The compact mixing desk thread

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

As a cut down mixer maybe you are expected to add your own WiFi router if you need to use that, and save money if you don’t. This is not like the XR where you have to use an external device. 

 

Yeah - that's a fair point Dave. The CQ12T and 18T are standalone desks effectively featuring a "built in tablet".

 

I guess the lack of wifi on the 12T is a product differentiation point - the 18T is £175 more and for that you get: 6 extra inputs, wifi, an extra 2 FX and 3 additional control dials. Worth the extra (particularly if you get lucky as I managed, and pick up a B stock 18T for only £40 extra!). If everything was available on the 12T other than the extra inputs, there would maybe be a lot fewer takers for the 18T or the 12T would need to come in at a price point much closer to the 18T?

 

Fyi - in terms of the additional FX on the CQ18T, the 4 categories on offer:

1. "easy verb" - 3 vocals, string slap, percussion, drum room, string, brass, woodwind & piano

2. "echo verb" - with different flavours and delay times

3. fully fledged chorus

4. double tracker

 

I'll probably stick to easy verb for the vocals, otherwise there's definitely risk of option paralysis: the desk is actually doubling up as a multi-channel multifx!

 

Edited November 21 by Al Krow

[dave_bass5]

16 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

the A&H is a new device, the XR is a decade old device at this point and the wifi was not uncommon at the time, and available on all the models 12/16 and both 18s. And you don't 'have' to use an external device, I didn't for years and only once had an issue.

 

The point is there is virtually no saving for the company not having a wifi built in and whether you call it 'cut down' or not, is still considerably more expensive than the most expensive of the XR mixers.

Can i ask how you use the XR18 without a tablet or computer? Obviously you can plug in and it will work, but i cant see any way of controlling it without another device. The QT is self contained by the looks of it. 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

I guess the lack of wifi on the 12T is a product differentiation point - the 18T is £175 more and for that you get: 6 extra inputs, wifi, an extra 2 FX and 3 additional control dials. Worth the extra (particularly if you get lucky as I managed, and pick up a B stock 18T for only £40 extra!). If everything was available on the 12T other than the extra inputs, there would maybe be a lot fewer takers for the 18T or the 12T would need to come in at a price point much closer to the 18T?

 

Hardly - the differentiation is obvious. I would pick the 18 over the 12 purely because I want more than 10 jack/xlr inputs. Same as the XR series, you get a 12, but need more channels, get a 16, need multichannel get an 18.

 

57 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Can i ask how you use the XR18 without a tablet or computer? 

 

With an X-Control which is generally how I use it, but not sure I get the point? Do you mean as to why A&H decided to save money on their £666 mixer by not including a £2 wifi connection? 

[dave_bass5]

44 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

With an X-Control which is generally how I use it, but not sure I get the point? Do you mean as to why A&H decided to save money on their £666 mixer by not including a £2 wifi connection? 

Ok, so with an X control. Isnt that an extra box? How is that an extra device, but that apparently you don’t use one 😂

 

Please post the link to how much adding the wifi adds to the box. 

 

Why getting so stroppy? Its not the weekend yet 🙄

 

Edited November 21 by dave_bass5

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

. Why getting so stroppy? Its not the weekend yet 🙄

i was literally going to say the same to you. I am sorry if I caused offence by saying that I thought it was a silly commercial decision to not put Wi-Fi on a expensive mixer, I didn't realise you were a shareholder or something

[tauzero]

7 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Can i ask how you use the XR18 without a tablet or computer? Obviously you can plug in and it will work, but i cant see any way of controlling it without another device. The QT is self contained by the looks of it. 

 

You're either deliberately or accidentally misinterpreting @Woodinblack's reply.

 

You said

 

"As a cut down mixer maybe you are expected to add your own WiFi router if you need to use that, and save money if you don’t. This is not like the XR where you have to use an external device. "

 

so @Woodinblack (and I) naturally assumed that the external device that you were referring to was the router which you mistakenly assumed was necessary to use wifi with the XR series, possibly because so many people say that the XR wifi is unusable (it isn't). Hence his reply

 

"And you don't 'have' to use an external device, I didn't for years and only once had an issue."

 

referring to an external router, not an external controller.

 

So, to sum up

• A router is unnecessary to connect to an XR box but it's not a bad idea to use one
• Some external device is needed to control the XR box, which can be a wired control like an X-Touch or BCF2000 or a tablet connected by wifi
• Don't believe all the bollocks you read on the internet about what is and isn't necessary

[Jack]

5 hours ago, tauzero said:

• Don't believe all the bollocks you read on the internet about what is and isn't necessary

Speaking of which, can someone clarify the app control stuff on the A&H? My XR18 is due an upgrade...

