X32 Feature Request and Issue Reporting Thread

[Chris Clark]

I'm sure this has come up here before, I know its been beaten all the way to the glue factory on soundforum, but I'd like to make one last push (from me - this is a primary reason for wanting the X32 over the analog boards we already use) for the board security options.

The general response to this has been "R&D is looking at how to best implement this" - I'm not sure if this means just the best way to present it to users or whether it is actually a question of how to get the board to work with it, but if its the former, this is what I envision for it.

I would say options for 3-4 different levels: "Owner", "Technician", and "Operator" or something like that. Owner would have access to everything with no options to lock out, then "Technician" and "Operator" would have two lists of parameters that are set by the Owner as to what they can and cannot control. Ultimately, this list would be similar to the Scene Param/Channel Safe lists, INCLUDING the ability to lockout Faders, etc, with the addition of another column for Scene Save, Scene Recall, etc.

Owner would be able to set the passwords for all levels, perhaps 6 digit numerical passcodes set by the rotary encoders below the screen? There could also be an option for the Technician to adjust the level of control allowable to the Operator (within the constraints of what the Technician can edit - If the Owner has prevented the Technician from adjusting the Routing, for example, the Technician would not be able to allow the Operator to adjust the Routing. Along the same lines the Operator would inherit the same restraints that the Owner has set for the Technician level has automatically), and perhaps an option where the Operator doesn't have a passcode (in instances where security from the general public messing with the board is not a concern)

That's how I see it/would want it. There's some wiggle room obviously and the possibility others would have different opinions. These settings should be board-wide and not included/recallable within the scenes whatsoever. In this scenario, the Owner (or Installer?) would make the initial setup of an installed board and perhaps even the first adjustments. He could then set a Technician level for his company staff to come back and make adjustments in the future or a person at the install location who is to be trusted with future adjustments to things like EQ and gain, but not routing. Finally, the Operator level would be set to allow normal operation of whatever the mixer is used for, but not make changes to the gain or EQ.

I hope this isn't too long, is understandable, and isn't out of place. Thanks for listening, R&D, and I hope to see features like this implemented in the near future.

[Tony Dawson]

Features I would like on my x32

1- Mute There needs to be an option where an individual channel mute overrides any mute group setting. In effect a channel mute needs to be a "hard mute" and a mute group a "soft mute", as they work on most analogue consoles. There also needs to be a way of seeing which mutes are due to a group and which are the individual channel mutes.

2 - scene memory's we need more than 100 for most musical productions also the means to insert a scene between 2 already recorded scenes it would also be good to be able to set a timed fade between scenes.

[Paul Mirtschin]

(Cross-posted from http://soundforums.net)

Dear all,

Aside from a dedicated and assignable Smaart-like analyzer, we are planning the inclusion of high-end FX “plug-ins” based on physical modeling of classic audio hardware. Our algorithm development engineers are essentially “rebuilding” classics from Neve, SSL, Urei, Pultec and others into effects that will be included on the X32.
Well-known and loved gear such as the LA-2A compressor, Lexicon reverbs and even a multi-band compressor are on our list. The FX "Plug Ins" alone represent a value worth several thousands of dollars if you would buy the actual hardware.

We are also working on some pretty amazing pitch shifting and pitch correction tools for the X32. Imagine pitch correction on every console and the power of what that will allow you to do in a live or recording environment. The best part is that these effects will be made available as part of a regular firmware update and hence will be free of charge to X32 owners!

Please leave comments here but also on our forum where we have a dedicated thread. (www.behringer.com/forum)

Uli

As with a lot of people here, I'd like to see better security in scenes/iPad/device control.

You already are planning my main wish - an RTA. At the moment, that function is the only thing I really miss. Perhaps you could also allow us to patch in a reference mic and have a running SPL meter on the meters page as well.

Plugin-wise... A multi-band compressor would be nice. As well as opening up the plugins to other developers.

[Pauly Mel]

G'day Uli

Congratulations on the success however I'm sure you understand you deserve it! You have done such good work you've turned the audio world upside down!

Now - to my request -
From a recording standpoint - I would dearly love to be able to select any input (mic/Aux) for the firewire card, pre- or post eq/fader etc. This would open up the usefulness of the desk to me as currently, to use (say) an Aux input, into a channel, and then to the firewire card it's a bit of a pain.

