Behringer Wing 48-Channel Digital Mixer - A Closer Look

hey everyone my name is Rob I'm a front of house engineer here at gold diggers in Hollywood and I'm here with Kyle from behringer who's gonna show me the new wing at gold diggers we mix pretty much everyone rock bands jazz bands stand-up comedians what kind of features you think would be helpful for a small to mid-size room like ourselves the behringer wing is called the wing personal mixing console this is great for almost any application because you can customize every feature on the board from the control surface lay out all of your inputs are point-to-point routed you have tons of built in there affects tons of fader control surface so usually we don't use more than 16 inputs we have a stage box and I was wondering what the i/o situation is here on the wing on the wing locally you have eight high-quality Midas Pro Series mic preamps as well as eight auxiliary inputs and you have eight XLR outputs and eight TRS outputs that's your analog i/o but you also have tons of digital i/o that will allow you to go up to three hundred and seventy four different input sources which can be from AES 50 using your existing X 32 and M 32 i/o boxes or straight into one of those consoles you can also connect via an audio over IP port that is built into the wing that as an option can be Dante or wave sound grid enabled you can also have a USB interface that's integrated into the console that's a 48 channel input in 48 channel output USB interface that's built in and we also have aes ebu in and out as well as a 64 by 64 expansion card slot that right now has the dual SD card recorder in it but can also support waves Dante or Madi so I saw this thing called stage connect on the back but I'm not really sure what what is that connection stage connect is a new technology developed by Clarke technique that allows you to transfer 32 discrete channels of 24-bit 48k digital audio via a single XLR connection so that can be set up as 16 and 16 out or 30 in and two out depending on your application if you want to use like a personal monitoring system or you know a breakout box stage connect also provides two volts of 18 watt power so you could potentially power a device that's connected on the other end in terms of the routing how much different is it from like an X 32 or and I'm 32 an X and M 32 you will notice that everything is is done in banks of 8 okay so you would you select a bank of 8 input sources and assign that to a bank of 8 input channels on the wing everything is point-to-point routed so you select the source that you want say it's the kick drum and that exists on a s 50 a number 1 you can assign that source to any one of the channels on the board so we call it a source because it could be a kick drum or it could be a vocal mic or it could be a synth and they could all exist on channel 1 at some point but they're not just channel 1 they carry a message that you're trying to deliver so we came up with the concept of source routing to where the source itself carries that the naming and coloring and tagging information as well as the head amp control so you can then assign that source anywhere on the console and all of that information will follow it how would I get to the sources page so that would be the routing menu ok she would open up routing you can see here that you can select from all the different banks of sources here like your local inn or your AES ft or the wing live which is the expansion card that we're playing back a virtual soundcheck from right now so if we were to select that you can select from any one of the 64 input sources that that expansion card is offering so as you go through these you can see that they all have their own names and colors and icons cuca which can be changed going into the customization menu and this is where you can link sources for a mono input or stereo on its side input rather than assigning all of your source tags and symbols and colors and names on the surface beer on stage obviously you don't have access to the console itself so you can't be running back and forth from the stage plugging in a microphone and coming back to name it or writing it all down on a piece of so the solution for that is the wing co-pilot app which allows you to remotely connect to the mixer so you could be on stage with a tablet and when you plug in say mic one into input two on your stage box you grab that source and name it you know vocal mic and that change will take effect on the console so you don't have to keep track of everything with paper or radio I see that one fader is acting as a stereo mix how does that work in terms of routing a stereo source into one fader yeah so say we have a stereo overheads here we just select the channel that we want to assign that stereo source to and once you assign a stereo source to an input channel that channel automatically becomes stereo and you can have up to 48 stereo input channels how is the scribble strip and naming different from Mac's 32 so it's separated into you have a channel name and color and scribble strip but you also have the source options because if you want to move your source you don't want to have to go renaming all of your channels because you've moved one source so that information will actually stay with that so inside of the routing menu let's say we select the snare bottom but we wanted to change the color of that and we want to name it completely and change you know the symbol mm-hmm you can do all that in this menu once you've changed that you can also add tags so we can tag this as instrument because it's an instrument we could also tag it as drums because it's a drum mmm once you tag multiple or a single source with the same tag those tags can then be assigned to mute groups and DCA groups rather than having to assign all of your channels to a mute group if I want to mute all my drums I can mute the drum tag okay so we have a drum session playing back right now that's playing back from the wing live card which is a dual SD card or quarter so right now it's playing back a 32 channel interleave wav file that we have routed into the input channels the board you can use the dual SD card function as both playing back or one playing back and one recording or both SD cards recording simultaneously right now we just have one playing back for simplicity's sake so here we have a drum session how would I edit let's say the overheads you just did this would be the start to select overhead channel which again is a stereo channel the main home screen for each channel gives you an overview of everything that's going on so you can see your input source your EQ and you know some filtering so if you want to get into it deeper this screen is where