5 Typical Mistakes Made By Behringer X32 Users - And Midas M32 - And How To Avoid Them X32 Tutorial

hello and welcome back to the channel. in this  installment i wanted to talk about five typical   mistakes that are made by behringer x32  and midas m32 users and how to avoid them.   i did a similar video for the xr18 but i wanted  to do one dedicated to the x32 and the m32   and i wanted to go a lot more in depth on  this one in mixing regardless of the console   gain staging and signal flow are important  concepts so a lot of what we'll go over here   will ultimately tie into those concepts at the end  of this video i'll have one specific example of   why this is important it's an example of one major  pitfall of a commonly made mistake and i want to   show you what will happen if you make this mistake  but before we get to that we'll start here and in   reality these first two fit neatly together in the  puzzle that begins your sound check so without any   further ado the number five mistake made by  behringer x32 users is improper gain settings   people mistakenly believe they need to bring  the gain up to zero on the channels of an x32   or an m32 or they don't really know what they  should be set at at all and think it's arbitrary   channel gain should be set to show -18 dbfs  on the channel meters these meters are at   a different scale than an analog console these  are dbfs db full scale therefore at sound check   you want to adjust your gain so that your input  meter is hitting -18 dbfs or at least thereabouts   this is important to keep your gain staging  starting correctly from the beginning   and consistently across the board establishing  this baseline setting keeps your signal flow   consistent after the gain control from one step in  the channel to the next and consistent channel to   channel show to show and even band of band the  gain is essentially the first step your signal   from the stage will hit in the console that  you have any control over there is some margin   of error here so don't think you have to be 100  perfect with that minus 18 dbfs level on the meter   invariably eventually someone will sandbag you at  some point and not give you performance levels at   soundcheck no matter how much they claim they  are playing or singing at the volume they'll be   at when the show starts but in most cases that'll  be fine you can deal with it with the fader if it   happens a little more fader a little less fader  that's fine whatever it takes to get the mix you   need out front we've been focusing on the channel  meter but there is another way to meter your input   you can solo a channel via the solo button on  each channel with the board's default settings   this will send just that solo channel to  your headphones where you can listen to   the channel if you want and it will send the  signal to the solo meter on the board screen   as shown here this meter has more resolution than  the individual channel meters or the meter in the   gain section itself so it gives you a little more  accurate look at the signal for setting the gain   i should mention it's a good habit to go  ahead and turn off any channel compression   channel gates or channel eq before you start  setting the gains you can go ahead and engage   those later in the process and we're going to talk  more about eq here in one of the further steps   ultimately our goal here is set the game properly  at the sound check and then let the game be set   and forget and tying into all of this is mistake  number four improper use of sins and faders   at soundcheck as a rule the first thing you should  do to start a sound check or really as soon as you   power up the console is mute all of the channels  at least mute the channels that you're using the   channels that have something connected to them  or just play it safe and mute all the channels   and for the most part people do this part  right then they start the sound check or   line check and they set the game hopefully like  we just mentioned and then they make the mistake   that mistake is they simply unmute the channel  leaving the channel fader and monitor sims   wherever they were left from the last show this is  an invitation for trouble if there's any noise in   any of the lines in any of the channels as soon  as the channel is unmuted it'll be in the system   for all to hear or maybe the levels are even hot  enough that unmuting the channel sends you a blast   of feedback not only is feedback painful but it  can be damaging for speakers it's even possible   someone is on stage saying something private  and when you just unmute the mic at volume well   it's not so private anymore so the thing to do  is to select your channel make sure it's muted   the fader down the monitor sends turned down  as well then have someone sing or play and you   set the gain control on the channel as we talked  about in the first section now while we're on the   subject of faders and the game control i want to  mention something that some people will recommend   as a way to set your gain it's actually something  that's left over from 50 years ago literally at a   time when consoles didn't have much metering and  everything was a hodgepodge so consistency wasn't   really all that possible what they'll tell you  to do is to bring the channel fader up to unity   and then adjust the gain knob to get