DCA vs Subgroups - On The Behringer XR18 - X Air - Tutorial

hello again and welcome back to the channel on this episode i thought we would take a look at dcas versus subgroups how they work the differences between them and how to set them up on an xr18 the easiest way to do that is get right to it with the x air edit software i've got a basic band scene set up on the console to work with so let's start with the sub groups let's mouse over to the sends window to set up our buses since this scene has buses one through four used for monitors that leaves us bus five and six that can be used for subgroups if you're using bus six for oxfed subs as we discussed in the previous video then that would only leave you with bus five even though that is the decision process in this example you can have as many subgroups as you have unused buses we'll use bus 5 for our subgroup for this example so what does a subgroup do in simple terms it lets us group certain channels through a bus in the console commonly it would be similar channels such as all vocals or all drums we would assign them to a group so that once we had our relative vocal balance set on the channel faders we could then adjust them overall all at once by just using the one subgroup fader another example might be drums where you might have four or more channels of drums you'd use the channel faders to get your drum mix and then use the subgroup fader to change the overall level of that drum mix now at this point we could do the very same thing with dcas but there are differences with the dca which i'll address as we go along and as you learn those differences it will dictate which method you might want to choose in different situations so i will start with this subgroup example so i can explain some of those things as we go along first you have to decide what channels you want to group together for this example i'll use vocals now we need to make our selected bus bus 5 a sub group and we do that from the sends window in the top right there is the globe icon highlight that by clicking it this will make our changes global this way when we make an assignment change on one channel's bus all the other channels buses will also get that exact same change that's because we're in global mode the globe's highlighted so we can choose any channel now and choose best five as a subgroup all our console channels will then have bus 5 as a sub group now that we have a subgroup set up on bus 5 we need to decide which channels we want to send to that sub group when we chose the subgroup option for our bus it took away the bus fader and gave us this icon when we highlight this icon by clicking it it goes from dull to bright blue the channel is now assigned to this subgroup any channels that we now want in our subgroup we need to do this same routine for in this example it's our vocal channels we go to each vocal channel and do the same thing the global icon doesn't matter on this part it doesn't have any effect there's a second way to assign our unassigned channels instead of having to page through our channels we can go back to the mixer page like this and now we can see every bus right here in one space our subgroup which is bus five just says on but they aren't actually on until they are highlighted just click each channel we want for our bus 5 subgroup to be highlighted which is our vocals in this example and if you happen to see a channel being sent to the subgroup that shouldn't be then click it and it will be deselected and it will gray out we still have a bit of housekeeping for our subgroup setup to go through though if we highlight our subgroup fader section in the master section like this press button 5 then the fader which highlights it we can then mouse over to the main tab on the mixer section and click it we need to tell the subgroup that now has the channels we've sent to it inside it to send those channels on to the left and right main outs to do that click the left right button shown here to highlight it it should not be grayed out for this use we could also pan our bus to the left or right which would pan all the channels we've assigned to that bus to the left or right by using this control we can also link odd and even buses for stereo here if we were to do that it would take an extra bus away from us though you'd want to do that if you were grouping channels that you were panning left and right and needed to keep that stereo feel for your mix i'll have more on this when we talk about the dcas a little bit later in the video and believe it or not we still have a piece of setup work for our subgroup channels on the mixer screen on each vocal channel in our example on the main tab deselect the left right button so that it is not highlighted on the channels it should be grayed out when we assign channels to a subgroup for the purpose that we're doing here we don't want them also assigned to the left and right from the channel we don't want to double assign what's going to the left and right outs the subgroup itself will send these channels to the left and right out the signal flow is this our selected channels are going to our subgroup and our subgroup is sending those channels to the left and right outs the fader on bus 5 now acts as a main fader for the vocals we've grouped to there and now we're into one of the main differences between a subgroup and a dca for a subgroup the channels are sent to a bus to be combined there before going to the mains we can even compress this subgroup or insert things from the effects rack into this subgroup if you highlight the group fader section you have your comps eq etc all available to you to use on the bus before your group channels get to the main outs it's pretty common to want to put things in a subgroup not just for having a master level control for that subgroup but to also be able to compress things in a group things like vocals or drums and the compressor is there to glue them together just a little bit more also since these group channels are in a bus you have the ability to send them out one of your xlr outs on the front of the unit with standard routing that would mean our subgroup is also outputting its signal out aux 5. you might do that if you just wanted to send your vocals to some phil speakers for example ok now let's talk dcas with dca's they are not sending the signals through a bus at all when you assign channels to a dca that dca is more like a drill sergeant just telling the channel faders what to do assigning them is easy either from the channel tab or the main tab of each selected channel with dcas the channels are still going directly to the left and right main outputs the dca is just passing along instructions to the channels so unlike subgroups for dcas you want the left and right main assignment highlighted for each channel also the channel pins are still panning the channels left and right in the house they are not getting funneled into a group but all of that means you can't compress a dca group there isn't even anywhere to insert a compressor or anything else on a dca because no audio is passing through the dca itself like i said it's a drill sergeant telling the faders what to do and you're the general issuing the orders by your adjustments on the dca faders the channel faders won't physically move when you adjust and assign dca fader up or down but essentially that is what's happening and for that matter that is the only thing that's happening the xr18 gives you four dca groups and the dca group buttons on the right side of the screen here bring up the selected dca fader using dca's doesn't use up any of your buses on the console if you were to group your drums together then another grouping for guitars another group for keyboards and another group for vocals then using dcas for this you still have all your regular buses available for monitors a stream mix an oxfed sub or whatever else at least until you use up all six buses but a dca has no way to strap a compressor across your overall drum mix for example you'd need a subgroup for that this is one of those areas where the differences in the xr and the x32 and m32 are more pronounced the x32 gives you more flexibility because you have more buses and more dca's to work with but with the fewer channels on the x-air your grouping needs are usually less one thing i need to mention about subgroups is there are other ways they can be used what i've described here is a typical way that they get used in a normal band setting but there are some other uses that's one of the reasons why there's so many extra steps to set them up but that said i imagine most users watching this video will be using them exactly as i've described in this video meanwhile there's only one way to use the dcas and that's why they are so much easier to assign and use they're not available to create alternate mixes and sins there's no way to insert anything in a dca or anything really even like that so they are pretty straightforward if anyone is wondering how i named the buses here's how to do that mouse up to setup and click it mouse over to the gui preferences tab mouse down and check the show bus names box now when you press one of the bus buttons in the master section and then mouse over to the fader tray that comes up and mouse up to the button at the top of the tray and right click it you get a window to choose the highlight color and to name the bus that can help you navigate your console quickly at a show and you can name your monitor mixes by actual position instrument or the musician's name whatever is easy for you to quickly recognize i hope this information was helpful please like and subscribe please click the affiliate links in the text box below the video to help support the channel and i will see you next time [Music]

Channel: Alan Hamilton Audio

Views: 57,144

Keywords: XR18 DCA, DCA versus subgroup, dca vs subgroup, MR18 DCA, Dcas vs subgroups, Behringer subgroup., DCA Groups, Behringer DCA, XR18 tutorial, MR18 tutorial, Subgroup, X Air tutorial, Behringer XR18, X-Air tutorial, Midas MR18, Live sound, Live audio, Church audio, X-Air, Beringer, Behringer X32., Behringer tutorial, Midas tutorial, church sound, sound reinforcement, mixing for dummies, live mixing, digital audio, Church audio setup, digital mixing, Cover band

Id: x6TKam2F50Q

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021