Mixers/Consoles X32 USB Playback Tutorial

[dvsDave]

After much hair pulling and Googling, here's what I've found to work for playing back tracks from a USB stick on an X32 board. Most of what was tripping me up was getting the file type and settings correct.

1. Check your X32 board. Most are defaulted to running at 48kHz, although you can set it to run at 44.1kHz (click your setup button and on the first tab, you should see an option called Sample Rate, just make note of it's current setting, do NOT change it)
2. Take your source media (mp3, m4a, whatever) and convert them to 48kHz, 16bit uncompressed WAV files. (unless your sample rate is 44.1k, then do a 44.1kHz, 16 bit uncompressed wav) NOTE: Some programs ask if you want to add BWF information, or add markers and other metadata, UNSELECT these options!
   1. Programs that work well for this include Reaper, Adobe Audition, and Audacity, and others)
3. Make sure you have a pretty fast USB 2 or USB 3 USB stick to put the media on.
4. Put USB stick in X32 and hit the view button under the USB port
5. Choose your files and hit play.
6. On the channel selector part of the board, choose the "AUX In 1-6 USB Rec" button and ... slowly... bring up the fader.

 

[FMEng]

No need for hair pulling. We could have told you that.

 

[Footer]

Better off with a 3.5mm to 1/4" plug and an old iPod. I used the playback on that desk once, jumped through the hoops, and forgot about it. Use it to record a lot... but playback is rather useless when they require the sample rate to be locked to the desk's sample rate.

 

[dvsDave]

We used one of those stubby usb sticks that we just leave in the board and that's got our music that we use during communion services at our church. Less equipment to setup. We have a Rapco LTIBLOX box for feeding presentation audio to the system.

 

[dvsDave]

Also, while there are several tutorials online about recording using the X32, there was virtually nothing online that pulled together all the details for USB playback. For instance, I found several references to 48kHz, 16 bit files, but I found only one reference to the fact that the X32 doesn't like BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) type WAV's.

 

[TimmyP1955]

Better off with a 3.5mm to 1/4" plug and an old iPod. I used the playback on that desk once, jumped through the hoops, and forgot about it. Use it to record a lot... but playback is rather useless when they require the sample rate to be locked to the desk's sample rate.

This is not the correct cable, as you would be feeding a stereo source into a balanced input. As such, everything that's panned to the middle will be cancelled, and what remains will be polarity reversed on one side. The proper cable is a 1/8" TRS to dual 1/4" TS. (Or a custom 1/8"TRS to 1/4" TS summing (resistors inside) cable.)

 

[Footer]

This is not the correct cable, as you would be feeding a stereo source into a balanced input. As such, everything that's panned to the middle will be cancelled, and what remains will be polarity reversed on one side. The proper cable is a 1/8" TRS to dual 1/4" TS. (Or a custom 1/8"TRS to 1/4" TS summing (resistors inside) cable.)

One would assume that I meant the standard issue "iPod cable" that we all have on our consoles...