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  #21  
Old 03-03-2004, 06:43 PM
pk_hat pk_hat is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

If anyone cares, here's my take.

While I usually share WHERE's opinion on Behringer, I could never deny that they hold a certain place in the industry, catering to a demographic that is the growing number of home-recording enthusiasts. Some of which will keep it entirely as a hobby, while others will set their sights on bigger ventures and have a genuine interest in learning about engineering as well. The latter will usually start out on the same path. Minimal gear, minimal budget but with a desire to learn and get some 'hands-on'. This is where Behringer can be high and mighty. Not everyone starts out with an Avalon pre, a Focusrite Red compressor, an Amek, SSL or Neve board, much less with ADAM or Dynaudio AIR monitors. I say let Behringer be what they are, a good starting point to understanding signal paths, gain staging, midi control devices, etc.

Those who know better and crave a better sound, which usually happens if the interest sustains by reading mags like Mix, Sound On Sound, Tape Op, as well as visiting forums such as this one, will soon figure it out. You get what you pay for and different circuits introduce different sonic results. This of course, if the song is there to begin with. I'd much rather hear a good song (in any genre) done with a Soundblaster and Behringer gear, than some piece of $#!t garbage recorded on a Neve and mixed to 2" tape at Abbey Road.

I had a Behringer mixer (MX2004) which seemed like the deal of the century at first, but within a year, the faders got buggy until 2 of them completely went out. One of the control room outputs (where my monitors were connected) crackled and the monitor/volume pot was yielding an uneven stereo image. I swore to never buy Behringer again, and I probably won't. However, I learned quite a bit by using the mixer and experimenting with routing to and from my patchbay and some of the outboard I have. Sure, it was a $249 16-channel mixer but I can't say I regret having bought it. It did a good job for a while, it failed, I learned a lot from it and now I'm moving on. My next mixer will certainly not be a B nor a Mackie, but a Soundcraft or Allen & Heath instead, even if it means waiting until I can afford it.

One of my high school friends from Montreal came to visit last weekend, he brought his Gibson and a Behringer V-Amp modeler. What can I tell you, that thing sounded better than my POD, no lying, no exagerating. Perhaps it will fail him in a year, maybe two, but for $100 on eBay, he can at least get cracking on some new tunes and get productive, which again, is all that matters in the end.

I know I'm rambling on (and I do apologize) and yes I do - generally - despise Behringer, but I'm done with my "not even if they made guitar picks" bashing. My conclusion is that it's "hit-or-miss" with them, they just happen to miss with my first (and last) purchase, but as odd as it sounds coming from me, I feel Behringer is needed by a lot of people who are simply starting out.

'night.
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  #22  
Old 03-04-2004, 12:13 AM
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JFreak JFreak is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

Quote:
My next mixer will certainly not be a B nor a Mackie, but a Soundcraft or Allen & Heath
my comment is totally off topic, but i have to say go for the a&h instead of soundcraft if you plan on buying a budget mixer. a small a&h sounds a lot better than a small soundcraft; however, both are way better than decent.
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  #23  
Old 03-04-2004, 12:29 AM
brinaddison brinaddison is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

Nicely put pk_hat.

I'm glad to see I'm not p**sing in the wind. But I am burning the midnight oil getting my Final movie mixdown burned to DVCAM tape. Boy this stuff gets nerve racking when it's almost complete. It's been a great experience all around, designing the audio and all the ADR for an independant movie. 99.9% of what you will hear was recreated after the movie was locked and edited. A huge job that only the big Holywood movies are treated to. However after a 2 month lockout and 15 hour days I'm finaly finished and it's a good feeling. The client is extatic with the results and you guy's should keep an eye out for it at your local Indi film festivals.

www.blackthemovie.com

The movie is just called "black" Don't even try to download the trailer, the producers have a little to learn about file size, anyway it's all the Sh*ty audio that was on the originals and it's not color corrected. Soon I think they're going to want me to recut a pro trailer with all the new material. we'll see, the budget is running dry.

Thru the whole thing it was my trusty little "B" mixer that was used for splitting the monitoring signal to a 51" Sony HD viewing monitor and all the ADR booth monitors, from PT and FCP headphone sends, talkback, and to the 5.1 sound room. So don't let anyone tell you the "b" stuff is useless ok! it's not, it's just not the best and as long as it's not in the signal path, you can't really go wrong.

Peace, and good night.

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  #24  
Old 03-04-2004, 02:50 AM
Love Monkey Studios Love Monkey Studios is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

I wanted to lay in on this behringer thing. I'm not a behringer fan at all, and I totally understand Nick's (where's) point. I also have a argument for the "some of us can't afford good stuff so we need behringer" folks. I'm a small studio, and I laid out 200 dollars for one of the behringer tube compressors. It didn't work. So I called tech support. And called. And called. Finally after a few weeks I got someone on the phone and shipped it back at my own expense to get it fixed. So about 5 months later it comes back. I was excited to hear it, so I set it up. Again, exact same thing. They hadn't fixed it at all. Exact same problem. So I called. And called, and called until I got someone a week later. They were pretty nice, and I shipped mine back again, and they sent me a new one. Which showed up 5 weeks later. This took almost a year to sort out. Do you think I even opened up that box? nope. Sold it on Ebay, and made most of my money back. But I was out a 200 dollar investment for gear that never worked. That was 200 dollars of productivity out of my studio, which is a small home based facility. In other words, 200 dollars hurt.