 

Does it work perfectly fine if connected to an external router? This would be for me on soundman with a tablet and others on only their IEM mix with their phones.

[dave_bass5]

5 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

You're either deliberately or accidentally misinterpreting @Woodinblack's reply.

 

You said

 

"As a cut down mixer maybe you are expected to add your own WiFi router if you need to use that, and save money if you don’t. This is not like the XR where you have to use an external device. "

 

so @Woodinblack (and I) naturally assumed that the external device that you were referring to was the router which you mistakenly assumed was necessary to use wifi with the XR series, possibly because so many people say that the XR wifi is unusable (it isn't). Hence his reply

 

"And you don't 'have' to use an external device, I didn't for years and only once had an issue."

 

referring to an external router, not an external controller.

 

So, to sum up

• A router is unnecessary to connect to an XR box but it's not a bad idea to use one
• Some external device is needed to control the XR box, which can be a wired control like an X-Touch or BCF2000 or a tablet connected by wifi
• Don't believe all the bollocks you read on the internet about what is and isn't necessary

So you ‘naturally assumed’ and yet it’s me in the wrong? 😂

i was told you don’t need any other hardware to use the XR18, and then when asked how you do that was given the name of an external device. How on earth is that not confusing and not what i asked? 

 

The XR needs a controller of some sort, the  A& H is self contained. No need for WiFi unless you want to use it like that. You can be up and running without adding anything. 

 

Al Krow understood what i said, 

[Chienmortbb]

I always thing CQ20 when talking about the range in general and the fact that the CQ12 has a control screen does mitigate the lack of WiFi to some extent. I suspect that the CQ12 was introduced to make the range start in the "fun zone" price wise with the Behringer and Soundcraft models and to differentiate and justify the price difference between the CQ12/CQ18/CQ20 there some functions were omitted or disabled.

 

As I had a Soundcraft Ui16 before the CQ20, a so called stagebox mixer had no fears to for me so the screen was not as attractive to me as someone migrating from an analogue mixer. In A&H's defence, and referring to my former jobs at an audio/video manufacturer, removal of some functions can make a tremendous difference to the final price of the unit. It was driven home to in a previous job where we were designing and audio video equipment for Aircraft. We were buying 15" TVs and modifying them for use in Aircraft. The rep came in one day and said they were changing models.  The major loss was that  the new model had no headphone socket. The reason was that very few people  used them. The cost to the manufacturer of the part was 50p or about  70 US cents. When it was on sale in the shops, that 50p became £2 to the customer.

 

Now it may well be that the WiFi module on the CQ12 is disabled and that is a no cost upgrade that A&H could do but then they would need to add an Antenna, more wiring, more cabling and a small amount of extra weight. All of which add to the final cost. That could make the CQ12 uncompetitive and reduce the differential with the CQ18. I am not justifying it, just saying that there may be good commercial reasons for positioning the CQ12 in the range and in the market.

[Al Krow]

@Pirellithecat as requested, some fuller impressions on the A&H CQ18T having spent about 6 hours getting up to speed on it.

 

1. The interface and menus are pretty intuitive to get to grips with. There's decent online YT hints / tuition plus a detailed manual. 

2. In the relatively short time I've spent so far I've managed to get a 'scene' set up with input levels mirroring what I had with my analogue desk, but with the benefit of 4 tailored outputs, which we can tweak when we meet up to gig. So far I've based on what my bandmates typically want in their IEMs e.g. more own vox for the singers etc.

3. I'm loving the fact that you can label all the inputs / IEM outs and save everything as you go along to create a basic template and then make a back-up in seconds. If you're used to creating patches on a multifx starting with a basic template then you will feel very at home with this desk.

4. The 7" screen is great and the dials make it easy to adjust the faders, actually even more precisely than physical faders which was an unexpected capability - I suspect if we had been limited to a touchscreen it would have been the other way around.

5. I've set up the 3 soft keys to: mute the main outputs, mute the IEM outputs and to record / stop multitrack recording.

6. Speaking of multitrack recording - I'm also loving having the ability to record up to 16 tracks at 96 kHz sample rate which can be any combination of individual tracks, plus the FoH output if you also want the latter, and tweak input/output levels via the touchscreen. That feels like a massive step up from an analogue desk (even with multi-track capability like my existing Soundcraft MTK12) where we've need to plug into a laptop and often with glitchiness in terms of not all tracks getting recorded.

