For those of you who rail incessantly on Behringer...

[EDAN]

An important point that gets overlooked in discussions like this is that these people do not use *only* Behringer gear. They've probably got killer signal chains and processing to use. The Behringer gear would be like cheapy little toys that get used in special situations. Big difference.

There are plenty of people that keep old Alesis gear around too, and other low cost gear as well. It might do one thing particularly well, or have a sound that is just right for specific purposes. But that is misleading to imply that therefore there is no difference between Behringer and high end gear.

When Tony Visconti says something like what is quoted above (if indeed that is what he said) I don't think he necessarily knows to what extremes his quote will be taken to. I don't take that as an overall endorsement of Behringer or cheap gear in general. He uses expensive gear and cheap gear, and is basically saying they all have their uses. But the way I take it, what he said cannot be taken as a blanket endorsement of cheap gear.

As someone who has toured, I can say that I don't like it when I go into a venue and see Behringer gear in the rack. It just says to me that the house is cheap. The best sounding live gig I played had top end gear, from the DI's and monitors to the board and to the outboard. It sounded incredible, the difference was plainly obvious.

This whole argument about Behringer and low cost gear is in part because people that get defensive about not having high end gear. It's like the "my dick is bigger than your dick" thing. They don't have the big swinging dick gear, so then they say that the cheapo stuff is the same thing, so they don't feel insecure. Silly.

I'm fully expecting some negative REP for that last paragraph.

I will say that I own a couple pieces of Behringer gear, and recently ordered yet another unit that Behringer makes. But the difference is I don't kid myself about it, I buy it because it is cheap, serves a function, and I use it in non-critical situations.

The part about being defensive is the silly part. Personally I can afford all the high end gear I want, I have some middle of the road gear and some cheap gear, have had some high end gear in the past and most all of it produced good/great results when used properly. The problem with your statement is some impressionable newbies are reading your words thinking they have to go out and buy a $1,200 pre and a $600 direct box and a $2,200 reverb when in reality you can spend a 1/3 of that and get results that are of very good quality.

Saying that the pros mentioned use behringer gear specifically for some type of cheap effect and not for the quality of performance for that which the specific gear is intended is nothing short of irresponsible, a uniformed opinion on your part that does not reflect in any way reality. You don't know these people, you haven't asked them. I know for a fact that Tony used Behringer compressors on Bowies albums for the vocals and some instruments and not for any kind of one-off cheapy effect kind of thing, pick up Behind The Glass and read it all for yourself. In researching the pros who use Behringer gear there was nothing to insinuate any of them used the gear for anything other then what it was intended for.

Boston and Kansas both recorded their first albums 30 years ago on a consumer deck, a 1/2 Tascam 80 8 track bouncing tracks to no end, those album sounds better than ANYTHING recorded out here, far better. Tom Scholz of Boston had access to a "real" studio but choose to do it at home with a recorder that cost a 1/10 what a 2" analog deck cost back then. Just another example of what could be done on cheap gear. Heck, Page used a 20 watt practice amp and ran it through a 6x9 speaker on much of Zeps first album. People went out and spent thousands on Marshall Amps trying to get that sound! Primus did their first album on a lowly Tascam 388 1/4 deck .. Still sounds better than ANYTHING out here. Neil Youngs Sugar Mountain was done on a cassette recorder. If you feel you need high end gear to get pro results so be it, but like Tony said, it's not the gear thats the problem.

 

[EDAN]

I'll admit, with somewhat guilty conscience, to using Behringer products from time to time, although more in the context of Chessrock's "disposable equipment" description. Sometimes you need to get something cheap and fast - so it is kind of the equivalent of going to Taco Bell. And like Taco Bell, you usually regret it later.

But there are some real issues: Do the math on the 24 channel 8-buss (with full meter bridge) Eurodesk that you can buy online for $900 new, and the cold hard facts are they are building mixers that cost about $20 per channel (for mic pre, EQ, faders, pots, pads, LED's, circuitry, connectors, etc.)

So something has to give somewhere - much as I wish it were true, you just can't build a channel strip that has good sonics, durability, and consistency from channel to channel for $20.

Beyond that, there is the ethics issue. Time after time Behringer has blatantly and directly ripped off other companies' designs, often without even changing the font on the silk screening!!! Check out the Ebtech Swizz Army Cable Tester against the Behringer product. They are EXACTLY the same, except that the original Ebtech is blue, and the Behringer is silver. Most small companies can't afford to pursue Behringer through the legal system, and Behringer counts on that.

So yeah, people do use the stuff. Sometimes even famous people.

Doesn't make it a good idea though.

