behringer or alesis?

[henry_mullis]

Hey,
I just bought a Delta 1010 card and am looking for a mixer with 8 mic pre's. I was thinking about using the Alesis 12R mixer but I have heard some bad things about it so... Anyway, I have also heard of the Behringer MX2004A. I was wondering if anybody knows about these two mixers. I would like to get some feedback.
Thanks

[Sennheiser]

TASCAM, Mackie, Soundcraft.

[matty_boy]

2nd on soundcraft. Especially the ones with the Ghost pres.

[jake-owa]

Come on is the behringer THAT much worse than the mackie?

[pipelineaudio]

"Come on is the behringer THAT much worse than the mackie?"

only if your consience bothers you...or if you want it to last...

Mackie makes a lot of silly claims but their stuff is pretty tough

http://store4.yimg.com/I/mercenary-audio_1705_17386035

A pic of Fletcher's Famous " Shit on a Stick"
The story behind this is UNREAL!!! at the end, Alesis cried foul, but greg mackie said " he bought it he can do what he wants with it...I bet it still works "

I bet he's right

I hate the Mackie/Adat combo for what it did to people who do this for a LIVING, but the behringer stuff is even worse

[Sennheiser]

They left off the 3630 for that stick.

[FURAX Eric]

To tell you the truth, I'm currently using the Behringer MX2004a, and it's not half bad. I bought it about 4 months ago, and you can achieve pretty good results with it. I bought the Joe Meek comp/preamp combo to do my vocals (this weekend), but we got the drums / bass / guitars to sound pretty damn decent. I'm still considering an upgrade, I just don't see why everyone is all about knocking Behringer? Is there a reason? Did Behringer's factories leak nuclear waste into pre-schools back in 1987? Did teenage mothers choke on their rack products? Someone help me out here, I'm just missing out on the whole "Hate Behringer" thing... everyone has to start out somewhere. =)

[pipelineaudio]

"Did Behringer's factories leak nuclear waste into pre-schools back in 1987? Did teenage mothers choke on their rack products?"

youre a lot closer than you think...go who look at who theyre made by and how.
Also the blatant ripoffs, and mackie's lawsuit against them didnt help.

[StevenLindsey]

I've got some Behringer stuff. It all works fine. No problems of any sort. My conscience is fine. Bunch of squawking hearsay I think. I think some people think it's cool. People who don't have a clue as to what they're talking about - who love to repeat what someone else says as though it were cosmic truth. The Moral Majority of the recording world. I think it's kinda funny. Another herd run amuck.

[MISTERQCUE]

.











See above icon on Behringer Mixers.

[jitteringjim]

Alesis preamps are passable, but some of the others listed above are better.
The worst thing about the Studio 12R is that it only has a two band EQ. I used one for a few years and it did a pretty good job.
If you look around, you can find the Studio 24 or 32 on the cheap. I'd recommend those over the 12R because of more flexibility.

[pipelineaudio]

what above icon ?

[Chris Tondreau]

Originally posted by StevenLindsey
I've got some Behringer stuff. It all works fine. No problems of any sort. My conscience is fine. Bunch of squawking hearsay I think. I think some people think it's cool. People who don't have a clue as to what they're talking about - who love to repeat what someone else says as though it were cosmic truth. The Moral Majority of the recording world. I think it's kinda funny. Another herd run amuck.

Well, said, I think. I have a Behringer MX802A mixer, and it hasn't even hinted at a problem in the last two years, since I bought it. My retailer supports me, so Behringer doesn't have to. My retailer has no problems with Behringer, nor has any more Behringer products come back than they do from other manufacturers - and they sell A LOT of it!

I also have the MDX2200 Composer Pro multi-channel compressor, and it's quite nice too. I'm sure there are better products out there, but their stuff is decent enough for most of us who "home" record vs. "pro" record.

As far as the lawsuit goes.... Mackie sued Behringer, as I understand it, claiming that Behringer stole their design for one of their mixers. (I can't help wondering that, if Mackie believed this to be true, they must have sounded remarkably similar too....) An expert was called in, and it was determined that the Behringer mixer was of completely different design. Behringer counter-sued Mackie.

