Okay, based on a viewing of a couple of Youtube videos from NAMM2011, it is clear that:
The X32 is still vaporware. They did have a mockup version of it complete with flying faders, but this was running in some form of demo mode, and was not set up to display any of its features. To be fair, all along, it's page has estimated a Quarter 2/3 2001 release date. Nevertheless, it was kept under a plexi box unless demo'd by a Behringer rep.
That being said, here is what is apparent:
It will come with fully recallable preamps with XLR inputs. Like the LS9-32, it lacks inserts (although the need for inserts in such digital mixers is diminished by the onboard dynamics). It will also come with 6 TSR inputs and 6 TSR "aux" outputs, as well as 16 XLR "bus" outputs. According to on rep, it actually has 16 aux buses, so it will be interesting to see if those can be routed to the "bus" outputs, which would be handy. Given this, you would have 16 aux outputs, similar to the LS9-32. Regarding I/O, it also has main L/R XLR and TRS outs (not LCR outs like you have on an LS9-32). It also has what appears to be a couple of USB ports on the top of the board (for recording up to 32 channels to a USB drive), and ethernet AES50 ports for driving their digital snake and the P16 personal monitoring system. It looks like it also has slots for loading up a Firewire card to connect to a computer DAW for more serious recording purposes. I can't make out the back panel from pausing the video, but there appear to be other digital I/O connections and MIDI. It's not clear if it will come with ADAT I/O or if that is on an option card. The LS9-32 has 64 input channel capacity. It appears that there will be room for only 40 inputs on the X32.
There are 25 100 mm motorized faders, with 16 serving channels 1-16 and 17-32 on different fader pages. There is another group of 8 faders for the 16 mix buses. These 8 faders also control the 6 matrix buses and also control 8 DCAs. The board has 8 built in effects, so I'd imagine the effects sends and returns are also controlled by these faders.
On the channel faders, each channel strip has a feature that is pretty interesting. In addition to having what appears to be a 8-10 segment level meters, there is also an individual LCD display that will display an icon of what that channel represents (e.g. singer, snare, bass, etc). The LCD panel is backlit to a distinct color depending on the type of signal (e.g. purple for drums, blue for singers, etc...not sure about the actual colors of this though). This appears to be a nice way to go, esp. for festivals where a scene recall "relabels" each input channel strip. On the top of the 16 input faders, there is a set of ring encoders, etc. that appear to control 1) pre-amp settings (e.g. trim, phantom, high pass, polarity), dynamics (gate and compression), channel EQ (4 band fully parametric), FX, and routing (to the 16 channel mix bus, 16 channel aux bus, 8 channel aux bus, etc). According to the rep, there are also 8 assignable graphic EQs, and user definable keys.
Over each group fader, there is also a small LCD display for naming groups and a level meter. Above these faders, there is the main 7" color display that allows for additional parameter tweaking, setup, etc. I must say that I like the way the board appears to be laid out, with quick access to each input channel's main functions (e.g. pre-amp, dynamics, EQ an FX) right at the top of the board.
Things I hope they include: 1) a digital memory card insert for making recallable backups; 2) a Firewire card that will transport all 32 direct inputs to a DAW plus a couple of downstream channels to monitor the sound coming out of the DAW on the X32; 3) a way to use the 16 XLR outs as "multi-outs" instead of hardwiring them to the mix bus outputs; 4) ADAT connectivity; 5) AES/EBU I/O for sending the main outs to the DEQ2496/DCX2496 or other speaker processors; 6) cascade port to connect up more than one X32 in larger setups; 7) dedicated DAW mixing fader pages (broken into input channels and mix bus channels).
In summary (from what I can gather):
-32 XLR preamp inputs/16 XLR outputs/6 TSR inpus/6 TSR outputs
-two AES50 ethernet ports for driving their forthcoming digital snake and P16 system
-fully recallable preamp settings
-full scene recall
-full dynamics per channel
-16 aux channels
-16 mix channels
-8 DCA groups
-8 FX slots
-Firewire and USB connectivity; direct recording to USB drives
-full metering and labeling of each input and group/matrix fader channel
Now, let's see if they can pull this off for their target price of $2500!
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Topic: New Behringer digital mixer, the X32 (Read 114899 times)