Review: Mackie DL32R Tablet Rack Mixer
Mackie pioneered tablet mixers and — now the market has come of age — the DL32R rack version and Master Fader update shows the value in getting there first.
By Mark Davie
19 February 2015
Review: Christopher Holder
Since my last outing with Mackie’s first-to-market, iPad-controlled live mixer — the DL1608 — a lot has changed. For one, a product that could have easily turned into a gimmicky, flash-in-the-pan pockmark in history, has spawned an entirely new market of live mixer products. Just off the top of my head, there are now half a dozen manufacturers in this space, with more certain to come.
It’s not just a manufacturer-driven market though. Users are eating up these iPad-controlled devices, and for good reason too. Just as computers spawned the home studio revolution and plug-ins gave musicians previously unattainable control over their mix, tablet-based mixers have done the same for gigging musicians. The best a covers band used to be able to hope for was a portable analogue mixer with perhaps a built-in stereo effects engine. With the mixer on stage next to them, there was no way of tuning the PA, or at least ringing out resonant frequencies in the room, no way of getting a decent FOH balance, and typically no dynamics control or graphic EQs.
Tablet-based mixers fix all of those issues; roaming mix capability, loads of onboard processing, and with leftover DSP, they often do a whole lot more, like USB recording and playback. I’m not saying it’s the only application for the DL, far from it but it has put the power back into the hands of the gigging musician, and they’re loving it. A friend of mine plays in a covers band that owns a Mackie DL1608, and it’s been a complete game changer for them.
Of course, there’s no substitute for having a dedicated sound engineer mixing a show — indeed, the majority of gigs require it — and most would still rather physical faders for the job. But Mackie has been working hard on its Master Fader app, adding more pro features with each update. When it released the DL1608, Mackie also built a user forum for feature requests, and a lot of those have been implemented. So as well as being first to market, Mackie is already up to version 3.0.1 of Master Fader, and it shows.
FADE UP
When I reviewed the DL1608, there were a number of annoying omissions, and one of the most requested features was the ability to link two consecutive mono channels into a bona fide stereo channel. Mackie implemented that fix in version two.
Other v2 fixes included aux send linking for stereo outputs (like in-ear monitors or external feeds), pre-DSP aux source for non-effected monitoring, aux mutes, mute groups, view groups, and a quick access panel that lets you access effects mutes and delay tap tempos no matter which view you’re in. Mackie also added a master output mute, which was doubtlessly needed.
In the early version, there was only an EQ select button on each channel, which brought up the large EQ GUI. You then had to swipe to the dynamics section, and again to the effects. Now you can access the dynamics view directly from the gain reduction meters.
Mackie also added 350ms of alignment delay for delay stacks in v2, with an accompanying translation into metres and feet. It had an adjustment for temperature compensation too, but that’s all been nixed in v3. Perhaps delay stacks were stretching the imagination for a DL series use case. The delay facility has been moved to the monitor section in the latest version, for time aligning your headphones or monitor speakers to the FOH rig.
THIRD TIME LUCKY
Version three is another big step forward for the app. There’s some universal graphics changes — the faders now look like faders, instead of pointers, and all the circular slider buttons have been replaced with square ones. But the biggest leap is in how you navigate around the fader banks, especially with the larger DL32R.
The default fader view can be a bit unwieldy at times. With only eight faders on the display at any one time, it can take a bit of side-scrolling to get through all 32 input channels, 14 aux outputs, three effects faders, six sub groups, six VCAs, and six matrix outputs on the DL32R. So here’s a quick look at the new views:
NEED TO KNOW
Mackie DL32R
Tablet Rack Mixer
THE BIG PICTURE — There’s now a global channel view, which shows you miniature colour-coded faders with accompanying meters for every input, output, aux, group, VCA, effect, matrix out and mute group, all in one surprisingly easy-to-read window. From there, you can select a particular channel and be taken right to its in-depth view.
