Looking for suggestions on a mixer for choir performances that supports phantom power

I

Imamacuser

Veteran
What's your opinion of the Behringer X Air XR16 mixer?

My church is considering picking one up to use at our semiannual choir performances, but I'm not sure if it's our best option. Since my church rents a building, we have to set up and tear down everything each Sunday, so we need small, light options for audio equipment. We have an amp and a couple speakers, and
for choir events we've been renting a soundboard, stagebox, and snake cable and running it to our amp.

My friend thinks the Behringer XR16 would be a great option since it's wireless interface would allow us to run our stage mics directly into the XR16 and circumvent using a soundboard, stagebox, and sanke.

It's received good reviews, but I wonder if we'd be better off getting and old school powered soundboard. My concern is that Behringer will drop support for the apps in a couple years, which will render the XR16 useless. We're looking for a long term solution, and the XR16 checks the boxes of being small and light, I'm just not convinced that it's something that we can use for 10+ years.
 
For this application, I would not suggest the XR16. The touchscreen interface isn't conducive to riding levels or adjusting multiple faders at once. If you do decide on the XR16, then buy an Android tablet for use with this system only, and disable all updates. Don't use the tablet for anything else to prevent a software update from disrupting the only way to control your mixer.

I have used several XR18s on an experimental opera, and they worked wonderfully. I think you should look into physical boards. You can get a digital snake, like the S16, to avoid having to run a large copper snake.
 
It probably won't be heard but I would never recommend something like this for anyplace that doesn't have a sound department staff. Folks get hot about this and the person you have now may be jonesing for it but how long are they going to be around? If the answer is a decade+ then that is one thing but if it's ??? maybe a couple of years then absolutely not.

Get a simple manual mixer that you can train someone in for basic stuff on short notice.
 
It's a small church and there's no staff, everything is volunteer, and none of us are audio experts. We don't have a specific budget in mind, but since we'll only use the mixer a couple times a year, we'll probably be looking at budget options (the congregation ins't comprised of audiophiles).

Our speakers are passive, but I forgot to note down their amperage. I think we used 5 mics last time, so we probably need something along the line of this mixer.
 
Just a regular panel mixer would be my choice. Either a Behringer or Mackie should be fine. You don't need to drop a ton of cash for something that gets infrequent use.
 
Update.

My church want's to rent a Behringer XR16 to see if it will work for the choir programs.

Does anyone know of an online rental company that will ship an XR16 to Des Moines Iowa? Neither the local rental companies or lens-proto-go, borrow-lenses, or lens-rentals have an XR16. I can't think of any other places to check.
 
To rent and ship both ways a $400 mixer is going to cost you most of the MRSP. I would post on local boards asking to "rent/ borrow" one from someone local that owns one.
 
Mixing on a panel just totally sucks. You can't look up at what's going on (say, another person about to speak...or starting to yell) and just move a fader; you need to look at the screen/tablet/phone to know where your channels and your fingers are. At least, it's that way for me. And then when things go wrong, they can go really wrong (an overheating iPad shutting down; happened to an experienced friend of mine when he was helping someone out with their webcast). And could there be compatibility issues in a few years when the then-common tablets/etc aren't compatible with this mixer unit?

A tablet interface is kinda good for some jobs in conjunction with a standard mixer. Like: you can walk away from the mixer to make sure everything sounds OK in various locations around the church or club or meeting hall. That's useful. But for mainly voice, it's not that important imo.

At my church we use an Allen & Heath Qu-16. Overkill, but nice. And the retired engineer (mechanical research guy, not sound engineer) bought & donated it because he figured it'd take care of anything that came up. A&H announced some newer mixers, so I think the Qu series might be discounted soon (or now). We have the non-chrome version of this: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Qu16Chrome

Before that, we had some rack mount Mackie mixer that worked fine, but that had rotary faders (knobs), not linear faders. Worked OK, but when volunteer sound people were rushed, it wasn't as visually obvious what channel was too loud, too low, or whatever. I like linear faders.

But you don't need to spend lots of money. The lower-cost powered mixers might be a good way for you to go. Or a non-powered mixer and eventually move towards powered speakers (just because it makes things simple). Here's a good list of the options:
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/live-sound/mixers/

Or geez, maybe there's a PA system that'd work for you? The Fender Passport systems work pretty well and sound pretty good. And are easy to pack up, carry, etc. Might not do what you need, but so much less hassle... We use it mainly for people speaking in our church hall (as opposed to in our church that has the installed system), and sometimes for one of our bands or the gospel choir where it's mainly providing a little vocal reinforcement. I've also helped out people using Fender and similar modern PA portable PA systems at cafes for smaill gigs. Lots of nice systems out there. I don't know if this is the exact Fender Passport system I've used, but it gets across the basic idea and price:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PassEvent

Not that I'm the only person at our church who works with audio professionally. Everyone else on the sound team is hip to audio, but simple is good! Having physical faders helps keep things simple. And we're all volunteers.

Ima, when you talk about using this with your choir, will you mainly be amplifying the soloists, or are you hoping to amplify the whole choir? Will music be running through this system?
 
Fender Passports are one of the nastiest sounding things I've ever heard from a big firm - maybe they just need to stick to guitars? They suffer badly from the plastic cabinets, so for anything other than low volume, speech and announcements they just can't cut the mustard. Volume wise they struggle with an electric band - when you turn them up they sound quite unpleasant.

