Behringer and the hits keep coming...

What do you think about Behringer products?

  • Great quality and value for money!

    Votes: 354 41.6%

  • Cheap but sometimes dodgy! I wouldn't buy core equipment from them. Not reliable enough.

    Votes: 276 32.5%

  • Awful. Cheapness is no substitute for quality!

    Votes: 102 12.0%

  • I dont give a crap, I dont have any.

    Votes: 118 13.9%
  • Total voters
    850
I've been pretty critical about Behringer over the years because I feel the company's hype way oustrips its products in a way that gets newbies to buy in with inaccurate expectations - and the outfit is notorious for ripping off other company's designs in a way that has gotten them pretty seriously whacked in court proceedings - to the tune of a few million bucks. I don't like predatory corporate behavior.

I've had three Behringer mixers since I started getting involved in sound, mostly for live installation or use, and all three failed in some way after a few years. And if I get into talking about their "tube" preamps, with the led's in back of the windowed tubes to make it look like they're glowing - my blood pressure just spikes.

But if you know what you want and have your eyes open, the company has interesting stuff. I do small venue (read "damn little if any money involved") live sound and have needed to tame multiple sets of monitors, yet I don't intend to dump $500 into a computerized PA rack controller just yet. I'm more of an analog thinker anyway and menus drive me crazy.

So I just picked up a pair of the Behringer dual 15 band graphic EQs; the feedback sensor lights up an offending band. I like that. I generally use compensating eq after sounding the room so the final graphic eq is used as a manual feedback controller. My signal chain starts with decent mics and Mackie Onyx preamps, and I try to stick with subtractive eq, so crappy sound isn't a problem. Plus the unit has an adjustable low pass filter and summs a dual signal for a sub - I don't know how well, but it's got to be better than what I've been doing to date (separate mixer, no crossover) for subs.

At any rate, it's the right tool at the right price. It works and Ulli didn't rip off a Mackie design for it.
 
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Ok how I feel about the Behringer products is..
A: complete crap, would not charge anyone for recording done using this equipment. its not bad for small live areas eg.. pubs or mibby mobile discos

B: Its great for people to learn on, I would not go and let some one who has only ever messed about with some behringer gear and there computer, to use my neve setup.
 
I have a Behringer V-Amp and it does just fine. It gives me options when I am on night shifts but want to record (on my days off). It's sounds fine to me. When I got it back in ... 2000 maybe ... I was working at GC, the Line6 Pod seemed pretty new at the time and were all the rage, but I mean - the V-amp was 200 less. Still using it 6 years later. Still sounds good to me. I'd buy a behringer product again.

-Luo Kui
 
Beri gear is like a cheap flight simulator. U can use it to learn on, but bouncing around in a simulator isn't like really flying! U gotta start somewhere though....so...swallow your pride and start learning as soon as possible...just look at ALL other options first.
 
Just for the record, I use a behringer bcf-2000 to control my daw and it's excellent. Noisy fader motors but hell, at least it HAS fader motors! Better yet, as for quality, we moved in April and the unit was left unfound for some time while we did extensive renovations. When I finally found the behringer it had obviously been dropped upside down from some distance (it was found 7 feet up over a hard floor and probably had fallen from there and been put back with the hopes that I wouldn't notice (damn renovators!). The left 4 control knobs and led sections are pressed in from about a quarter inch for the left one up to flush for the right one. I was pissed when I found it like that!

I finally got my studio rebuilt in the new place and with fear and trembling connected the bcf. It works perfectly and is solid as a rock still! I'm leaving it as is, I don't want to try to fix the controls since so far they still work as new, just look a little odd.

So for me, behringer quality is A-1 in the bcf-2000. It takes a licking and keeps on "humming" (you know what I mean if you own one).

The only behringer gear I currently own and use, although I also own a di-120 active unit but haven't really used it (owned it a year). I'm seriously considering getting one of their rackmount headphone amps. And if they would ever knock off the mackie big knob I'd buy it in a second (there's only so much you can do wrong with passive electronics... I hope).

