Behringer mixer? Can it be relied upon to gig with?

close2u

So our singer has a Behringer Eurorack Pro RX1202FX.

It hasn't been used in many years.

We haven't tested it yet.

What is the general consensus on this mixer?

We need to buy pa stuff and aren't sure whether to include a replacement mixer in our purchases.

Fuzzdog

If it works okay, it'll probably be as reliable as anything else you can buy without spending silly money.  Plenty of bands out there using Behringer mixers and working them hard - I've seen a Eurorack or two in some pretty surprising places over the years, including in the racks of stadium-sized artists.

I'm not a huge fan of Behringer by an means, but I have to admit they do make some really nifty workhorse mixers.  They're not great, but they're good enough, and tend to keep going.

Jalapeno

Ditto,  and I bloody hope so !

I would say that they aren't particularly robust and won't survive much abuse or spillage. Also, because of all the VLSI and surface mount technology repairs aren't that easy.

The choice between our s/h Eurorack and an Allen & Heath for the same job was £200 vs over a grand.  So our Behringer is flight cased and never left where punters can f*ck about with it.

ICBM

close2u said:

So our singer has a Behringer Eurorack Pro RX1202FX.

It hasn't been used in many years.

We haven't tested it yet.

What is the general consensus on this mixer?

We need to buy pa stuff and aren't sure whether to include a replacement mixer in our purchases.

My experience with Behringer is that the vast majority of it works fine for many years with no problems at all, and a small proportion dies unrepairably (economically) within a fairly short time, so if it's still working fine now, it's probably not likely to fail any time soon.

The reason seems to be that it's actually pretty well-designed kit (not least because they pinch a lot of already-proven designs from other companies!) but that component specs are cut very tight to keep the cost down. If you get one where all the components are on or above tolerance it's fine… if you get one where something critical is below tolerance it's headed for an early landfill.

I would still get some sort of small spare mixer which can be used in an emergency though - regardless of what main mixer you have. A lot of bands seem to carry spares of just about everything *except* the desk, which can be a risk since everything relies on it...

Cirrus

The advantages of a Eurodesk handily catching fire on a freezing winter's morning are not to be understated.

Danny1969

I fix a lot of Behringer desks, it's normally the power supply that gives all the grieve. It's generally a very poorly designed and made switch mode type. They are all different though, the SMPS built into their powered mixers are the worse, some of the smaller less stressed passive ones are ok-ish 

When it comes to PA though it should be more important than anything else and I wouldn't use a Behringer desk or any other cheap PA equipment. I would sooner sell one of my guitars if necessary and buy something better

Every single Behringer desk I have ever used has poor headroom, crap EQ, cheap knobs and faders and as everything is built on the same PCB they are a pain in the arse to work on

maltingsaudio

I'm on the fence here, personally I'm with Danny and can never understand why bands go out with backline costing twenty times more than the FOH system. On the other hand if money is very tight then any saving and compromise works until you can get the money together to get better gear.

On the behringer front if it works then no real reason not to use it if it works, except its going to be noisy and have crap eq and feel cheap and not give the system the best chance of sounding as good as it can. The big question here is of course whether you have the experience of better gear to realise the shortfall of cheaper stuff and if your sufficiently worried about the quality of what your customers hear that you can justify the cost of spending more.  

Jalapeno

Cork sniffing aside, as I said, as long as they work they are likely to continue working, but they are more flimsy than most.

I view ours as disposable.  We have 400W+400W 8ch PA Amp , and that's our fallback

The points above strike me as a Squier vs Custom Shop discussion - as long as you know your buying a Squier and not expecting CS function and features- all's good.

Danny1969

Jalapeno said:

Cork sniffing aside, as I said, as long as they work they are likely to continue working, but they are more flimsy than most.

I view ours as disposable.  We have 400W+400W 8ch PA Amp , and that's our fallback

The points above strike me as a Squier vs Custom Shop discussion - as long as you know your buying a Squier and not expecting CS function and features- all's good.

Jalapeno said:

Cork sniffing aside, as I said, as long as they work they are likely to continue working, but they are more flimsy than most.

I view ours as disposable.  We have 400W+400W 8ch PA Amp , and that's our fallback

The points above strike me as a Squier vs Custom Shop discussion - as long as you know your buying a Squier and not expecting CS function and features- all's good.

The thing is the audience probably can't tell the difference between a Squier or a custom shop, the difference is too subtle. 

The quality of the vocals though is about the most important thing in a band and the audience can tell the difference .... and to get the best quality you need a decent desk, decent amp (or active ) speakers. 

Personally I wouldn't even bother with any analog desk these days, they have no dynamics, never enough aux sends, no possible means of remote mixing, no recording facility. For £800 ish you can get something a lot more useful 

ESBlonde

I pretty much agree with all thats been said above. Use it but don't push the gain, and ffs box it and wrap it in cotton wool if you don't flight case it. Flexing the chassis will kill it sooner or later.
It could well last a decade of careful use but once the faders and pots start to scratch it's time to replace it because the repair costs are uneconomic. I would recommend having a small used 4 ch desk available at gigs for diagnostics or at a push to get you out of a hole, just make sure there are enough XLR inputs for your urgent needs. Ebay and £50 sets you up.

