Am I the only one here who DETESTS trying to mix 32 channels with 16 faders? Doing button-selected, one-at-a-time channel adjustments is one thing, but actually MIXING more than 16 channels with only 16 faders seems EXACTLY like operating with one hand tied behind your back!

Yeah, I can see it in a professional road-show where all the channels are pre-assigned and even pre-set for gain, EQ, effects, etc. And the show (or at least the songs) are the same all season and the operator is an professional with years of experience in daily operation.

But selling these things into churches, et.al. where you are dealing with semi-skilled volunteers and the program is changing in Real-Time just seems like driving on the edge of disaster. Not to mention extensive training to get operators up to speed. Especially when they may work only one weekend a month (or a quarter). And ongoing training when volunteers are replaced with new people.

I am working with a video production upgrade in a church where some guitar shop came in and bamboozled the amateur "audio" guys to scrap their perfectly good, high-end, 32-channel desk and replace it with a Behringer X32 "because it's DIGITAL!". NONE of the whizzy digital features will actually solve ANY of the problems they are currently having because they are operational and acoustical.

And they want us (video) to install a second X32 for video/recording mix because it is SOOO convenient to just couple them together with a Cat5 cable. Which is true enough. But the thought of switching banks back and forth and back and forth just seems like insanity to me. We may still install mic-level splitters and take our feeds at mic level. Maybe we can just use the perfectly good 32 channel desk they are discarding. That'll baffle them.