Don Geppert;154030 wrote: Richard ... to clarify ... does the X-Touch mini HAVE to go into directly into the XR18? Currently I run two laptops, one directly directly in to the XR18 via USB to play the backing tracks, and one running the X-Air software by wifi. IF the X-Touch mini HAS to go directly into the XR18 I am in trouble unless ... perhaps it can go in to either one of the two laptops? There's a bit more going on here than Plug-and-Play, passing "signals" through an assumed-universal electronic "language". First off, there is no universal electronic "language". There are thousands, if you can even call them that. Plug-and-Play only works when the engineers have spent that much effort to make the "languages" match, and there's no way they can cover everything. If you want A to talk to B, then at some level, you're assuming the role of "engineer", which requires an engineer's understanding do to it well. This is not a set of arbitrary rules, but a real understanding that can be used to derive the rules on your own. So, in support of that understanding: The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is not a "dumb wire" like you might be used to with analog audio or even some old-school computer peripherals. You're probably used to having inputs and outputs with information flowing in one direction, but USB is bidirectional on the same wire. It's always bidirectional as a fundamental part of how it works and why it's *universal*. To avoid collisions, there is a single master ("Host" as it's called for USB) that talks to a bunch of slaves ("Devices"). No device can talk to another device, but only to the host, and a host can only talk to devices, not to another host. The one exception to that is USB On-The-Go, or OTG, which makes an OTG host capable of either function. (smartphones, for example) There are also a variety of "languages" that are "spoken" on USB. These include data storage, audio, user interface, and many, many more. These "languages" only have enough "vocabulary" to perform their specific functions and no more. No possibility to translate; it just doesn't work...at least not directly. The closest you can come is to fool each device into thinking that it's performing its designed function while a "thing-in-the-middle" plays the illusionist role. This could include two USB hosts that talk to each other in some other way than USB, or a host and a device that again talk to each other in some other way than USB, or two devices with a non-USB connection. So for your example: Most of the X-Air series (and the X32 too) has a USB host that only knows "the data storage language". It's not actually audio at that point, nor does it understand audio. It reads and writes files, and the interpretation of those files into audio is done inside the host. But the XR18 specifically doesn't have that. Instead, it has a USB device that only knows "the audio language". So you can plug it into a PC and use it as a sound card, but it doesn't do anything else. The X-Touch series has a USB device that only knows "the MIDI language". It's interesting but understandable that it doesn't use "the user interface language" because, although it *is* a user interface, it's really designed to talk to PC programs that already use MIDI. But either way, the mixer still doesn't understand it: the XR18 because you'd have two devices, and two devices don't talk at all; and the rest of the X-Air series (and X32) because their hosts don't understand that "language". So you need a "thing-in-the-middle" of some kind. And because none of these mixers take control commands on USB (see above), you'll also need a different way to make the final connection. Fortunately, there are a few options: - USB->MIDI converter. Following a link that was posted earlier in this thread, it's basically a USB host that uses "the MIDI language" and simply relays the MIDI information to/from a set of standard MIDI ports. That's all it does. No translation, just a verbatim copy from one wire to another. The mixer does take control commands on MIDI, and the Touch Mini can be programmed to match the specific "dialect" that the mixer has. You'd have 4 wires connected to this converter: MIDI In, MIDI Out, Power, and USB. - PC software. Following another link, this is roughly the same concept as the MIDI converter, except that the PC can use the Open Sound Control (OSC) "language" over the network, just like the official app does. The PC could be a laptop, a Pi, or anything else that has a full-spec USB host (understands all prescribed "languages"), a network connection (Enet or WiFi), and the capability to run the software. As a side-note, the full X-Touch can use a direct network connection to the mixer, but it's (annoyingly for me) not OSC. It's basically a dumb terminal that is micromanaged by the mixer, using a different "language" that was invented by Mackie for this purpose and became popular. Not that that really matters for a satisfied user, but it makes it seem less likely to correct some odd quirks, as those corrections have to be done in a seemingly unrelated piece of firmware. Read more