you assign your input source and then the next step down the processing would be a gate so this is the winged gate then is stock on every channel this will give you controls like threshold ratio the range and then you have an envelope here that you can also adjust with the touch screen the gate also includes simulations of famous hardware are these gates available on each channel discreetly or yeah so every input channel has its own gay EQ and compression as well as insert points yes okay and so let's say I wanted to add a third-party compressor as well as an insert I could do both right how many inserts can I do total on one channel so including the gate EQ and dynamics modeling plus the two insert points every input channel can have up to five plugins running cool so the next step down the processing block you have your wing EQ which is a six band EQ on the input channels and an eight band EQ on the buses this again is fully compatible with the touchscreen sensitivity you also have Hardware emulations here like a pull tech and an SSL this weenie Q will also give you the option to do a band solo so if you want to monitor only the frequency band that you're trying to work with without everyone out in the audience hearing what you're doing you can use the band solo option cool then the compressors right yeah so that wing compressor again this is a flexible compressor with you know threshold ratio knee as well as an envelope and then again you're going to get into the hardware emulations so we have a 2a and seventy six grand others so I guess the main difference between the wing and the x32 in terms of the channel processing would be the emulations are available on each channel rather than having to use them as an insert yeah exactly so you have the option of using the wing EQ or a model DQ the wing compressor or a modeled compressor and that's on every input channel awesome so after that is the inserts yeah so each input channel is equipped with a pre fader as well as a post fader insert so let's say we wanted to put a pitch correction on this channel we can do that by inserting an effect and then we select the type of effect that we're looking for so if we do a pitch correction here we have some basic controls for pitch correction so if you needed to rein in a vocal or something it should be your go-to option this could also be something like a guitar amp model or you know an extra EQ if you need it where's the post fader insert so the post fader insert would be right after your main outs and so here's your post fader insert point this can also be used for any one of our you know Hardware emulations or guitar amp simulators or anything like that but the cool feature about the post fader insert is you can also use it as an auto mix group there's two auto mix groups X&Y so you can use it to assign your channel to the auto mix and what does the panning look like so right here is where you can select from the four master mixes so you can send your channel to one main mix or up to four and then you have your painting here so if you just grab this guy well we can use this for panning left and right you can also use this to narrow your stereo field or expand it up to 150 percent and if you're so inclined you can use this to invert the stereo field as well so as well as sending to the main mix you might want to send your channel to a bus as well which would be this last option down the processing strip so you can see you have your 16 stereo mix busses to send to you just turn it on turn it up and you're sending to that bus a really cool feature about this is you have a bus send EQ so you can use this EQ to make adjustments to the signal going to the bus without affecting the signal going to the main mix cool so Howard dca is different are they pretty much the same or so assigning a channel to a DCA group is very simple and very much the same as it always has been on like the x32 so you just go to your DCA layer hold down on the DCA and we're just assign all of your channels that way and then that's now your drum DCA so is this fader Bay only for the DCA's or are there customizable as well so we give you layers here that will you would typically see so you have a buss layer and an ox layer and a main matrix layer as well as a DCA layer you also have two user layers on each of the three banks so let's say I wanted to assign channel one and bus 2 and you know main mix one to a layer all you have to do is hold down the View button here and then you can start adding your channels to the layer nice so you can add channels supercool we're gonna add buses you can add that DCA that we just did and you can also add the send from a channel to a bus so let's say I need to have control over you know the send from the kick to somebody's monitor wedge I can throw that right on this layer here so that it's always at my fingertips so the meters menu on the wing gives you an overview of everything that's going on on the console so you can see you have all of your input channels you have your oxes your buses matrices and remains let's say you wanted to take a closer look at one of these banks all you have to do is actually tap on it and it'll bring up an enlarged version of the channel strips to show you everything that's going on so you know yeah I do have an insert on that channel or you know yes my EQ does look like that when you do that it's also gonna pull up that Bank on this middle Bank right here so if you need to slam the fader down right away you can pull up the meter and just slam it down like that and how is this channel strip this processing different from the touchscreen or is it pretty much compatible so there are two to three ways to do almost everything on this console so you can be using this channel strip section to edit a channel while you're editing an entirely different title on the screen here so the channel strip section is gonna give you immediate access to all of your EQ parameters so you can do your gain width and frequency setting on all of the different bands it's also going to give you access to your input parameters your high and low pass your gate compression if you have an insert it'll show you that and then you're sent out to the main mix so all of that is available right here you can also view all the details for the selected channel like whether you're using the main source or the alternate source the level of the channel any group assignments you have like an auto a mixed group or the main mix or a DCA group is all going to show up right here in this section so you can do all of that independently on this little screen here but if you want to pull it up on the big screen you can do that as well so I guess one of the benefits of that is that we can