 

The one thing I've not figured out yet is whether it is possible is to apply something more bespoke than the low/high/mid EQ adjustments to the inputs? Similarly I've so far only found a one touch button for HPF and compression for inputs, whereas e.g. on the HPF it should be possible to tailor at what frequency the HPF kicks in at? But I've managed to apply a bespoke, albeit global across all the channels, PEQ to the outputs including an HPF cut and a 3dB boost in the lower mids.

 

Obviously the desk needs to be tried out in anger with my band live, but I'm already feeling pretty confident now that I've got a basic grasp of this to get a decently mixed FoH sound and IEM monitoring for us. I'm also feeling less worried about not having physical faders given the mute switches. Anyway fingers crossed!

 

Edited November 22 by Al Krow

[Woodinblack]

7 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

The XR needs a controller of some sort, the  A& H is self contained. No need for WiFi unless you want to use it like that. You can be up and running without adding anything. 

 

Al Krow understood what i said, 

 

What I didn't understand was why you said it. I said 'I think it is a bit cheap to not have a wirless hardware, which is pretty cheap to do on an expensive mixer'.  you said, because you belived it was because it could be used standalone, which is true and a valid reason, if not a bit cheap, but then mentioned that the XR wasnt standalone. Which is what caused my confusion, as I didn't mention the XR (until asked about it) or see your point.

 

Obviously just a dissagreement, you don't think it is cheap on a £600 mixer to not have a wireless connection, I do, whether you can use it standalone or not. The CQ18 can be used as standalone too, but it has wireless, so I would assume the arguments are the same. I don't really see the CQ12 as a cutdown CQ18, just one with fewer channels.

 

I think it is a shame, there are many more people who could stretch to the CQ12 and only need that number of channels, but couldn't stretch to the CQ18, but wouldn't go for it because it wasn't wireless.

[Phil Starr]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

4. The 7" screen is great and the dials make it easy to adjust the faders, actually even more precisely than physical faders which was an unexpected capability - I suspect if we had been limited to a touchscreen it would have been the other way around.

My experience is that a touch screen is also superior to actual faders in terms of how easy it is to make fine adjustments, though that depends upon rock solid wifi I suppose as well as how well the software is thought out. Big sliders and a simple screen layout help.

[Phil Starr]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

6. Speaking of multitrack recording - I'm also loving having the ability to record up to 16 tracks at 96 kHz sample rate which can be any combination of individual tracks

Once you've played a couple of gigs and recorded them you can then do virtual tweaking of each channel. Optimise each persons vocal or instrumental sound without them having to be there. This is great for eq, reverb and delay on the vocals

[police squad]

17 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Once you've played a couple of gigs and recorded them you can then do virtual tweaking of each channel. Optimise each persons vocal or instrumental sound without them having to be there. This is great for eq, reverb and delay on the vocals

that's actually a really cool thong to be able to do

[Woodinblack]

20 minutes ago, police squad said:

that's actually a really cool thong to be able to do

 

Its also handy to listen to isolated tracks to spot problems

[Owen]

15 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Its also handy to listen to isolated tracks to spot problems

Hmmmm...............awkward........!

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Owen said:

Hmmmm...............awkward........!

 

haha - I didn't mean peoples playing problems (although I do listen to my own to spot things I need to improve, but stuff you dont' notice in a mix, like i have noticed the bass drum has a sort of double tap to it and things like that.

[Al Krow]

 

Reckon it's taken about 10 hours solid for me to get to grips with the new A&H desk, including just now setting up the tablet for remote access to adjust settings on the fly from the floor. Does feel like quite a step up from our old trusty, but decently capable, analogue desk. I think I'm feeling sufficiently confident now to give the desk a first outing at a pub gig tomorrow night. Wish me luck, haha!

Edited December 4 by Al Krow

[TheRev]

Does anyone know how much audio (i.e. minutes) will fit on the 32gb card if you're recording all 12 tracks?

 

 

[Phil Starr]

On 04/12/2024 at 18:10, Al Krow said:

 

Reckon it's taken about 10 hours solid for me to get to grips with the new A&H desk, including just now setting up the tablet for remote access to adjust settings on the fly from the floor. Does feel like quite a step up from our old trusty, but decently capable, analogue desk. I think I'm feeling sufficiently confident now to give the desk a first outing at a pub gig tomorrow night. Wish me luck, haha!