Being able to select pre/post eq to the firewire would mean that if I dial in a killer kick sound, I can record it!

Also, having the 16 channel faders available to the DAW would rock - I'm aware of the midi channel thing however Mackie have the extender to add 8 more faders so I'm sure it's wihin your capabilities!

Thanks again.
Thanks

Hello All,

At the request of Terence Sharp, who posted in the X32 Discussion thread ( http://soundforums.net/junior-varsit...ussion-38.html ) on SoundForums.net, we're setting up this thread to collect feedback from the community on X32 feature requests and issues.

Please post your comments here and I'll ensure all the right folks at BEHRINGER read them.

Thanks!
-Mike

[Declan Slater]

Hey Uli, (and all the Behringer guys)...

Thanks for giving us all a chance to rant about the crazy things we want your sub $3000 mixer to be able to do!

My 3 sugguestions:
1. Add a expander function to the gate, so we can use it along side with the compressor. Need it to clean up noisy guitar amps and other sources without having to settle for just a gate.

2. Get rid of the "pop" when we hit the phantom power button. Somehow Roland does it on thier consoles, maybe you could make the channel automatically mute for a second after that is switched on/off? It's a drag to hear popping sounds when switching scenes with various phantom power states...

3. Make the direct outs switchable for pre/post mute, and the output busses also switchable that way too. When using the p-16m, some guys want to have the sends to that post mute also. When mixing channels on auxes to feed to a channel on the p-16m - some guys want the option of having that pre-mute. Right now it's a weird mix of both, that I can't modify.

Thanks for the chance to rant!

Declan.

[Deborah Crook]

I've been running sound for a smallish convention over the weekend, using an X32/S16 pair as the main sound desk. We had some serious issues, though:

1. We had quite a few loud pops on the main speakers. We were recording via the XUF card to a PC, and have these captured; what we saw was multiple inputs going from zero to full scale (both positive and negative full scale observed at different times) for a single sample, and then returning to zero on the following sample. Mix bus outputs tracked this spike with a 16 sample delay, and main FoH outputs (which had a TruEQ inserted) showed the same spike with a 40 sample delay.

We believe that the hotel's mains supply may have been noisy -- our hypothesis is that there may have been some kind of inductive switching resulting in mains-borne noise -- but we're a little suspicious that this may have induced problems in the digital domain. Can you comment? For the third day of the convention, we fed the main desk via a Samson PowerBrite, and didn't have this problem beyond that point. Do you expect to need mains filtering (or online UPS) on the X32 (and / or the S16)?

2. More seriously, on three occasions the desk spontaneously switched itself off, and refused to turn back on for around half an hour. On the first, we initially identified the problem as having been a corroded power pin on a mains cable; however, we checked the whole chain of the power feed after that, and it couldn't have contributed to the second and third cases. We now believe that the first case may actually have been the same as the other two, although we can't prove one way or the other.

In the second case, the screen and all lights on the desk just turned off. Switching mains off and on did nothing; the mains cable was checked and found to be supplying 240V normally. After ten minutes switched off, turning back on still did nothing. Our best guess was a thermal shutdown; after a further fifteen minutes switched off with adjacent exterior doors open (and outside temperature around 0C) the desk restarted normally.

In the third case, we saw almost identical behaviour, except the desk shut down, started rebooting about a second later, completed the reboot sequence and activated the control surface, and then instantly shut down completely, refusing to reboot for around half an hour again. After the second occasion, we had relocated the desk to be further from heating vents, and ambient was (estimated) around 22-23C.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour? We had an extremely sympathetic audience who had been warned we were trying new technology; with a normal audience, we'd have been lynched. Fortunately, given we hadn't run an event on the X32 before, I'd taken a Soundcraft Live4 analogue system (and a multicore snake) as an emergency backup. Rewiring the stage and the entire desk mid-concert definitely comes under the heading of Not Fun, though, even with a sympathetic audience. Right now, I can't consider using the desk for higher profile events, which is deeply disappointing and annoying; apart from these issues, the X32 was a near-perfect fit for this kind of use (small-medium music convention), but that's a really big "apart from".

