Im starting to use my tablet android touch osc as my behringer ddx3216 remote control.

First impressions after some “nights with ” First of all I have to mention that the findings I will tell about are all “6 months old”. This means -the DD3216I had for testing was one of the first ones built -the firmware was (still is at the time I’m writing this, July 2002) V 1.05 -I kept “quiet” for 6 months J. I kept quiet because I visited Behringer, with the DDX3216, 3 months ago. Told them everything I liked, what I disliked, what I think was “faulty” and what I think “could be improved via new firmware”. Until now however, I got no answers from them. So I decided it’s time to share my findings, hoping some other people with a DDX3216 could help me out on some issues, or perhaps some other people would let Behringer know what they think “could be better”. So here I go: I’ll start with “the really negatives” J: -there was a loose screw in my unit J -in the first built DDX3216s there seems to be a problem with the signal-LED-driving circuitryWhen one connects a headphone and “pumps up the volume” a bit, there will be signal-LEDS lighting up on channels where there is NO input signal present.

Seems to be a “cosmetic only” problem (no influence on sound whatsoever) but IMHO this should NOT have passed QC. (Nor R&D) -when one switches on the compressor on a channel with a “soft, sustained” signal (piano is the best source to test IMHO) and one chooses 0 attack time, and all other settings “around 12 o’clock”, one will here distortion in the sound (takes a little fiddling with the settings perhaps, but nothing too extravagant IMHO). Sounds to me as if one “hears every calculation made”. Of course, the settings used are perhaps not “musically” or even “technically correct”, but I’ve never heard another compressor sound like that with similar settings. -when I connect a Fostex VC08 (20-bit Analog / ADAT convertor) to the ADAT1616 interface on the DDX3216, plain “line-level” signals are way to “loud” and are overdriving the inputs. Since, in the digital path, there is no “gain” the only solution is to lower the output signal on the gear (synths etc).

But even a CD-player (no output-pot there) is “too loud”. Could be it’s the Fostex. Could be it’s not. I don’t know (yet). -when one applies a “constant signal” (or whatever signal, but a constant one is easier to see and listenOne can use the built-in OSC.) to a channel at 0 dB, sets an FX-send on that channel at 0 dB and then goes to the “FX and AUX” fader-page, one will see the FX-input is “in overdrive”. The red LED on the meterbar is ON. Where, IMHO, a 0dB signal with a 0 dB FX-send should give a 0dB input on that FX input, no?

Seems there is a difference of approx. And when “the red LED is on” one has NO idea if it’s on “very hard” or “slightly”.

The “logic” here isn’t clear to me. And since I got no answer from “the factory” yet, it keeps puzzling me. Or is this “exemplary” (“my” DDX3216 being the only one?

I didn’t get the chance nor time to test another unit) -the SMTP offset (MIDI, Timecode, needed to sync recorders etc). It isn’t “settable” and it should be IMHO. Most gear I use has a settable SMTP offset. I (and many others) use this to make a “default setting” of “T minus 3 seconds” so every synced unit has the time to get in sync before the 1H 0M. Point is reached.

But, when “you fool one, you must fool them all”. So IMHO SMTP-offset should be user-definable.

As things are now, my DDX3216 is always 3 seconds “ahead” in regards to the other gear (HD-recorder, Midi-sequencer etc). -the “4 built-in FX”: it would have been more “honest” to call it “2 + 2 FX”. Because only FX1 and 2 offer the “nicest” FX (stereo, reverbs etc) and FX3 and 4 are more modest (chorus, flanger, delay).

Also when scrolling through the FX-library, all FX show up in the list, also on FX3 and 4. Would, again, have been more honest to i.e.

“dim” those FX witch can not be chosen in FX3 and 4. When one has “a quick view in the store” one could easily be “misled” into believing all effects are available in all 4 FX engines. OK, those were the “most negatives” I think.

Vw passat b5. There are also some “could be better” things, i.e.: -digital out on control-room signal. Not just on “main output” -the SMTP offset mentioned earlier -use of the 16 busses as “groups”. The busses should be routable to “mains” so one could use those as “groupfaders” on an analog desk. Can’t be done if I remember well. -extra (and affordable, as always J) analog inputs. “Work in progress” rumours reached me. Let’s wait and see (and hear J).

-the display. Could be tilt-able won’t be a “we’ll fix it in new firmware item”, I know J. Could also have been a “larger one with smaller pixels”. But of course, the price shouldn’t “suffer” from it J.