So if our card out was set to AES50A 1-32 then our mixbus 5 would be going out AES50 A 5 on the card correct?
The Card I/O is separate from the AES50 I/O. I'd take a look at a video on how the routing section of the X32 actually works, plenty exist. Just make sure to find one that covers the v4 firmware because it has a different look than the v3 routing pane.
In the routing
page you'll see a section labelled AES50 and a section labelled CARD. In the AES50 section your X Axis is SOURCE and your Y Axis is DESTINATION. To get Mix Bus 5 to shoot down the AES50 stream on 5 you'd need to configure the SOURCE to read "OUT 1-8" and the DESTINATION to read "
AES 1-8". If you were to select "Card 1-8" as the SOURCE you'd simply be mirroring whatever input signal is shooting IN from the expansion card and sending it OUT AES50 direct to your stagebox, sort of like a weird Direct Out that doesn't necessarily hit the audio
console.
If you want Mix 5 to hit the Card you'd pop into the CARD section, again X Axis is SOURCE and Y is DESTINATION (the card). You would want to select OUT 1-8 as the SOURCE and whatever you need on the Card as the DESTINATION. Default routing on the X32 just shoots Local Inputs 1-8 right to the OUTPUT of the card.
You can have Mix 5 hit both the Card and the AES50 outputs, but if you're in the routing pane for CARD and AES50 is selected, you're just going to route INPUTS from AES50 to the OUTPUTS of the CARD and if you're in the routing pane for AES50 and CARD is selected, you're just going to route INPUTS from the Card to the OUTPUTS of the AES50 device. Digital = Flexible. you give up some of that visual signal straight-line signal path for a path that can branch and loop and do all sorts of crazy stuff, ultimate flexibility* (in banks of 8). If we wanted nice straight lines we'd be Electricians.
I guess I am to use to analog wiring were I can
trace electrical path of flow with a multimeter. I suppose I am too much of a visual person.
Like I said, use the Offline Editor if you want more data at one time. If you understand Analog audio consoles, digital consoles should 100% sense because they are directly related and built off of their analog counterparts. It's just getting accustomed to what they can do above and beyond an analog
desk and some new terminology. You have every
bit of information you could ever want on a Digital
Desk, much like you'd look at a
channel strip on an analog
desk, you simply expand the selected
channel view on the
screen and start from there, it tells you exactly what you need.
I would like to see a chart that would tell me which physical and digital ports mixbus 5 is going to. I'm sure this is really simple and I'm having way to much difficulty understanding this fully. Please forgive me.
You can do that, it isn't a chart though. Next time you're at the
desk hit the physical "BUS 1-8"
button, hit "Select" on Mix 5's
channel, hit the "Sends on
Fader"
button and the left bank's faders will flip into Sends on
fader mode and show you exactly what's routed to the selected mix. It's how you dial in
monitor mixes really fast.
I really implore you to go watch some videos on the operation of the X32. I can't stress enough that I've only touched one once - but once you understand digital
console operation they all pretty much do the same thing, you need a mastery of analog audio consoles to master a digital
console because the core knowledge is 100% transferable you just need to make direct analogies to what you already know and apply it to this new domain. But take the time to learn the value of scene memory, that's one thing [almost all] analog consoles didn't have and the single huge struggle
point for folks making the analog/digital leap.