michaelpraytor
Member
Hey!!
I purchased a Behringer XR18 (rack mount/stage box version) last year and it's made my life so much easier in some respects and so much harder in others! I'm still really really new to using it.
For the first few gigs (a couple of small concerts and some location recording sessions) the built-in wifi router worked perfectly. For larger gigs, I began using a tiny router - everything still worked perfectly.
Then I went to Atlanta to run sound for a band and nothing would work for me. The gig was absolutely huge. It was in the middle of this gentrified shopping center (Ponce City Market) with thousands of people around. As you can imagine, just finding my router on the list of available networks was a little difficult because there were hundreds of Wifi connections all around.
After making an initial connection close by the mixer and external router, I walked in front of the stage to handle the sound check and my iPad started freaking out and losing signal. When I'd walk back over to the mixer, I'd pick up signal for a couple of seconds - then it would drop again. In the end, I was only able to get the mixer to connect long enough to unmute the important channels (vocals, keyboard, and acoustic-electric guitar) and I had to pretty much grin and bear it the entire performance and make minor adjustments by walking back and forth from the router at point-blank-range to the front of the stage.
It was absolutely embarrassing.
Following this, I did some Googling and found that other people online had the same sort of problem - but I could never find a clear and concise solution. A sound engineer friend of mine that has years of experience with these mixers told me that an easy way to fix everything is by changing the WiFi channel from the default of 11 (or whatever it is) to something else.
Poking around on the Behringer software, I found the spot in the app to change the internal router's WiFi channel. While I was at home, I changed it from 11 to 5 and (of course) noticed no real difference.
A couple of weeks ago, I had another gig come up - a poetry and original music showcase in a loft. Only 100 people were expected to attend - and I figured I could get away with just using the built in router as the area the show was happening was not densely populated and I've been able to get away with using the built in WiFi in crowds of 300 before in the same area.
The rehearsal went smoothly. The first hour and a half of the show went smoothly as well. Whenever the show was approaching the final 5 acts, the WiFi signal completely dropped out. No matter how close I got to my mixer, my iPad would not even recognize the router. After a minute of flipping the switch for the WiFi options on the mixer, I got connected again and everything functioned alright as long as I was close by.
That is - until the final act.
The final act was a four piece country band with a great reputation in the town and in the state. As they jumped on stage and picked up their instruments - the signal dropped out once again. I scrambled. I tried everything to fix it but nothing was working. My last choice was to turn the mixer off and on again (which I did after disconnecting all the speakers so nothing would pop).
When the mixer came back on, I was able to connect to the WiFi, but I was yet again experiencing problems connecting unless I was in close proximity (or weirdly it would connect if I was on the opposite end of the room - but nowhere in between).
Luckily, I was able to get out of there without completely embarrassing myself. I got the mixer to work well enough to bring effects in and out and to change monitor levels as needed. None of the guys in the band knew there was a problem and nobody in the audience complained about the sound (in fact, I got a shoutout in a newspaper article about the quality of the event sound).
Anyway - it seems that changing the internal router WiFi channel didn't work for me. And maybe all of my problems would have been solved by bringing along my external router...
Questions:
1. Do I need to buy a new external router? I believe my current external router is a small dual-band Netgear unit that's a few years old.
2. Is there any way to control the mixing through the XAir software on a computer through USB cable instead of WiFi?? Every time I've modified settings for recording or anything, I did it by connecting my computer to the board's wifi.
3. Are these boards just sometimes defective? The amount of random signal dropout makes me really suspicious. Do I need to contact Behringer?
4. Should I just buy an X32? I honestly don't have the money for one right now - and I was hoping I could get by with the XR18 while saving up for a Midas M32. Should I look at getting a physical board ASAP?
5. How can I be certain that everything will work the next time I have a high-stakes gig, though? Next month, I'm heading back to Atlanta to do sound for the same band I was there with last time. If I adjust everything with my external WiFi router and all - how do I know it'll work when I travel somewhere more densely populated?
As always, sorry for the long post - but these problems are really giving me anxiety and I can't seem to find any helpful, comprehensive answers anywhere!!
