Behringer XR18 Air - 18 Ch Mixer / DSP FX / 18x18 Audio Interface

Started by Ringleader, October 26, 2014, 07:55:59 AM

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Ringleader

Rackmountable 18-Channel Digital Mixer for iPad/Android Tablets with 16 MIDAS Preamplifiers, Integrated WiFi and 18x18 USB Interface
http://www.music-group.com/Categories/Behringer/Mixers/Digital-Mixers/XR18/p/P0BI8/downloads

https://media.music-group.com/media/PLM/data/docs/P0BI8/BEHRINGER_XR18%20P0BI8_Product%20Information%20Document.pdf

http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/270498-Behringer-X-AIR-XR18






This may be the best all-in-one value in the music industry. Works as an iPad audio/midi interface, live and studio mixer, full effects built in, pretty much all of the main features of an X32 in a smaller remote only controlled box. Unbelievable. I'm totally blown away at what this offers at this price.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XR18

Elantric

My fear is at that price point they may have gone too cheap with the Analog input gain structure in the Mic Pre's and not employed digitally controlled internal Analog Pot IC's (like the ADI Digipot) to set the proper trims pre A/D. If they simply perform all Channel gain control in the DSP (after the A/D) it's going to have poor headroom and dynamic range.
I'm old school in that I prefer gear with Analog input trim knobs, as found on my new QSC Touchmix

Ringleader

That was actually the first red flag that went off for me too. But the x32 does not have analog trim knobs either and this is supposed to have same audio quality as that. I don't think they skimmed on the audio path, rather removed other expensive features to bring the price down.

By including 6 aux sends and allowing multiple devices to access and control the mixer simultaneously, they've essentially eliminated the need for their personal monitor system. As long as everyone could live with mono monitor mixes, all band members could get one of these (plus have an extra input for any instrument where direct monitoring at the source is desired) and use their android/iOS device as the mixer (which would include channel labels) and have their own headphone mix for less than 10% of the cost:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MA400

Ringleader

These things are finally in stock at Sweetwater. But I read that they are core audio compliant on Mac/iOS but not class compliant. The USB recording feature requires a driver on windows.

Not being class compliant worries me for iPad use. I have had other devices that were core midi and core audio compatible that just stopped working.

admin

Behringer XR18 Reviews from early adopters
http://www.thegearpage.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1544343&page=2\


QuoteThese things are finally in stock at Sweetwater. But I read that they are core audio compliant on Mac/iOS but not class compliant. The USB recording feature requires a driver on windows.

Not being class compliant worries me for iPad use. I have had other devices that were core midi and core audio compatible that just stopped working.

it works as 18 in  / 18 Out Audio interface (24 bit @44.1kHz / 48khz) for iPad  / iPhone

X18 is listed as compatible with Auria IOS DAW
(XR18 shares same DSP / USb interface as the similar X18   
http://auriaapp.com/Support/auria-audio-interfaces

Filialen

Here is the main X-Air forum:
http://forum.music-group.com/forumdisplay.php?113-X-AIR-General-Discussion

Even the CEO Uli Behringer appears here from time to time...

This is an interesting post:
http://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?6669-XR18-Spytopsy

The guys over there have tons of experience from the big brother the X32.
And they use that experience to get the most out of the new X-Air series.
I think this is going to be a great piece of gear!

Majiken

Spent a few non-sleep hours the other day looking at the similar Presonus offering, wondering when Behringer was going to show their hand-here it is.... I mix some smalltown 1-day outdoor festivals on the side, while I wouldn't touch wireless mixing at 2.4 gHz with a ten-foot pole right now, 30 meters of ethernet cable vs. 30 meters of an analog 16/4 (which only covers 2 mono monitor paths is very tempting- and, sooner or later something has got to give on musical wireless frequencies. 5 gHz is okay right now, but I'm not sure how long it will take for that to get as overrun as 2.4. Think I'll get by with what I have for maybe one more year....
Take what you need, put back a bit more, leave the place behind you better than it was before :-)

www.majiken.rocks

Elantric


BackDAWman

I got one of these.

Our first gig with it was last Saturday and it worked flawlessly and this was before I used the 1.4 update. We used a cheap Android tablet for FOH with no problems and an iPad mini for foldback. Routing was a breeze compared to the X32 which in all honesty was too much for our humble ensemble.

This was probably the most trouble free gig we've had and we've used the Presonus 16.4.2, the X32 and now the XR18. Brilliant value for money!

Elantric

Good read

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/1057059-why-i-went-fireface-uc-behringer-xr18.html
Livebox wrote>
Preface. Jump on to the next chapter to save yourself some chitchat.

So, I always think things through to the end. At least, I like to think I do. What I know for certain is that I do think a lot about my studio, which I run next to my full day job.
I love quality. I'm an engineer by heart, not only in the studio or on live shows, not only in my day job. It's an attitude, right?

