X32 ADAT Tap Points

[HHHHHH]

Hi,

I bought an M32 to use in my studio. I also bought a Klark Teknik ADAT card.

Is it true that you're only able to change the tap points on the 16 local outs? If that is the case, I'm pretty screwed.

Thanks in advance,

M

[HHHHHH]

Or does the user section not allow to choose a specific tap point? I'm confused..

[pvannatto]

Hi @HHHHHH, welcome to our forum. I would agree that you are confused.
* Tap points are only available on the routing patching screens (Out 1-16, Aux Out, Ultranet (also called P16)).
* The Out 1-16 assignments are not necessarily the local outs.
* Routing on the X32/M32 is done in 2 stages.
** Stage 1: Individual outputs are assigned (with tap points) on the patching screens to make up the blocks of 4/8.
** Stage 2: These blocks of 4/8 are then assigned to physical outputs (AES50, Card, XLR Out
** Exception to this rule are the Ultranet (also called P16) and Aux Out. These are hardwired to the respective outputs, but can also be used as patching screens for the other physical outputs.
* The XLR Out assigns blocks of 4 (from the patching screens) to the physical XLR outputs on the back of the console
* The Aux Out assigns individual outputs (with taps) to the 1/4" output jacks on the back of the console
* The Ultranet (also called P16) assigns individual outputs (with taps) to the Ultranet port on the back of the console
* The AES50 screen assigns blocks of 8 (from the patching screens) to the respective AES50 outputs (A and B) on the back of the console
* The Card screen assigns blocks of 8 (from the patching screens) to the inserted card (in your case the ADAT card) in the back of the console
* The User In and User Out screens are alternative output patching screens that rely on both physical inputs (eg. local, AES50, Card) and other patching assignments (eg. Out 1-16, Ultranet, Aux Out, etc.). The advantage of these patching screens is that they give you the ability of mixing input/output types. In reality the User In and User Out are simple indexes of other screens.

For your studio scenario, if you want to use some of the channel strip processing to the ADAT card, you would use the Out 2-26 and Ultranet screen (also called P16) to assign the DirChan Out with taps to make up the blocks of 8. Then on the Card screen, assign the respective blocks (eg. Out 1-8, Out 9-16, P16 1-8, P16 9-16).

[KMaxwell]

What version of the firmware do you have loaded in this X32? Some of what Paul wrote is only available in some of the newer firmware. If you have a really old firmware you can't do some of that. Look at the setup screen and it should show you what version you have.

4.09 is the latest firmware and is available under software here. https://www.behringer.com/behringer/pro ... e=0603-ACE

[HHHHHH]

HI Paul & Kmaxwell,

I updated to the latest firmware and was able to use the P16 outputs to configure some stuff. Now I just have to wrap my head around making a logic patch out of this chaos. It's far from a very logical setup right now. Thanks for your help!

[HHHHHH]

So, my P16,'s are sending the direct outs from 1 to 16 to my card (ADAT) out, my AUX outs + AES/EBU outs are sending direct out 17 - 24 and my first 4 XLR outs are sending the left channel of each FX return. This means that I only have 4 (physical) outputs left.

What I still wanted to do was send some of my mixbusses to the outputs of an ADAT expansion card on the other side of my studio but the only way to still do this is to use the user section. This section doesn't have the busses as an option...

This is a major restriction... Buying an extra stagebox wouldn't actually fix this since there's also no choice to directly choose the mixbusses as an output in that menu. You always have to go via the user section.

Am I right or completely missing a worklfow loophole? This all seems needlesly complex.

[pvannatto]

Am I right or completely missing a worklfow loophole? This all seems needlesly complex.

The reason for the X32/M32 complexity is mainly due to the initial design which began over 15 years ago. Add to that, compromises had to be made in the design and hardware (chipsets, memory, etc.) in order to release it (in summer of 2012) at half the cost of the nearest competitor. Finally over the 12 years of production, features have been added at the request of users to make the X32/M32 in situations it was never initially designed for (eg. studio applications - it was initially designed as a live audio console). The developers had to "shoe-horn" many of these features in the limited memory and DSP capacity.

So, my P16,'s are sending the direct outs from 1 to 16 to my card (ADAT) out, my AUX outs + AES/EBU outs are sending direct out 17 - 24 and my first 4 XLR outs are sending the left channel of each FX return. This means that I only have 4 (physical) outputs left.

If you have used the P16 and Aux Out screens to make up the blocks of 8 for the Card screen assignments, you still have the Out 1-16 screen to make up 2 more blocks of 8 (with DirChan assignments and taps).

[HHHHHH]

Thanks for this very claryfiyng explanation! Now I understand the history better.

Output 9 - 16 in the out section were followed by an asterisk, impliyng that they didn't have a physical output since I use the X32 Compact version. I didn't know I could still use these outputs for different purposes.

I'm finally ready to start planning out the studio, thanks again!

[pvannatto]

Output 9 - 16 in the out section were followed by an asterisk, impliyng that they didn't have a physical output since I use the X32 Compact version

Ignore those stupid asterisks. I told them when they added them to the firmware that it was stupid and would only confuse the masses. Feel free to use all 16 outputs to make up the blocks of 8.

[HHHHHH]

Since we're here now, I've been reading in the manual about the various function of the SOLO button, and for a live context they all seem pretty logical but for studio use it would be handy to have it function as a button that actually mutes all the other channels that aren't solo'ed. Do you know of any workaround to make this happen?

A different approach that would make even more sense is to have the ability to solo something and still have the ability to have the recording running at the same time. Unfortunately that's not how I have my studio routed. I have everyhtiung connected to two UAD soundcards which I use to monitor from.

I could change this approacha and choose to monitor from the X32 itself, but I sometimes use the UAD console to add extra FX before actually recording.

Anyways, perhaps there's some extra workarounds I don't know about.

Thanks!