I purchased a Behringer XR18 (rack mount/stage box version) last year and it's made my life so much easier in some respects and so much harder in others! I'm still really really new to using it.
For the first few gigs (a couple of small concerts and some location recording sessions) the built-in wifi router worked perfectly. For larger gigs, I began using a tiny router - everything still worked perfectly.
Then I went to Atlanta to run sound for a band and nothing would work for me. The gig was absolutely huge. It was in the middle of this gentrified shopping center (Ponce City Market) with thousands of people around. As you can imagine, just finding my router on the list of available networks was a little difficult because there were hundreds of Wifi connections all around.
After making an initial connection close by the mixer and external router, I walked in front of the stage to handle the sound check and my iPad started freaking out and losing signal. When I'd walk back over to the mixer, I'd pick up signal for a couple of seconds - then it would drop again. In the end, I was only able to get the mixer to connect long enough to unmute the important channels (vocals, keyboard, and acoustic-electric guitar) and I had to pretty much grin and bear it the entire performance and make minor adjustments by walking back and forth from the router at point-blank-range to the front of the stage.
It was absolutely embarrassing.
Following this, I did some Googling and found that other people online had the same sort of problem - but I could never find a clear and concise solution. A sound engineer friend of mine that has years of experience with these mixers told me that an easy way to fix everything is by changing the WiFi channel from the default of 11 (or whatever it is) to something else.
Poking around on the Behringer software, I found the spot in the app to change the internal router's WiFi channel. While I was at home, I changed it from 11 to 5 and (of course) noticed no real difference.
A couple of weeks ago, I had another gig come up - a poetry and original music showcase in a loft. Only 100 people were expected to attend - and I figured I could get away with just using the built in router as the area the show was happening was not densely populated and I've been able to get away with using the built in WiFi in crowds of 300 before in the same area.
The rehearsal went smoothly. The first hour and a half of the show went smoothly as well. Whenever the show was approaching the final 5 acts, the WiFi signal completely dropped out. No matter how close I got to my mixer, my iPad would not even recognize the router. After a minute of flipping the switch for the WiFi options on the mixer, I got connected again and everything functioned alright as long as I was close by.
That is - until the final act.
The final act was a four piece country band with a great reputation in the town and in the state. As they jumped on stage and picked up their instruments - the signal dropped out once again. I scrambled. I tried everything to fix it but nothing was working. My last choice was to turn the mixer off and on again (which I did after disconnecting all the speakers so nothing would pop).
When the mixer came back on, I was able to connect to the WiFi, but I was yet again experiencing problems connecting unless I was in close proximity (or weirdly it would connect if I was on the opposite end of the room - but nowhere in between).
Luckily, I was able to get out of there without completely embarrassing myself. I got the mixer to work well enough to bring effects in and out and to change monitor levels as needed. None of the guys in the band knew there was a problem and nobody in the audience complained about the sound (in fact, I got a shoutout in a newspaper article about the quality of the event sound).
Anyway - it seems that changing the internal router WiFi channel didn't work for me. And maybe all of my problems would have been solved by bringing along my external router...
Questions:
1. Do I need to buy a new external router? I believe my current external router is a small dual-band Netgear unit that's a few years old.
2. Is there any way to control the mixing through the XAir software on a computer through USB cable instead of WiFi?? Every time I've modified settings for recording or anything, I did it by connecting my computer to the board's wifi.
3. Are these boards just sometimes defective? The amount of random signal dropout makes me really suspicious. Do I need to contact Behringer?
4. Should I just buy an X32? I honestly don't have the money for one right now - and I was hoping I could get by with the XR18 while saving up for a Midas M32. Should I look at getting a physical board ASAP?
5. How can I be certain that everything will work the next time I have a high-stakes gig, though? Next month, I'm heading back to Atlanta to do sound for the same band I was there with last time. If I adjust everything with my external WiFi router and all - how do I know it'll work when I travel somewhere more densely populated?
As always, sorry for the long post - but these problems are really giving me anxiety and I can't seem to find any helpful, comprehensive answers anywhere!!