User's Manual

XL8 Control Centre

Quick Reference Guide

Chapter 6: Navigation

This chapter introduces you to XL8 navigation and shows you how to use the

navigational tools of the XL8 Control Centre.

You can also use the GUI to assist in navigation. For information, refer to the XL8 Live

Performance System Owner’s Manual (part number DOC02-XL8).

For information on navigating the scenes in automation, see “Managing the scenes” on

page 48.

An introduction to XL8 navigation

The XL8 provides you with unique navigational controls to quickly and easily access the

items, such as channels, buses, groups and detail areas, that you will require for

mixing.

Navigation is an important feature of the XL8 Control Centre. One of the advantages

digital consoles have over analogue ones is that their channel count is not limited by

the control surface hardware. However, this means that only a certain amount of

channels can be at the control surface at any time, while the others are ‘hidden’. So,

navigation is required to access these hidden channels whenever you need them.

Each bay has its own discrete set of channel controls, such as quick access buttons and

LCD select buttons, to help you quickly navigate the channels and buses to bring the

ones you need to the control surface and select them.

How the input channels are managed

Each input bay can handle a single bank of eight input channels at any time. There are

a total of 12 banks that, between them, encompass the 96 inputs available. Input

channels at the control surface are in ascending order from left to right.

To help you understand the operating principles of the XL8 it may be best to visualise

the control surface as if it were an analogue one, that is, in two dimensions with all 96

input channels laid out side by side. In this case all input channels are visible all of the

time and would look something like the one in Figure 6 (a massive beast!).

Figure 6: Theoretical analogue equivalent of the XL8 Control Centre

However, in reality the XL8 Control Centre has only five GUI screens and, in the

standard configuration, only three of these are allocated to the input channels (the

other two being used for the mix and output bay displays), so you can view up to 24

input channels at any time.

1-8 9-16 17-24 25-32 33-40 41-48 49-56 57-64 65-72 73-80 81-88 89-96

Banks of channels

Theoretical analogue equivalent of the XL8