If you want to take the high road you better take inventory. You can use that argument to no end on everything from the pants you buy to the computer you use. Do you think Leo Fender invented the electric guitar? Should we all stop buying Fenders because he "stole" the idea or because the bulk of thier sales come from products built by people who work a year to make as much as you do in a month?

 

[roadwarrior]

WOW Edan....you just caused me to have a flashback. Back in the late 80's I had put together a studio in my home in California. I started with a Tascam 80-8. It was a battleship for sure. Great sonically and excellent head room for back then. I copywrighted 18 songs off of it before going digital with the first ADAT. I had to constantly use a tentalometer to set reel guide tensions on that Tascam so it was a bit fussy in some regards. That is what I liked so much about going digital.....got rid of the hassles and the noise was non existant. But thanks for the memories....

 

[littledog]

If you want to take the high road you better take inventory. You can use that argument to no end on everything from the pants you buy to the computer you use. Do you think Leo Fender invented the electric guitar? Should we all stop buying Fenders because he "stole" the idea or because the bulk of thier sales come from products built by people who work a year to make as much as you do in a month?

You're absolutely correct, in modern society it is most difficult to be an moral purist, and I am hardly an example of one. In some cases, though, the level of business ethics sinks so low that it even causes my under-developed sense of morality to draw a line.

For instance:

I would not advocate stealing someone else's composition and call it my own.
I would prefer not to use cracked software.
I wouldn't shoplift a piece of gear from a store, or knowingly buy a "hot" item stolen from someone else.
I prefer not to deal with companies which utilize horribly exploitive labor practices (like child labor), completely disregard damage they do to the environment, or who blatantly rip off other people's intellectual property.

Now, you seem like a fairly reasonable person, and it's likely you might agree with some of my points, and disagree with others. For all of us, it is a matter of where we draw the line - especially since so many issues are drawn in shades of grey and are not purely black and white. For me, Behringer crosses that line. For you, perhaps not.

I used to be a regular here, but it's been a while so I don't know how things work exactly on this forum anymore. I notice most people have some green dots in the upper right corner of their post windows, but you have a long string of red ones. Is that something bad? What did you do to accumulate red dots?

 

[sloom]

If you want to take the high road you better take inventory. You can use that argument to no end on everything from the pants you buy to the computer you use. Do you think Leo Fender invented the electric guitar? Should we all stop buying Fenders because he "stole" the idea or because the bulk of thier sales come from products built by people who work a year to make as much as you do in a month?

Now, this could become a very unstable argument... and I have to agree with this point of view of Edan's here.

My stepfather (ex-) is a heavy-duty lawyer. He used to represent a power company, and one of the things he used to do was to defend them against "wrongful death" suits. He came home one day from work and told my mom, with no little relish, how he'd reduced a woman to tears and sent her on her way, in a deposition he'd taken from her. Her (very small) son had died from poking his finger into a live wall socket, and in her grief she'd tried to sue the power company. This is the kind of shit your electric bill pays for- as well as turning on your coffe pot and music computer. And all fish, if they're big enough, have teeth- not just the big boys.

As a carpenter, if I'm working on a piece that has another example nearby, I go and look it over. Not quite the same as reverse engineering a product I'm going to sell for profit (...I am getting paid to do it, though), but there's a practicality at work here. Technology is pretty common stuff, and not that much is hidden to a trained eye.

Legalities? Law is two things: 1) A game of wits played by "smart" people who want to win the jackpot (yours, maybe), and 2) Unforgiving. Law is not your friend, per se; just food for thought.

Business practices? Covered above.

The beef is: Can you make a saleable/eminently listenable record with Behri gear? Of course. This, like so many running banters on HR, teeters on the brink of irrelevance!

 

[sloom]

I notice most people have some green dots in the upper right corner of their post windows, but you have a long string of red ones. Is that something bad? What did you do to accumulate red dots?

Edit deleted. I spend too much time here...

You can get red dots by disagreeing with someone, saying something someone feels is bad advice, or just because they're sitting far away, behind their monitor screen, and decide to work it up at you, complete with a good cussing and insulting.

I've gotten bad reps by the latter, though I should have, by rights, walked away from the idiocy instead of going at it!

It is in part meaningful if the opinions of others weighs heavily upon you. In part if you have/don't have something others consider valuable to share.

 

[dxl]

i'm not really fellowing the discussion
but the mixes sounded okay
the performaces are accurate but the vocals could have sounded a whole lot better with better toys

 

[littledog]

Edit deleted. I spend too much time here...

You can get red dots by disagreeing with someone, saying something someone feels is bad advice, or just because they're sitting far away, behind their monitor screen, and decide to work it up at you, complete with a good cussing and insulting.

I've gotten bad reps by the latter, though I should have, by rights, walked away from the idiocy instead of going at it!

