Behringer X32 as Recording Interface?

[dxavier]

Will be interesting to see what you think of the X32 in the context of a studio. It looks very well made and well featured.

Hopefully, you will post a review of it?

[SabreChris]

Originally Posted by dxavier

Will be interesting to see what you think of the X32 in the context of a studio. It looks very well made and well featured.

Hopefully, you will post a review of it?

I purchased this a couple weeks ago and returned it for a few reasons.

The primary reason was self noise generated by the board.


*The rotary encoder would make a zipper noise.
*The more LEDs that were lit up in the EQ section would add more noise.
*Channels 16/32 (farthest to right) were picking up electrical noise from the board and are not usable.
*The headphone outputs had a faint electrical or transformer noise. (Not clear if this was audible on main outs or just the headphone jacks.)
*The overall sound quality conversion was poor IMO. I played an MP3 from computer usb through channels 1/2 and hd280 phones and it sounded boxy. Then I played same mp3 from my htc evo and it sounded better, more clear and open. (And these are just poor phone converters.) The channels 1/2 were soloed. Its not clear if this was bad board sound or just a poorly speced headphone amp, but in studio I am using phones alot, so it was a no go.
*Poor s/n in general. Channel with sm58 and vocal tests had more hiss that I would expect from a studio preamp.
*Even when gain set to zero on all input channels, they cumulatively added noise to signal path. Unused channels need to be muted. Used chanells need to be gated.
*Flaky drivers. WDM drivers were working for windows, but ASIO drivers were not interacting well with samplitude. In "clock selection" box there was gibberish, and then once selected it defaulted to "computer", not X32.
*ASIO driver control panel when launched from OS, does not allow changing any options. Can only change asio options when launched from Samp. Was not able to get samp to play w/ asio, X32 selected and samp playing, no sound. Ididnt spend too much time trying to troubleshoot because of other issues. At this point I knew it was going back.
*Inaccurate faders. They land in a different spot depending on which direction they are coming from.

I also checked the one at GC and noticed most of the same problems.

I posted this in the remote forum, the tech rep from Behringer PMed me and said there was a 5min fix for all the noise issues in the first batch, that they had to reroute a cable.

Overall, I would avoid this for studio work as I was left with the impression that you will get better recording/playback results with one of the newer $200-300 usb multichannel interfaces. Even without the noise, I felt it would be very easy to improve upon conversion and fidelity. For live sound this might be the ticket, but because of noise/manufacturing issues, I absolutely did not want one from the first batch. The feature set is amazing, but dont expect it to compete with even a mid level recording interface.

[dxavier]

OH NO. As usual, the Sound on Sound review, gave it platinum plated thumbs up but I was wondering if Berhinger sound quality and noise floor, had taken that much of a leap forward. The Midas connection, side blinded me into thinking it could be possible, but I was wrong. Another Berhinger product, where the guts don't match the looks and feature list.

[Bratwurst]

@SabreChris:
I do have a X32 and I did over 50 live gigs and three recording sessions with it.
I never ran in any of these problem you described. I recorded several live gigs with 32 tracks on a Acer One netbook with a ATOM CPU (!) over USB, hooked up my i7 studio PC over FiWi and run the whole session with 48 Samples. Even my 2011 Mac Book Pro with Studio One V2 runs flawless with 64 Samples.

The noise issue on channel 16&36 is known and there are in deed some of the early desks, where one signal cable has to be rerouted. You can do this even on your own, if you have some basic tech skills.

Concerning sound: Maybe look into the X32 thread in the soundforums.net
There are some audio samples from live and studio recordings. For me, the X32 sounds really nice and this goes for almost all users of a X32. Their comments on the soundquality across-the-board are very positive.

Before you give up on the board, maybe get a second one and try again. According to the Behringner Facebook site, they shipped already over 20.000 desks worldwide and therefore the are very little complains about faulty desks. Anyhow it is in deed annoying, when your own desks fails...

[SabreChris]

Originally Posted by Bratwurst

@SabreChris:
I do have a X32 and I did over 50 live gigs and three recording sessions with it.
I never ran in any of these problem you described. I recorded several live gigs with 32 tracks on a Acer One netbook with a ATOM CPU (!) over USB, hooked up my i7 studio PC over FiWi and run the whole session with 48 Samples. Even my 2011 Mac Book Pro with Studio One V2 runs flawless with 64 Samples.

The noise issue on channel 16&36 is known and there are in deed some of the early desks, where one signal cable has to be rerouted. You can do this even on your own, if you have some basic tech skills.

Concerning sound: Maybe look into the X32 thread in the soundforums.net
There are some audio samples from live and studio recordings. For me, the X32 sounds really nice and this goes for almost all users of a X32. Their comments on the soundquality across-the-board are very positive.

Before you give up on the board, maybe get a second one and try again. According to the Behringner Facebook site, they shipped already over 20.000 desks worldwide and therefore the are very little complains about faulty desks. Anyhow it is in deed annoying, when your own desks fails...

The one at the local GC was doing the same thing, and the behringer rep admitted the problem was with the first batch and needs a cable to be moved.

That aside, either the quality of the headphone amp or the board itself was not up to my standard, and it was not clear that the asio usb drivers were working well at this point. I exchanged it for an RME UFX.

My feeling is that they will address most of these issues over time and the board will improve. I will take a look again later. Perhaps the boards that the power users got their hands on were given ones with better QA.

[DistortingJack]

Originally Posted by SabreChris

*The overall sound quality conversion was poor IMO. I played an MP3 from computer usb through channels 1/2 and hd280 phones and it sounded boxy. Then I played same mp3 from my htc evo and it sounded better, more clear and open. (And these are just poor phone converters.) The channels 1/2 were soloed. Its not clear if this was bad board sound or just a poorly speced headphone amp, but in studio I am using phones alot, so it was a no go.

I would just say this: do yourself a favour and swap those HD280 quickly! They're one of my pet peeves. Such a harsh, yet unfocussed sound, yuck. If you've got the money for a desk, you can afford some good 'phones!

[SabreChris]

Originally Posted by DistortingJack

I would just say this: do yourself a favour and swap those HD280 quickly! They're one of my pet peeves. Such a harsh, yet unfocussed sound, yuck. If you've got the money for a desk, you can afford some good 'phones!

They're not my favorites but they have a standard 1/8" jack which can be plugged to my phone or adapted to 1/4". They were sufficient for the test.

[SimpleM]

Is there a way of knowing by Serial # if a board is from the "old batch" or new? I am considering purchasing one from the local GC, and did not want to get an early release board, I'd rather buy one that has been "fixed".

[PDC]

Having customers and sales guys unable to reach Behringer tech support by phone for about four days now. Come on guys. Hire some people. Don't you know we have double digit unemployment in the USA and there are tons of musicians and techs in Vegas?

[mystryda]

Originally Posted by SabreChris

The only concern I have about the X32 is that it doesnt have any digital inputs, which means at the moment, I cant use it with improved converters. (It does have AES output)

The S16 digital snake has digital i/o (ADAT lightpipe). Granted, no word clock.

Originally Posted by SabreChris

*Channels 16/32 (farthest to right) were picking up electrical noise from the board and are not usable.

There's an acknowledged problem with internal cable routing on some boards that causes noise on these two channels. It's a quick fix that Behringer takes care of if you let them know. It's been discussed on the soundforums thread.