Don Geppert;153997 wrote: Through all this I am now thinking, for the FOH anyways, ... I might just do this ...... analog, simple, balanced, eloquent .... I have one on my desktop for my monitors ... works perfect !!! FOH master level on a pot. Easy Peezy (technical term). TC Electronic Level Pilot So you'd have a static mix and use this to adjust the final FOH volume? I guess that works in theory, but you're missing something fundamental about live sound: Stage and Audience sound so much different - especially with monitors but even without - that you can't mix one from the other position. You can't hear FOH accurately from stage, nor can you hear the monitors accurately from the FOH mixing position. (you can hear that the monitors are drowning out the PA, but you can't tell much more than that) If you're getting complaints about being too loud, it's probably not the volume, but a bad mix that you can't even hear. The wrong tonal balance is literally painful at a surprisingly low level, while a good blend can blow the speakers before anyone notices how loud it really is. It doesn't work either, to get a long cord and play your instrument from the audience's position, because the direct sound from the instrument throws you off by that much. (and if it's mic'ed, it may be impossible to get the "correct" settings anyway at that position because of feedback) Get a dedicated FOH Engineer for at least a few gigs, and give him permission to mess up everything to get a decent universal mix. It'll sound a bit squashed and lifeless, kinda like a radio mix, but at least it won't be painful to your audience. Or keep a full-time FOH Engineer to "ride the mood" and actually enhance the exciting or slow parts, while also accounting for the audience in each particular moment as well. Read more

Bart Van Damme;153978 wrote: Hi Aaron, My architecture is as follows: [XR18]----[ROUTER]-------------[SWITCH]-----[RasPI] +------[XTOUCH] Everything connected with ethernet cables and all on static ip. I am sorting out some bugs yet and after that I'l put it up for beta testing. kr, Bart. I don't think your ASCII Art turned out like it was supposed to. Between this display with leading spaces trimmed, and the notification e-mail without trimming but with a fixed-width font, I think you have the Pi and the Touch on a dumb switch, with a home run from the switch to the router. Is that right? If so, then the only difference is that my Pi is a passthrough between 2 Enet's without a switch. I would think your software should "just work" with that, but it is technically different. I have static IP's too. Makes scripting a whole lot easier! The WiFi router still has DHCP on for musicians that want to run their own monitors, but my X-Air, Pi Jukebox, and FOH rig are all static. Read more

I've wanted this for quite some time, both here and on the X-Air series, but gave up asking for getting shot down. I definitely DON'T want it to constantly hunt around! That would be annoying and unusable. I'm thinking more along the lines of "clip insurance", where you set a maximum allowable signal level and maybe some timing parameters, and it automatically drops the preamp gain to keep the meter below that. Downward adjustment only, without "recovering" like a compressor does. Once down, it stays down, and may drop further if it sees a higher peak. Manual adjustment is still available in either direction. The usage that I imagine is to set the preamp a bit high on purpose, let this function run a while, then possibly disable it. --- Extra brownie points if the downstream functions are also adjusted to offset the preamp changes, probably as a separate option. This should work for both automatic and manual adjustments in both directions, if enabled. Read more

Anthonie Hunter;147462 wrote: I can only speak for X-Air Edit (for Windows). It has already been implemented for a long time. Setup -> GUI Frefs -> Show bus names The Windows and Linux apps V1.5 still miss the channel sends. They still say Bus 1, Bus 2,..., FX 3, FX 4 while the Send-on-Fader buttons do show the correct names. (yes, I checked that option in GUI Prefs) Read more