It is in part meaningful if the opinions of others weighs heavily upon you. In part if you have/don't have something others consider valuable to share.

Well, as you can see by my lack of any kind of dots, I guess most people just choose to ignore me, which shows the intelligence level of this board is rather high!

But, you said you have received "bad reps", yet you have no red dots. Do red and green dots "expire" after a certain period of time, or did you find another way to get rid of them, like reregistering under a different name?

 

[sloom]

Well, as you can see by my lack of any kind of dots, I guess most people just choose to ignore me, which shows the intelligence level of this board is rather high!

But, you said you have received "bad reps", yet you have no red dots. Do red and green dots "expire" after a certain period of time, or did you find another way to get rid of them, like reregistering under a different name?

I think re-registering happens..., but I had 5 little dots, and now have two. On my User CP page, I have some cute little red dots, which I guess have displaced some of my favorable, green dots. One of the reds has the comment "shitbag" after it, with no name to attribute it to. Anonymous. It was given me for asking if anyone had tried the KEL Audio HM-1 mics as a matched pair. ??
Another was for getting in the way of an experienced guy ripping into a newbie, for asking an evidently "dumb" question. We had an argument, see... so I lost a "rep point".
A third was given to me by mistake!
It's a dubious system at best.

Have fun...

 

[Ironklad Audio]

Can you make a saleable/eminently listenable record with Behri gear? Of course.

thank you...this is the point that i was trying to make in the 1st place with the thread - the gear may suck, the company may suck, but if you're short on cash and have no other option, just grab the behri shit and trust your ears

 

[Blockout]

I own their white-noise generator unit. Now, what was it called again.... Oh yeah. The Eurorack UBB1002 mixer.

I only got it because as far as I'm aware, it's the only mixer that can be battery powered. Anyone know of another?

Great thread.





















*Insert mandatory "Behringer sucks" here*

 

[sloom]

I own their white-noise generator unit. Now, what was it called again.... Oh yeah. The Eurorack UBB1002 mixer.

I only got it because as far as I'm aware, it's the only mixer that can be battery powered. Anyone know of another?

Great thread.



*Insert mandatory "Behringer sucks" here*

Creativity and resourcefulness count, as in anything, right? Well, if you're hurt for bread, Goldwave (free) might have an NR function. If you know someone with Cool Edit, well that's reported to be the best NR around. Keep heads/tails on your tracks, do the NR boogie. Better than a faceful of rocksalt...

And hey, work sucks, too, but you still go- unless you can afford to make your bread a better way! Now, let's get out there and have a good attitude!!

P.S. BH Photovideo has a lot of stuff liike this for filed work. Don't know specifically, but you might go see.

 

[Cazzbar]

My first mixer was a Berry, I was happy with the sound, functions and price but channel1 died during a practice... I had the unit replaced but again channel1 died and this time during a gig I then had a bitch of a time getting my money back as the shop were only prepared to repair it, but I wasn't prepared to be let down again (My current Peavey mixer has survived three years on the road)

I thought I may have been very unlucky with Berry, but so many people on here have similar stories... maybe they're ok for studio work just can't survive on the road. I would love their digital mixer, it's ideal for my needs but I just can't trust them, so that's the end of the story for me.

 

[SonicAlbert]

All I can say is, I bought a new piece of Behringer gear last week and I'm sending it back this week. It just doesn't work reliably, and I *really* wanted it to work. It is low cost, has the perfect feature set, actually sounded decent, but unfortunately doesn't work as advertised with my Mac.

I do have an open mind about Behringer, but their gear has let me down time after time. I mean, how many times do you ahve to go back to the well before you learn your lesson? This time I said to the salesman I buy my gear from: "Next time I call up to order Behringer gear, talk me out of it. Friends don't let friends buy Behringer".

 

[SonicAlbert]

The problem with your statement is some impressionable newbies are reading your words thinking they have to go out and buy a $1,200 pre and a $600 direct box and a $2,200 reverb when in reality you can spend a 1/3 of that and get results that are of very good quality.

Ah yes, the "impressionable newbies" argument. That cuts both ways, as I could easily warn that telling newbies they can make blockbuster albums with $50 preamps and $35 mics is also irresponsible.

Further, the really important issue that keeps getting swept under the rug is the concept of expertise. The pros that use Behringer gear here or there in their mixes know both the great gear and the cheap gear, and use both to best advantage. That's very different than selling people on the idea that Behringer gear is just as good as high end brand X. You must factor in experience, ears, taste, skills, etc.

It's certainly easier to get good results with better gear than with cheaper gear. The sweet spot on Behringer, Alesis, and other low cost brands is very tiny. The sweet spot on high end gear is much bigger, making it possible to use the gear to extremes without the sound falling apart.

