Multitrack Recording and Virtual Soundcheck on the Behringer Wing

If you run sound on a Behringer Wing and you want every channel of your band recorded on its own track, this is for you. I’ll walk through the two ways I record from the Wing (USB and Dante), how to do it for free, and how to play those tracks back through the console so you can mix a whole service after the band has gone home. If you just want the shopping list, it’s all on my multitrack recording kit page.

USB or Dante: two ways to get every channel into a computer

Multitrack recording means every channel lands on its own track. It’s not a recording of your mix. The Wing gives you two roads to get there.

USB is built in. The Wing gives you 48 channels over USB, and I’m doing this on a full-size Wing, but the Compact and the Rack have the USB features too. You plug the console into your computer with a USB A to B cable and that’s the whole hardware list.

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Dante needs a card. The Wing ships with an SD card recorder in the card slot, and you can pull that out and put in a Behringer Wing Dante card, which gives you 64 channels in and out over Dante. On the computer side you’ll need Dante Controller to patch, and Dante Virtual Soundcard, which is what turns your computer into a Dante device. Virtual Soundcard is purchased software from Audinate.

So the short version: if 48 channels is enough, USB costs you nothing extra. If you need more than 48, or you already have a Dante network, the card gets you to 64.

Free multitrack recording with Audacity

If you have a Wing and a computer, all you need is a USB cable and Audacity, and you can record 48 channels absolutely free. It works on Windows and Mac.

1. Set Audacity’s recording device to Wing. In Audio Settings, pick Wing as the recording device and set channels to 48. If you have Dante installed you’ll see it in the list too, so make sure you pick Wing.
2. Patch USB outputs on the Wing. Go to Routing, Outputs, and change the patch dropdown to USB Audio. Tap the lock to open it up and patch your sources one to one. My band comes in on AES50A from a stage snake, so USB 1 gets snake channel 1, and so on.
3. Add mono tracks. Tracks, Add New, Mono Track, one per channel. A stereo source takes two USB channels and two mono tracks. Audacity doesn’t do patching per track; track 1 records USB 1, track 2 records USB 2.
4. Select every track before you hit record. Audacity only records the tracks you have selected. Click the first, hold Shift, click the last.
5. Export as multiple files. File, Export Audio, change it from entire project to multiple files and split based on tracks. You end up with a separate WAV file for every channel.

The catch: Audacity won’t play those 48 channels back into the Wing individually. For virtual soundcheck you need something else. The full walkthrough is in my Audacity multitrack post.

Setting up virtual soundcheck (mixing without the band)

Here’s the payoff. You record every channel while the band plays, then once they’re gone you play it back through the console and fine tune. I use Adobe Audition for this because it can send each track back out to the Wing on its own channel.

On the Wing

• Patch your USB outputs exactly like the Audacity setup above.
• Select a channel, go to its patching tab, and you’ll see a main and an alternate source. Leave main as the real mic and set alternate to the matching USB channel. Do that for every channel.
• Set input select to global. Then in Setup, Audio, one switch flips every channel from main to alternate (here’s that part of the video).

In Adobe Audition

• Settings, Audio Hardware: set both input and output to Wing.
• File, New Multitrack Session, then add mono tracks. You can type in 48 instead of clicking 48 times.
• Patch each track in and out one to one: input Wing In 1, output Wing Out 1, and so on.
• Arm every track with the R button. A track that isn’t armed gets skipped.

Record, then hit loop and play, flip the Wing to alternate, and the console is hearing your recording instead of the mics.

One thing that matters: patch your USB outputs from the source, not after processing. That way the recording is the raw vocal with no EQ, gate or compressor, and most of the time that’s what you want for a virtual soundcheck so you can reprocess it. I use this to refine a vocalist’s EQ, save it, and the next time they sing it’s already dialed in. It’s also great for training people without wasting the band’s time. The step by step is in my virtual soundcheck post.

Going to 64 channels with Dante and Adobe Audition

With the Dante card in, the routing on the Wing is the same idea: Routing, Outputs, change it to Dante out, and patch. I’m using 45 channels of Dante on my board. In Dante Controller I do a one-to-one patch from the Wing to the computer, and you want a green checkmark in each box. Then in Audition, set audio hardware to the Dante Virtual Soundcard and you have access to all 64 ins and outs. Patch each track’s input to Dante 1, Dante 2 and so on, arm, and record. More in my 64-channel Audition post and the Dante Virtual Soundcard beginner’s guide, where you pick your network interface, latency and channel count (I enable all 64).

What I found about latency: USB vs Dante

This comes up when the computer is in the live signal path, like when I run Waves plugins on a Mac Mini and send the audio back to the Wing. I measured it with a null test right on the console: one channel raw, one channel round trip through the computer, invert one, add delay until they cancel. My USB round trip measured 479 samples, which is 9.98 milliseconds. That’s in my latency test video and the latency post.

Then I did an A/B of USB vs Dante with Waves on a Mac Mini M1, at 64 samples:

• Ableton over USB with no plugins: 7.15 ms. Over Dante: around 24.2 ms.
• Waves SuperRack Performer over USB with no plugins: 7.42 ms. Over Dante: 24.2 ms.
• My real Sunday setup, 15 channels with most having five to six plugins: 10.4 ms in Ableton, 9.17 ms in SuperRack.

In my case USB wins clearly over Dante. My Dante network is simple, gigabit switches on its own network with no other traffic, so your numbers could vary. Lower buffer sizes mean less latency but take more processing power. If you run Waves in Audition, I’ve got a quick post on installing Waves plugins in Adobe Audition too.

Gear I use for this

Everything below is also on the multitrack recording kit page and my product recommendations.

• USB A to B cable: the only thing you need to record 48 channels over USB.
• Behringer Wing Dante card: replaces the SD card recorder and gives you 64 channels in and out over Dante.
• MacBook Pro: I run Apple computers, and my MacBook Pro shows up as a device on the Dante network with Dante Virtual Soundcard.
• Belkin USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet adapter: the one I trust for putting a Mac on the Dante network. I had all kinds of trouble with third-party adapters before switching (more on that here).

Got questions about recording or virtual soundcheck on your Wing? Ask me in the chat here on the site, or leave a comment below and I’ll help you sort it out.