On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 06:10:00 -0700 (PDT)
Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
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.
FWIW, I use an X32 to record my band. It does come with both FW and
class compliant USB interface, and I regularly record 32 channels from
it using jack/linux. Haven't tried to use it as a control surface..
--
Joakim