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Behringer - cheap and nasty???


TheGreek

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6 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Agreed although the Soundcraft Ui series are better than the XR series IMHO.

 

Indeed, there are a lot around - I haven't tried them as I have been really happy with the XR, but certainly when it came out there wasn't much around in the same price bracket and it managed to get a good market as the goto mixer for small bands. Ive done a couple of hundred gigs with it and still more than happy in that it hasn't let me down (although had a bit of a panic at one gig when I forgot my iPad - but used mix station on the phone) - familiarity is good.

 

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I've never used their pedals but have an XR18, an X32 Rack and both an SD8 and SD16 digital stage boxes and in the past I've had their outboard rack gear notably the 4 way cross over, 31 band GEQ and a V-Verb Pro 2496.  All have performed flawlessly and done exactly what they are supposed to do at a fantastic price point.

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  • 1 month later...

Indeed. Outside of America the words "Made in the U.S.A." are rarely associated with quality, so it does seem odd that they have hold much a view. 

 

American or German car? American or Japanese electronics? American or Italian coffee? German, Japanese and Italian for me please.

 

Anyway, Behringer user here. Always been happy enough for the outlay. DI box, tuner and overdrive, and despite people moaning about the plastic cases (thats why they are so inexpensive) they are extremely robust and surivive night after night of me doing the fandango on them, and im 19 1/2 stones. I recently gave them a clean with baby wipes and the came up like new.

 

I could spend 3 or 4 times as much on Boss gear, for little appreciable performance, sound or durability gains.

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The Behringer DI Box has a weird grounding system that can be problematic with a some instruments. In particular with The Terrortones using the Etherwave Theremin, every time we couldn't get a signal from it to the PA it turned out that they were using a Behringer DI Box. Swapping it for one of my EMO DIs would immediately sort out the problem.

 

We eventually worked out that it was something to do with the way the Theremin and Behringer DI Box were earthed, that the the DI input was essentially being shorted out when the Theremin was connected. Considering that one of the functions of a good DI box is to electronically isolate the connected equipment from the PA, that seems to be a major short-coming on the part of Behringer, and could potentially lead to serious problems if there was a mains voltage issue on either side of the box. As a consequence I now always carry sufficient high quality DI boxes for all my gear that require them and always use those in preference to Behringer ones.

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Sorry, I was talking about the DI100 which seems the staple of many musicians, smaller venues and low budget PA systems.

 

I don't think I there are any decent live videos of The Terrortones using the Theremin (For some reason all the good live videos are of the Theremin-free songs), but if you have Spotify have a listen to the "SnakeOil For Snakes" album.

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  • 3 years later...

Found myself at a rehearsal room last night that didn't have backline. Dug out my battered BDI21 from the bottom of my bag, plugged DI into the PA.

Worked a charm, sounded good to my ears.

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I use beringher products and have done since starting making music in the late 90s.

 

Aware of the snobbery towards the brand I liked what one engineer said to me (I'm sure he lifted it from somewhere):

 

The difference between not making music or using Beringher is far greater than using Beringher or using brand x

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, rOB said:

Found myself at a rehearsal room last night that didn't have backline. Dug out my battered BDI21 from the bottom of my bag, plugged DI into the PA.

Worked a charm, sounded good to my ears.

A law should be passed that all bassists carry one of these, excellent bits of kit at such a good price.

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I think this is a historic argument, in the early days, Behringer did me-too versions of famous pedals but they have been innovating in Digital Mixing for example for some years. When you look at the brands now in the Music Tribe portfolio, you might expect changes to many of Behringer's product ranges.

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4 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

A law should be passed that all bassists carry one of these, excellent bits of kit at such a good price.

I still rely on my age old Countryman. It may already be cheaper than B, because it works and works after all these years.

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On 08/10/2021 at 13:05, Bassfinger said:

American or German car? American or Japanese electronics? American or Italian coffee? German, Japanese and Italian for me please.

Corvette / Porsche, Ampex / Sony, I don't drink coffee.

 

Interesting thing has still been that americanos do lots of inventions. They are a bit like Philips, or Fender: great ideas, excellent billing of the authorized use, but products haven't been convincing since early 1980's.

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After I'd stopped touring in 2018, I had a full pedalboard of Boss and EHX pedals just gathering dust. I'd occasionally use one in a recording session but otherwise they remained in their boxes.

 

So earlier this year I had a gear clear out and sold all the Boss and EHX gear on Reverb and replaced them with Behringer equivalents. Yes, they're cheap and plastic-y, but for certain pedals they are unbeatable value for money.

 

The only reason I had so much Boss gear originally (and EHX) was because their pedals withstand a lot of tour use. Now I don't tour, I can use Behringer stuff in the studio and I know I don't have to worry about it getting stomped on or cracked or have beer spilled on it. Their analogue delay pedal is amazing considering how little it costs to buy. 👍

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39 minutes ago, itu said:

I still rely on my age old Countryman. It may already be cheaper than B, because it works and works after all these years.

 

Similarly I have 3 EMO passive DI boxes bought second hand over 30 years ago and still going strong.

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I have a Behringer U-Phoria audio interface. I recently upgraded to a Universal Audio Volt and it's... a little bit better? Sound from the input into Logic is pretty much identical. Output sounds a little bit better (probably a better DAC in the Universal Audio interface).

 

Not much in it, to be honest. I've still got the Behringer connected to one of my other computers. 

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1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

I don't think that 'cheap' is the best description, with its connotations of 'lack of quality'. Perhaps the term 'inexpensive' would be more accurate..? 

 

"Differently costed"? "Budget"?

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I bought a behringer clone of the ARP Oddessy from Trash Converters, however within an hour of it being delivered I discovered that it would crash and need a reboot whenever you pressed a key after changing the octave up.I sent it back for a refund.

 

I used to enjoy using behringer pedals though when I owned them. The ADI-21 acoustic preamp was essential when I used to gig with a Dean Pace electric upright aka 'the banister'

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My vague impression is that the quality of Behringer gear has improved a lot since I first encountered their products many years ago. The new stuff I've seen and used recently seems great, whereas I think they used to be a bit more visibly cheap and lower quality back in the day.

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Had various Behringer products, I use a UM2 audio interface to play my bass though my laptop, play along to tracks via Audacity and connect my laptop to my HiFi and headphones, you can use it to record 2 channels at once as well, good solid piece of kit, our singer also uses a MA400 to give him his own monitoring channel for his in ears, our mixer amp only has one monitoring channel, does the job brilliantly.

I have had a BDI21 but didn't really use it, prefer my zoom B1on, thought the gain knob was a bit on or off, and an ADI21 which again I don't use because my electro acoustic has it's own EQ, but, again solid bits of kit a ridiculously low price

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