Members UstadKhanAli Posted July 9, 2012 Members Share Posted July 9, 2012 What is it about these data transfer protocols that makes them any worse than, say AES or SPDIF or IDE or SATA or PCI? I know you're not asking me, but these data transfer protocols you mention are a lot more reliable than firewire. All one has to do is do a search on firewire audio interfaces to see how much trouble they cause. And I won't even get into frying motherboards or how many firewire HDs I've had go down due to FW solely as compared to internal drives (none). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members techristian Posted July 9, 2012 Members Share Posted July 9, 2012 Has anyone here done the math on this thing? What is the maximum bandwidth on Firewire, new USB 3.0 and Ethernet? I just went to their website and watched their little video. "32 channels over Firewire AND USB 2.0" perhaps they are combining both for greater bandwidth? http://www.behringer.com/en/Products/X32.aspx Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted July 9, 2012 Members Share Posted July 9, 2012 I know you're not asking me, but these data transfer protocols you mention are a lot more reliable than firewire. All one has to do is do a search on firewire audio interfaces to see how much trouble they cause. And I won't even get into frying motherboards or how many firewire HDs I've had go down due to FW solely as compared to internal drives (none). Oh-- you 're preaching to the choir here: I lost a canon gl-2 due to the crappiness that is miniFW, I've never been able to get FW audio happening on one of my production laptops, and I currently have an audiofire12 on the way to echo for repair. That said, when FW works, it works quite well and the same goes for USB. I've made plenty of money using USB and firewire based devices, and I'm not sure why it is inappropriate to use these kinds of devices for producing music... I don't think reliability at that level is a real problem (we're not piloting unmanned aircraft or running pacemakers, after all), but if that's why the devices are supposedly unsuitable for media production, then I suppose I just disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted July 9, 2012 Moderators Share Posted July 9, 2012 I don't see anything game changing about this. And as a live sound person, it's still pretty much inviting disaster to have a digital console in a club with rotating sound people. There's no time to learn the board in an environment like Austin where the bands have maybe 15 min to set up before the first downbeat. Analog consoles are still cheaper, more reliable, and more intuitive. They might fail, but at least they don't lock up and the faders don't ever "fight" you like automated faders sometimes do after the mixers have gone a little wonky. They can also take the occasional beer bath with much greater aplomb than a digital console. When all is said and done, what benefit in this situation does a digital board afford? It's nice to have snapshot automation if you're soundchecking several bands, nice to have parametric EQ on every channel, nice to have built in EFX, etc but in a rapid paced live music environment you simply don't have time for any of that. All you have time to do is grab faders and go, maybe touch up the drum EQ for a minute before you start. And as someone else said, it's nice that Behringer has access to Midas' engineering, but they also have to WANT to make their gear more reliable. We'll see how that works out... Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 9, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 9, 2012 when FW works, it works quite well and the same goes for USB. I've made plenty of money using USB and firewire based devices, and I'm not sure why it is inappropriate to use these kinds of devices for producing music... It depends on who you ask and what your standards are. If yoiu ask Dan Lavry, maker of some really fine A/D and D/A converters, about Firewire, he'll tell you that the timing accuracy between channels of a multichannel stream is inconsistent. It's not far enough off so that the drums will get out of time with the bass sometimes and not others, but it can be far enough off to cause comb filtering between sufficiently like sources on two or more channels. Not much, but enough to measure, and maybe, just maybe, enough to hear sometimes. But, yeah, it will get 8 channels or maybe 24 channels from one box to another without more errors than can be corrected. And it's probably plenty good for the other 99%. I guess people are learning some things about USB, and computers are getting more powerful so it can handle more channels. The first multi-channel USB interface I can remember was from TASCAM. It used USB 1.1 (because USB 2 hadn't been invented yet) and could record four channels while monitoring two. It took a long time before 8 or more channels over USB became common. But now both DigiCo and Prism are using USB-MADI to pass 56 channels over USB. And these are top drawer companies who make expensive gear, so they have a reputation for sound quality to uphold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 9, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 9, 2012 When all is said and done, what benefit in this situation does a digital board afford? It's nice to have snapshot automation if you're soundchecking several bands, nice to have parametric EQ on every channel, nice to have built in EFX, etc but in a rapid paced live music environment you simply don't have time for any of that. All you have time to do is grab faders and go, maybe touch up the drum EQ for a minute before you start. You're on the way to answering your own question here. For example, if Austin becomes a Behringher X32 town, you can move from venue to venue, plug in your USB memory stick, have all your channels assigned, basic EQ and effects set up, and you can even play a multi-track recording of the band off that memory stick back through the console (I think - don't quote me on that) and do a "virtual" sound check to tune up the room while the drummer is