Behringer documentary
ZEN2
1,540 Posts
My personal opinion aside, I found this mini-doc interesting???a decent "behind the scenes" look into how Behringer makes their gear. The narrator appears to provide a relatively fair portrayal, albeit peppered with editorial commentary.
Taken from here: http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/behringer.html
Taken from here: http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/behringer.html
Comments
I highly recommend not buying behringer shit, shit is made cheap and quality control sucks.
And apparently "quality control" doesn't suck-- the narrator makes that pretty clear.
Behringer obviously has a bad reputation, I took this into account when buying my monitors three years ago. And I gotta say I've been 99,9% content.
It's obvious that the company doesn't place emphasis on immaculate craftmanship or unique concepts, but for people on a budget, the lack of "soul" in a piece of gear is hardly anything to lose sleep over.
I see where you're coming from, and many would agree. However, I'm not the only person who will tell you that some[/b] of their gear isn't half bad. Their MIDI controllers, for example, are decent. I have an FCB1010 and that thing is built like a tank. My general rule for Behringer (and any cheap gear for that matter... *ahem* M-Audio) is to avoid letting cheapo parts touch the audio, so MIDI is fair game.
Seems like they have a new commitment to quality control though, if you believe what you hear in the video.
Sorry dude but you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about here. People worship that vintage gear for good reason and if you ever use it, you'll understand why.
Behringer's ability to make MIDI controllers that don't break has nothing to do with their ability (or lack thereof) to make worthwhile pro audio components.
Behringer makes (semi)cheap shit gear.
The dude who did the journal seemed to know everyone was going to bash him on it.
He admitted they used to make REALLY shit gear, but now they're somewhat acceptable. Which is true. Though still for the most part SHIT, anything HUGELY manufactured in China is going to be shittier than anything Hand built that's common knowledge.
Though, Uli's company focuses on getting Product out there and if you're going to buy cheap instead of quality it might as well be a behringer. He's obviously doing something right making that much money. But it obviously explains why behringer products are such shit, and why you shouldn't expect them to be anything but.
- spidey
but at the same time, there was a WHOLE lot of suspect stuff in this doc which explain exactly why B is such utter shit, the fact that they tout the Surface mount PCB's - NO! Not a +, the fact that they basically say that by setting up B Town, they can go from the design stage all the way to manufacturing in China, sorry this is not a +, if anything it ensures your product design will only get worse, as your designers don't know or care about audio. Sure most things are manufactured in China but the fact that the design comes from people with experience who demand quality makes a difference.
I'm on some save the planet tip, and I don't feel like the earth needs to be rung dry making $199 audio gear that specs and sounds like catshit because its filled up with shit surface mount IC's so a few dudes can put some beats up on myspace.
hehe, I retyped my rant!
See you at NAMM, ULI!
Yo, come check me out at the Auralex booth...
I think I'll probably sell my Behringer board for like $10 when I'm done with it.
Yeah, the point I've tried to make on this subject in the past is that you can get a $100-300 Behringer piece that does the same thing as a $400-600 Mackie or Yamaha or whatever piece, but in the longrun, the Behringer piece works just as good, if not better than, the more expensive piece. I think it's because any company manufacturing something in such an "affordable" price range has to cut corners to keep the costs down, so you're not getting good quality when you can't spend big bucks, no matter what the brand name. Mackie n'em can just tack on the extra couple hundo because they have a more established name and a more trusted product. In reality though, their low end shit ain't much better than Behringer's. So ultimately, it's not really Behringer, it's the amount of money you're spending on gear in general that is more going to determine the quality of your product.
True. These days you're probably better going digital until you can get at least something like an Allen & Heath.
If Rane made a simple mixer like these companies they could destroy the competition. I don't particularly like the sound of their gear but it's reliable and has a lot of headroom.
That was kind of my point though - it's worshipped as vintage, it has 'soul' because its vintage. When the U87 was first created 40 years ago it was done so to be a really good mic. It lived up to the task and is now lusted after because it has esoteric qualities such as 'soul'. I've used them and they are indeed beautiful sounding mics, but I've also heard plenty of dudes that have been using them since they were created say it's just another mic.
I'm not denying they're great, I'm just saying that products are often prescribed a status well after their conception. There are usually good reasons for this, but to criticize an audio company like Behringer for lack of 'soul' is just bad reporting I think.
At the end of the day I'd rather hear great music from someone with a shitty setup than shitty music from a great setup.
I'll take that t-shirt in grey with neon orange printing, XL plaese.
Every night on stage our grand finale is a beat that was mixed and made on a 8 track cassette tascam (Maxell XLII stylee)
Plus, You could record on a behringer and a kelso, BCM-10, or OG 1604 and by the time it ends up on uploaded, downloaded and re-encoded, it'll probably all be pretty similar.
But behringer still sucks.