WIDER VIEW GROUP — The other major navigation features are all in a strip down the right hand side of the mixer window. In v2, Mackie introduced View Groups, which allowed you to customise your own groups of fader banks — drums with a sub group fader for instance. In v3 you can create Groups A through F, which can include any input, return, effect, sub group or VCA. Better yet, you have the same amount of customisable fader banks for each of the 14 auxes and for the effects sends too, giving you even more flexibility over not only your own mix, but what faders you can set up in each band member’s iPhone MyFader app too.
MASTER FADER BANKS — You also don’t have to waste a custom fader bank to group all your VCAs, for instance, because there’s a separate master fader section. You can flick between showing all master faders, singling out your LR master, or displaying group, effect, VCA, aux, or matrix masters on their own screen.
MUTE GROUPS — At the top of this navigation side bar is a new Mute Group section, which allows you to set up six, nameable mute groups. All of these custom banks and groups are really easy to assign from a single window, and you can also switch between viewing multiple groups of faders together or just one bank at a time.
While the new custom fader banks definitely give the iPad workflow a much-needed speed boost, I still have one bug bear to do with faders: You can’t swap fader positions. This is a real annoyance for me. Say you have your show file laid out with drums, bass, guitars, and vocals, then find out there’s an extra guitarist coming to the gig, or the drummer has three toms, but you only set aside two faders, you can’t simply part the waters and inject a fader from a far off land into the middle.
This inability to rearrange your fader positions extends to the View Groups too. Although you might still be able to group all the drums or guitarists, you can’t rearrange them into logical orders based on where they are on stage or the size of tom. You’d have to go back and meticulously rename or load presets for each channel to suit. I’m looking forward to v4 for that fix.
RACK YOUR BRAIN
The DL32R has 32 microphone preamps on XLR, with the last eight being combo jacks to allow for instrument inputs. The preamps are Mackie’s updated Onyx+ units and they sound good without clipping hard at the top end. They have plenty of presence, take EQ well, and with 60dB of clean gain, can handle any live source I can think of. Each channel has individual switchable 48V phantom power, and has a phase flip too. There are no pads on the channels, which I didn’t have a problem with in practise. There is a Trim control below the gain setting, but this is purely for digitally adjusting recording output levels. You can’t hit the preamps hard and back off the gain with the trim control like you can on a Midas.
There are 16 outputs, also via XLR, with the last pair being dedicated master L/R outputs. And aside from the monitor output and headphone output with its own level control, there’s also a stereo AES digital output.
The whole thing weighs just over 8kg, and only takes up a 3U rack space. That said, it is quite deep, so you’d want to ensure you buy a long enough case if you’re planning on it being portable.
The biggest question is where to sit the thing. The obvious choice would be in your stage rack. It’s essentially a wireless digital multicore, and you need your I/O as close to the stage as possible to save breaking out copper multicores. But then your headphone and monitor outputs are in the rack too, not to mention the talkback mic input. The iPad is only a controller, so it doesn’t output any audio from its headphone jack, or feed any to the rack via its microphone. Placement didn’t feel like a big issue with the DL1608, because it was smaller and came in that desktop mixer form factor. But the DL32R’s uncanny resemblance to a digital console’s networked stage box pretty much seals its position upstage. It would be nice if Mackie could come up with a wireless breakout interface with a headphone amp/monitor output and talkback input that you could park at your FOH mix position.
The other obvious worry is the move to full wireless control. Unlike the DL1608, you can’t simply dock your iPad into the DL32R and get a hard-wired connection. That said, Mackie seems to have nailed down the synchronisation process, and even if I forced the app to close, or killed an operation, Master Fader found and synced to the DL32R in seconds. I would recommend using a wireless-N, 5GHz router though, and setting up a backup network. Think of it as a virtual multicore that could just disappear into the ether.