Jalapeno

Agree with all that ^^^^^^^

Our Eurodesk has 6 Aux Out channels, that's why we bought it

And to be clear, I'm not saying that a Behringer is as good as an Allen & Heath or Studiomaster, nothing like that, just that they're adequate but fragile. 

And £1k desk certainly doesn't guarantee performance - as I witnessed last Saturday, big expensive mixer, powered speakers and IEM - with a totally awful FOH mix

maltingsaudio

The points above strike me as a Squier vs Custom Shop discussion - as long as you know your buying a Squier and not expecting CS function and features- all's good.

The thing is the audience probably can't tell the difference between a Squier or a custom shop, the difference is too subtle. 

The quality of the vocals though is about the most important thing in a band and the audience can tell the difference .... and to get the best quality you need a decent desk, decent amp (or active ) speakers. 

Personally I wouldn't even bother with any analog desk these days, they have no dynamics, never enough aux sends, no possible means of remote mixing, no recording facility. For £800 ish you can get something a lot more useful 

You can argue that the quality of vocals is the most important thing but then again in some genres it isn't Punk and Metal spring to mind! Just saying.

I also have to call Danny out on the analogue v digital debate it all depends on the bands budget, requirements and skills. Often it is the case that people us everything on the desk simply because its there which probably explains Jalapeno's experience on saturday night! My personal bete noire is compressors in the right hands they are great but most of the time the cause more problems than they solve and we've survived long enough with a couple on a gig for vocal use when running 32 channels so why now do we need to have the capability to put them on third cowbell simply because the desk has that facility is beyond me!

ESBlonde

maltingsaudio said:

! My personal bete noire is compressors in the right hands they are great but most of the time the cause more problems than they solve and we've survived long enough with a couple on a gig for vocal use when running 32 channels so why now do we need to have the capability to put them on third cowbell simply because the desk has that facility is beyond me!

Yea that's a bit of a techno fashion thing. Everyone is becoming used to flat undynamic mush through digital MP3s and EweChoob not to mention the state of CD production in general and of course multiband compression on the radio where everything is louder except the DJs voice which is loudest. Electronic drum kits are often compressed and gated sounds that punch but sound lifeless. Listen to Al Greens hits, any of them and hear what a real drum kit sounds like.

There is a time and place for compression and there are different types of it from limiting/hard knee to soft knee with a high threshold and it all works.

p90fool

Danny1969;488480" said:

 The quality of the vocals though is about the most important thing in a band and the audience can tell the difference .... and to get the best quality you need a decent desk, decent amp (or active ) speakers. 

This is very true, and vocal quality is an obsession of mine in my band.

All I would say though is that every band I've seen in the last few years with a terrible vocal sound has had GEAR which is capable of producing a perfectly acceptable vocal sounds, but nobody there with the skills to make it happen.

I'm not a big fan of Behringer gear tbh, but I know I can still use it to make a singer sound good if I have to.

PolarityMan

We use a 4 channel behringer mini-mixer with only a single send. 

It does have a little bit of crosstalk between the 2 mic channels but hasnt ever failed us.

We do try to tend to play places with their own PA where possible though.

koneguitarist

Depp'd with a band a couple of years ago who had bought same RCF speakers as me, but with a Behringer desk. No headroom and really struggled till I replaced it with my A+H before we started. 100% improvement in clarity volume and bottom end.

close2u

Many thanks for all the comments so far - keep them coming if you have experience of them.

I am surprised at people saying they are reliable ... albeit noting that the caveat suggests they will either break quickly or last quite well.

Note: I am only talking about the mixer at this stage.

Although one of buying options we are considering also has a Behringer power amp.

Danny1969

@maltingsaudio

Your right different people have different needs and too much processing power in the wrong hands is a bad thing. In the circles and bands I work in everyone use's low stage volume, everything's mic'ed up and mixed by some competent out front either by running a snake and a desk out front or (more normally now ) using an iPad. In this scenario by the time you brought an analog desk, a few compressors and some nice verb and delay effects you may as well have just brought a digital desk with it all on board anyway. Because then you don't need a snake, you got the iPad option, you can record live gigs in multitrack and remix after, you can use previous gigs to virtual soundcheck ...... it opens up so many possibilities and solves a lot of problems 

If you just bung the vocals through the PA, no one's mixing it,  then a small analog desk will be fine. But don't expect too much of a well produced polished sound, you simply won't have the tools

@close2u

Did you see my previous post about Behringer powered stuff and that includes standalone amps .... avoid 

ICBM

Danny1969 said:

Did you see my previous post about Behringer powered stuff and that includes standalone amps .... avoid 

I would agree with that, although their bass amps - the ones that look like Ashdowns - are fine... actually much better built and more reliable than Ashdowns .

monquixote

We bought one of the higher end Behringer mixers for my band. It arrived with a fault, we then sent it back and the next one we received also had a fault. 

We sent that one back and bought an Allen and Heath mixer costing about 5 times the price which works perfectly.

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

@maltingsaudio

If you just bung the vocals through the PA, no one's mixing it,  then a small analog desk will be fine. But don't expect too much of a well produced polished sound, you simply won't have the tools

I'll have you know our band has plenty of tools