the level in  the house that you want to hear and that's simply   not a good method there's a reason the console has  metering and there's a reason it has faders i can   assure you the faders aren't there to be set at  unity and just be left alone so if someone tries   to give you this type of advice it may be well  meaning but it's out of date so you know not to   do that now we've discussed the proper way to set  gain that the gain should be -18 dbfs on the scale   your faders and sin should be down so with the  gain set now you're ready to hear your channel   you can now unmute the channel and bring the fader  up slowly to listen to your signal in the house   you can also now re-engage your channel eq  so you can hear and set your eq in the house   depending on your desired workflow or what the  band wants you can now give the musicians their   desired monitor levels for that channel as well or  you can finish the line checks for everything and   then do the monitors in a second pass and now that  we're talking about eq and following our signal   flow chain that brings us to mistake number three  not utilizing the high pass builder in the eq   section behringer calls this low cut either  term means the same thing the high pass filter   or low cut is a slope not a clip it will roll  those off at a slope not cut them off abruptly   if nothing else you should at least engage the low  cut filler at 20 hertz that will reduce subsonic   material that is below the usable range from  getting to your amps and wasting headroom it   should also make your speakers a little less  susceptible to over excursion in general live   music settings there's really no downside to  using a 20hz low-cut filter on every channel but   that said it's pretty likely 20 hertz can be moved  up to 30 hertz or even 40 hertz especially if you   don't have a wall of subs and several thousand  watts of power on the subs and if your system is   not even using subs then definitely go with 40  hertz if not even a higher cut off if you don't   understand the concept of high pass filters at all  then at least engage them on every channel and set   them at 20 hertz if you want to experiment and  learn then move them up to 30 hertz and even 40   hertz to see if you notice a negative difference  on any channels like your kick and your bass   guitar and like i said if you don't have a wall of  subs and thousands of watts on those subs you're   likely going to be fine with a 40 hertz low-cut  filter that setting is going to be just that   much better for headroom in the amps and helping  with any potential speaker over-excursion issues   if we take the concept of high-pass filters a  little deeper and be a little more surgical we   can dial them in more via the source that would  be the ideal way instruments like the kick drum   the deeper drums like the floor toms the bass  guitar keyboards synthesizers all of those are   instruments that i would expect to use a 20  to 40 hertz setting for the high pass filter   those are all instruments with deep lows but  sources with less low end energy like guitars   snare drum higher toms and vocals are going to  benefit with something like a 100 search setting   for the high pass filter that will clear some of  the mud and low end stage wash from those channels   it's important to note what i said earlier the low  cut or high pass filter is a slope and not a cliff   lows don't just disappear below that cutoff  frequency they just gently roll off don't assume   everything below the cutoff frequency is just  gone it doesn't work like that you should always   have a bit of an eq strategy and any eq strategy  should start with the use of the high pass filter   and now that we're talking even more about eq that  brings us to mistake number two that behringer x32   users make over eq'ing it's hard to tell you  exactly what the right eq should look like for   your sources but it's generally pretty easy to  recognize over eq'ing generally speaking for any   type of pop rock or modern country drums will be  where you might expect the most aggressive use of   eq even then just to a point guitars keys vocals  those can usually work well with just a minimal eq   especially when you start with the proper  use of a high-pass filter as your first step   let's take a look at a typical vocal eq i  would expect to see a vocal eq look something   like this when you're eq'ing a vocal maybe  you hear a little wooliness in the vocal if so   you should look to cut that first not try  to boost to minimize it so that wooliness is   typically something in the low mids so you would  want to find that low mid area and cut that some   listen closely as you make each change and  try and make sure it did what you wanted   don't just keep digging the hole deeper  maybe after removing that wooliness   you now hear a little bit of a sharpness to the  vocal typically that would be in the high mids   so go ahead and reduce that area a little bit  as well and maybe after you fix that problem   you notice that the voice is lacking just a little  bit of a shimmer a little high end so go ahead and   add a little bit of high end and in this case  a high-end shelving eq works really well there   sometimes it could be that maybe only one of those  things is the only thing you really needed to do   and instead of that high mid cut maybe  you needed to add