Chris

[FURAX Eric]

Well from what I understand, it just seems to be prejudice passed on from the arrogant to the ignorant. =)

I hate to sound all philosophical, but it seems that many people just hate Behringer just cause, I don't think half the people that have criticized it have ever owned a Behringer product.

Let's face it, Mackie is Calvin Klein. =)

Lawsuits and pride aside, what's so wrong with Behringer... can anyone answer? =)

[pipelineaudio]

how is mackie calvin klein ?

its cheap crap...behringer is even cheaper crap

I own some behringer gear...a ultra curve and a omni testing mic. Also I think the ultrapatch patch bays are good for unbalanced setups...

but lets be real...when the eurodesks came out, behringer had chinese laborers build them and imported them so that they could bypass copyrights and patents. Remember what the lawsuit found ? Remember what they found as working conditions ? The little guy with his hands out holding back the tanks may VERY WELL have built your eurodesk...for FREE

[Chris Tondreau]

As I say, I believe the lawsuit found that Behringer's design was not ripped off from Mackie, as many say it was. As I understand it, Behringer launched a counter-suit.

Chris

[jake-owa]

Originally posted by FURAX Eric
Let's face it, Mackie is Calvin Klein. =)

Lawsuits and pride aside, what's so wrong with Behringer... can anyone answer? =)

This is by far the funniest quote I've ever seen on this forum.

Dude you just dropped your drawers and it's tiny.

[Chris Tondreau]

I don't know... I think that a lot of people buy products because of a certain name, whether it be Gap, or Ford, or Mackie. At the same time, I believe that many people avoid certain products because of a lot of heresay that suggests that the products aren't worthy of consideration. When Japanese cars first came out, it took years before people stopped summarily using the phrase "Jap crap" and saw for themselves that they were putting out a good product. I don't wear Nike shoes. Maybe my shoes aren't as good as Nike's (or maybe they're better??), but, who cares? I paid less for them, and they get me to where I want to go.

Behringer makes a decent product. They won't compete with Neve. So what? Will Mackie? Maybe they're (Behringer) not as durable as Mackie. I don't know. Who cares? My mixer sits on my desk 95% of the time. Why would Mackie sue over design infringements unless the two products were really similar? Yet, everyone goes on about how crap Behringer is. Come on.... let's get past the rhetoric.

Chris

[pipelineaudio]

"I think that a lot of people buy products because of a certain name, whether it be Gap, or Ford, or Mackie"

If you think mackie is a respected brand name youre already crazy...my point was the behringer stuff is ( for the most part ) even worse.

"When Japanese cars first came out, it took years before people stopped summarily using the phrase "Jap crap" and saw for themselves that they were putting out a good product."

WRONG...it took years for them to come out with cars that WERENT crap

If I go out on the street right now I bet you I will see 10,000 or MORE pre 1973 american cars for every 1 pre 1980 japanese car...in fact I bet that number is closer to 100,000 to 1

"Why would Mackie sue over design infringements unless the two products were really similar?"

look at the silkscreen for the top, the layout, etc...
You cant possibly argue that behringer was trying to sell a NEW product, they were trying to capitalize on the look of the mackies, since they were selling like hotcakes. Both of these consoles are WAY below par for serious recording IMHO, although you could make a decent demo on either

However in the interests of being objective, tell me which behringer console you guys would compare to the mackie 32-8 and lets take a realistic look, and Im willing to be proven wrong

[jitteringjim]

Behringer's quality control is where they got into trouble, & now a lot of guys simply don't trust the products.

If you think mackie is a respected brand name youre already crazy...my point was the behringer stuff is ( for the most part ) even worse.

Well now, that was a good way to insult a large portion of this bbs in one fell swoop.

Perhaps you didn't realize that this is homerecording.com?

There are guys here recording through sound blaster 16s and through friggin' boom boxes... more fuckin' power to 'em, too.

