I love my Mackie DL32R. I use it in a portable church setting in NYC and it has been terrific. I regularly use about 30 inputs, and occasionally need more. If I could ask Mackie for one piece of gear, it would be a combiner unit between two DL32R's. Of course, I don't know what's going on in the software, but the DL32R has USB connections that port the ins and outs to a computer, so how about they port them to a combiner unit, so input 1 could get to Aux 19 and input 63 could be sent out Aux 5. The combiner, not the two mixers, would talk to Master Fader. The connectors would all be available on the mixers, but they would be controlled by this combiner unit, which would have USB connectors and a network connector. I know I would buy a second DL32R in a heartbeat. As a plus, when I don't need all the inputs, I could separate them into separate events as needed.
I have often thought about combining the outs physically (transformers?) so I could at least have 64 ins by 14 outs, but that would necessitate two iPads. I use two iPads anyway, just for more screen space and some redundancy, but it seems there could be a better way.
How impossible can it be to create software in a unit to do this? I would think you could combine two units in a good DAW, couldn't you? So far, Mackie hasn't taken the bait, although the Mackie rep at AES NY 2018 seemed to show some interest.
Let's say the combiner cost $1,500 and was one rack space. So, you could have a 64 x 28 mixer in 7 rack spaces for a little over $5k? And, it could be split up into two units whenever you needed to? That's a no-brainer to me. C'mon, Mackie!!
rcarbaugh
p.s. Who was the Einstein that decided that direct to disk recording on the new DL32S unit was unnecessary??
