With our band we are playing all instruments and mic’s through GP, with four instances of GP.
All physical connections (Guitar/ Bass guitar/ mic’s) In the XR18 mixer, running through GP and back into the single channels of the Mixer. Then out of the mixer (L/R) into our PA.
The mixer set up I never touch.
Live, I control all gains with a X touch mini, I can control the gain of all processed signal individually per song (what I usually only use in rehearsals) or I can adjust the signal signal of each instrument / mic, globally, (if we hear that at a gig, the for example the bass guitar is generally to loud/ not loud enough). That works, perfect!
My problem: If we have a gig, at which we have to play through their PA/ FOH of a third party, I can give them currently only the L/R. They would have no chance to level the single instruments/ mic’s.
Is there a way to manage it that way, that I give “them” the individual outputs and “they” can control the single level’s in their mixer?
In my opinion that just would works, if I connect their mixer by usb to my computer (at which GP is running), and connect their virtual outputs to their mixer. That would mean, I have to see in GP the “Audio In” block of my XR18 Mixer, and the “Audio Out” block of the third party devise.
I think for what you describe you’d need access to 2 audio interfaces (XR18 & FOH) in 1 instance of GP and that is not possible.
In the past our band used an XR18 as monitor mixer as well, and we used 2 Behringer ULTRALINK MS8000 splitters in front of our XR18 which worked well. So the signals from the instruments and microphones first go into the splitter and the splitter sends the signals to both the XR18 and FOH.
Do you want to send the raw input signal to FOH or the processed signals?
If the former, see Seet’s solution above.
If the latter, you could use the Ultranet and StageConnect protocols to give individual outputs to FOH.
For this you need either the Midas DN4816-O or the new Behringer SC16-O. Those boxes have 16 line outputs and your XR18 can feed them from its Ultranet port. The Behringer version is a bit more affordable and has midi, but might not be available for the time being.
Be aware that this solution isn’t a classical split and that the gain will be set in your XR18, so FOH has no control over it.
For instance, if you would gain a microphone too much in the XR18 and it’s clipping, the clipped signal is send to the FOH and they have no way to correct it. With a splitter, the FOH gets a raw unprocessed signal so they can treat it however they like.
But since you all play VST’s, it seems that the Midas DN4816-O is a good option!
FOH doesn’t have control over the gain staging, the first point of the signal chain where you set the gain or level of the incoming signal so that it’s not clipping, but not too weak either. FOH people generally like to have control over this.
They can control individual fader levels and other processing like compression and eq, though.
Seemed to me that this is what you want to achieve.
It’s clear that I can not give them clipping signals; that I do not want if I do the FOH myself.
If I understand it correctly, with the above mentioned Behringer device I can take the processed (through GP and the XR18) single channels and send it as individual audio channels to the FOH. The connection between my XR18 and the Behringer is just a Network cable, correct?
If so, that is what I would need, if I would like to connect my setup to the FOH mixer, so they can level/ compress/eq our instruments and mics.
Yes, but you should use a shielded CAT5 or above cable. That’s what’s recommended for the Ultranet/P16 protocol.
You need as many xlr cables as number of channels/signals you want to send to FOH individually.
In the XR18’s routing menu switch to the Ultranet/P16 tab. There you can define which signals shall be sent to the FOH’s inputs.
No, this is a stagebox for the X32/M32 line of mixers and uses the AES50 protocol. Its Ultranet port is only an output.
As Seet correctly mentioned, the SC16-O or DN4816-O are the ones you need and have Ultranet inputs (which you need) and outputs. The main purpose of these devices is to convert Ultranet signals to the StageConnect protocol and distribute SC signals. SC offers up to 32 audio channels over XLR/DMX cables and was introduced for the Behringer Wing mixers. But the addition of Ultranet ports makes them compatible with the XR18/MR18 mixers.
