behringer what's going on???

[MidLifeCrisis]

I thought we were talking about quality of manufacturers. You seemed to snicker that I had used Fender in the past.

What's up with the attack on Behringer? I am certainly not championing them as a premier company. I just happen to think the gear of theirs that I used has performed very well for me for the price I paid.

You seem to have a problem with that. Am I missing something here?

[Griffinator]

You said that you had used a Eurorack mixer, and...

 

Been using my mixer for over 2 years without a single problem. Sounds great.

I was questioning the "sounds great" comment at the end, which seemed to indicate that you had actually heard some quality mixers, which you obviously haven't, if the best mixer you've ever heard was a Mackie (which, incidentally, was also a victim of Behringer reverse-engineering a dozen years ago, and spent 5 years litigating in court with them)

 

My attitude towards Behringer is simple: A scumbag company who rips off everyone from giants like Aphex to tiny little companies who can't defend themselves like EbTech (makers of the original SwizzArmy tester, which Behringer reverse-engineered and reproduced for half the price) and then has piss-poor quality control on top of it is not only not worth my dollar, but if I can help it, I'll steer everyone I know or meet away from their garbage.

[MidLifeCrisis]

So you are telling me that with my keys driven by 2000 watts through 4 cabinets, competing against a Marshall stack, an Ampeg SVT and a fully amplified drum kit that you could tell the difference in sound between my mixer and another brand?

I guess your title of Music for psychopaths by psychopaths was aptly selected.

[marino]

I had written a long post, but the damn software gave me an error message and ate it... aarrgghh...

[MidLifeCrisis]

Originally posted by marino:

I had written a long post, but the damn software gave me an error message and ate it... aarrgghh...

Must not have been Behringer software.

[Griffinator]

Hey, if all you use mixers for is a front end to some very loud amplifiers, then by all means, use the low end garbage. It won't make a bit of difference, when all is said and done.

 

But don't go coming across like you know something about the finer details of the pre-amps in a Behringer Eurorack vs. an Allen & Heath GL2800 when, in fact, you don't.

 

In all reality, your purpose would be as easily served with a Radio Shack mixer purchased at a yard sale for $10. No one would know the difference, because it's all about loud and live.

 

When you actually cut a record, that's when the rubber meets the road. If you saw a B$ringer mixer in the control room at the studio you were paying $100 an hour to record in, you'd be kinda pissed, wouldn't you?

[Griffinator]

Oh - and as to the "Music for psychopaths" jab...

 

That's cool, man. I haven't bagged on your musical ability. The "title" there was a link-through to some music that is, well, way off the beaten track. I questioned your ears because you were singing the praises of this cheap kit like it was the second coming of Christ.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Dude, you are taking this way too seriously.

And please if you are going to quote me, do it accurately.

Nowhere in this thread do I or anyone else praise Behringer as an elite piece of gear. It is perfectly reasonable to state that we feel we have received good performance from the gear for our use for a reasonable price.

This spirit of KC has always been to respect everyone's opinion no matter how much they differ from yours.

I am disappointed that someone with as many posts as you would opt to degrade fellow forum members who have an opinion that differs from yours. You come off as if you are the only one here with pro experience.

[Prague]

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

Its not just musicians and gear.

Why are you changing the subject? This is a musicians forum. "Everyone does it" isn't an argument a mother accepts from a 4 year old.

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

Guess some people just love spending extra $$ for a brand name instead of performance. I would rather spend wisely.

Is this a misquote?

 

Am I somehow infering something out of your post other than "Behringer is just as good as the name brand kit"?

 

Yes, this is a sore subject with me, and yes, I'm going to drag out the real situation from anyone who says "Behringer is just as good as the expensive gear, only cheaper" and expose it for what it is.

 

You've already admitted, essentially, that as long as your mixer works, it doesn't really matter how it sounds (barring obscenely noisy, which is only a problem when your guitarist is in his clean channel)

 

So your comment "sounds great" doesn't mean squat, because you (in a later post) stated very clearly you wouldn't know the difference between this mixer and a $150,000 vintage EMI Mark II TG 12345 in the application in which you're using it.

 

If someone is considering a 32 channel Behringer Eurorack for his would-be studio, I want it known perfectly well that he's buying inferior crap kit. For you to tell him that "it sounds great" without him knowing your specific application is tatamount to misinformation.

 

Next time, qualify your statement, and you'll see no teeth from me.

[K K]

Mr. Griffinator, OK I guess you had a bad day today or you truly dislike the Behringer brand. That's very fine and I think we all understand your point of view.

 

Now, I believe some of your comments are going just a little off subject and would prove more valuable if you used a little more objectivity (B$inger would be a good start).

 

Furthermore, I don't know if this is the kind of tone usually found on guitar forums as I don't go there, but frankly, I hate to see people opening a thread asking a question and then come back the next morning to realize and almost feel sorry that the thread degenerated into some nonsense debate with no objective content.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Originally posted by Prague:

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

Its not just musicians and gear.

Why are you changing the subject? This is a musicians forum. "Everyone does it" isn't an argument a mother accepts from a 4 year old.

Geez, did I get up the wrong side of the bed today or what?