Don Geppert;153968 wrote: Aaron .... I like to see the X-Air mixer, granted, with the X-Touch perhaps I wouldn't need to see the X-Air software, I am just used to it. I'm not sure what you're saying here. The X-Touch does connect directly to the mixer through Ethernet, either with a direct crossover or through a router. (preferably with all static addresses either way if you really want it to work well) So you don't necessarily need another control surface at all. All of the functions are available on the X-Touch, but the silkscreened labels are all wrong. It looks like it's meant for a different purpose, and then hacked/added-on to do this too. Kudos to Behringer though for trying to make it somewhat logical anyway, and somewhat succeeding. There are overlays here that might be helpful: https://forum.musictribe.com/showthread.php?22775-X-Touch-Overlay-Template https://forum.musictribe.com/showthread.php?13068-Might-have-a-run-of-X-Touch-overlays-made-Gauging-interest https://forum.musictribe.com/showthread.php?21411-X-Touch-Layout-for-XR18 I still like the app available for things like RTA, EQ and compressor curves, overall view of everything, etc., but again, you don't necessarily *need* it if you have a Touch. Don Geppert;153968 wrote: I have had issues at times when I go to the track pad to move a fader that it can jump position radically, sometimes in the upward direction and if it is the FOH that is a huge problem I found out during my first theatrical gig with an X-Air, that clearing a fader's number-entry field and then clicking out of it does *not* cancel the operation, but instead jumps to 0dB! Quite a surprise when the underscoring was supposed to be -5dB at the most (the "Shall We Dance" scene of "The King and I") and typically around -10 or -15, sometimes as low as -20. I was going to type in something similar to what it was, then changed my mind. YEOW!!! DON'T DO THAT AGAIN! Read more

I want this too! And I'm even on a Pi! What is your system architecture? I'll change mine if need be, but right now I have: [XR18]----<1ft>----[Router]----<75ft>----[RasPi with extra USB->Enet]----<1ft Xovr>----[X-Touch] The Pi is presently set up to passthrough the X-Touch's traffic to/from the XR18, but is otherwise not involved with it yet. Again, I'll change if necessary, so what connections does your system need? --- Also, if you could make a Linux version, either instead of or in addition to a Pi-specific one, then I could use it on my other system that has a Lubuntu laptop on WiFi instead of the Pi on Cat5. Read more

I've done theatrical productions with a mono PA and a green room fed from the Left and Right mains, respectively. This gives the green room an exact copy of the house mix without a splitter. Pan everything center, and call it good. Any drop in level compared to "true" mono will be accounted for automatically by an active engineer. Underscoring was from the vendors' official proprietary phone app through a stereo->mono mixing DI at the FOH position, feeding an XLR snake return that was then patched to an XR input just offstage. My only true stereo source at the XR itself was the USB jukebox that I built into the rack. I ended up routing it to AUX6, just for the mono mix, then analog-patching that back to an input. Not ideal, but it worked. If I had the time, I could have mixed all of those tracks in Audacity into mono files and then used the USB feed directly. Onstage fill monitors were fed from AUX1 and AUX2. Read more

You might know this already, but the XR18's USB settings require a reboot of the mixer to take effect. They don't change on the fly. They probably *could* change on the fly, if Behringer wanted it. This would involve dropping off the USB bus and re-enumerating. But they didn't do it that way. Read more

Don Geppert;153950 wrote: The X-Touch also needs to connect via USB to the computer. Why do you need the X-Touch and the computer connected? I have a FOH station that is basically a Raspberry Pi running the Linux app, plus a USB->Ethernet adapter (so 2 Enet ports total) with a crossover cable to the X-Touch. The Pi does a bit of IP magic to passthrough the Touch traffic but is otherwise completely separate from it. Don Geppert;153950 wrote: Also, any suggestions for an alternative reliable way to do external fader control on the XR18??? I've had the idea for a while to build a fader bank as a USB HID device, then write a PC app to send OSC commands. Depending on how fancy I (or someone else) want to get, this could be anything from a single fader to a complete X-Touch replacement and more. I probably won't get to start on it for quite some time, so if someone else wants to take this idea and run with it, please go ahead! Read more