So. A separate room would be great. Currently my studio is my living room at the same time... heavily acoustic treatment included. My girl has a different opinion on how much of a living room it still is, or rather, not is. But once moving out here, a separate room would be great. Maybe, one recording room and one control room. In my league, there usually isn't a producer. I'm not a producer either, but I want stuff with my name on it sound as good as possible. Really isolated monitoring while tracking helps to guide people. Listening back after a take tends to make people nervous.
Rooms should be moderately large of course. All relative, but put some acoustic treatment in (yes, I put a high value in that thing) and still have sufficient space for a decent drum set, or even small band-at-once recordings. Maybe a third, small room for noisy stuff (computer and so on). And good insulation between rec and control room. And storage space for gear, since I do live sound as well. Ground level is helpful, or a lift in the building.

...which would mean, rent additional space in an industrial building and get things going there. Wait. This is still a side job. There are indeed people doing audio stuff on the side and still have a built out studio with more than one room in an extra space. But to be realistic, that's not me. Not yet. So, nice thoughts man, but take a step back. Or rather, several steps.

When I think about it soberly, this is what it really takes to make good records. In this order:
- first: motivation from everybody involved
- second, third and fourth: good musician(s) with good songs
- a sound guy who knows how to listen and what to do
- decent signal chain, above entry level, but not necessarily high end



The gear thing
The Fireface UC was the center piece not only for recording / mixing, but also for making music at home - stage piano - and (the audio part of) entertainment media in general. ADAT extension through an ADA8000, where I used the line inputs only. Everything in a rack, which is part of the DIY furniture, not movable. Few external preamps, but nothing of size or format to fit in a rack. More for colored signals anyway, so not always first choice for daily business.
Computer running Windows 7.

My thoughts went on about making things mobile. I wanted to be able to record elsewhere with my own gear. Bands' rehearsal places, for example. The plan I finally came up with was to connect all sources at home to the ADA8000. Take the Fireface out into a separate rack, add an ADA8200. 10 mic preamps in total, while I still have 6 line inputs on the FF. So maybe add a Line Audio 8MP as well. 10 good, clean preamps, with the ADA preamps there as well if need be. I would place this rack in the studio. One power line, USB, ADAT pipelight and one or two MIDI cables is all I would need to re-patch from going mobile back to the studio, or vice versa.

That's when I had a phone call with a friend to talk about studio business. I know he also cares for quality. We talked about the need to go and record mobile. He told me that in such cases, he often gets a Behringer XR18 from a friend to do the job. And told me that it contained exactly the same technology as the x32. Which only later I heard in this video as well.



Interlude: me and Behringer
Every company has some good and some not so good products. My very personal opinion on B. is: most products totally suck. They're cheap, but performance is so bad, they're mostly unusable and thus not even worth the few bugs they cost.
As I said: my very personal opinion. I don't want to make this the discussion of the thread. Only explain how I felt about the decision following.
But every once in a while, Behringer has a product that really hits home. Like the ADA8000, leaving the preamps out of scope, or the DDX digital desk back in the days. When I first laid hand on a x32 (had the chance to mix a show on a beta desk) I knew this would be another incredibly great product.



Making a decision
I have summed up the expected cost to outsource the FF into a rack, with the new ADA8200, cabling, bezels with XLR sockets, and so on. About 500 €. And 700+ on top for the Line Audio preamp.
My friend talking about the XR18 gave me a thought. That thing is 745 € at the moment. Getting one of these would get me 16 XLR inputs and ADCs with, as I knew, a fairly good quality. Sufficient outputs as well.
Now the number of I/O and preamp / converter quality isn't the full thing yet. Drivers are always a big deal with interfaces. And latency of course. About driver stability, again, the fact that this is x32 technology gave me some rest. The beta desk I had available didn't have the interface option yet, but I kept an eye on how people experience the x32 and it seems the interface works stable. But at what buffer size and latency? Which in my experience often depends on the system as a whole.
One way to find out. I decided to give it a try and ordered an XR18 unit. Always have the option to send it back.



Surprise, surprise
I expected the XR18 to fall behind the Fireface UC in terms of quality. Not that I really knew what I was expecting. To my positive surprise, I found that music sounded more lively with the XR18 as interface. Faster impulses, more dynamic. To be sure: that's a VERY subjective impression. And I don't know how to measure this with only the two interfaces in question available. Maybe I can get a friend helping me doing blind comparison.

What I know in numbers, though, is the buffer size used and round trip latency. I run my system at 48 kHz sample rate. The Fireface worked stable at 64 samples buffer size. The XR18 works with 64 samples as well when playing recorded music. However, playing a virtual grand piano in Kontakt 5 wouldn't work without ugly distortion. Setting the buffer size to 128 samples fixed this. I did measure the round trip latency, using the Oblique Audio RTL utility. And yes, values were always higher than reported by the driver, no matter which interface.

FF@64: 5.2 ms
FF@128: 8.5 ms
XR18@128: 11.6 ms

I think I felt (rather than heard) a tiny bit of latency when playing the piano through the XR18. But still fun to play. I've had more prominent interfaces performing worse.