Do I have to fight two battles in 1 thread?

 

You can't just make a blanket statement about not doing business with unethical companies and try to restrict it just to music. Are we not human beings outside of our musical life? Do we not have families and homes? Do we not lead normal lives?

So it is ok to deal with unethical businesses outside of music but not ok to deal with them in music?

That seems to be very hypocritical.

[K K]

And by the way, let's not forget one of the initial questions asked here was :

 

Anybody have some experience with Behringer Eurodesk SL2442FXPRO 24 and Behringer K3000FX Ultratone keyboard amp?

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by Cydonia:

Furthermore, I don't know if this is the kind of tone usually found on guitar forums as I don't go there, but frankly, I hate to see people opening a thread asking a question and then come back the next morning to realize and almost feel sorry that the thread degenerated into some nonsense debate with no objective content.

OK, so what you've just done is call me out for my "lack of objectivity" - and then use emotional appeals as your counter-argument.

 

I'll tell you the same I told Steve. Be honest. If you use your Eurorack as a front end for power amps in a live application, admit it. If you record through them, but you've actually never recorded through anything higher-end than Mackie, admit that too. Don't sing the praises of a particular piece of kit without qualifying your experience.

 

I've never heard any studio owner sing the praises of Behringer. Why? Because they'd be out of business in no time flat if they started using that crap.

 

When I first showed up at these forums 4 years ago, I tried to arrange a formal boycott of Behringer because of what they did to Ebtech. The response? 95% of the people I talked to said "I don't buy Behringer gear anyway - it's garbage"

[MidLifeCrisis]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

Guess some people just love spending extra $$ for a brand name instead of performance. I would rather spend wisely.

Is this a misquote?

 

It is a misquote in the way you are interpreting it. For my application, there was no need to spend additional $$ for something which would bring no additional value. Why pay extra $$ for something which is not going to give me any audible difference?

 

Plus it is a fact, which is not open to interpretation, that it has proven to be highly reliable for me.

 

And as Cydonia pointed out, the original poster was not looking for the ultimate studio mixer. He simply wanted to know if anyone had any direct experience with gear similar to what he listed.

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

So it is ok to deal with unethical businesses outside of music but not ok to deal with them in music?

That seems to be very hypocritical.

If you are forced to do business with an unethical company (really, you don't have a choice with Exxon, because if there's an Exxon refinery anywhere within 500 miles of you, all the gas stations in your area get their gas from it) then that's different.

 

There are choices to be made. If I have the choice to either buy something that a scumbag company with no ethics produced, or a reasonably ethical company produced, I am responsible for that choice. Wal-Mart rose to power on the strength of its unethical business practices. So did the Japanese microchip cartel back in the 80's. Examples abound. When you, as an individual, decide that your conscience can no longer tolerate it, is when you stand up and refuse to buy those products.

 

Sad, really, someone whose sigline moniker is about "Peace, Love, and Protest music" doesn't see the logic behind refusing to deal with unethical corporations when the choice is given.

 

I actually don't buy gas from Exxon, nor do I shop at Wal-Mart unless it's an item I cannot get anywhere else in this miserable po-dunk town I live in. There are many unethical bastards running shops in this city, and I won't buy from them either. I'd rather spend $0.15 extra on my can of green beans from Lee-Mos grocery and go to bed with a clear conscience than buy it from Wal-Mart knowing that I'm contributing to the destruction of American manufacturing by doing so.

[K K]

I'm not going emotional, as I just exactly said, I remember at least one great fellow newbie here starting a good question in a thread and then found out the next day it went totally out of proportion, wrote he/she felt sorry and never came back.

[delirium]

Originally posted by Cydonia:

I'm not going emotional, as I just exactly said, I remember at least one great fellow newbie here starting a good question in a thread and then found out the next day it went totally out of proportion, wrote he/she felt sorry and never came back.

 

exactly

[MidLifeCrisis]

I was never aware of unethical business practices at Behringer. I don't buy anything by Nike. I don't shop at Walmart. I am a stauch attacker of everything Micro$oft and Bill Gates the anti-Christ.

My point was in response to someone questioning why I expanded from music gear manufacturers to all industries. If one wants to preach ethics they should apply it to all aspects of life and not restrict it to music.

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

It is a misquote in the way you are interpreting it. For my application, there was no need to spend additional $$ for something which would bring no additional value. Why pay extra $$ for something which is not going to give me any audible difference?

 

Plus it is a fact, which is not open to interpretation, that it has proven to be highly reliable for me.

 

And as Cydonia pointed out, the original poster was not looking for the ultimate studio mixer. He simply wanted to know if anyone had any direct experience with gear similar to what he listed.

It is a fact that it sounds great? No, not really, only to your ears, in your given application. That's called subjectivity.

 

I've had direct experience with Behringer gear. It breaks. It sounds crappy. It spends more time in the shop than in the rack. That's my experience, and it's not just me (I only made that mistake once) it's everyone I've ever met. A drummer friend of mine bought one of their powered PA heads - thought it was great, until the first time it cut out at a show - 5 months after he bought it. Another buddy tried his luck once too often using one to run PA at a live show - it bombed out, and his business as a sound guy came to an abrupt end.