Cheers,
Don Kelley
Double Take Recording
doubletakerecording
 
I've got some Behringer stuff, and it's not horrible, but if I had the cash I'd get better stuff, of course. But until I can get better equipment, I'm fine with using this stuff.
 
homestudioguy said:
I have a 4 channel Behringer rackmount headphone amp.
It's a little noisy but does a decent job for my useage.
Click to expand...

This is also the only piece of equipment I have from "B". It is one of the more versitile hp amps out there and was less than $100.00. You can buy it in blue from Samson;) Big difference there.

If it breaks I'll buy another. So far no prob's only use it once every couple months though.




F.S.
 
Thinking of buying one of their measurement mics for getting my room setup. Not sure yet though.
 
danny.guitar said:
Thinking of buying one of their measurement mics for getting my room setup. Not sure yet though.
Click to expand...

well danny,..they're cheap enough to 'invest' in....I don't see how you could really lose?
When you're finished with it, I'll pay you $13.00 for it? :D
Regards to you buddy!! ;)
 
I have a behringer composer and a ultra gain pro. I use them both every day. Don't really like them though. They are pretty gei in my opinion. I would rather have a drawmer 1968 ME compressor and a few API pres. But the behringer stuff fits the bill as long as I dont pass audio through it.
 
I'm with alot of people in that there are a few peices i used but would never use anything behringer for anything critical. Like a bunch of people have stated, their headphone amp is great for the money. I am running my moniters through it right now though until i get a replacement part and i half to turn it off when i'm not listening though. So it is quite noisy

I also have a behringer composer. I don't know anything about it, i know its really old and it was free. It's done me well.

I started with a behringer mixer not knowing any better though. It was garbage. Soundquality aside, it would just have random intermitant issues. Even if it sounded amazing, i couldn't deal with that at all. Now i used a subbehringer quality mixer for awhile in conjunction with my main mixer. Only to moniter my sampler and sound modules. Not for any recording, it was a convience thing. If i didn't have this mixer, i could see a behringer taking it's place. It's not like you need to have something great if you arn't ever going to record through it. So i have found times when things like these really help and price is a big factor.
 
I think like even the cheapest brands, they occasionally become useful... I never liked their mixers, I'll say that much. I used a small Behringer UB-series for monitoring on location stuff with my DA-38 DTRS recorders, and it was noisy as Hell.

On the other hand, I've had a T1953 Ultragain for years and years, and on most mics, it is brittle and harsh on the high-end, but just a couple weeks ago I needed to record a solo piano piece with vocals, so I ran two MXL 604's into the Behri, and then a Rode K2 for distance/overhead and a Rode NT3 (for vocals) through an M-Audio DMP-3. The X/Y MXLs through the Behri sounded great.

The K2 added good low-end, and I used it to retrack the vocals, and it sounded fantastic (not that the Behri had anything to do with that, guess Im just still very happy with the outcome of the session).

Guess I should hold onto that T1953 in case I need some extra channels in the future, and another decent sound source can get through it.

...not that it is worth much to sell now anyway, since Ive had it for about 6 years!

Another small piece of gear is their little 35 dollar Ultra-DI DI100. It is clean and doesn't seem to color the sound of any instrument I run through it, and I've found plenty of different uses for the bunch I have.

Perhaps they aren't a great product, but are useful in a crunch on occassion :)
 
Well i have a xenyx mixer...its really the only thing ive worked with, mixing board wise...I'm hopefully gonna upgrade soon to a mackie or soundcraft, but my xeynx has never let me down. Sadly, most of my gear all of u would probably consider pretty basic, in the least. I have MXL condenser mic, Line 6 Amps, behringer mixer...Im hopefully upgraded a lot of that stuff soon, but I mean, for what i record, it hasnt let me down. The effects are pretty good for just being random presets, and it takes away the need of a rack(even though i would love one)...its good for what it aims to do...provide musical equipment to people that dont have a lot of money for the crazy expensive stuff.
 
It's not what you have. It's what you can do with it. Sgt. Pepper was recorded on two 4 tracks in tandem. Most expensive equipment isn't worth spit if you can't do shit with it, but talented hands will spin gold from straw.
 
thats very true...It doesnt matter what microphone you have, or what mixer you have if u dont have the voice or the skills to make a good song.
 
Saw this a few days ago, thought you guys might like it!
 

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