[LAU] Behringer and Linux

[Len Ovens]

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015, David Santamauro wrote:

> So do these mixers give 16, 18 and 32 discreet input channels over USB 
> (recognized by ALSA)  or are only their AUX/MAIN outputs sent over USB to the 
> computer?

The channels are routable. That is you can choose what (if anything) goes 
to the USB line. However, I do not know if the USB xceiver can be set to 
only send a few lines. Routing only 8 channels to USB may mean that there 
are 32 USB lines but only audio on 8. It seems the X32 may not come with 
USB out of the box, that may be an extra card. It comes with AES50 OOTB. 
The Xair does have USB, 18 i/o. There are 11 points on the channel strip 
where the audio can be routed from including raw from the ADC to post 
fader. You can also choose Aux in, fx in and out, bus and mains. The Setup 
page seems to suggest USB can be set to 18 or 2 i/o.

With reguard to the X32, their web page says:
"We’ve also made the X32 even more flexible, with swappable expansion 
cards for connecting to other multi-channel audio networking via USB, 
ADAT, MADI and Dante protocols, in addition to the onboard ULTRANET and 
AES50 connectivity."

Then:
"A wide array of X-Expansion Cards can easily be used in place of the 
pre-installed X-USB card to release the power of X32 into existing MADI*, 
Dante* and ADAT networks."

So it does come with the USB card installed. The mixer app does not show 
the USB IF... I guess it checks what is actually there first. But the 
routing looks to be raw in only. The routing is much harder to 
understand... but a lot more i/o to deal with.

If I was buying one, I would be tempted to walk into the local music store 
with a laptop and try it out.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net