This year, I opted to run from my XR18 rackmount digital mixer instead of the house M7CL. My reasoning for this was primarily to allow full multitrack recording for video post mix. Another advantage was the abilty to select scenes at random rather than in series from a list. An advantage which became apparent while configuring for the show was that the Xtouch controller provides an amazingly easy way to alter a channel's input source - faster than either the M7 or via app control of the XR18.

I had included in my decision to use the XR the requirement that the Xtouch would be part of the setup. This can be hard-cabled via ethernet to the mixer, removing dependence on a wi-fi connection during a crowded-house live show. That said, calling scenes was still done via a tablet over wi-fi, but if that had failed (it did not), I could simply pilot the whole thing from the Xtouch. Thanks to Behringer, Music Tribe, and the developers at Dev-Core ("Mixing Station" app for Android) for producing the mixer, controllers, and software which made this production run very smoothly!

Many tracks needed to be cued live, not only candidate talent tracks, but the National Anthem and all production dance tracks. This year, that task was done via MOTU Digital Performer's new (as of v10) "Clips" feature. This made for one of the most seamless and stress-free cueing processes I think I've ever had to operate. The same instance of Digital Performer was also tasked with the multi-track recording of all live shows. All of it went without any glitches of any kind. Plus, using Clips as I did, the cued tracks appeared on the multitrack timeline in perfect time alignment, saving much manual work to verify their alignment before the post mix. Thank you MOTU for Digital Performer - an amazing and robustly reliable tool!