Gear bashing doesn't go far around here. (At least for me.)

[pipelineaudio]

Im not trying to gear bash...just being objective.

I had worse than mackie when I started..I had a TAPCO ( supposedly made by greg mackie LOL)

sorry if it sounds like it...it just seemed like they were painting me in the " mackie is all holy compared to behringer " camp, and Im NOT

[jitteringjim]

Yeah, I dig.
Probably my bad for being a jackass anyway.

Anyway, I had a damn Tapco also.
It had the main board & an expansion module. The tie between the two was always shorting out. It was a POS for sure.

[pipelineaudio]

Mine was the rotary fader one, all pots, with 6 channels and 2 VU meters...rackmount...does that sound familiar ? Weird coming off that board, a LOT of "real " consoles didnt seem to sound as good as it did...either that or Im just nostalgiac

[littledog]

I'm going to back up Pipeline on this one.

Let's face it, lots of companies with diversified lines have a few winners and losers. It's just with some, it's skewed a little more in one direction than the other.

Let's take Alesis, for instance. They revolutionize the home recording industry with their ADAT's. But the trade-off was that ADAT's were flimsy and needed constant maintenance to keep from eating tapes or overflowing with error messages. Then they came out with stuff like the X2 mixer and the 3630 comp - both so badly designed that even Alesis was embarassed by them. But then they followed up with the Masterlink, which is amazingly enough a pretty nice piece. And technically I suppose the VIPRE can be considered an Alesis product too.

We can go through the same routine with almost any company you can name. How about AKG with the C1000 and C3000 losers? Look at Oktava with a proven winner in the MC012 and a proven loser in the 219...

The point is, any company aiming at the entry-level customer is going to constantly be making design and manufacturing compromises in order to meet the entry-level buyer's price point. Many of Mackie's products (exceptions being the D8B and the higher end monitors) are definitely aimed at the same market as the entry level Behringer and Alesis products.

So I agree with Pipeline's point that all such gear is "compromised" by definition. So it's silly to hold one up as miles above the other. We're not talking Cranesong here. That would be the opposite end of the spectrum, where quality is the primary goal regardless of how much the ultimate cost will be. The fact that you would have to look far and wide to find ANY criticisms of ANY Cransesong product is not merely coincidental to the fact that they make no attempt to compete in the entry level market.

The one area where I will give Mackie credit for being "head and shoulders" above all competition is in the area of manual writing. If all manufacturers could come out with manuals that were even half as understandable, informative and entertaining as Mackie's, it would be a giant leap forward for the industry.

Does this mean that for the home recordist all products are the same? Not at all... but the important differences may be as much in the area of reliability, road-worthiness, technical support, and repair turn-around time as in any actual sonic distinctions. That's why I agree with Pipeline that "Mackie (Greg, not Bob) as Calvin Klein" is a little silly. There may be real reasons why some might prefer Sears to Wal-mart, but let's not pretend either of them are boutiques!

[StevenLindsey]

Behringer = cheap ? yep
Behringer = crap? nope

For HOME recording people, Behringer will do you just as good a job as any of the other cheap gear. Some of us can only afford fairly cheap gear. I have made some very fine sounding recordings ( IMO ) with Beh.... gear. I have heard some very nasty recordings with high end gear. The price of the gear is not the defining variable in your recording equation.

And as for the poor chinaman who held up the tank.......LOL - I laugh. Sounds like something a woman polititian would say. The Chinese person who made the gear also made a bunch of the other stuff that is raved about here. And he may have starved had he not had the pay from assembling Behringer gear. And why do we insult the Chinese by insisting that their work and related values are somehow inferior to ours? Many of the Oriental people I have known have a much greater work and life ethic than the majority of Americans that I have observed. In fact, if we don't watch out, we (America) could be trodden underfoot by an Oriental workforce at some point.

Just get you some Behringer gear if you want to and don't worry about what STUDIO recording people say. This is Homerecording.com. If you don't like the Beh... piece, throw it away. It's cheap enough.