Your Thoughts on Behringer gear

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soundzxtreme

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Tell me of your greatest moments with Behringer gear at your side, cool things you've been able to achieve, just woffle or gloat.
 
First, a warning. Behringer is not the most revered brand here on the board, so beware. As a Newbie, don't get jarred when somebody says its all crap.

The products that seem to keep getting good reviews are the ECM8000 mics and the Composer Pro Compressor. Beyond that, some have B mixers and like them--others hate them.
 
sneaking suspiscion some of these quotes will end up in product advertisement or something :)
 
soundzxtreme said:
Tell me of your greatest moments with Behringer gear at your side, cool things you've been able to achieve, just woffle or gloat.
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Yeah... cool things... like Behringer is SUCH an innovative company!!!! :rolleyes:

Trust me... you don't want MY opinion!!!

Bruce
 
C'mon Bruce.He needs to hear your opinion!I ain't sure where you stand on Behringer products.I think the man needs to be enlightened! :D
 
I am a mini project studio(lol) on a extreme budget , thou behringer is a copy cat company they offer the most "bang for your buck" in my book, i have a 2004a mixer(this is their weakest link, the q.a. on this product falls short) i m happy with it for now. ecm8000- best $35 mic around, ive only had luck w/ it on drum overheads. Pacthbay- another $35 deal, ive spent 5 times that on cable for the damm thing. My buddie has the composer,v-amp, 2 patch bays,and some digital comp and hes has nohing bad to say about his behringer gear. Its all hit or miss i think w/ the behringer gear.
Bottom line if your strapped for cash, behringer is a decent choice. If you have some cash, FUCK BEHRINGER!
 
One of the happiest moments I have had while using a Behringer board was the time that I was doing a soundcheck for a small outdoor show, It was an EAW 850 system, two tops two subs per side. I balance the system and listen to a reference CD through it, sounds great, nice low end punch, lots of headroom on the amps. So now I'm ready for the kick drum, I solo it and set it to +3 on the meters, that should leave a lot of channel headroom, great! I push up the fader and hear the most horrible cardboard box sound, no low end whatsoever! So I grimace and run up to the stage to check my mic position, on stage the kick sounds fine, that's odd. I check the mic position adjust it slightly and run back to the board. Different flavor of cardboard. Hmm. I repeat the run and move the mic thing twice more, trying more and more extreme mic placements, no luck. Ok, I decide something has to be busted somewhere, I change the Mic cable, maybe its a bad solder joint or something, same sound, change the mic, same thing, I decide it has to be one of those weird kick tuning things so we start to retune the kick, tune, tune, tune, ...check, slightly better but still no low end, tune, tune, tune....check, same thing, this isn't the problem. WTF!! Ok, now I'm going crazy, switch the kick to channel 2 maybe its a bad channel on the snake or board, no luck , same thing. I check speaker phase (but the CD sounded great?????), no luck there, same thing, I check my gain staging throughout the system, all my +4/-10 switches, nothing is overloading anywhere!!!???WTMF!! Ok, now I've officially lost it, this has taken almost 2 hours. I go back to the board and start moving the kick from one channel to the next on the offchance that there channels 1 and 2 were both bad, 3 - same, 4 - same, 5 - same, 6 - WAIT!!!!! 6 sounds ok but softer, oh I forgot to turn up the trim on channel 6. Increase the trim the kick sounds good at -4 on the meter, good at -2, at 0 something starts to happen cardboardy sound starts to appear at +2 it's there at +4 it's horrible again.
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE F**KING KICK IS OVERLOADING THE PREAMP AT +4?????!!!!!???
I have used Mackies, DDAs, Soundcrafts, Crests, Carvins, Peaveys, Yamahas, and more and I have never seen a preamp crap out that quickly, hell, I always run my kick channel hotter than that and I never had a problem before or since.
When I realized that I was not Insane, and that it was just the POS board crapping out it was one of the happiest moments of my life, my two hours of hell were over!

Another happy Behringer moment was when I was hired to do a 10 band show in a club I sometimes do work for, I walked in saw a Behringer 32 channel desk and had an instant horrible flashback to the whole kick drum incident! I decided ok, I know the preamps crap out, so just baby them and it should be ok, grumble, grumble, @$#@%@!!, grumble.
Fine I set up and balance, do the drums, @#$%^%$!!, they sound ok once the trims are kept low, fine we can do this. Great lets line check the 4 vocal channels, first one sounds ok, second is softer, HUH?, same trim levels, check the compressor - same, bypass it, still soft, remove both inserts, still softer by about 3 db WTF?, ok fine - give it more trim and move on, next channel is as loud as the first but it has a wierd midrangey sound??!!!? check everything, it's the channel, it just sounds wierd so I skip it and move everything down by one channel, the next two channels were ok, except that they also had randomly different amounts of gain and the monitor sends on one of them needed to be significantly louded than the other channels to get the same stage volume.
I was extemely happy when that show was over, another great moment of happiness caused by Behringer boards.

