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Interesting FRFR story..


Bridgehouse

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3 minutes ago, Jack said:

The problem with that is that anything else plugged into the mixer would need an identical channel in each scene. As in, say you have a vocal mix plugged in channel 1. When you change a scene to move from bass to guitar, you'll need an identical channel 1 set up for the vocal mic in the new scene. If youv'e changed a setting or something on the vocal channel it'll get really tedious having to scroll through lots of scenes to change it in all of them.

The other thing to do (as long as you have more channels than instruments) is have a virtual channel per instrument in the mixer (say, channel 1 for bass, channel 2 for guitar, etc) and then you can use midi to assign any given physical input on the mixer to any virtual channel. That way each instrument's channel would always be live and you would negate any scene issues. So there's one cable from your place on stage to the mixer, but you're using midi to essentially really quickly unplug that cable from one channel and plug in into the next. Mind you, I'd just have a channel per instrument and live with having several cables, no midi needed!....

This.

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21 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

Ah I see, thanks @Jack and @EBS_freak.

You're welcome, sorry I quoted your post but I'm aware that it was also aimed at @Frank Blank.

 

If you think of those rackmount mixers as mixers then they're versatile bits of kit. If you start to think of them as loads of inputs connected to a really flexible and reasonably powerful PC then they're truly astounding. I use the XR18 in two bands (with a scene for each band instantly recallable) and I love it. I lust after the Allen and Heath QUSB. Next time, maybe.

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57 minutes ago, Jack said:

You're welcome, sorry I quoted your post but I'm aware that it was also aimed at @Frank Blank.

 

If you think of those rackmount mixers as mixers then they're versatile bits of kit. If you start to think of them as loads of inputs connected to a really flexible and reasonably powerful PC then they're truly astounding. I use the XR18 in two bands (with a scene for each band instantly recallable) and I love it. I lust after the Allen and Heath QUSB. Next time, maybe.

You can also get startlingly good gig recordings out of them too. We upgraded to the 32 channel Mackie which allows you to edit separate channels after recording, an amazing secondary feature to have IMO. Can just leave an external hard drive hooked up and record every gig.

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3 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

You can also get startlingly good gig recordings out of them too. We upgraded to the 32 channel Mackie which allows you to edit separate channels after recording, an amazing secondary feature to have IMO. Can just leave an external hard drive hooked up and record every gig.

Oh man, too right.

 

We used to use a rackmounted pc with Ubuntu Studio on it, now we use the guitarist's laptop. The Behringer will do every channel (pre everything) but only over ethernet. The advantage to your Mackie (or I want the A&H) is that it does it direct to USB. My Behringer will only do stereo L+R to USB. Still it means we get every gig for just us to listen to (go over mistakes and that) and when we can bothered to set up a proper laptop we can have everything to mix later in a DAW.

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13 hours ago, Jack said:

We used to use a rackmounted pc with Ubuntu Studio on it, now we use the guitarist's laptop. The Behringer will do every channel (pre everything) but only over ethernet. The advantage to your Mackie (or I want the A&H) is that it does it direct to USB. My Behringer will only do stereo L+R to USB. Still it means we get every gig for just us to listen to (go over mistakes and that) and when we can bothered to set up a proper laptop we can have everything to mix later in a DAW.

I may have misunderstood what you wrote, but in my book ethernet should be far superior to USB in terms of just about everything.

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38 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I may have misunderstood what you wrote, but in my book ethernet should be far superior to USB in terms of just about everything.

Yes, it's technically superior for sure. However, the major drawback is that recording via ethernet requires another pc on the other end of the ethernet cable. You've then got to plug that pc into the wall, plug the ethernet cable in, turn it on, fire up a DAW, setup the channels, etc.

 

It's much easier to just plug a usb memory stick into a port on the mixer. 

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34 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I may have misunderstood what you wrote, but in my book ethernet should be far superior to USB in terms of just about everything.

That's true - that's why you use Dante over ethernet.

Anyway, it doesn't help that the comment above alludes to the Behringer doing it's recording over ethernet. It doesn't. The ethernet connection on the XRs are for network connectivity for control... and the other is for Ultranet, which is for their Aviom equivalent for monitoring mixing.

The key difference is that the Behringer presents itself as an audio interface (via USB) so a DAW etc is required for recording. Unlike the XRs, The A&H and Mackie mixers (not A&H GLD) will do direct to disk multitrack recording. (They will also present as an audio interface like the Behringer). For the X32 to record multitrack, you need to install XLive card, that will record direct to SD or use it as an audio interface like the XRs. If you want to record over ethernet from the X32, you'll need a Dante card.

I've got a couple of DL32R with Dante cards - that enables you to go 64 channels direct to my laptop for recording. Pretty cool stuff.

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9 minutes ago, Jack said:

Yes, it's technically superior for sure. However, the major drawback is that recording via ethernet requires another pc on the other end of the ethernet cable. You've then got to plug that pc into the wall, plug the ethernet cable in, turn it on, fire up a DAW, setup the channels, etc.

