Midas XL8

Control groups 209
XL8 Control Centre
Operator Manual
Control groups
Mute groups (auto-mutes)
There are eight auto-mute groups in the monitors section of the output bay; see “Auto-
mute groups” on page 118. Any number of channels - inputs or outputs - can be
assigned. Each mute group contains a MUTE and a SELECT button.
Assigning to a mute group
There are two ways to of assigning channels to a mute group, via group-view mode and
via channel-view mode. The group-view mode allows the user to select a particular
mute group or combination of mute groups an see and edit the channels assigned to
the groups. The channel-view mode allows the user to select a particular channel and
see and edit the mute groups to which it is assigned.
To manage mute groups, enter the Mute Groups screen via the GUI; see “Mute Groups
screen” on page 135.
When group-view mode is active, all of the channels assigned to the mute group need
to be highlighted to the user, who is then free to view or change them.
Stereo linking
Stereo linking, or ‘channel pairing’, provides a way of configuring two channels as
stereo. By default, all of the channels in the control centre are unpaired (mono).
When paired, the controls for each signal path act simultaneously on both the left and
right signal path. Individual trims, for example, adjusting the mic amp gains to balance
stereo mix inputs , can be applied to the left and right audio paths individually. The
channels are not truly mono at this time and any settings necessary to preserve the
audio prior to trimming, such as dynamics side chain linking, are maintained.
When linking previously unlinked channels, some normalisation of the prospective left
and right control settings - which may be quite different - is required. To do this, the
control settings on the left-hand (odd-numbered) channel are copied, with the
exception of the pan controls, to the right-hand channel. The pan controls, depending
on whether they are in the left- or right-hand audio paths, are set hard left or hard
right, respectively.
Input channels
Input channels can only be linked from the control surface, which is done by pressing
the LINK button, situated between the input channels strips (see “Input channel gain
and filter” on page 44). As there is no LINK button on the rightmost channel of each
input bay, linking is restricted to within each bank (bay). For example, you cannot link
input channel 8 in one bank with input channel 9 in the next.
Each LINK button has an integral LED that illuminates to indicate that adjacent input
channels are linked.