 

You want more horror stories? I got loads of 'em. I really hope none of these things ever happen to you. However, I can't help but stand up and yell my warning to everyone else - it's gonna work, if not well, but for how long?

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by MidLifeCrisis:

I was never aware of unethical business practices at Behringer. I don't buy anything by Nike. I don't shop at Walmart. I am a stauch attacker of everything Micro$oft and Bill Gates the anti-Christ.

Good. Then here are your reasons for never buying B$ringer gear again:

 

1) They reverse-engineered Aphex's Aural Exciter and reproduced it as the Ultimizer. Aphex sued, Behringer settled out-of-court.

 

2) They reverse-engineered Mackie's VLZ mixer - right down to a mistake on one of the PCB's on the particular lot from which they purchased their target. Mackie sued, and Behringer won on a technicality about US patent law applying on European soil.

 

3) They reverse-engineered Ebtech's SwizzArmy Tester - to the finest detail, save the lights - in order to save a couple cents in production costs, they used all one color lighting, where the Ebtech model used multiple colors. I personally spoke with an Ebtech engineer who told me "if we sued, they'd bankrupt us with the legal wrangling - there's just no point in trying"

 

Are there more examples? You bet your ass. It's their modus operandi. Let someone else do the R&D, we'll just steal their designs, and worry about the legal crap later, should they have the financial resources to actually fight any legal battle.

 

Is that enough for your social conscience?

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by Cydonia:

I'm not going emotional, as I just exactly said, I remember at least one great fellow newbie here starting a good question in a thread and then found out the next day it went totally out of proportion, wrote he/she felt sorry and never came back.

Well, in all honestly, if someone is offended by the discource that's happening in this thread (which, as prickly as it's been, has still been educational to at least a few of us) then they probably wouldn't have lasted here very long. I've seen people get far more excited about far less important issues than this.

 

Frankly, if, as a result of this thread, even one person's eyes are opened to the way Behringer conducts their business, then it was worth the collateral damage, because until people understand not only what a terrible product they sell, but what a truly terrible company they are, they will continue to move forward as they have in the past.

[Jazzwee]

another Behringer mixer user here. No problem.

[keyguy]

I have a UB2442SxPro mixer that I use as a backup to my Soundcraft for live music. I tried it out after buying it and sorta kept using it because it was easier to carry around that the Soundcraft but did not sound as good. After 4 months, I start losing channels and some channels were intermittent. Behringer had me send it to EPR Pro Audio in Tampa for repair. It was returned about 2 months later. I unpacked it to use about months later and after a couple of weeks, same problem. Called Behringer and it seem that repairs do not extend the original warranty. In other words, if something breaks in month 11 of a 12 month warranty, is repaired, and the same thing breaks again 2 months later, too bad. Bottom line, no warranty on repairs. I know it's only a $300.00 crap backup mixer but it just rubs me wrong that they will not fix it. I've been wanting an excuse to rant about this all week. Thanks.

 

Jim Wells

Tallahassee, FL

[delirium]

Well, in all honestly, if someone is offended by the discource that's happening in this thread (which, as prickly as it's been, has still been educational to at least a few of us) then they probably wouldn't have lasted here very long. I've seen people get far more excited about far less important issues than this.

 

Frankly, if, as a result of this thread, even one person's eyes are opened to the way Behringer conducts their business, then it was worth the collateral damage, because until people understand not only what a terrible product they sell, but what a truly terrible company they are, they will continue to move forward as they have in the past. [/QB]

it's your eyes that's should be opened...

it's ridiculous what you're saying, are you high?

what I see is only personal vendetta against Behringer. It's not even funny anymore.

[Griffinator]

Go forward with your blinders, then. And when all the innovation in the music industry is gone because of Behringer's predatory business practices, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. Oh - and the rest of us can blame you as well!

[dgrennan]

Scott, I'm totally with ya. Me and my mates have also had direct experience with Behringer stuff - mainly mixers and effects. It was about of year of broken down, probematic gigs, scrambling for alternative gear to cover constantly. Their warranty policies made us pay for shipping for gear that was a few months old, and they took forever to get repaired.

Then they would break down again - back to repair.

 

I sold the Behringer stuff cheap (some of it was less than a year old, repaired, and still didn't work right) - good riddens.

As far as I'm concerned, they owe me $$.

 

Never again. IMO you get what you pay for.

[Bill H.]

My UB1832 mixer I bought last year lasted a couple of months. I recently bought their calibration mic for my Driverack. It's less than half what the official DBX version cost. DOA. For those of you who have had success with your Behringer equipment, congratulations. As for me, I'm done.

[delirium]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Go forward with your blinders, then. And when all the innovation in the music industry is gone because of Behringer's predatory business practices, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. Oh - and the rest of us can blame you as well!

yeah, you're insane. That would explain what kind of music you play...psycho what? psychonuts?

 

No more words for you, would be waste of time.

[Griffinator]

Reduced to throwing cheap insults? Classic. You accused me of being high earlier - yet you're the one with the pot plant for an avatar.

 

White man speak with forked tongue!