Recording - March 2013 - 14

BY ALLEN GOODMAN AND MIKE METLAY

Behringer has been in the business of
building audio gear with more features for
less money for a long time, but what many
of our readers probably don’t realize is that
Behringer has also been in the digital console business for a long time. Way back in
our January 2003 issue—yes, just over a
decade ago!—we featured a review of the
Behringer DDX3216, a 32-input, 16-bus
digital mixer with a fairly unusual form factor and surprisingly big feature set at what
was then a ridiculously low price: just a
hair over $2000 fully loaded. But it only
had 12 analog inputs, the built-in DSP
effects and routing options were primitive

Behringer X32
Digital mixing for the masses—lots of power, not a lot of cash
by today’s standards, it couldn’t talk to a
computer easily, and while it sported a
decent-sized LCD, finding your way
around wasn’t always as straightforward
as it could have been.
Ten years later, Behringer has released
the X32, which raises the bar in pretty
much every department—the front panel
proudly says “powered by MIDAS” and
the board’s sonic quality and massive feature set bespeaks the marque of that wellrespected maker, now part of the MUSIC
Group of companies alongside Behringer
and Klark-Teknik. The X32 is intended for
both live and studio use, and as we’ll see,
sports some pretty important innovations
allowing it to seamlessly move from one
application to the other as well as
enabling easy live multitrack recording
from Front Of House. And yet again, it
does all this at a price that most users
would consider insane.
Back (and sides)
The X32 is so named for its 32 inputs,
but unlike its predecessor, you don’t get to
32 by counting up analog channels, digital ins, etc.; the rear panel sports 32 XLR
inputs for 32 input channels with really
clean and clear-sounding MIDAS preamps. Each input sports individually
assignable 48V phantom power; while the
board’s front panel shares controls (in a
manner we’ll describe below), the rear
panel sports 32 Phantom LEDs, one next to
each input, so the status of all ins can be
easily seen at once.
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RECORDING March 2013

The X32 also offers 16 analog XLR
Outputs (to feed a multitrack tape machine,
multiple cue mixes, etc.); six each of Aux
Ins and Aux Outs on balanced TRS (Aux
5/6 also on unbalanced RCA); and L/R
Monitor/Control Room Outputs on XLR and
balanced TRS. The two side caps have, hidden inside the recesses where you grip the
mixer to lift and carry it, a pair of 1/4" TRS
headphone outputs, one on each side.
Digital connections include direct USB
connection and Ethernet, both for remote
control of the board (see below), MIDI In and
Out, stereo AES/EBU Output on XLR, an
ULTRANET connection for the Behringer P-16
personal monitoring system (not tested in this
review), and AES50 connectors for multichannel digital input and output. The X32
comes loaded with a removable card called
the XUF; it adds USB 2.0 and FireWire 400
ports for combined MIDI and 32-channel 24bit audio interfacing to a Mac or PC.
A colorful landscape
The front panel is dominated by a large
backlit color graphic LCD (not touch-sensitive) surrounded by 8 page select buttons
and 6 push-click “soft knob” encoders.
Right next to the LCD are large level meters
for Monitor/Control Room level and
Left/Right Main level. (By default, Outputs
15/16 are the main mix, but it can be
assigned to any pair of outputs.) The left
half of the mixer is devoted to the sort of
controls one would expect on the input section of any large digital console; there are

16 100 mm “grab and grind” (non-touchsensitive) motorized faders, and one large
set of input-channel controls which are
assigned to the one channel (or linked
stereo pair) chosen by the Select button.
The input channel controls are laid out in
logical blocks, each with brightly backlit buttons and LED-ringed encoders to provide
easy hands-on adjustment of the most important parameters. However, what’s on the
front panel isn’t all that’s available! Pressing
the small View button for each block brings
it up on the LCD and displays many more
parameters accessible via the soft knobs.
The first block is Config/Preamp, which
offers a Gain knob, phantom power and
polarity-flip buttons, a lowcut filter with
adjustable corner frequency, and an LED
input level meter. Pressing View adds controls for input delay (to adjust for distances
in a live venue) as well as controls for the
channel insert. The insert point is internal
and can be pre- or post-compressor/eq,
and can be routed to physical I/O or to
internal effects processing.
The second block is a Gate/Ducker with
Threshold knob and bypass button; View
adds attack, hold, and release controls. The
third block is a Compressor/Limiter with
Threshold knob and bypass button; View
adds ratio, envelope, makeup gain, knee,
and key (sidechain) filter controls. The two
dynamics control blocks share a front-panel
dedicated Gain Reduction meter; the Pre
selection on the Insert places it between the
Gate and the Compressor.
Recording - March 2013

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