Well done Al hope it goes well.

 

[Woodinblack]

4 hours ago, TheRev said:

Does anyone know how much audio (i.e. minutes) will fit on the 32gb card if you're recording all 12 tracks?

 

3 (24 bits) * 12 (channels) * 96,000 (Hz) = 3,456,000 bytes / sec

32GB =29.802 GiB / 3,456k = 9259 seconds = 2:34:19 - so about 2 ½ hours

in about 8 files I would assume.

[JPJ]

As a long term Behringer X-Air user, and I suspect like many of us, I’ve basically been working with the same scene file since I got the unit, copying and modifying the file for different bands (I’ve been in three since i bought my XR18) on the principle that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

Having recently been working in an acoustic trio, I decided to build a new scene file from the bottom up, using all the knowledge I’ve acquired from here and from other sources, and the results were a revelation. Obviously my old scene file had been tweaked and adjusted hundreds of times and the cumulative effect was a less than optimal. The new scene file sounds much better to my old ears and a lot more dynamic and live sounding. Bottom line, just because you’ve got eq, gate, compression, etc on every channel doesnt mean you have to use it.

If you’re new to the digital world you will probably do the same as I did, but once you’re up to speed with your desk, I recommend a periodic rebuild of your scene file to make sure that you don’t carry that frankly bizarre eq cut you needed at the Dog and Duck forward to all of your future gigs. 

[EBS_freak]

Compression is very commonly misused on live mixes - and really can make stuff sound bad if you don't know what you are doing. The "wizard" settings, are usually just a starting point assuming you have correct gain staging and EQ. The vast majority of folk haven't got that latter point right... so the whole thing cascades into a mess.

 

As they say, less is more. 

[Al Krow]

12 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Well done Al hope it goes well.

 

 

Thanks Phil - went very well and the pre-prep work put in on the A&H CQ18T seemed to pay a lot of dividends. Allocating two of the buttons to mute FoH and IEMs took away the stress of a lack of physical faders in the event of an unexpected volume spike. I took the old analogue desk to the gig as a back-up but it stayed in its case.

 

I had set up the new desk with a basic mix based on what everyone had been saying they wanted in their IEMs when using our analogue desk i.e. a little boost to their vox & instruments to make them easily heard in the mix. Similarly the individual EQ settings on each of the channel strips was based on previous experience of what worked well. Loved the flexibility on little things that make this a relative joy to use e.g. being able to set frequency for each channel at which the HPF kicks in.

 

No one asked for any changes to their personal mix on the night - the only request was to turn down the IEM volume at soundcheck - understandably so, as I'd based the vol settings on my home use and rather than us playing at gig volumes (albeit relatively modest gig volumes as it was a pub restaurant). Then able to save the new settings with the press of a button! 

 

The crew loved the benefit of having a personal tailored mix (rather than just two tailored and the rest getting FoH with the analogue desk). The clarity in all our IEMs seemed to be significantly better too. Those two things were very much the rationale for upgrading from a decent budget analogue desk to a well featured mid-range digital desk. The many additional capabilities of the desk compared to what we previously had, including the ability to adjust settings on the fly from the floor using a tablet, will be icing on the cake. @Pirellithecat hope that gives you an in idea of my initial impressions and I'm already feeling that this was the best bit of kit I've bought this year!

 

Two more gigs, this time at Xmas parties, tonight and tomorrow to try this out with slightly differing line-ups for each. After which I'll likely not be feeling the need to take a back-up desk with me - although I'm guessing some of you guys would recommend doing that as good practice regardless?

[Phil Starr]

On 06/12/2024 at 10:45, Al Krow said:

The crew loved the benefit of having a personal tailored mix (rather than just two tailored and the rest getting FoH with the analogue desk). The clarity in all our IEMs seemed to be significantly better too. Those two things were very much the rationale for upgrading from a decent budget analogue desk to a well featured mid-range digital desk. The many additional capabilities of the desk compared to what we previously had, including the ability to adjust settings on the fly from the floor using a tablet, will be icing on the cake. @Pirellithecat hope that gives you an in idea of my initial impressions and I'm already feeling that this was the best bit of kit I've bought this year!

This was my experience. Mixing from the floor during soundcheck is such a game changer for a pub band with no sound engineer. Saving pre set mixes speeds up the whole set up and individual monitors are revolutionary. There are a myriad of extra things you can do of course but start off simple as you did and add in the frills only as you feel a need for them.

 

How did the next two gigs go?