Behringer X Air XR18 B-Stock

This is a fantastic little unit that is very easy to use and amazingly priced for what your getting.

Lets start with the size. It is essentially a digital 3u stage box with all your ins and outs llocated on the front of this box. It comes with its own rack ears if you want to rack mount it in a 19" rack case (which is what I did for easy transportation).

Once you have plugged all of your ins and outs into it, then all the operation comes from a wireless device such as an iPad, laptop or android. The unit has its own wifi router so connection to a device couldn't be simpler.

The free app that runs the unit is fantastic. Very easy to use and logical and contacts some great effects units such as reverbs, delays, compressors, and eq's. It is also very easy to route monitor mixes to any of the 6 auxiliary mixes.

A few negatives not so much about the unit but in functionality and in use. Firstly, because i have a slightly older iPad, it doesn't quite keep up with the app and the XR18 which (I assume) requires a very fast CPU to run it. I would like it to be a bit quicker and it sometimes loses connection and can become a little bit clunky. I don't believe this to down to the actual unit, more about my iPad but it is still an inconvenience when trying to mix live. I would recommend running the app off of a laptop or a newer, faster iPad.

My other comment would be that it is very difficult to get a great easy sound and setup quickly. I, like many run a function band and whilst i do the sound, I also play piano. Before with analogue desks this was easy as you could set it all up in sound check and merely tweak it throughout the performance. This is much harder with this unit. The way around this is to rely on presets prior to your gig. Get the mixer set up as much as you can including auxiliary mixes, effects, eq's and then save that as a preset. Then its much easier to tweak throughout your gig.

Overall, its a fantasict unit that i think is really going to change the live sound game. Bearing in mind its a digital desk for under £1000 and a good one at that, i think this will be a very popular product. The other note I must add is that when I purchased mine, you could not get them for love nor money in the UK. Everywhere was sold out and had unrealistic wait times.......everywhere except Thomann. I ordered mine and had it within 5 days. Very happy!!

If the amount of inputs are enough for the application, then this unit has pretty much anything you might need.
Some of the more sophisticated options the X32 has aren't available, but I guess they did that so there's some incentive to buy an X32 if you're in a more pro setting.

I'll do a pros and cons list.

Pros:

Very compact, especially considering what you get for that tiny size.
Huge amount of sonic control with parametric and graphic EQs, gates and compressors around, not to mention the big collection of effects/outboard-gear-simulators.
Very versatile routing options with Individual channel and bus(aux) settings.
Built in router can get you started or work as a backup in an emergency.
Scene saving and recalling (goes without saying for a digital console...).
Also works as an audio interface.


Cons (most are just minor incoveniences to be honest):

Behringer kinda rushed to put the XR series on the market and to this day there's no official manual to my knowledge, there's a wiki and plenty of stuff online though so you're not thrown in the deep by yourself.
You will eventually probably need an external router.
Some delay options for more sophisticated PA setups would be handy.
Scenes do not recall effects correctly and generally the android app, though quite good, could use some more refining (haven't tried out the iPad app).
Sockets-plugs are not bad, but I would be willing to pay a bit more for some higher quality ones like Neutrik.
No expansion capabilities for more inputs-outputs (I estimate that if Behringer made a 24 channel version of this mixer, it would sell like crazy because 16 is kinda minimal for a typical band).

I leave this for last and outside the list because it must be a personal issue cause I couldn't find anyone else having the same problem online, but for some reason I can't get the unit to work with system sound in my Windows PC (everything related with the ASIO drivers works fine).

Use & Clarity
I'm using XR18 at my own studio for recording/ hearing ourselves at rehersals. Also I'm working as a sound technician, I'am renting this little monster to some pubs. It works perfect, especcially for small bands. With 6 Aux chanels ,I can use IEM setup and all the musicians can hear themselves well.

Pros
-Really cheap!
-Lightweight
-18 Chanel Recording Capabilities
-XLR & Jack Combo Inputs
- 6 Aux Chanels
-Capable of using Mac,Andorid and PC
-Built in Wi-Fi (Works well at studio)

Cons
- You can't record directly to USB Drive.
- At crowded places Wi-Fi lost the connection. Use seperate router!
-Don't have ADAT / AES Port to connect or extend with other devices.

After the last rebate, this box is a total winner.

First of all, it can record 18 channel to PC, cheaper than any sound card out there; this was the dealmaker for me.

The mixer itself has that modern clean and no fuss sound that pretty much every box nowadays has. It's no Neve, but again it's clean and low noise enough to be very usable.

