Recording - March 2013 - 16

Behringer X32

The fourth block is a 4-band equalizer;
each band has fully adjustable gain, frequency, and Q. All four bands can act as
peaking bands in VEQ or PEQ mode,
two different-sounding eq characters, or
as high- or lowcut or shelving. The eq
curve is displayed in the LCD in full
graphics, making it easy to see which

The Monitor control section offers separate level pots for Monitor and Phones
level with Mono and Dim buttons; there’s
a Talkback section with a small front-panel
mic, a dedicated external-mic input, and
two separately-routable, separately-switchable Talkback signals; Scene control for
automation store/recall; an Assign section

band is doing what. Next are four Bus
Send encoders with buttons to route them
to any of the 16 buses; the View button
brings up a dedicated meter bridge with
pre/post routing and mute controls.
Finally there’s a Main Bus block with level
and pan controls.
Each of the 16 faders has Select, Solo,
and Mute buttons, its own small LED
meter for level or gain reduction/gate
activity, and a miniature LCD “scribble
strip” display that lets you easily label
inputs with titles and backlight colors of
your choice—there are even high-res
images of instruments that can be displayed on each channel, so your Snare
input has a picture of a snare drum on it.
Page buttons to assign the 16 faders to
inputs, Auxes, or bus masters are on the
left edge of the console.
The center of the console has eight
more moving faders with similar controls
and metering; these can be assigned to 8
DCA Groups, 16 Buses, and 6 Matrix
controls plus Center and L/R main levels.
One more fader is dedicated to the
Mains. The master fader can be assigned
to the Solo bus, which lets you use the
X32 as a monitor console.

with four encoders and eight buttons with
assignable functions including but not limited to pan, sends, dynamics, effects parameters, MIDI, and remote control; and buttons for six Mute Groups. Oh, and we
should probably mention the 12V lamp
socket, the top-panel USB jack for recording any two source channels (such as the
mains) to an external flash drive or hard
disk (which can also be used to store
scenes and do firmware upgrades)... and
the rubberized rest for your iPhone while
you run SPL monitoring apps.

RECORDING March 2013

Form follows function
This long-winded description of the
front panel goes a long way toward laying out the X32’s extensive routing and
processing functions. As you can see, this
board allows for pretty much any sort of
input and Aux routing and busing you

may wish to do in the course of a live performance or a studio recording session...
or, perhaps most critically, a live performance that you’re also recording!
Admittedly a lot of the routing choices
here are intended for live use, with L/R vs.
Center arrays, time delay adjustments for
PA systems, and flexible output routing so
the X32 can act as a monitor mixer as well
as FOH. But much of this flexibility translates well to the recording studio; flexible
output routings mean easy customization of
cue mixes and confidence monitors for
artists in the tracking room, and the importance of easy access to simple yet vital functions like checking one’s mix in mono can’t
be overemphasized.
We haven’t yet said much about the
X32’s signal processing. The dynamics control and eq on each input are easy to set
up—meaning you’ll use them when they’re
needed rather than avoiding them—and
sound smooth and musical, so you’ll like
what you get when you do use them! The
internal FX processors on our test X32,
which had firmware version 1.09, offered
37 different algorithms, including reverbs,
delays, modulation effects, amp simulators,
stereo pitch shift, a transient control program, combination effects, and more. Since
then, version 1.10 has added two de-esser
algorithms as well, but we didn’t have time
to test those. When set up in the Assign section for front-panel control, there are four
more LCD “scribble strip” displays that show
what parameters are assigned to the knobs
and buttons, complete with the current value
of every parameter assigned to a knob.
(After all, what good is having assignable

controls if you can’t see or remember what
they’re assigned to?)
There are eight stereo FX engines available at any given time and any input or
bus can be routed to them with controllable
send amounts, or use them as an insert
effect. The effects sound really good,
usable for full-on studio production as well
as live enhancement; while they may not
knock your favorite high-end reverb or
amp simulation plug-in off its throne, we
predict many users will find them more
than good enough to spice up recorded
tracks without belaboring a DAW’s CPU.
Speaking of DAWs...
As cool as the X32 is on its own, the
XUF takes it into new territory. This isn’t the
first console to have bidirectional audio
interfacing and automation control over a
single cable; it does, however, set new

Recording - March 2013

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