Behringer WING 48-channel Digital Mixer

Sources make navigation simple

The WING is jam-packed with I/O — 374 inputs and outputs, to be exact. And if you include its internal signals, the WING includes 400 inputs and outputs. Faced with this much I/O, Behringer’s engineering team reimagined the flow of a traditional mixer, putting the emphasis on your source audio, using what Behringer calls — quite fittingly — Sources. In the WING, inputs are much more than historical inputs, because they contain metadata on what the Source is — tags, input icon, input color, gain, phantom power, and if the Source is mono, stereo, or mid-side. All of that information follows the Source to any channel. With one simple button, that information can be copied to the channel, and the tags, icon, color, and other metadata show up on the channel immediately. If you move a Source to another channel, the information goes with it, no need for old fashioned copying and pasting.

The implementation is carefully thought out, as well. Let’s face it, labeling and gain-staging 374 Sources can take some time. The workload can be easily split between two people as the WING is ready for dual operators. One person can be in charge of labeling the channels, including name, icon, color, tags, multiple mute groups, mono/stereo/mid-side configuration, and more. Using the 4-channel area of the WING as a separate work area, a second person can be in charge of gain-staging and determining phantom power for each source. To make things easier still, this can also be done from the WING Co-Pilot tablet app to label or set any of the parameters while patching from the stage. The beauty of this is whether you are looking at a channel, SD recorder, or any other output, you will always see and be able to refer to the Source.

Mono or stereo? It’s all the same to the WING

All of the WING’s 48 input channels and 28 bus mixes can be used for mono, stereo, or mid-side sources — no channel linking required. And, as noted above, when you assign a stereo Source to a channel it automatically renders the channel in stereo. Best of all, there’s no need to reboot the console when you apply a mode change. This means that you can make on-the-fly changes from mono to stereo and back again.

Benefit from first-class hands-on control

The Behringer WING supplies you with all the hands-on control you need. It all starts with 24 motorized 100mm faders. These ultra-smooth faders make this digital console an absolute joy to mix on. Its central section includes a bevy of user-assignable controls, including four touch-sensitive rotary encoders and 20 buttons with two LCD screens. Apply whatever functions you’d like to have within reach, and they’ll always be at your fingertips. Make fine adjustments of up to eight user parameters with the WING’s adjustable display wheel, or use it for DAW remote control via USB MIDI. The WING’s configuration also includes pre-defined functionality for USB and SD card recorder transport, show control, and mute groups.

Packed with ample I/O and limitless expansion

The WING comes loaded with ample I/O and is highly expandable as well, granting you a tremendous level of flexibility. It all starts with 40 stereo input processing channels, as well as eight stereo aux channels. Output processing channels include 16 stereo aux buses, eight stereo matrixes, and four stereo mains. You’ll benefit from plug-and-play remote I/O connectivity for up to 144 input and output signals via three AES50 ports. The WING boasts AES/EBU stereo digital I/O, two headphone connectors, MIDI I/O, and four GPIO ports. It includes a WING-LIVE card, enabling up to 64 channels of 32-bit/48kHz audio to be captured directly to a pair of SD or SDHC cards. You can also install optional cards to attain Dante support. On top of that, the WING makes a great studio tool, thanks to its built-in 48-in/48-out USB audio interface, which includes DAW remote functionality that emulates HUI and Mackie Control.

Fast, dependable automixing with Auto Pilot

When you need fast, dependable automixing, the WING’s Auto Pilot gives you exactly that, providing you with automixing with two groups of gain sharing on any 16 input channels. And we do mean fast — it automatically tracks which microphone is receiving the highest levels and instantly increases its channel gain, all while reducing the sum of gain for all other channels in the same group. And it sounds excellent — ambient noise remains low, while intelligibility and gain before feedback are increased. Auto Pilot is perfect for corporate events, panel discussions, house of worship, and broadcast applications with multiple speakers.