LONG TRACK RECORD
The other placement conundrum is due to the multi-track recording feature, accessible from the two USB connectors on the rear of the DL32R. You can record up to 24 tracks (up to 24-bit/48k) direct to a self-powered hard drive over the USB A connector, or 32 channels to a computer over the USB B connector. Both will be able to record 32 channels come April, according to Mackie. The assignment matrix allows you to pick either pre- or post-DSP for each channel, and it doesn’t have to be direct inputs, it can be a mixture of groups, auxes, effects returns, whatever. The caveat is you can’t use both USB connectors simultaneously, so you can’t back up your computer recording with the direct-to-drive method; the USB A port always overrides the USB B port.
Keeping it all in a stage rack is fine if you’ve just got a hard drive hooked up; your iPad is the only reference as to what’s getting recorded anyway. But seeing a DAW draw waveforms in real-time can be a big confidence booster, so you’d want to be close to your computer screen for that mode. So where should I put the DL32R now?
When recording straight to a hard drive, the file format is multi-channel WAV files, with a maximum size of 2GB. It will automatically begin a new file, without gaps, each time the 2GB file limit is reached. So, for 24 tracks, that works out to be roughly 10 minutes per file. The manual says not to record to thumb drives either, and it was pretty right about that. I tried, and while it still managed to look like it was stably recording on the iPad, there were glitches in the audio on playback. A hard drive worked fine.
Master Fader also lets you set up two inputs for each channel. By default, Input A takes its source from mic preamps 1-32, and Input B from USB returns 1-32; a classic virtual soundcheck setup. You can, however, set them up as alternate stage patches, or to switch to backup mics. And while there are global switches, you can also flip only the amount of tracks that are in your multi-track playback source. So if you’ve got an eight-channel backing track you want to play back for one song, you can just flip that amount of channels to the USB inputs, and flip them back after the song is done. You can also play back stereo files from the hard drive, but they must be 48k WAVs to match the session; no MP3s, 44.1k files, etc.
Mackie also bills the DL32R as a studio interface, and while it definitely sounds clean enough, you’d have to watch the fan noise. While totally acceptable in a live gig, it’s definitely a unit you’d have to isolate in a studio environment.
Just as computers gave musicians previously unattainable control over their mix, tablet-based mixers have done the same for gigging musicians
VINTAGE V MODERN
One fun feature of Master Fader is the ability to swap between a ‘Modern’ take of the EQ, gate and compressor, and ‘Vintage’ versions. You can mix and match for each channel, and it’s not just a different face plate either. The controls vary (often more limited on the Vintage units), and they work differently too. The Vintage compressor has a program dependent release, and when the attack is set to fast, it’s fast.
The Modern compressor has a nice operating range with the ability to squash and pump sounds if really needed with an inf:1 setting, 20dB of makeup gain, 0.1-300ms attack time, and 50ms to a long 3s release time. Of course, it does subtle compression really well too, with a soft knee setting and ratios gently exponentially rising from 1:1 as you scroll through the fader (ie. there’s lots of finer detail in the lower ratio settings).
The Modern EQ has four bands, with individually tailorable Q, as well as a high-pass filter. The Vintage equivalent only has three bands — low and high shelving, with a parametric mid. It also has a high-pass filter, and all the controls are stepped as opposed to sliders in the Modern equivalent.
On the outputs, you can switch between four-band parametric or 31-band graphics, allowing you to either quickly sculpt overall groups, or finely tune a system.
There are two reverb and one delay effect engines on the DL32R. You can choose between eight different classic reverb types, five different delays including a tape echo, and there are plenty of preset starting points, or you can store your own.
MASTER IT
If you’re seriously contemplating a Mackie DL32R purchase, the best thing you could do would be to download Master Fader from the App Store and get familiar with it. Just a brief browse of the I/O routing page alone will give you a quick understanding of how truly flexible this device is, including multiple device hookup over Dante. In practise, the device works extremely well. Every iteration of Master Fader feels like the system makes a big leap, and in a few areas, bounds past other digital console form factors. There’s something to be said for being able to navigate an entire session smoothly from a touchscreen.
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