have the compressor over here and that you queue on this side and do them simultaneously and mix that way exactly so I'm adjusting the queue for this channel well you could be adjusting the compressor over here and what you do on one doesn't kick the other to that section you can work independently on the same mix so we're using an m32 back there what's the main differences between the wing the x32 around 32 so the biggest difference is gonna be channel count upon in X 32 or M 32 obviously you have 32 channels on the wing you have 48 but they're all fully stereo so rather than 32 channels in the mix you can have up to 96 different signals in the mix on the wing which is a huge difference you also have 16 stereo mix busses on an X and M 32 you have 16 mono mix busses on the wing they're all stereo so you can use one mix bus for a pair of stereo in ears where you have to link to on an X 32 to accomplish insane okay you also have more matrixes or DCA's for main mixes instead of one obviously the touch screen is gonna be a big difference the customization of the layers there's a pretty huge difference this is a result of a lot of people asking for it so on X 32 you have channels 1 through 8 to assign to Bank 1 through 8 and you can't change that on the wing it's completely customizable so I can do channel 1 plus 2 DCA 1 and so on in any order that I want so complete customization and the amount of i/o is increased the channel count is the recording situation the same in terms of the card out USB in into Pro Tools or whatever da W is that a similar situation to the x32 930 or it's similar on an extra dime 32 using the expansion card slot to host either a USB or firewire or a Dante interface whereas on the wing you have a built-in 48 by 48 USB interface so for the routing is similar where you can assign you know your 48 desired channels all to output into your DAW into Pro Tools as well as bring 48 channels back in from your DAW you can use what's called the external effect insert which is basically an insert effect that you can put on a channel that routes signal to an output and then back into an input to be right on your channel so this section over here looks a little like the same assign section on the X 30 - is it more expanded or what's what's different about it yeah so it is expanded on the next 32 you have a few buttons in just a couple of encoders here we have the four touch sensitive encoders and you know 20 soft buttons you can also have up to 16 different preset layers in this section so you could have one layer that's a sign for your compression settings and and one for you know a reverb settings or just do a simple you know setup where everything is just on one layer so to do that we will just hit the the view button here okay and that'll pull it up on the screen so you can select which hardware element you want to use and then say we wanted to do the pan of the kick this is now gonna be nice and so these are all customizable and assignable to whatever parameter I want completely customizable so that you can work the way that you want to work cool we also added a jog wheel down here so that can be assigned to let's say we wanted to assign it to a parameter of an effect and we chose the VSS three decay time yoga you can then grab that button and use this jog wheel to affect that decay time which otherwise you would either have to press it a hundred times or use you know a small encoder to do so you can just use the large jog wheel nice it's not just one master fader over here it looks like there's four what's the deal with that yeah so you can use up to four main mixes and those are natively gonna be over on this four channel main section this can also be used to pull up DCA's or even input channels if you want to and again it has user layers so you can use this to assign say your lead vocal your main mix and maybe your main reverb if those are gonna be the three most important channels to you you can have them here so that you can work on the rest of your mix over here but you're always gonna have those important channels right here nice this also has a dedicated control section here where see we have main 1 through 4 pulled up here also gonna be reflected right here what happens now is even though I have channel 1 selected here I can adjust the pan or the compression or the gate on any one of these main mixes without having to select the channel so I don't interrupt the selection process over here so this allows for two people to work simultaneously without interrupting each other so these lights up here whatever channel I've selected on here and then this is where the naming goes yeah so you have a row of LED lights that reflect the color that you have selected for the channel as well as the scribble strips the great thing about this is all of these can be controlled in terms of you know their brightness so say those LEDs were too bright for me you can turn them down if you're working in the dark you can also adjust the contrast of the scribble strip here you can change the backlight of the scribble strip everything's just too bright for you you can change the backlight of all of the soft buttons and keys as well as the colored ones and you also have control over the glow coming out the bottom of the console as well as on the back of the console for your patch panel all from this surface menu right here so these are controlling all the lights and the LEDs on the surface yeah so you can select you know the backlight or you know the glow or the patch nice you know cool so how do I handle scene management so it's in the library menu here you can see on the left side of the screen here we have all of the different snapshots that we've saved and then on the right side is the recall scope so say you didn't want to save a certain channel or you only wanted to save a certain channel that would be what you handle over here and then this side controls you know the different snapshots so aside from small venues where's this console best suited well because of the flexible routing options and i/o options and the completely customizable surface you can pretty much use this anywhere so a house of worship or as a touring band or even in a recording studio cool thanks for showing me the wink I'll appreciate it sure thing and if you have any other question just head on over to musician's friend calm you

Channel: Musician's Friend

Views: 36,223

Keywords: Musician's Friend, Behringer Wing, Behringer Wing Digital Mixer, Behringer Mixer, Behringer X32, Behringer Digital Mixer, Digital Mixer, Live Sound, Sound Engineer, Live Sound Engineer, Audio Mixer, Live Sound Mixing

Id: hn6zbMyjbfg

Length: 22min 14sec (1334 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020