Conclusion
I'll keep the XR18. So far I think it will perform pretty good for recording and mixing. There are other pro arguments for me (see below), but these are just nice to have and I wouldn't sacrifice quality or stability for nice things. But I'll keep the Fireface around for some time. Things just went all too well with the XR18. I'm a suspicious person. Feeling kind of silly about it, but who knows. And I'm about to get into more live gigs with my piano again. A reliable, low latency interface doesn't hurt.

But I really do have confidence in the XR18. I believe it's a great product.

These are the nice to have advantages I like about it:
- Works in Linux as well - which is a HUGE leap in quality, since my onboard audio output I used so far is just crap. And I use Linux all the time I'm not working on audio stuff.
- Offline interface control - the one knob on the Fireface didn't really satisfy me. For everything else, I needed Windows booted. The XR18 comes with control apps for Windows and Linux (works like anything in my Fedora system), Android and iOS devices of all sizes. I have it running on a 5 year old Android tablet, and on an Android smartphone where the GUI scales really well.
- Mixing via an app (I indeed prefer the tablet) is so convenient that I will give it a try to mix live at a small concert. Previously HATED mixing via tablet only, have bad experience when forced to do one certain mix out with Yamaha desks.





I am aware that taking this decision requires some kind of craziness. Still, would love to read your comments.
The stage is yours.


Elantric

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xairlivetoolbox/
Description
The X-Air Live Toolbox is designed to enhance the new Behringer X-Air digital mixing consoles by supplementing current features with tools requested on the Behringer forum. As with any toolbox, tools can be added or removed as necessary.














Features
Provides an extensive list of X-Air OSC commands to choose from.
Ability to send and receive OSC commands to/from the X-Air mixers (XR18, XR16, XR12, X18).
Automix GUI including weight value faders and assignment switches
Load and save automix setup to/from tidbits and snippets.
Tidbit functionality (from X32 Live Toolbox) is now available for the X-Air
Windows, Linux (32 & 64 bit), OSX, Raspberry Pi, available
Setup of defaults
More tools are planned
Tidbit popup button has been enhanced
X-Air command editor (from Sysex OSC Generator app)
User Manual has been updated (in the Documents folder)



https://sourceforge.net/projects/xairlivetoolbox/


https://sourceforge.net/directory/audio-video/sound/mixers/os:windows/os:mac/


Elantric


Elantric


http://www.varranger.com/xr
http://www.varranger.com/xr/MixTools.zip

This will record 18 wav tracks when the XR18 is USB connected

Elantric


In this short video we demonstrate how to multitrack record from your XR18 directly to the *Auria audio recording DAW app on your *iPad with the help of an *Apple Camera Connection Kit. Multi-Track Recording is only available on the X18 and XR18 models of X AIR digital mixers.




In this exciting live broadcast from Music Studios in Los Angeles we will show you how to get the most out of your X AIR Mixers using the X-TOUCH Universal Controller.



Elantric


admin

https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?7995-Pure-Data-midi-to-OSC&highlight=patch+share

Pure Data midi to OSC
Pure Data midi to OSC

Hello World!
Following on from discussions here:
http://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?7831-Xtouch-mini-on-Thomann

My goal is to be able to have full control the XR18 from a midi controller without having to rely on a PC as a middle man. This program is also available on R Pi but I cant get mine working at the moment so Ive just been doing it on PC.
At present midi is severely limited do just doing scene change,fader, pans and mutes. OSC has full capability of controlling all parameters within the mixer.

Ive had some success with a program called Pure Data Extended

https://puredata.info/downloads/pd-extended

I followed a walkthrough for the x32 here

http://haytech.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/programming-with-pure-data-and-open.html

And downloaded a script for Pure Data from the reaper forums here - first post attached files

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=97255

Then with some tinkering and trial and error I manged to get my midi controller to map to osc and talk to the Xr18 through usb OSC.


Things I still need to discover:
How to change midi channels
How to loop back for updating the controller if I buy a BCR/BCF (the reaper forum file above seems to do this already)


Here is the file I created, I mapped midi channel 1 cc 0 to tell the xr18 to move fader one.


http://www.filedropper.com/xr18channel1fadermidi-oscpuredata



Edit: link here for instructions.
https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?7995-Pure-Data-midi-to-OSC&p=58314&viewfull=1#post58314


vanceg



admin

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.davidgiga1993.mixingstation.xairpro
Mixing Station X Air Pro  (Android)
Features:
- RTA overlay in PEQ view
- RTA averaging
- Level timeline for gate and dynamics
- Peak hold for all meters with changeable hold time
- Peq preview in channel strip
- High contrast mode for outdoor usage
- Popgroups
- Routing Matrix
- Create unlimited DCA groups (IDCAs)
- Customizeable layer, channel order and mutegroup labels
- Up to 32 channels visible channels per layer
- Runs on smartphones and tablets
- Direct email support
- Much more :-)