So here's the point, and I do have one. I don't think Nick is being Elitist about gear at all. I think he, like me, had a few bad experiences. I do own several other pieces of Behringer gear, that have worked fine. But Behringer has huge quality control issues, more than just about any other company, if you read alot of different boards. And the market they target is a market that can't afford to throw away money! I also can't afford downtime due to gear issues. I have a couple of Behringer compressors that work decently, and a RTA, which also does a simple job well. But I wouldn't trust my studio to any piece of Behringer gear. Not a chance. And there are plenty of companies that make good products cheap. I wish I had just bought a RNC instead of the behringer. Samson, Alesis, presonus, and even some TC electronic stuff is competitive price wise, and have a much better reputation than behringer. So let's all chill a little. I wouldn't really buy behringer at all. It's not worth the risk. Save the money to buy a better piece of gear. Put something on layaway.
BTW, did I mention the first customer support number I got from behringer was in Germany!!
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  #25  
Old 03-04-2004, 02:54 AM
Love Monkey Studios Love Monkey Studios is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

The other issue with Behringer that Nick mentioned earlier is the fact that most of their business is making direct copies of other company's products. I had a samson 4 channel compressor, and the behringer too, and the only difference is black vs. blue face plate. The 2 channel compressor is a copy of a Alesis 3630. The headphone amp is a copy of the samson model. I don't think it's a good racket. I did play with the V-amp once. The sounds weren't too bad, but there was a ton of noise and hiss.
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  #26  
Old 03-04-2004, 03:09 AM
marcoustic marcoustic is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

Quote:
Hey , I know I've said this a few times........
Behringers Power Play KICKS ALL KINDS OF ASS!!!!
It's a 8 headphone distribution unit....comes with individual auxes for 4 phones. Treble/Bass/mono/left-right mute! And it's only $99 U.S.D. and it's LOUD as F**K!!!!!
I mainly do Metal music and I've had ZERO complaints about the headphone mixes!
Wow!
Now someone spoke it out loud! I also have two of this units and they´re awesome!!!

As for the rest of their products... I have to admit... I´m on where´s side...

Greets

Markus
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  #27  
Old 03-04-2004, 07:29 AM
senyc senyc is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

Are the faders on this BCF 2000 touch-sensitive?
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  #28  
Old 03-04-2004, 08:23 AM
Blutus Blutus is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

For a long while I have 2 Behringer products in one of my racks

1. After a few times working with them they only collect dust now. BAD audio quality.

2. A software editor for one of these "B's" which was promised in magazines and on their
website was simply never released ! Plain misleading. On many emails about this practice
I never got an answer. It had been better to start a case ...

3. I hate B's adds which always speak of mega, ultra, etc. and are misleading as well.
Have yourself a good laugh and visit the B website. Backed air all around.

4. The mentioned product at 2. randomly shows garbage in the display when I start the
unit so once in a while.

5. Opened the unit and the inside looks like the circuitry of a 70's chinablender.

6. Uli Behringer is the only German I know which sells crap with full conscience.

Thank you and do yourself a favor !
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  #29  
Old 03-04-2004, 09:07 AM
brinaddison brinaddison is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

Well, Love Monkey, If that had happened to me, I wouldn't have gone through Behringer customer support at all! Now you know what it's like for the rest of the world (not the USA) to have to deal with American companies from abroad. What you should have done it return the mulfunctioning unit to the vendor. They are responsable for the quality of the gear that goes out of their store. If a unit is not working correctly, They have no business selling it. It's called a LEMON.

Straight back to the store you got it from and a replacement or refund is due. Simple. Now if you insist on online purchasing then that is the risk you take so be warned. I have 3 Behringer "ULTRA B's" "SUPER FANCY $75 Effects units" and the line mixer, and I've NEVER had any issues with them.

One of them resides in my Super-Fancy-Utlra-Modern-High presission-24bit-Digital-Prosessing-Killer-Gutar rig. It's used to simply put a little ambiance on my Piezo pickup......that cost a fortune and sounds pretty crappy if you ask me. The result is far superior to the dry signal and this baby's ROAD TESTED for years and has never failed. As a matter of fact at that price, the price of a good meal on the town with a date, I think they do a fancy pants job. I'm not comparing them to Lexicon, that is not the point and is not fair, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, sounds better than the Reverbs of the 80's digital era for sure.

They do induce noise and hiss.... but $75??? what wouldn't. And I'm sure somone out there is dying to push some buttons and twist some knobs and Experiment a little. If you're making an album, I'd leave it 'till last or not at all, but if you had to use it on something only if it needed to be used, but demo's...........hell, that's what demoing is all about.

Ok that's enough "B" praise from this puppy.

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  #30  
Old 03-04-2004, 02:34 PM
where02190 where02190 is offline
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Default Re: likely hood of support for Behringer BCF 2000?

FWIW I persoanlly know two of the bigger Behringer retaillerrs in the area. their return rate on Behringer gear averages5x that of anything else. the single biggest reason for return: Product failure.
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