Saying that the pros mentioned use behringer gear specifically for some type of cheap effect and not for the quality of performance for that which the specific gear is intended is nothing short of irresponsible, a uniformed opinion on your part that does not reflect in any way reality.

Again, my point is that any pros with big budgets use Behringer in special situations and for specific things. The rest of the signal chain is probably going to be pretty spectacular and very high quality.

Boston and Kansas both recorded their first albums 30 years ago on a consumer deck, a 1/2 Tascam 80 8 track bouncing tracks to no end, those album sounds better than ANYTHING recorded out here, far better. Tom Scholz of Boston had access to a "real" studio but choose to do it at home....

In the first place, these are the exceptions to the rule, not the rule. In the second place, most of these albums went through a big studio at some point, even though they may have originated on low/mid range gear. In the third place, 1/2 inch 8 tracks are not necessarily bad machines, even though they aren't Studers.

I still have my cassette machine too, a Nakamichi MR-2. Excellent machine, sounds great. You could indeed do good work on it, so just because someone says "cassette" doesn't mean it's the same thing as "crap gear".

 

[EDAN]

You're absolutely correct, in modern society it is most difficult to be an moral purist, and I am hardly an example of one. In some cases, though, the level of business ethics sinks so low that it even causes my under-developed sense of morality to draw a line.

For instance:

I would not advocate stealing someone else's composition and call it my own.
I would prefer not to use cracked software.
I wouldn't shoplift a piece of gear from a store, or knowingly buy a "hot" item stolen from someone else.
I prefer not to deal with companies which utilize horribly exploitive labor practices (like child labor), completely disregard damage they do to the environment, or who blatantly rip off other people's intellectual property.

Now, you seem like a fairly reasonable person, and it's likely you might agree with some of my points, and disagree with others. For all of us, it is a matter of where we draw the line - especially since so many issues are drawn in shades of grey and are not purely black and white. For me, Behringer crosses that line. For you, perhaps not.

I used to be a regular here, but it's been a while so I don't know how things work exactly on this forum anymore. I notice most people have some green dots in the upper right corner of their post windows, but you have a long string of red ones. Is that something bad? What did you do to accumulate red dots?

I agree with most of what you say. However, incase you weren't aware Behringer was never convicted of stealing anything from anyone. The famous case was settled out of court. I'm not one for hearsay (spelling?) and don't draw any conclusions from a settlement as there are countless reasons people settle out of court. You have the right to feel the way you do, but most people are uniformed when it comes to that lawsuit. Now the Gov is after them, fine, the gov is after a lot of big business from phone companies to auto makers, I'm sorry to say I have little faith in anything our present goverment says .. but that's a whole other topic.

 

[EDAN]

I notice most people have some green dots in the upper right corner of their post windows, but you have a long string of red ones. Is that something bad? What did you do to accumulate red dots?

I never knew what they were until recently, I still don't care, it's silly, the only people who use them are people who disagree with you so they give you bad rep points, lol. Kind of reminds me of grade school antics. I mean no one has to be involved in a thread if they don't like it.

 

[SonicAlbert]

However, incase you weren't aware Behringer was never convicted of stealing anything from anyone.

Oh come on! All you have to do is open your eyes and look at the original product and the Behringer copy to see who and what they ripped off. It's perfectly obvious, and you don't need a court of law to arrive at the correct conclusions.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

yea dude...just look at the new "xenyx" mixers they're putting out. cocksuckers.

 

[littledog]

I agree with most of what you say. However, incase you weren't aware Behringer was never convicted of stealing anything from anyone. The famous case was settled out of court. I'm not one for hearsay (spelling?) and don't draw any conclusions from a settlement as there are countless reasons people settle out of court. You have the right to feel the way you do, but most people are uniformed when it comes to that lawsuit. Now the Gov is after them, fine, the gov is after a lot of big business from phone companies to auto makers, I'm sorry to say I have little faith in anything our present goverment says .. but that's a whole other topic.

I have to say, my statements were not based on any personal knowledge of any lawsuit or government action. Most of the smaller manufacturers they rip off probably can't endure the cost of long drawn out legal fights, and I'm sure Behringer figures as much.

I based my statements on the personal experience of being flabbergasted by the audacity of Behringer putting out lines of products that are not only direct rip-offs of another company, but they don't even have the decency to change even one iota of the external cosmetics. I challenge you to look up Ebtech's Swizzarmy Cable tester and then take a look at Behringer's product. Every jack, every switch, every indicator light is in exactly the same configuration. And they sell it for $20 less, of course, because they didn't have to invest any money in the design.

It 's not just an ethical question. It's a practical one. If anyone can just come in and slap their own label on top of a product that you spent time and money developing, where is the incentive for anyone to come up with new and improved designs? Then we all suffer.