IEM Mixer Recommendation

spanny

Active member
Hey everyone! I'm currently piecing together what components I will need for building my band's IEM rig. It will be fully self contained using a rackmount XLR splitter (1 split to our mixer, the other to FOH). We are a small band (3 piece) consisting of drums (4 piece kit), guitar (stereo guitar rig), bass, 3 vocals, a sampler for sound effects and an electronic drum pad (in-ears only for silent count in's). We plan micing the entire drum kit (still debating on if we would need to do cymbals as well, but that's TBD).

I am currently looking at the Behringer XR18 as it has more than enough channels for us as well as 6 AUX sends to give us 3 stereo mixes plus a stereo L/R output for when we need to run our own sound. Seeing as how the Behringer X32 seems to be the "industry standard" IEM mixer at the moment, are there any added benefits of getting the X32 over the XR18 aside from just the total # of channels? I wouldn't mind spending a few extra bucks if there is, but if its specifically just the total # of channels, then no need to spend the extra cash.

Thanks in advance! Also, any recommendations of tips would be appreciated as this is my first IEM rig I'm building, hopefully avoiding some newbie mistakes along the way :)
 
x32 rack is just so much more powerful and flexible man. Xr18 is cute but your kinda locked to that world. X32 rack has 2 streams of AES50 so you can do splits with front of house consoles that way , use stage boxes, plus more powerful eq, fx rack inserts, more buses for stems and monitors so on and so on...
 
The behringer stuff is absolutely solid and there are quite a few digital desks out there that would do the job. For me it comes down to the interface and for that I would consider the Soundcraft UI series, the UI24r being the flagship model but that’s a bit overkill so I’d have a look at the UI16.
 
Thanks for the insights! It definitely sounds like the X32 is capable of a lot more than the XR18. That being said, I don't foresee us needing to expand beyond our current rig (size-wise and the basic IEM mixing capabilities) as I don't anticipate needing to use the AES50 technology due to us using an analogue XLR splitter. If we were controlling our own PA, typically we would only send vocals and the sampler through to FOH and can have someone run a very basic mix using the main L/R outputs of the mixer.

Again, open to any feedback and if you think long term it would be a better choice to get the X32, I'll roll with that advice, I'm just not seeing the specific benefits of doing so.
 
Back
Top