a little bit of high   mid to make the vocal stand out above say  the other instruments generally we're only   talking about a few db of difference and only  at a few points a lot of times something like   a synthesizer won't really need any eq at all  or at least it can certainly be fine without it   in most cases a little eq goes a long way so  if your eq typically looks anything like these   examples it's a good bet you're over re-cueing  always try to eq with a strategy of cutting first   and boosting only secondarily and try and use  a minimalist approach a little goes a long way   and listen to each step as you do it boosting  especially should be limited i did mention the   drums being somewhere that in modern music  can be a little more aggressively eq'd   let's go ahead and call up the kick drum channel  in this scene and just take a quick look at it   you can see the high pass filters being used  there's a low end boost for some bottom end on   the kick and there's a low mid cut to take  out some of the wooliness and open up the   sound of the kick more making it less muddy  and then there's a couple of upper mid boost   those upper mid-range boosts we see  would be to emphasize the beater   emphasizing the beater lets us hear the attack  of the kick drum so it's not just a dull thud   doing that aggressively will make for a clicky  kick drum and if that's what you want that's how   to get it that said make sure the genre you're  mixing actually calls for that and this brings   us to the number one worst mistake a behringer  x32 midas m32 are really the user of any console   can make and that is mixing on the gain knobs  don't mix on the gain knobs gain knobs should be   set and forget you have sins and you have  faders to adjust the mix and the monitor levels   we're back to discussing signal flow and with  the gain knob being essentially the first step   any changes you make to the gain will  impact everything else down the line   once the show is going some of these impacts might  not be as obvious as others or you might put the   blame for the symptoms on the wrong things when  we talked about gain settings earlier i mentioned   there is a margin of error lower or higher if you  did get sandbag during sound check and now during   the show someone is hitting harder than -18 dbfs  consistently unless they are suddenly redlining   or threatening to just live with it at this point  you can bring the fader down to compensate in the   house and you can bring the monitor sends down  on the channel if anyone is complaining on stage   if it's the opposite problem and they're not  even getting to minus 18 db fs on the meter just   run the fader a few steps higher than normal to  compensate if you were to readjust the gain now   you're effectively changing the threshold settings  on things like gates and compressors that follow   in the signal path on that channel and you're  changing things like your fx sins on that channel   but here is the biggie you're not only changing  these things and the house levels when you adjust   the gain control you're changing the monitor  levels on that channel when you change the   gain control because they come after the gain  control this is the example i mentioned at the   start of the video that i wanted to show you  these meters coming up here are showing you   the output levels for outputs one through four  which are mixes one through four in our monitors   watch what happens to those levels as i adjust the  gain on the vocal channel they go up and down with   each movement of the gain knob even a small amount  of adjustment on the gain knob can make a drastic   difference that's not just a meter issue that is  the monitors on stage getting louder and quieter   not only are you changing the monitor levels  that the musicians on stage are hearing   but if you're taking the gain up you could  be getting those monitors closer to feedback   feedback doesn't care what knob you turn up to  make a source louder when it gets loud enough   it will feed back if you've ever had a band in  a club or your church or other setting telling   you that the monitor levels keep changing and  you've argued you weren't touching their monitors   well if you were adjusting the gains while they  were performing then actually you were changing   their monitor levels or at least you were if  your monitors were coming from front of house   so all of these things tie together and you can  see why it's important to at least have a basic   understanding of signal flow and how changes  in one place can cause changes downstream   that you might not even think about it's all  interconnected and that is it for this episode   please like and subscribe i hope you found  this helpful and i will see you next time

Channel: Alan Hamilton Audio

Views: 93,829

Keywords: x32 tips and tricks, X32 tips and trips, Behringer X32 best practices, Midas M32 tips, Behringer X32 tips, midas M32 best practices, Beringer X32, Behringer X32 Help, Behringer X32 for dummies, BerhingerX32, Behringer X32 tutorial, X32 Tutorial, Behringer X32 Setup, live audio, audio mixing, sound reproduction, live band, praise band, digital mixer, bar band, church audio, live music, Home studio, Church sound, x32 for live sound, X32 EQ, X32 gain structure, M32 gain

Id: tP7dO2Za6bw

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020