Behringer X AIR XR18

MattFGBI

Anyone used one of these? Little black stage box -> wifi -> your ipad for mixing.  Looks like a good idea to me! 

Anyone using this or similar? 

rsvmark

A mate of mine has just bought one. He's a singer in a big band, jazz band and 1 man show and As you can imagine Is fed up with carting gear around. Anything to make his life easier and he went for that plus one of these

http://www.thomann.de/gb/ld_systems_maui_28.htm

He absolutely raved about it

mike257

I don't like mixing live music without a real control surface in front of me but looking at one of these as a neat and tidy compact solution for small corporate jobs where it's just a few mics and playback. Nice to stash it behind a stage and not worry about a messy FOH mix position. Be interested to hear any feedback from real world use.

JMP220478

I'm looking at these and the soundcraft UI series - anyone got any experience they want to share ?

MattFGBI

I used this at a wedding gig a few weeks ago. 10 piece funk band. Easy peasy. Ideal for functions and weddings.

mike257

Bit more to add since my last post.

The XR stuff has inherited a lot from the X32 platform and looks pretty good. Strong feature set. Still haven't had hands on myself but a friend has picked one up to cover small gigs and is happy with it so far. Android app is by the guy who built the excellent Mixing Station app for the X32/M32 consoles.

Company I freelance for has recently grabbed a Soundcraft Ui16 for small corporate jobs etc. It's not, strictly speaking, a Soundcraft product. It was developed by a Chinese company called SMpro, who were bought outright by Harman Group for the purpose of grabbing this product line. It's got a new lick of paint, a few small tweaks and lots of brand names added in (Lexicon, DBX, Digitech - all part of the Harman group) but the mixer itself has changed very little.

My personal experience of the Ui so far is that the interface and feature set are decent for small jobs but I've had frequent issues with connection loss using the internal router. I'd recommend an external 5Ghz capable router to use with it.

Danny1969

@mike257 ;

I have some router trouble too, occasionally  the connection is lost despite the fact I'm only a few yards from the bloody thing. This happens with a 5G router mounted on the FOH stack so it's above peoples heads. This happens with the QU desk I use and a studiolive desk. One router is the A&H approved netgear one the other is a BT hub. I'm starting to thing these router dropouts are actually caused by something other than line of sight and distance. 

How many aux outs does the Ui16 have ? it looks a great price if it's got enough for stereo ears for a 4 piece band

mike257

Hi @Danny1969 - there's four mono aux outs, although if you're prepared to sacrifice the headphone output then you can stick a stereo to dual mono cable in and use it as another two auxes, there's a switch on the settings page for it.

I'm waiting for the company to grab an external router for me to rack up with the Ui, it's the internal one giving me grief. To be honest, for anything more than a small corporate job where I'm juggling a lectern, couple of lavs and some playback, I'm still going to be taking a real desk out. Even with this, I'm pushing for them to leave a laptop dedicated to it that can stay hardwired in on gigs so we've always got control available.

It is very capable for the price, and the "More Me" simple monitor mix screen looks like it'd be handy in a band situation where there's no dedicated engineer on hand. The connection problems have put me right off using it for anything as intensive as a proper live show though.

Danny1969

Thanks @mike257

4 mono's is a bit stingy, shame there's not more as even the old Mackie DL1608 has 6. Trouble is everyone wants stereo ears these days so 10 or 12 is better

I'm with you on having a real desk, I love wireless mixing and no snake but I want to be able to pull down some real faders if something goes wrong 

mike257

@danny1969

As an FYI, I was using the Ui16 for a small corporate job today, four lapels and a couple of handheld, panel discussion at a lunch event. Using an Android tablet and the inbuilt WiFi router.

During the 30 mins it was in use, the internal WiFi locked up completely and rejected all connections. None of the four devices we tried were able to log in, meaning I had no control over the mixer at all. I was reduced to kneeling in front of it tweaking the master volume knobs (the only hardware controls) to try and level the various speakers as we went on. Had to reset power completely midway through and the gig was basically ruined.

I was beyond angry as when we first picked it up I insisted to the guy manager at the AV company that we needed an external router for it and he hasn't bothered, preferring to make do and save a few quid. Unfortunately I'm the one on the sharp end having to explain it away to the clients and fudge my way through.

Anyway, it's a cautionary tale that the internal routers in these things are bollocks!