first used it but then realised that you can actually turn the leds behind the scribble strips off. I presumed it was dead but it wasn't.

 

I'm finding I'm able to train people relatively quickly on the basics. The thing people struggle with is hat there is often more than one way to do things. In fact I can think of 4 ways to alter the amount of signal sent from one channel to a mix bus. (Rotary's, knobs below he screen, sends on fader by bus, sends on fader by channel).

 

The workflow of setting up the different mixes (monitors, feeds to video system, record bus, etc.) Via sends on fader is more intuitive to me now than the old method of reading along the rows and rows of knobs).

 

So far very happy.

[plinque]

Roland introduces the M200i mixer

 

http://www.rolandsystemsgroup.com/articles/100552

Looks interesting, certainly different.

Will try to get a look tomorrow at the InterBEE exhibition here in Tokyo.

Roland are pricing it at pretty much exactly X32 money.

[bl33dingsaint]

I am absolutely dying to get my hands on an x32. Having difficulty finding a dealer in Northern Ireland so as to get to play with one and will probably have difficulty convincing the Council to spend the modest sum (any tips guys?).

A wee question for anyone who has used one or has one - does the smart phone bay on the bottom-right serve any function other than somewhere to set your phone? And if that's the case, can't we have cupholders too?

 

Daryl

[niclights]

It serves no function other than to place your phone. However, if you place the board on the floor you could put one foot there in a rock style pose...

[d_korman]

I've had mine since mid-August. So far very pleased with it. Everything is working correctly - no niggles at all.

 

I've just ordered an S16 from Thomann - delivery expected at the end of November.

 

My S16 arrived on Dec 7th, along with a Sssnake Cat 5 and a Cordial patch cable.

 

S16 very easy to set up and does what it says on the tin.

The Sssnake cable is pretty tough and very flexible. The reel is a little plasticy but adequate, and has a brake,

[indyld]

I'm finding I'm able to train people relatively quickly on the basics. The thing people struggle with is hat there is often more than one way to do things. In fact I can think of 4 ways to alter the amount of signal sent from one channel to a mix bus. (Rotary's, knobs below he screen, sends on fader by bus, sends on fader by channel).

 

I'm finding this too, although I am currently only testing the PC app which looks like it presents the different ways more equally than maybe using the hardware. In this case, maybe knobs and faders take precedence for the user. However, it does seem as if different buss masters appear in multiple places which I'm finding a little confusing along with the various on-screen faders that are presented in the screen tabs. Like I say, perhaps this is another example of when the hardware makes more sense than the software version for a first time user.

 

Some of the things I can't work out how to do are probably more related to my analogue past (well, in sound) and lack of flying hours on a digital desk. Do I take it one can't assign custom faders per se? So, have some inputs, returns and busses all next to each other? I get the way the In and Out layers work so I assume they are fixed in that respect.

 

Other things I have yet to suss are things I'd do on an analogue desk including:

 

* Having a reverb return patched to an input channel and then routed with, say, all the radio mics to include group processing (feedback control and group compression / parallel comp group)

 

* Insert compression to a group. Or even actually create a group for that matter.

 

I'm sure these things are more to do with my lack of workflow knowledge using digital than the X32 software itself.

 

Update:

 

Think I might have sussed the above now. The problem was I was looking for a way to switch a DCA into a Group when perhaps I should have sent all the inputs to a Mix Bus, inserted the required wotsits to the Bus, and then routed the results to a Matrix or Main out. It's kinda hard to visualise with just the software and without real outboard pumping away.

[niclights]

The offline editor is not an ideal way to understand the console at the moment.

 

I can't remember if you can assign DCA's, mixbus or matrix to the input faders, but you definitely can assign FX and aux returns. The dedicated aux/fx fader layer has EQ and dynamic limitations so it is useful to have the option to move them onto the main input layers (along with accessibility).

