Any Behringer XR18 users here ?

Danny1969

mrkb said:

Has anyone found a good source of scene and channel presets for the XR18? Im interested in Eq and compression presets to try out on drums and vocals to quickly learn what works and doesnt. Also interested in channel presets so I can start learning how to set up channels for guitar, drums and vocals inputs.
Cheers.

Although all cases are different there are certain things I always do when setting a show file for a band, EQ and comp wise before I even get there

A good starting point for a male vocal into 58 or similar is 

EQ : high pass filter in set around 110Hz  ..... reduce around 3 to 6dB  between 280 to 500Hz ish, slight boost around 6K  ... low pass around 12K ish

Compression : this is dependent on the input level but what your shooting for is gain reduction ... getting more of an even vocal level. This is a starting point, setting a compressor for live music is different from setting in the studio because the more you compress the more the drum spill into the mic will be noticeable ...... if the singer is stood in front the drums which most are then there's a fair bit in there which you don't want to make worse. But try this 

Set the ratio about 3:1   set attack time to around 100ms  ... turn up threshold so compressor is doing nothing and your see'ing no gain reduction. Now lower the threshold until you see around 3 to 5dB gain reduction on the loudest bits of singing. Have a listen and see if the gain reduction is worth the trade off in terms of drum spill. If no problem try shortening the attack time to get a better more even vocal. This can vary massively with different singers but this is a starting point that will work in my experience. Don't worry about the compressor losing volume, get it even then raise the volume or make sure auto gain makeup is engaged. 

Kick drum and bass guitar need to be heavily tamed before they hit the PA, what you can do depends on what PA you have. Most bands gigging pubs and clubs don't have PA's that can reduce low frequencies properly so there's no point putting large boosts at 40Hz etc ... Assuming you have bass bins then high pass around 40Hz, slight boost around 65Hz can help thump, cut between 300 to 500Hz helps reduce mud and slight boost around 2 to 4K can help attack from the batter head if mic'ed inside ... if mic'ed outside then there's generally less attack available. I like to gate the kick so set the threshold of the gate so it opens with a softish whack. If you know the material and how the drummer plays you can gate harder but you need to be careful of gates if you don't  ... especially on toms  .... seen loads of gigs where tome were gated and drummer started doing something intricate on them and it didn't come out the PA Compressor wise you should be fine shooting for 8dB gain reduction with an average drummer with quite a quick attack time. You want every kick to sound even so it sounds powerful and also helps the PA by taming the transients . I also compress the snare but how much depends on how much hi hat bleed there is. Playing with the release time of the compressor can massively change the sound for the better. 

Bass guitar high pass around 40Hz, aim for whatever gain reduction you need to keep it consistent in the song. There's so many styles of bass playing and different guitars it's hard to suggest further. 

Everything else like guitars high pass around 100Hz, sometimes cut 500Hz ish if you need to carve out more room for the vocals. Basically the guitar competes with the vocals frequency wise, and the vocals come first so do what you need to in that respect to enhance the vocals. 
Keyboards also use a huge chunk of spectrum ... if the keyboard player uses a lot of left hand bass then sometimes you have to high pass them quite high ... like 150Hz ..... But then it can sound weedy if there's a big keys intro to a song like Jump, One Vision, Bo Rap and a million other songs. I normally look at the set and switch out the filter for keys intro and then switch in when the whole band comes in. 

Always set up 2 effects buses ... one for reverb and one for delay. You want these post fader not pre fader. High pass the reverb so it's less muddy, likewise the delay. Use tap tempo to set delay time to the song or if not possible then something around 300ms with a couple of repeats will generally sound OK on most things. Send the lead and backing vocals to the reverb, send the lead vocal to the delay as well. Send a little of the snare to the reverb as well. Kill the effects between songs, sound amateurish if you don't

All the above has been tried and tested as a starting point on various digital desks i've mixed on inc little DL1608, Tascam DM, A&H QU series, GLD series, Soundcraft SI. Yamaha PM5

Remember on any desk you can record to a laptop or USB stick then load the session back through the desk using USB as the source instead of local and then play around with the session using some headphones so you can investigate what all the above does. Your be able to hear how everything spills into all the mics and that will improve your mic placement skills. Your hear how badly everybody plays in isolation and wonder how it sounded so good on the night

mrkb

Danny1969 said:

mrkb said:

Has anyone found a good source of scene and channel presets for the XR18? Im interested in Eq and compression presets to try out on drums and vocals to quickly learn what works and doesnt. Also interested in channel presets so I can start learning how to set up channels for guitar, drums and vocals inputs.
Cheers.

Although all cases are different there are certain things I always do when setting a show file for a band, EQ and comp wise before I even get there

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Many thanks Danny! That should give me a great starting point, Cheers!