Console Exports: What We Actually Ship and Why It Matters

The rule we hold ourselves to

A console export is not a nice-to-have file, it is something an engineer
loads onto a live desk in front of an audience. If we guess at a file
format and get a byte wrong, that guess does not just fail quietly, it can
load a malformed scene onto a console at soundcheck. So our rule for
shipping a console export is simple: we only ship a format once we can
verify its exact structure against real, citable documentation or a real
exported sample. If we cannot verify it, we do not ship it, no matter how
often it gets requested.

What ships today

Two console paths are live in the editor right now. The
first is a Behringer X32 or Midas M32 scene file, a full .scn show file
built from your input list that includes EQ, dynamics, and sends, with an
optional AI enhancement pass on top of the base scene. The second is an
Allen & Heath dLive or Avantis channel CSV, built for the Director CSV
import path: channel names and 48V phantom pre-labels, generated straight
from your input list with no manual re-entry. Both are available from the
export console file menu once you have built your input list.

What is built but not switched on

Yamaha CL and QL consoles import channel data through the CL/QL Editor,
which reads a folder of CSV files. We have verified how that mechanism
works, the character limit on channel names, the way quoting is handled,
and the vocabulary used for colour and icon tokens, all documented in
Yamaha's own supplementary manual. What we could not verify from any public
source is the exact filenames and column order the Editor expects. Guessing
at that risks shipping a file that looks right but imports channel data
into the wrong fields. So the Yamaha emitter exists in our codebase,
built and tested against everything we could confirm, but it is
deliberately not wired into the export menu until we can confirm the
missing piece against a real exported sample.

Why DiGiCo and Avid are not on the list

These come up often, and the honest answer is that a names-only import for
either one is not something we can build with the information that exists
publicly. DiGiCo SD session files are proprietary binary .SES files, and
the only supported way to move a session in or out of one is DiGiCo's own
SD Convert utility, which is tied to specific software versions. There is
no published or reconstructable text layout to target. Avid VENUE systems
(Profile, SC48, S6L) work the same way: show data lives in an opaque
proprietary binary bundle, moved only through Avid's own VENUE software,
with no documented name or channel import format available outside it.
Building an export for either would mean reverse engineering a binary
format with no vendor documentation, which is exactly the kind of guess
that could put a broken file in front of an engineer at a gig. Unless
either vendor publishes or licenses their format, this stays off the list.

What this means for you

If your house or FOH engineer runs an X32, M32, dLive, or Avantis, you can
generate a console file directly from your stage plot's input list right
now, no manual channel entry required. If they run a Yamaha CL or QL, or
anything else, you are still fully covered on the PDF and shareable link
side, which every engineer can work from regardless of console. We would
rather tell you plainly what is not ready yet than ship something that
might fail on a real desk.

Building your input list is the first step either way. Start from a
template like the funk band with
horns or the country five
piece layout, or from scratch,
and our input list guide covers how channel
count and mic type get derived from what you place on stage.