Behringer: The Comeback
We’ve all worked on some piece Behringer gear at some point and some of us have even been taught to stay away from Behringer for a number of reasons but the fact of the matter is most of us entry level engineers will have to work on these units either for lack of capital or lack of trust from our employer not to break anything, well it looks like they have tried to relaunch their brand and it seems to be working.
Behringer’s parent company The Music Group have bought two other companies one of which is Midas the live-sound console experts and the second called Klark Teknik a company specialized in outboard gear. Together these three companies have worked together to produce what seems to be the flagship for Behringers relaunch, a Live mixing console called the X32, a brief look at the Behringer x32 shows at the least a comprehensive thought process behind the R&D team. The x32 has a myriad of features but above the standard I/O stats I thought id start with the features that were a first for me to see on a live-sound mixing console and then we will move to the standard I/O setup.
Firstly the X32 comes with a USB memory stick port is on the aux input 7/8 and allows you to play WAV’s only, where at the aux outputs 7/8 are used for a stereo record feed via USB cable which will be an uncompressed WAV file. The USB port can also be used in conjunction with a memory stick to store the settings, presets and libraries of the console combine that with the on-board Ethernet port which allows remote control from the, now available, X-Control application which can utilize a wired or wireless setup to fully control the mixing console.The software also allows multiple instances of the client to be controlling the system simultaneously which will come in handy im sure. The X32 also has a XUF computer interface as a standard and this allows either USB2 or Firewire 400 to connect the desk with your machine, although only one can be active at a time. The X32′s connectivity is practically endless for the price and its software is compatible with both Core audio manager and ASIO audio drivers for Mac and PC respectively. Having Briefly touched on some new gadgets we can move on to the standard
Basic I/O Configuration:
- 32 mic inputs with individuality switched phantom power)
- 18 XLR line outs
- 2 sets of 48 channel AES50 outputs
- 6 analogue Auxiliary inputs and outputs
The software for the X32 i have yet to see in action but the iPAD app for controlling your x32 seems like the latest hype around with apps like ProRemote, Touch DAW, X-Control and even Auria a fully functional DAW that runs on iPAD so i guess what im trying to say is that Behringer seem serious about competing at this level and only time will tell if their hard work will pay off and shake the reputation for poor quality control. On a side note the Behringer comes with a 3 year warranty for piece of mind.