 

There is a 'subgroup' option for mixbus. Effectively this is a shortcut to a fixed 0db postfade send. To use in a traditional live environment you would then select the relevant mixbus and route it back to LR, just as you would on an analogue console. You can then use the mixbus EQ and dynamics over the group as required. Obviously you would normally turn off LR routing on the input itself.

 

Note that mixbus options can be assigned globally (ie. all inputs) or individually. When subgroups are assigned globally (probably the most sensible way) then the sends are muted by default on all inputs. Unmuting a send is then the equivalent of pressing a group button on an analogue console.

Mixbuses are assigned in pairs. In the case of subgroups this means they default to a stereo pair. If you required two separate mono groups you have to change them to postfade and manually dial in the send.

[indyld]

Just to add some first impressions to the thread mainly with a view to learning. This is coming from someone much more conversant with analogue sound kit (plus modern lighting control, which probably makes a difference) and after less than 2 hours of prodding and NOT bothering to look at the user manual.

 

- The gooseneck light is on the wrong side, it would be much better at the dark other end where you really need to see the legends on the encoders until you get the hang of them. If you aren't careful with the focus, the light stalk is quite short and mainly reflects in the TFT making it harder to see anything at either end. OK, that's the lampie bit out of the way . :)

 

- Not really a -ve but there are rather too many ways to do the same thing which is going to confuse learners. I'm going to default to teaching using pots and buttons where possible (EQ, Dynamics etc) and Sends On Faders for mix bus activity. Sometimes I reach for the screen knobs and then realise that it's all a bit fiddly.

 

- Entering custom text for the scribble strips seems fiddly and not sure if it will take a USB keyboard.

 

- I'm currently in the wrong screen a lot and the screen changes only with the relevant View button pressed or using the window or nav buttons. This and having the wrong thing selected (and sometimes on the wrong layer) means it's easy to get lost a lot when you start out. Similar to other digital desks to a certain extent I suppose.

 

- Sound wise, on with a system, venue and track/format I'm familiar with I'd say it sounds very clean and clear and lacks a bit of warmth. Someone is bound to tell me that this is what digital sounds like.

 

- Qlab and FW input seems to just work. This is encouraging as we are quite Qlab heavy on many shows.

 

- Some options for saving the show / settings / scenes are not that clear initially.

 

- Setting up mute groups and DCA is stupidly easy.

 

As everyone keeps saying, it's blimmin' good for the money when it comes to first impressions at least. So all that needs to happen now is we all need some flying hours on the X32 and to get up to speed enough to use it on the musical next term and see if we can break it. At the moment using the analogue outs as still awaiting the S16s to arrive which I think are coming in Jan.

 

Further updates to come if they add to the discussion.

[paulears]

Connect to a PC and then the scribble strip is a doddle - although the latest software update has simplified it a bit. There's no keyboard facility at the moment. The latest update has a de-esser which is nice.

 

I have a suspicion that the X32 is going to evolve like Chamsys - many ways to do things depending on the users preferences. I actually think this is a good move. Some people like menus, others hate them - so with the PC enabling clicking on a box to type things in, while the console itself uses up/down/left/right style gives plenty of options. Somebody was telling me that it's a bit like when we had split and in-line audio mixers in the studio and how many people attempted to use in-line like they used splits - each to their own!

 

I'm trying very hard as I've no real pressure, to NOT open the manual and so far it's worked pretty well - a few things I found in odd menu areas, but once you know......

 

I've had no problems recording to PC and MAC - although I'd not realised the latency involved in running Cubase (my preferred audio software). Cubase via parallels actually works great, but has nearly half a second of delay - BUT is stable, and then I can take the project and folders back to the studio PC. Recording into the Mac software I have usually means just faffing around with lots of files. I've not tired firewire on the mac at all as USB is fine.

 

So far - so good!

[RichM]

Hmmmm, one of my house techs reported a desk crash the other day. Said he was mixing a show when the surface froze, then after around 10 seconds rebooted itself. It passed audio whilst frozen but obviously didn't as it did the reboot.

 

I'm putting the latest firmware on it today, guess all I can do now is keep an eye on it...