I sent a much more detailed version of this (but without the third shutdown documented) to care@ on Saturday night; I'll follow up with the details of the last incident.

[Jim Knowles]

I've been running sound for a smallish convention over the weekend, using an X32/S16 pair as the main sound desk. We had some serious issues, though:

1. We had quite a few loud pops on the main speakers. We were recording via the XUF card to a PC, and have these captured; what we saw was multiple inputs going from zero to full scale (both positive and negative full scale observed at different times) for a single sample, and then returning to zero on the following sample. Mix bus outputs tracked this spike with a 16 sample delay, and main FoH outputs (which had a TruEQ inserted) showed the same spike with a 40 sample delay.

We believe that the hotel's mains supply may have been noisy -- our hypothesis is that there may have been some kind of inductive switching resulting in mains-borne noise -- but we're a little suspicious that this may have induced problems in the digital domain. Can you comment? For the third day of the convention, we fed the main desk via a Samson PowerBrite, and didn't have this problem beyond that point. Do you expect to need mains filtering (or online UPS) on the X32 (and / or the S16)?

2. More seriously, on three occasions the desk spontaneously switched itself off, and refused to turn back on for around half an hour. On the first, we initially identified the problem as having been a corroded power pin on a mains cable; however, we checked the whole chain of the power feed after that, and it couldn't have contributed to the second and third cases. We now believe that the first case may actually have been the same as the other two, although we can't prove one way or the other.

In the second case, the screen and all lights on the desk just turned off. Switching mains off and on did nothing; the mains cable was checked and found to be supplying 240V normally. After ten minutes switched off, turning back on still did nothing. Our best guess was a thermal shutdown; after a further fifteen minutes switched off with adjacent exterior doors open (and outside temperature around 0C) the desk restarted normally.

In the third case, we saw almost identical behaviour, except the desk shut down, started rebooting about a second later, completed the reboot sequence and activated the control surface, and then instantly shut down completely, refusing to reboot for around half an hour again. After the second occasion, we had relocated the desk to be further from heating vents, and ambient was (estimated) around 22-23C.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour? We had an extremely sympathetic audience who had been warned we were trying new technology; with a normal audience, we'd have been lynched. Fortunately, given we hadn't run an event on the X32 before, I'd taken a Soundcraft Live4 analogue system (and a multicore snake) as an emergency backup. Rewiring the stage and the entire desk mid-concert definitely comes under the heading of Not Fun, though, even with a sympathetic audience. Right now, I can't consider using the desk for higher profile events, which is deeply disappointing and annoying; apart from these issues, the X32 was a near-perfect fit for this kind of use (small-medium music convention), but that's a really big "apart from".

I sent a much more detailed version of this (but without the third shutdown documented) to care@ on Saturday night; I'll follow up with the details of the last incident.

Hi Deborah,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I am sorry to hear you are having issues with your X32. I will PM you right away to discuss this further.

Kind Regards
Jim Knowles
CARE EMEA / Tech Support
MUSIC Group / BEHRINGER

[Jürgen Kirkovits]

Both problems sound like a hotel power issue to me. Try getting a small UPS (1000VA) and see if it happens again (which I highly doubt).

[Ozzy Stone]

My only requests after a month using the X32 are
1 to be able to assign a buttom to a especific page of a efex like FX 2 eq B
2 to be able to copy 1 graphic eq I did on graphic eq a and paste it on b
3 a wealthy preset library to have start point for on the fly

[John Swenson]

I've written an OSC program which access the meter data from the X32, but the OSC library I use throws away the meter messages because the path portion of the message is illegal. All legal paths start with a slash "/", but the path portion of the meter messages is missing the slash.

For example I'm subscribing to /meters/6, but the return message just has meters/6. The meter messages going to XControl also have the same issue, they just have meters/5. Other return messages seem to get it right and include the slash, it's just the meters that seem to have the problem.

The OSC library I'm using performs extensive validity checking on incoming messages and throws away any malformed messages, which is the correct behavior according to the OSC spec. So in order to get these meter values I have to download the source for the library and hack it to turn off the validity testing.

Please fix this,

thanks,

John S.