still unpacking his cymbals. I realize this is a bit of a pipe dream, but that's one reason why so many people use Pro Tools. You can plug your disk drive into any studio and the project will come up just like it did in the last studio where you worked. Hey, in the early days of digital multitrack recorders, Nashville became a ProDigi (Mitsubishi) town where New York and Los Angeles studios all had DASH (Sony) recorders. Probably because the ProDigi machines were cheaper and gave you 32 tracks over DASH's 24. Eventually when the bloom wore off the rose, people decided that the Sony sounded better so Nashville studios eventually had to switch in order to keep the business. Maybe the same thing will happen with digital consoles in venues that can't afford a Yamaha or DigiCo and the shows that ask for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I don't see anything game changing about this. And as a live sound person, it's still pretty much inviting disaster to have a digital console in a club with rotating sound people. I totally agree with you post in its totality. I've never had time to get much of anything out of a digital board in a small club environment even though I've gotten quite a bit of work because I was the only one who could be found who could run a digital board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I realize this is a bit of a pipe dream, Dunno if THIS board is going to be the one set the new standard, but your post makes sense. Seems everytime a new paradigm was created it was initially met with skepticism of "this will never catch on." Heck, it wasn't more than a couple of years ago that people were laughing about this new thing Apple was calling an "iPad"....it wasn't a phone, it wasn't a computer, and it had a stupid name. What was anybody going to do with it? It only makes sense that digital consoles are not only going to eventually replace analog consoles almost completely, but will do so in an integrated, universal fashion. I can certainly forsee a future where every club in town ends up buying the same affordable digital board because the soundguys and the bands essentially demand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sventvkg Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I totally agree with you post in its totality. I've never had time to get much of anything out of a digital board in a small club environment even though I've gotten quite a bit of work because I was the only one who could be found who could run a digital board. Well a few of the big showcase clubs in Nashville are running Digital Boards..those high end Yamaha's at 3rd Lindsley and the Rutledge. I'm more interested in the prospect of being able to have your show programmed in and run from the stage. Lots of bands are running their ears from the stage using a presonus Studiolive. They have some ability for 6 aux mixes to be set up independently so it's good for those purposes plus fx, recall etc. This Behringer might find it's place into house sound systems just like the Yamaha's are. I've seen lots of digital board rigs around Nashville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I'm more interested in the prospect of being able to have your show programmed in and run from the stage. Lots of bands are running their ears from the stage using a presonus Studiolive. Indeed-- if you have a lot of prep time, they are pretty good. I really like the m7 and have used it a lot. And if you are travelling with one just for your ears (I worked a show once where the band was in fact travelling w/ such a thing), it seems super cush. Though if you can afford to travel w/ a 32ch m7 + ears and other production, I imagine that you could travel w/ a nice 48 ch analog console just as well. But if you're doing a different band (or four) every night and you don't get a sound check, or if you're playing on other people's systems all the time, its not an ideal situation, even if you know the board really well, as you have to set things up from scratch just like you do with analog, but with the overhead of many more possible unknowns lurking in the board setup, IME YMMV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 10, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 It only makes sense that digital consoles are not only going to eventually replace analog consoles almost completely, but will do so in an integrated, universal fashion. I can certainly forsee a future where every club in town ends up buying the same affordable digital board because the soundguys and the bands essentially demand it. That's the wrong way to approach it. If there was only one console manufacturer, wouldn't that be boring? And they could charge whatever they want for it. The real pipe dream is to have an open standard for the things that people find most useful in digital consoles. It wouldn't matter if the venue had a Yamaha or a Behringer or a PreSonus or a Line6 or a DigiCo or a Soundcraft. You plug in your USB thumb drive, push the LOAD button and you have all your channels set up, all your aux send levels set, all your scenes with their effects ready to recall. But we've had DAWs for 20 years now and we still don't have anything even close to that yet. But I think that the real problem here is that there are too many people trying to operate sound equipment who don't know how it all works. They imagine that if they can set up the same way every time they'll get the same sound every time and they won't have to worry about it. It doesn't work that way. At least it never did for me. And why do kids these days all need six independent stereo in-ear monitor mixes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 And why do kids these days all need six independent stereo in-ear monitor mixes? With in-ears it's kinda all-or-nothing. You don't need stereo, but it's hard to share mixes like you would with wedge monitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted July 10, 2012 Moderators Share Posted July 10, 2012 And why do kids these days all need six independent stereo in-ear monitor mixes? Kids these days?!?!? I