Behringer XR18 - Mystery signal routing

Keefy

I have owned my XR18 for some 16 months and have learned to use it both at home and over the course of a couple of dozen rehearsals with two different bands. At the weekend I had a pub gig with one of the bands, using my XR18 into the drummer’s PA speakers. Although I have the X-Air App on my devices, I control the mixes using Mixing Station on my iPad. I have set up each member to access their individual monitor mix on their own iPhone. The lead singer had a wedge, the rest of us were on IEMs. I was ampless and using a modeller into channel 6.

When I went out front to set the mix (with my guitar on a wireless link) I discovered that when I zeroed the faders on my guitar channel on both FOH and the singer’s wedge, my guitar was still audible, loud and clear. The faders affected the volume but could not completely remove the signal. I wish I had checked which speaker(s) the signal was coming through, but in the heat of the moment I didn’t.

I don’t expect anyone to be able to diagnose the problem without getting hands on my setup, but can anyone suggest where I should start looking, either in Mixing Station or in X-Air? Fwiw I checked the input routing and all 16 inputs were correctly routed to the corresponding channels.

Any and all suggestions gratefully received!

Danny1969

I have actually seen that issue before and had it happened to me but on a Mackie DL 1608 rather than an X18 

On the similar but more expensive Midus M18 I have seen the opposite happen on an aux send  .. right routing , good signal path and according to ap sending signal but nothing there 

You do get strange things happen with digital desk now and again, especially the cheaper ones 

I’ve also had a soundcraft UI 24 decide to stop letting any audio through during an important tribute .. that was a hardware faukt .. details of how I fixed it in the community repair thread 
Oh and the Presonus Studiolive 16:4:2 .. I had one of those decide it couldn’t get a value from a 10K fader  so it gave up allowing the adjustment of any audio in any channel at all and I have to leave the gig, Go back to the studio and get an analog desk. 

Most often or not it is something that’s accidentally been thumbed on the iPad in the routing section or a mute group

But digital desk are a bit like PCs sometimes they just go wrong in software and a reboot sorts it out hopefully until the next time 

Danny1969

Oh I forget to mention .. if you are sure it's not a software setting in the ap then look at the X18 I fixed in the community repair thread. For the sake of the 15 mins it takes to take the X18 apart I would have a look inside yours. Look at  the PCB connector that moves and breaks contact with the PCB below it if the boards aren't straight. Because if yours have moved then you will start to lose outputs. Plus If a digital desk can't get a reading or communicate with a signal then, as mentioned all the Presonus desk issue all bets are off. It may just ignore that or it may keep trying and disable other stuff while doing so. 

Keefy

Thanks @Danny1969 I saw the repair thread for the loose board connector. I think that would be more likely to cause a signal loss rather than signal appearing where it shouldn’t be.

I didn’t think about rebooting the mixer. Of course that will happen when I switch it on at home to see what’s going on! I plan to try and replicate the setup to see if signal appears where it shouldn’t, then re-educate myself in the process of setting up Aux mixes to make sure I haven’t done anything stupid.

Part of the problem is not knowing what I don’t know - I have so far ignored things like DCAs.

maltingsaudio

Your guitar send to monitors is prefade so if the singer had already mixed your guitar into his wedge whatever you did to the channel fader it would still be in his wedge , my guess you mis fingered pulling aux 1 down

Danny1969

maltingsaudio said:

Your guitar send to monitors is prefade so if the singer had already mixed your guitar into his wedge whatever you did to the channel fader it would still be in his wedge 

Yes but he said he zeroed the guitar in the singers wedge and FOH .. so at that point it wouldn't normally be in either. 

maltingsaudio

Danny1969 said:

maltingsaudio said:

Your guitar send to monitors is prefade so if the singer had already mixed your guitar into his wedge whatever you did to the channel fader it would still be in his wedge 

Yes but he said he zeroed the guitar in the singers wedge and FOH .. so at that point it wouldn't normally be in either. 

But did he? It’s easy in the apps to mis dial , also as multiple devices are controlling the mixer, he states everyone can control their own mix from their phone, it is possible the singers phone over rode the mix station.

Keefy

maltingsaudio said:

Danny1969 said:

maltingsaudio said:

Your guitar send to monitors is prefade so if the singer had already mixed your guitar into his wedge whatever you did to the channel fader it would still be in his wedge 

Yes but he said he zeroed the guitar in the singers wedge and FOH .. so at that point it wouldn't normally be in either. 

But did he? It’s easy in the apps to mis dial , also as multiple devices are controlling the mixer, he states everyone can control their own mix from their phone, it is possible the singers phone over rode the mix station.

Well that gives me something to try - I can control the FOH mix from my iPad as usual but set up my iPhone to control Aux 1 and see what happens,

Danny1969

Normally it doesn't matter how many devices are communicating with the mixer. If you slide down your guitar in Aux 1 for example and someone with a phone slides it back up you will see the fader come back up on your device. If you then slide it back down they will see it come back down on their device etc. The internal digital mix bus in the mixer reports it's position to any device  ... that's why your ap doesn't show anything until you connect then all the faders jump to the position the digital mix busses tell them to. 

But yes it's easy to make mistakes, be on the wrong layer, be on the wrong aux bus etc. A common one is to be looking at what's going to FX1 rather than FOH and then wondering why sliding down the faders does nothing volume wise. 

maltingsaudio

According to the manual the xr18 router will only support 4 devices

Keefy

maltingsaudio said:

According to the manual the xr18 router will only support 4 devices

I’m using an external Asus router.

Keefy

Finally got round to doing a deep dive into my snapshots. I simultaneously had X-Air running in my laptop and Mixing Station on my iPad. As well as some things being pre- or post-fader when they should have been the opposite, I had one monitor send patched through to the main L/R outputs. That last was the culprit I think!

Mixing Station is great for just seeing the things you need to when using the XR18 in anger, but it took X-Air to find where I’d gone wrong.

shufflebeat

These things should have been apparent in Mixing Station as well. Are you using a custom layout?

Keefy

shufflebeat said:

These things should have been apparent in Mixing Station as well. Are you using a custom layout?

No. I use different layers for different bands but have never gone as far as setting up a custom layout.

shufflebeat

Got it.

Any mis-patching should be easily visible in the output matrix which is accessible via the up/down arrows at top right of the screen.