 

It's much easier to just plug a usb memory stick into a port on the mixer. 

Not ethernet! USB.

The other ballache with the XR - is that there is a maximum distance that USB cables can be without using relatively expensive repeaters (and adds to the chance of failure in the comms)... which means your recording device (eg laptop) has to be in close proximity to the XR.

Edited by EBS_freak
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15 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

I’m looking at a QSC TouchMix 8 for some reason...

Be careful - look at the QSC touchmix facebook groups. The sw isn't as stable as it could be (not that the audio fails - the interface generally locks). I dep with a band that uses a Touchmix 16 - and have to say it's pretty good - although it is running on the original firmware. I can see that if you want a physical interface on the unit, it is appealing.

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2 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Has anybody tried the XR series with non-Apple hardware, specifically Atom based Win10 tablets (Bay Trail and Cherry Trail)?

i use a Amazon Fire 10 tablet (with a side-loaded app store for Mixing Station Pro) for wireless mixing and a cheapo windows tablet with add on keyboard which can be hardwired to the router in case of wireless issues (not that it's ever happened but a wired backup is always a good idea)

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1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

Anyway, it doesn't help that the comment above alludes to the Behringer doing it's recording over ethernet. It doesn't. The ethernet connection on the XRs are for network connectivity for control... and the other is for Ultranet, which is for their Aviom equivalent for monitoring mixing.

Hah, this shows you how long it's been since we switched to using the guitarist's laptop and I stopped paying attention!

 

EBS is right, ethernet is just for control. My point about the behringer only recording stereo to a usb memory stick still stands, you have to use a pc and a daw (connected via USB not ethernet!!) to have all 18 tracks pre processing. So you do still need a seperate PC to have 'proper' recording. The A&H and a few other mixers can do every track straight to a memory stick which is the superior solution IMO. One less thing to worry about.

Edited by Jack
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18 minutes ago, intime-nick said:

i use a Amazon Fire 10 tablet (with a side-loaded app store for Mixing Station Pro) for wireless mixing and a cheapo windows tablet with add on keyboard which can be hardwired to the router in case of wireless issues (not that it's ever happened but a wired backup is always a good idea)

Nice one cheers, do you know what chipset the tablet has? I have a spare Windows tablet which has a Bay Trail Z3735 knocking around which I never use.

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31 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Nice one cheers, do you know what chipset the tablet has? I have a spare Windows tablet which has a Bay Trail Z3735 knocking around which I never use.

i'll dig it out and have a look - it's not very powerful at all but runs the XR mixer windows software just fine (i think we even recorded a gig with it once via USB)

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1 hour ago, lemmywinks said:

Has anybody tried the XR series with non-Apple hardware, specifically Atom based Win10 tablets (Bay Trail and Cherry Trail)?

Can't vouch for Atom but the MS Surface Pro, 4Gb RAM i5 with the XR18 is a pretty good combo. I'd imagine even the Atom stuff would be fairly capable as you can run up the XR software on a Pi no hassle at all... and is responsive. The app appears to be very lightweight.

Edited by EBS_freak
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6 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

That assuming the port for the windows version has been done as well as the pi

That's a point, if the lead platform was IOS then it may be optimised for ARM. Then again the Pi is so underpowered even compared to the Bay Trail Atom I don't suppose that would really matter.

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EBS now seen that the writing is on the wall and want to help kill of rock n roll.

This into a FRFR would be pretty cool... it's basically Fafner 2 yeah? And their onboard compressor. Sweet.

OK - so we don't know about speaker sim... but am I right in thinking that a lot of people are running without a speaker sim on their FRFR setup? I know I am!

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17 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

EBS now seen that the writing is on the wall and want to help kill of rock n roll.

This into a FRFR would be pretty cool... it's basically Fafner 2 yeah? And their onboard compressor. Sweet.

OK - so we don't know about speaker sim... but am I right in thinking that a lot of people are running without a speaker sim on their FRFR setup? I know I am!

I wonder if we will see the way we process signal change over time? If we need a preamp of some kind to feed either FRFR speaker, PA, IEM mix or even a more traditional bass rig it seems you’re either going to go for something analogue like this, or something DSP based like a Helix, or even the processing on a digital mixer. I find it interesting that as he’s expanded it Bergantino,s B|Amp is essentially a DSP processor in front of an amp. 

For my needs 90% of every gig I’ve ever played could have been done with a helix or similar feeding FOH and my amp/IEM as needed ... so it makes sense, for a lot of them amp, and cab emulation would be good. But one of the blockers for me is having to engage with some complex UI with far too many options and things going on. 

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https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2019/01/25/tech-21-introduces-the-power-engine-deuce-deluxe-cabinet/

Looks as if Tech 21 are jumping on the FRFR bandwagon. 

I hope it's got a bit low end capability than the Tech 21 VT Bass combo I tried late last year. I like the inclusion of HPF & LPF, but I'm not a fan of rear facing ports. 

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