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Behringer XR18 or Soundcraft UI16?


Silky999
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Folks,

I’m after your collective wisdom.....

as the title says, I’m looking to move from my old Yamaha O3D to something a little more updated and more importantly smaller and lighter.

I have no experience with Behringer or the Soundcraft but I have seen an X32 in use and was bowled over by it. It’s for my 4 piece rock/pop band and I intend to use it wired to my laptop as opposed to wireless the majority of the time. I’m primarily looking for ease of use, flexibility and sound.

Any advice or opinions greatly received.

 

 

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Xr18 over Ui16 but Ui24 over Xr18.

The ui16 has inferior mic pre amps to the Xr18 although there is an Xr18 Midas. The Ui24 has way better pre amps than the 16 and sounds the bollox. The Soundcraft Interface is much more user friendly and easier on the eye, thats what swung it for me.

Whichever you choose an external router is a must.

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Had a UI12 which was a joy to use but we foolishly didn’t have an external router. We returned to conventional mixer pretty swiftly after various dropped connections. UI24r is a different beast - much better implementation. With Behringer or Soundcraft, external router is a must. 

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I’m not sure if the Ui16 has it but the Ui24 I believe has a feedback destroyer algorithm which is a real benefit. I have successfully used an XR18 for a few years and can’t speak highly enough about it but I have to use an outboard FBD. If I was purchasing now I would go with a Ui24.

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I have a UI24, it is a really impressive bit of kit, there is an owners forum on Face Book where I did a load of research before deciding on the Soundcraft over the XR18,. From memory a couple of features that swayed me in favour of the UI24 were the number of monitor (aux outputs) and the fact that you could switch the them linked stereo outs for a stereo in ear monitor mix and having tried it, it makes a big difference!

I believe the Pre -amps in the UI24 are viewed as being of higher quality than that of the XR18

There was also something about the way you connect to the Soundcraft with your phone / other devices which was seen as more stable than having to connect to an app, whichever ever way is actually best, once you are connected to the UI24 the connection has been very stable.

Now a couple of things to be aware of and this comes from personal experience of the unit:

Believe everything you read about not relying on the internal WiFi router, even at rehearsals with the band in my mates front room the unit kept losing the signal and kicking us out, in a packed pub situation (those were the days!!) it would have been unusable, you will need a decent external router, once that is hooked up connection issues will go away......I understand the XR18 is also criticised for the same issues! I actually run mine with a small touch screen monitor connected directly via the HDMI port and a USB input so irrespective of the WiFi connection you can always get to the mixing desk.

The unit wants a stable power source and decent ventilation, an unstable power source will cause the unit to crash as will over heating due to poor ventilation.....I would assume the XR range would also be susceptible to the same issues?

The UI24 is a massively capable bit of kit (far more so than I have been able to get out of it) it is a big change from a physical mixer but it does seem to be the way forward and it is amazing that so much technology can be squeezed into such a small box!   

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The ui24 has 8 aux (monitor) outs plus main L/R. They all have individual feedback eliminators, Individual 30 band eq, Compression , gate.

There are 2 virtual aux chanels plus 4 virtual input channels- get your head round those..

Its also a great sounding DAW interface & can record 20 inputs to seperate tracks on a usb stick.

I could go on and on... 

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We had lots of connectivity issues with the Ui24. A guy from another band asked how far are the IEMs? We just moved the IEMs further away and the unit works well. It is very good, that the unit keeps all settings after power off or if there is no unit connected to it. Powerful, yet simple enough. Presets for instruments and vocals, effects, comp... and 8 AUX. Did I say it's lightweight and compact?

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