Better MIDI capabilities

Basic MIDI control of the X-Air mixers is a good thing to have, but expanding it a little would allow lots of practical uses, as it is quite limited right now. I understand that OSC is much more powerful and allows full control with the apps, it’s just about interoperability with simple MIDI gear.

The main use-case would be a band without a sound guy, adjusting the mixer with a phone/tablet between songs but relying on a MIDI floorboard (e.g. FCB1010) for adjustments while playing : FX on-off and tap tempo, mute groups …

Here are some ideas of tweaks to the MIDI implementation:

• Activation/deactivation of Mute Groups, to cut noise and vocal FX between songs and address the public, or cut all mics. More useful than individual Mutes.

• DCA control with CC, more useful than individual Volume or Pan when a limited number of faders/expression pedals is available.

• Tap tempo for FX engines, using MIDI Clock. Ideally in the app we could choose the tempo subdivision (dotted-eight delay ftw) and which time-based effect gets synchronized or not.

• Switching snapshots with program changes is OK, please keep it. Actually it is the only MIDI control that I find useful right now.

• Control of the USB 2-track recorder/player (XR12 and XR16) using MMC, e.g. to start/stop background music during changeover, or to record a rehearsal. Pre-set fade-in/fade-out time and level of playback would be nice.

• Having control types on different channels (volume on ch1, mute on ch2, pan on ch3) is hardly compatible with third-party control surfaces. A mode with one MIDI channel per console channel (or a few, e.g. channel 1 volume/mute/pan and fx send 1 volume/mute on ch1, channel 10 and bus 1 output on ch10, etc.) may be more suitable. For example, on a Korg Nanokontrol each “slice” (1 fader, pot and buttons) has to be on the same MIDI channel.