Another great moment of happiness was when one of the bands I work with was hired to play at a small outdoor festival, during our set the meters on the board suddenly go dark, HUH? I check all my solo buttons, nope, the meters just decided to crap out just like that! oh well, only 2 songs to go anyway, I don't really need them.
I was ecstatically happy that I was only doing one band and that I could get of that board as soon as possible!

All of those boards were less than a year old.
 
My happiest Behringer moment:

Bringing the Eurodesk I bought from a local dealer back and collecting my refund after the thing blew up 30 minutes into a set. We had to whip out a beat up old Mackie 8-channel at the last second and reconfigure the drum mics while an increasingly hostile crowd stared at us - then try and smooth them back over once we got set back up.
 
Vox, the only thing more stupid than that crappy behringer preamp is the drummer who apparantly sat for two hours beating his kick like some sort of fool.

Man that does say something about the musicians. I guess anyone near serious would have said fuck you and walked of stage. Give me a call when you have it repaired!

:p :p
 
Regretably I just sold my Behringer board to a friend (SUCKER!!!). This thing was so bad. I'd gain stage my setup, and simply plugging in an Electric Guitar the thing clips out anything above 0 on the preamp. Try to run 2 signals through together, and the thing clips out at the master. Didn't matter what I tried. Adjusting the Preamp levels, fader values, even switching to external preamps and even changing instruments or microphones, and nothing. This was a "Single File Please" mixer. Oh, and we could forget about using the effect sends. To get a decent return level (Even with all the rack gear running at the same level, gain staged and operating at their best S/N Ratio, the send had to be at about 80% or so. Oh and Behringer boards aren't the quietest once you turn any slider or knob on the friggin thing above 50%.

Save yourself a headache and buy a Mackie or any other brand for that matter. Behringers are cheap money, because they are "THE KING OF CHEESE".

Boy I wish I hadn't sold my Behringer!
 
nobody likes behringer gear, cause they steal other people's designs (I like their midi foot controller though)... but if your going for something to get u by, a piece behringer can 'get the job done'.
 
My favorite moment with my Behringer mixer will be when I replace it.

:)
 
Now that everyone has beaten up on the manufacturer, which I am not, or do not represent.

What experience have you had with their outboard FX like the Composor Pro, Pres, etc?
 
They're compressors, and some of their effects stuff is OKAY. Their mixers are only better than Radioshack stuff.

Remember... If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
 
I have a Composer, which was the forerunner of the Composer Pro. I think they are exactly the same internally. It does a decent job as a compressor as long as you don't go to ridiculous extremes. Its pretty clean and clear--doesn't lop off lots of highs. I wish the expander /gate had more control, but for $99 bucks, I won't complain. (actually my Composer was $200 when I bought it years ago).

The downside was that the first one I bought died in under two weeks. It was replaced free of charge and the replacement has been active for five years or so with no problems.
 
I'd have to say the only Behrenger gear I have any use for is VAMP II and MXB1002. Yeah, it's a crappy little board, but I use it in a remote setup for battery powered phantom power, and for what I want it to do, it has performed pretty well. I've heard enough horror stories here to convince me I don't ever want to buy a full size board from them. Thanks for the warning, guys!- Richie
 
Downside Studio said:
Vox, the only thing more stupid than that crappy behringer preamp is the drummer who apparantly sat for two hours beating his kick like some sort of fool.

Man that does say something about the musicians. I guess anyone near serious would have said fuck you and walked of stage. Give me a call when you have it repaired!

:p :p
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Well you see it wasn't my gear, it was their show and they hired the cheap ass sound company, I was just a freelance engineer.
 
Most of the Behringer gear I've seen sucks but............I just got a V-amp 2. I already have a Pod and a J-station and I got the V-amp to complete my collection since it was cheap. Now it's built pretty lightweight and I don't think I'd better drop it but I've been suprised at the sound quality. Some quite good presets and a few really neat features like the leds that let you know where the virtual knobs are set. It doesn't blow the Pod or J-station away in sounds but it's probably as good..........much to my suprise.
 
soundzxtreme said:
Now that everyone has beaten up on the manufacturer, which I am not, or do not represent.

What experience have you had with their outboard FX like the Composor Pro, Pres, etc?
Click to expand...

I do own an ECM 8000 which I like (especially for the price) and I would probably buy a compressor or gate from them.
 
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