remember the late 70's, small but well appointed venue, they all requested multiple mixes. Dankos' solo tour, Roy Buchanan, The Ramones, The Tubes, Jean Luc-Ponty, The Headhunters, Jerry Garcia Band, John Klemmer, Lee Michaels, Chuck Mangione... all of those acts, circa '78 and many many more, had individual monitor mixes. Just my little experience of what I saw. Hardly kids these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 10, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 With in-ears it's kinda all-or-nothing. You don't need stereo, but it's hard to share mixes like you would with wedge monitors. Yeah, but people don't seem to accept that wedges are mono, and that for years (and still) headphone feeds in studios were mono. This generation thinks that all earphones are stereo, then they ponder over why they can get six mixes when their new console has six aux outputs. It takes a lot of time to set up six independent stereo headphone mixes so I suppose that as long as they decide that the same mix every time is good enough, a mixer with full recall is what makes it possible for them. But we know that this isn't the way it should be done, don't we? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 10, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 Kids these days?!?!?I remember the late 70's, small but well appointed venue, they all requested multiple mixes. Dankos' solo tour, Roy Buchanan, The Ramones, The Tubes, Jean Luc-Ponty, The Headhunters, Jerry Garcia Band, John Klemmer, Lee Michaels, Chuck Mangione... all of those acts, circa '78 and many many more, had individual monitor mixes. Well, yeah, but they hired professional sound companies or carried their own equipment, and almost always had their own engineer, maybe two or three. Those were the days when there was big money for big tours. There are still some like that, but the people who are looking for StudioLives and X32s are local bar bands who carry their own gear and usually don't have a dedicated mixing engineer. Or they're a church youth band where, you know, "the guy who did the sound left and I don't know how he had things hooked up." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I think a digital mixer isn't going to be of benefit for club gigs. In fact, most of the things I see in club gigs are 8 to 12 channel 'powered-mixer-in-a-box' setups. Most of the problem comes from: (1) Not being able to find anyone to do mixing who can even operate an analog console who (2) doesn't think it necessary to push the volume on every song to the verge of feedback and (3) has an ear for mix detail and knows what EQ knobs do AND(4) knows enough about using Aux buses to set up a passable floor wedge mix... It's not impossible, but I've only run into about 5 people this year who meet these qualifications, out of probably 150 live shows I've seen (a side benefit of being off work on medical leave - more time to see shows). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 Yeah, but people don't seem to accept that wedges are mono, and that for years (and still) headphone feeds in studios were mono. This generation thinks that all earphones are stereo, then they ponder over why they can get six mixes when their new console has six aux outputs. It takes a lot of time to set up six independent stereo headphone mixes so I suppose that as long as they decide that the same mix every time is good enough, a mixer with full recall is what makes it possible for them. But we know that this isn't the way it should be done, don't we? They really care that much about stereo? We use six stereo mixes with my band because that's the equipment we have, but send everything 'up the middle' anyway. (Dual mono?) If you sent these bands a mono mix, would they REALLY know the difference? What sort of stereo panning are they expecting to hear? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted July 10, 2012 Moderators Share Posted July 10, 2012 But I think that the real problem here is that there are too many people trying to operate sound equipment who don't know how it all works. . That will always be the case but the board should still be usable by them. In fact, I'd say that's essential to live music. And why do kids these days all need six independent stereo in-ear monitor mixes? Stereo feed to the IEM transmitter is great so the beltpacks can be put in "more me" mode, i.e. the performer gets a full band mix on one channel and his vocal + instrument he's playing in the other so he can tweak that during the show without having to yell at or make confusing gestures at the monitor mix guy. I've mixed countless shows where there's a monitor mixer on stage and 8 mixes or more where each performer can have EXACTLY what they need in their wedge or in ears and yet once the show starts the monitor guy is hard pressed to understand and accommodate all the requested changes at once. By contrast, using the stereo beltpack with "more me" seems to work faster and just as well, usually. Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted July 10, 2012 Moderators Share Posted July 10, 2012 With in-ears it's kinda all-or-nothing. You don't need stereo, but it's hard to share mixes like you would with wedge monitors. Yep. I think one of the big things about IEMs vs wedges is that with wedges you can move around stage a bit to tweak what you're hearing (closer to your amp, farther from an idiot lead singer's wedge, etc) but moving around with IEMs doesn't change what you hear much. That's both a good point and a bad point of IEMs. *** kicks FCC and Shure in their collective dick for auctioning off the frequencies of my PSM400 systems and not compensating musicians for that *** Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted July 10, 2012 Moderators Share Posted July 10, 2012 Well, yeah, but they hired professional sound companies or carried their own equipment, and almost always had their own engineer, maybe two or three. Back when I was a tour sound guy I traveled with the artists who hired the sound companies regionally but carried us (the monitor engineer and me). Usually the sound company had a guy to explain the routings and any quirks of the consoles but sometimes (even back then) I'd end up running an unfamiliar automated console and the first question out of my mouth (if there was anyone there to ask) was "How do I turn the automation completely off" followed by "How long does this thing take to reboot if it loses its mind so bad I have to cycle the power?" Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rekel Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I think one of the big things about IEMs vs wedges is that with wedges you can move around stage a bit to tweak what you're hearing (closer to your amp, farther from an idiot lead singer's wedge, etc) but moving around with IEMs doesn't change what you hear much. That's both a good point and a bad point of IEMs. That's true if you can actually move around on stage Drummers, keyboardplayers, pedal steel guitarists, etc are stuck to where they've set up their instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KB Gunn Posted July 10, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I suppose that as the initial poster of "Game Changer", it would be important for me to elaborate. Consider the cost/function ratio of this product line. Those that would benefit most from it are places like churches and small coffee houses. These often have different people with little experience changing the settings on analog mixers. The switch they use most successfully is the "Suck Button". Imagine having a system that has the ability to have snapshots of different regular performers controlled by different sound men, all with consistant level, eq, compression and mix. In addition, they could have a usb thumb drive to record the stereo output. They could have each musician with a 16 track personal stereo mix of the band. They could record 32 discreet tracks as well if desired. For a church or small club to do this in the past, it would have been cost prohibitive. IOW, this will give them an opportunity to improve their sound and performance exponentially without breaking the bank to do it. This is what Presonus started with the SL concept. That was the first game changer. This Behringer design is the next step in the changing of the game. This is not necessarily going to do anything extraordinary for the professional touring sound provider or the pro recording studio, but it is going to open up vast improvement for the little guy that needs a fixed system for one venue. The idea of game changer is just an expression to emphasize the significant Moore's Law changes in the audio field. The competition of Behringer is going to now be forced to equal or surpass the X32 and a new price war will ensue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 10, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 They really care that much about stereo? I hate it when I say things like this (and some people get upset at me for it) but . . . it's not that they need stereo, it's that they don't know anything else. Two ears. Two earphones, the earphones have a stereo plug. They don't know that it's possible to feed the same signal to both phones from a mono output. There isn't anything in the manuals about this. There isn't "a web site that tells me how to do it," at least not one I know of to recommend. You and I and a lot of others understand this, but a whole lot of people buying this gear are complete novices. And they don't have anyone (or don't bother to find anyone) locally who can get them started. If you sent these bands a mono mix, would they REALLY know the difference? Probably not. Sometimes a stereo headphone mix is useful in the studio because it helps you to pick out details that you don't have time to think about on stage. The big boys have stereo mixes because they can, and they probably have enough studio experience to want to try to replicate it on stage. You can do it if you have the right stuff and the right crew. Now what would be a game changer is if people would pay me to come to them and teach them what they need to know, but this is a "do it myself" industry. That's why I have trouble keeping up the boat payments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted July 10, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 I've mixed countless shows where there's a monitor mixer on stage and 8 mixes or more where each performer can have EXACTLY what they need in their wedge or in ears and yet once the show starts the monitor guy is hard pressed to understand and accommodate all the requested changes at once. By contrast, using the stereo beltpack with "more me" seems to work faster and just as well, usually. PreSonus has a setup for the StudioLive where musicians on stage can use an iPod or iPhone to mix their own monitors, and the engineer (or the bass player or whoever "does sound" for the band) can control the whole console from an iPad. But once they start playing, don't they have something better to do than mess with their monitors? Like play music, maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted July 10, 2012 Members Share Posted July 10, 2012 I hate it when I say things like this (and some people get upset at me for it) but . . . it's not that they need stereo, it's that they don't know anything else. Two ears. Two earphones, the earphones have a stereo plug. They don't know that it's possible to feed the same signal to both phones from a mono output. There isn't anything in the manuals about this. There isn't "a web site that tells me how to do it," at least not one I know of to recommend. You and I and a lot of others understand this, but a whole lot of people buying this gear are complete novices. And they don't have anyone (or don't bother to find anyone) locally who can get them started. I get that. I was just saying that, if we're talking about a band showing up to a house board, if you send them a mono signal are they really going to know? Especially if they are young "kid" bands? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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