I'm assuming that when you say for the choir, you are doing the old thing of putting a few mics on stands in front of them to make them louder? Quite different from a real PA. The behringers really have become popular, and it's very common to see pop and rock bands mixing on pads, from the stage or the audience, and they work very well - BUT - it's also very common to see the users running around trying to get a decent signal. Now loads of people have their personal hotspots enabled all the time, so they can get in the car and connect to the sat nav and hands-free, standing next to somebody with their phone in their pocket often causes you to lose your weaker signal from the Behringer (and others, of course). The wi-fi drops out and they can't turn a mic up or down till they get it back. On X32s you still have the real faders, so if the pad misbehaves, you can still work the system. The more people around, the worse the wifi gets.

There is no point buying anything you won't use, but equally there is little point buying the wrong one. The crucial thing now is quality. Everyone expects it. We all seem to appreciate it. If you buy a PA now, the important thing is it is upgradable. So you buy some smaller loudspeakers that are full range, but smaller and quieter. If you need next year more volume, or have bigger spaces, you can buy more of the same. If you buy the Fender, for example, working quietly with a mic plugged in - maybe somebody playing an acoustic guitar and singing - they're actually fine. Move to a bigger space, and the singer has an electric guitar, the volume knob creeps up, and once it's past half-way, the sounds really gets hard, brittle, and not at all mellow. Plastic box speakers can be OK, up to a certain level. EV SX300's for example. They sound pretty good until you start to abuse them, but of you buy two pairs, you get more coverage and more volume. However - if your band need you to put vocals through it, and a bit of keyboards, and maybe guitar - they start to go off quickly. I see why people buy cheap systems when they only expect a few outings a year, but they really do limit what can be done. Sticking a choir through one gives some extra volume, but makes feedback very difficulty to control.

Churches are now the number one buyers of top end gear in numbers, as they've understood the benefits of good quality audio. However, budget and user skills make this tricky at the lower levels. In theatres, where we principally work, our hearts sink when somebody has a bunch of singers and wants them amplified. Good singers who already have a sense of balance and sound nice rarely need amplifying and the need for mics is often because as singers, they suck! a few mics on stands, amplified with entry level kit will never sound nice. There is no magic button to press to make it happen. Skilled ears will be required to do the eq properly and manage the faders during the performance. This rarely happens and the damn things honk and squeal, when people just put out some mics and turn the volume up.

If you buy the behringer, it will do nicely - with somebody controlling it. The pad type surface works fine, and while I understand the idea of grabbing a fader quickly, in practice, it's fine. I helped a band I know out recently and they just gave me in the audience a pad so I could tweak levels, and there wasn't any feedback and it sounded nice. Was that just random luck, or my ears? I hope it was my ears.

In my audio career, I've only discovered two pieces of kit I hate. One is the AKG C1000 microphone, and the other is the Fender Passport. Nothing can sound as nasty as these once they get turned up - sorry.
 
paulears said:
In my audio career, I've only discovered two pieces of kit I hate. One is the AKG C1000 microphone, and the other is the Fender Passport. Nothing can sound as nasty as these once they get turned up - sorry.
Click to expand...

I agree with you about the C1000, but we get good sound out of our Fender Passport. Perhaps they changed the design for better or worse and some models have serious flaws? For how we use it, our Passport works fine.

No big deal.
 
paulears said:
In my audio career, I've only discovered two pieces of kit I hate. One is the AKG C1000 microphone, and the other is the Fender Passport. Nothing can sound as nasty as these once they get turned up - sorry.
Click to expand...
- Same here. I've also had the displeasure of working with both of those pieces of sh_t. Fortunately it wasn't often or together (double whammy).
 
Jim Feeley said:
I agree with you about the C1000, ...
Click to expand...

I think it depends on what you use it for. We had one on the Foley stage because it softened the grit edge and "lightened" the footsteps. We would use it when we had guys doing women's FS and it really helped. Wouldn't use it for most things but mics are like spices in cooking you don't generally want to flavor everything the same.
 
If we had a permanent building and didn't have to worry about setting up and tearing down, we would buy a powered soundboard in a heart beat. Weight and size becomes a problem when transporting equipment in personal vehicles.

The Church is currently considering replacing our Sunday service setup and choir performance setup with a Behringer XR16 mounted in a mini rack with an amp and our mic receivers.

My Church would prefer to rent one to see how it works before purchasing, but so far that doesn't seem to be an option; I guess we need to buy one from a place that has a really good return policy.

Any suggestions on where to purchase equipment? I've had good experiences with Adorama, B&H, and Musician's Friend, but we've been looking at going with Sweetwater.
 
Can't go wrong with one of the Mackie VLZ series mixers. Simple to operate and they continue to work reliably, even when abused. I personally do not think highly of the Behringer products .I've read of and have used some with dead channels and/or a few channels with abnormally mic low gain (line inputs worked normally). A few weeks ago, a drummer I work with, bought a $70 Behringer headphone amp for his IEM. Totally inadequate. He took it back and got a Shure IEM receiver/amp. Night and day.... of course the Shure cost considerably more.
FWIW, I have not used or read much negativity with the higher end Behringer/Midas X32).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top