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Has there ever been anything
so exciting since the arrival of
sliced bread? ALISTAIR MCGHEE
this for a party game? Name all the
manufacturers of mixing desks costing less than
a thousand pounds/Euros/dollars/conch shells.
��ow’s
That should keep the children amused for hours.
Now how about this: name all the manufacturers
directly, but you can also play back from an application
like Spot On or any radio cartwall software. From the
input side, the presence of Telco channels is a statement
of broadcast intent, but the real radio devil is in the detail
and particularly in the comms and monitoring detail.
thinks so; and it’s not baked of broadcast radio mixing desks under a thousand units of So you want to talk on the radio while operating
goods either.
your local currency. Eh, uum well no, eh… give in.
Well, into this veritable maelstrom of competition,
your own mixing desk? You’ll be needing an SLS (studio
loudspeaker switching) relay on your mics. In this case it’s
Allen & Heath has bravely pitched its new XB-14. a CRMS, but it really is a vital component of an on air desk.
Yes, a genuine broadcast mixing desk designed for You’ll want separate control of your guests and presenter
radio at under GB£1,000. I almost
headphone level, and you’ll want
wept when I heard the news.
separate monitor routing for guests
Born out of suggestions from
and presenter. All this is provided
its Israeli distributor, the XB-14
by the XB-14. You can choose
takes technology from A&H’s
whether the guests can hear your
Zed-series desks, but is a
pre-fade, which is another neat
new design, as will quickly
broadcast touch. In radio, dim
become obvious.
is not just a handy epithet but
also a tidy monitoring function,
The Right Mix
and the XB-14 provides a 20dB
Of course even in the tiny
dim switch on the control
niche of radio there’s a
room speakers.
huge variety of opinion on
Talking of dim, many
what constitutes the right
broadcasters eschew the
set of features for a mixer,
use of faders for mixing
and coming from a BBC
programmes, and rely on
background I’m acutely
channel on/off switching
conscious that there are
The desk features USB I/O for easy digital co-operation.
to activate the mics at
other perfectly valid ways
the right time having set
of doing radio, it’s just that I
the levels on the trims and
can’t be bothered learning them. For me then, it came as faders. As you might have guessed, this is abhorrent to
THE REVIEWER
a pleasant surprise that Phil Gott, now of Neutrik, had a
deal of influence on the design. Phil and I joined the BBC
BBC-trained engineers, and the cause of much misery and
confusion for manufacturers trying to satisfy everyone.
ALISTAIR MCGHEE began audio on the same training course back when banking was a Allen & Heath has taken the path of perfection and
life in hi-fi before joining the BBC
as an Audio Engineer. After ten
years in radio and TV, he moved
to production. When BBC Choice
started, he pioneered personal
digital production in television.
Alistair is now Assistant Editor,
respectable profession and Phil owned the loudest alarm
clock this side of Big Ben.
So what do you get in an XB-14? Well, four mono mic
inputs, two Telco channel inputs, and four stereo faders
that offer control over a selection of balanced, unbalanced,
and USB return inputs. Yes USB. Plug the XB-14 into your
provided mutes for the channels that can be overridden
by dip switches on the back panel. These switches also
independently control the CUE/START signalling for
remote replay, and more of that to come.
A Clean Feed
BBC Radio Wales, but is allowed computer (no drivers required for PC or Mac), and not Now back to those Telco channels, just underneath the
out occasionally. only can you record your mix (with some flexibility) input xlr you have a male xlr carrying clean feed out. �
32
radio broadcast
mixer
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AUDIO MEDIA MAY 2009