The interface is neat (I use it on android phone & tablet, and on osx) and the mixer, for this price, has pretty much anything you could want, routing is impressive, you can tap sound from wherever, you can assign things around, it could even work as an inline mixer with your DAW if you set USB correctly, channel layout is clear and full of options.

I'm utterly impressed, overall, this mixer has been very well thought out with the final user in mind.

The very few cons: use an external router, and on board effects are short of good (reverb in particular sounds the same crap whatever option you pull up).

I bought the mixer at a ridiculously discounted price which makes it difficult to criticize anything about it because the quality to price and features to price ratios are almost insane. However I allow myself to add two remarks to the XR18?s short list of cons you can find here and there in other reviews.

1. Two first channels labeled ?Hi-Z? right above the input socket make it possible to plug a guitar of a bass directly without a DI box and while the idea is great and the sound in signal to noise terms is identical to the one you get using a nice DI the high impedance affects somehow the performance of these channels when you plug in a typical dynamic microphone whose low sensitivity requires a solid boost from the preamp. In such a case the level of noise vs. the signal seems higher than in case of the other 14 channels with the same mic plugged in. The first two channels seem to produce a slight noise even with nothing plugged in if you don?t mute them. According to a manufacturer?s representative who explained this phenomenon at a web forum it?s normal as those two Hi-Z-capable channels have no impedance switch built in so the ?Hi-Z? feature remains active even with an XLR cable plugged in and hence the extra noise. I know nothing about electronics but this speaks to my imagination somehow as well as the promise of extended lifespan of such a switchless preamp but still it seems weird that the noise just resides there nonetheless. My first thought was that the first two channels were defective and I almost sent the unit back as the main purpose of the mixer for me is to do multichannel recordings including those of acoustic instruments and voices so the signal to noise ratio is a key factor to me. Now that I know the truth I just remember to use high sensitivity condenser mics with those two channels to reduce the preamps? drive and improve the noise performance.

2. The Windows app, while easy to use and generally clear, lacks a full screen fader only view I know from another manufacturer?s app. Big, tall faders are sometimes the only thing you need to set your levels properly and you could easily forget about other features of a selected channel like compressor or eq settings that you always see in a window over the row of faders whose scale remains reduced to less-than-half-window-tall. On the other hand, the row of meters above the faders in the ?mixer view? could have been easily integrated with the then magnified faders. And while the app?s GUI allows the user to scale it as a whole, you can scroll the magnified view only horizontally so the faders and MUTE buttons disappear behind the lower edge of the screen and remain invisible until the ?standard? scaling is restored. Maybe it?s not something you would hate the app for but in some situations during live mixing you may get confused while in that very moment you?re supposed to react quickly.

That being said I?m very satisfied with the mixer as well as the quality of recordings I?ve made with it. The driver is stable with the DAWs I use (Reaper and Bitwig Studio) and mixing the DAW output with the mixer?s input signals is also seamless which is important when artists need tailored monitor mixes for overdubbing.

I am a musician myself who plays a few gigs a year in small cafes but I mostly help a lot of my friends with my Pa setup. Before, I used the Yamaha MG12 XU (which is a great mixer) but was unhandy if I played by myself because it couldn't be in the spot that I wanted most of the time because there was no room or I needed to use a snake instead. The Behringer XR18 is much easier because you just place it in the middle and everyone can plug in and you just take your iPad and stand wherever you want + you can save every setting for the next gig that you need to soundcheck for 2 minutes.

The Behringer XR18 is a great digital mixer that is really affordable and has great preamps with multitrack through USB for live/studio recording in a compact box which you can transport easily. One of the only flaws that I had, was the software on the iPad that wouldn't let me know what I was doing wrong in the settings but luckily Xair edit for PC/mac works fine and helped me out.

It's very compact and easy to carry around, especially in the gator carry bag. Light weight and easy to set up. Blends easily onstage with rest of equipment - looks like a stage box. Can be fit into a rack with mounting brackets included. Some issues with connectivity, will recommend using an external router as signal tends to be lost at the most unfortunate of times. Still keeps on functioning normally if signal/connectivity is lost but you wouldn't have control over it. Connectivity can be secured with a password. Can be controlled by multiple devices at the same time. Can be used with ethernet cable. Great software/interface, easy to get used to and very user friendly. My first 'digital' mixer and managed to get it up and running in a few seconds. Would recommend to small to medium sized bands. Outputs can be assigned as necessary for live or recording.