A total of 24 sends were controlled from the XL8 at FOH, which also served as a central control point for the alarm and announcement system, and as a router for all signals entering and leaving the location.
“We remain in the digital domain the whole time, all the way up to the amps,” explained technical director Andreas Meier. “That is an unassailable advantage, particularly when considering the enormous variety of events taking place here in the course of the Movimentos festival.”
While the XL8 at FOH was used throughout the festival, the second XL8 at monitors was reserved for concert use. This console was operated by experienced engineer Tobias Kiemann.
An unusual feature of the network solution involving the two digital consoles was the strict separation of analogue and digital domains. Specifically, while the desks formed a peer-to-peer network, their analogue input sections remained independent.
Kiemann observed: “In the case of the classic application, that is, sound reinforcement for a concert with separate FOH and monitor mixes, each position has its own independently controllable gain stage and the subsequent routing of inputs (for example, their assignment to mixer channels) is also handled independently.”
