I always assume that the audience is smart enough to know bad sound from good sound. A lot of musicians like to assume the audience is dumb, but that's never been my MO.
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You know, people talk smack about Behringer......
- Thread starter Funkee1
- Start date
SirMjac28
Patiently Waiting For The Next British Invasion
I agree but I would imagine most folks don't know what an Ampeg SVT is and what it should sound like? and I doubt most conversations after concerts are about the gear the musicians used. I'm not saying audiences are dumb they just don't care as much as the musician does about their gear.
I have owned and still do own a few units. My PA has a 16 channel, 4 bus mixer. I have an 8 channel line mixer, a cable tester and a stereo EQ. All units work as advertised. I did a rehearsal through a Combo with a single ten and I was terrified I'd do it in with my six string. I don't expect too much from their gear so I'm satisfied with the units.
This^^. Except I would use periods and capital letters so it wasn't so damn confusing for people to read.
Hey man, the most crappiest sounding amp in the world is still infinitely many times better than one that doesn't work.
The problem is not the tone of these amps.
It's will the amp be working after a year of hard use.
You pay for dependability.
I have the same exact head. I bought it because of the price. I love it. Sounds good, loud enough for me. I have no complaints.
If something sounds bad I couldn't care less about its reliability. There are lots of amps that are reliable and sound great. Those are the ones that interest me.
The last bassist I heard live that used one sounded about as musical as smacking a dumpster with a baseball bat. I won't speak for its reliability, and maybe it was his technique or way he had it set or his cab that made it sound that way, but I'm not too interested in them personally with where I'm at financially and in my playing.
I really don't like them either for a number of reasons, but really, if you can play, you ought to be able to at least get a workable sound out of most anything that makes sound and gets loud enough.....maybe not pristine, but workable....including a behringer.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
This.
I've been playing bass since the early 80's. I've never 'blown' an amp, and I've used a whole pile of them in that time. Albeit, I've never dropped, kicked or otherwise treated my stuff poorly. It sounds to me like there's a single common denominator in this situation.
My first amp was a Behringer BX1200 combo. Lasted for 3 hrs and then got a loud static-ky hum and nothing else. I use their mixers but stay away from everything else.
I had to use a rented backline on a short eurotour a couple years ago that had a Behringer bass head (not sure which one) and a Behringer 8x10 cab.
I put the MXR M-80 in front of it and left all the controls flat, and was able to coax a somewhat useable sound from it, and it worked, it was loud.
However, given the choice, I'd still rather use an old Peavey than a new Behringer.
I put the MXR M-80 in front of it and left all the controls flat, and was able to coax a somewhat useable sound from it, and it worked, it was loud.
However, given the choice, I'd still rather use an old Peavey than a new Behringer.
Hopkins
Commercial User
The only Behringer product I own is a rack tuner. It is slow picking up my E string and simply cannot tune a low B. The only reason it is still in my head case is because of the built in rack lights that are very nice.
I've had a couple of their mixers, still have one I rarely use, and one of their "feedback destroyers", which if you take it out of auto mode is basically a few channels of digital para-EQ.
Haven't had a need for the feedback unit with this band (maybe we should play louder??). My issue with the mixers isn't so much a sound quality thing, I mean they're no Neve console, but I don't have a problem getting decent sound out of them....it's the fact that they've all started dropping channels for no apparent reason. It's not a dirty contact type thing that cleaning fixes, they just start losing strength and eventually fall silent...one channel at a time in no apparent sort of order. On the 10-channel board, 1 is weak, 2 is dead, and the last time I used it 7 was extremely weak and dying. My masking tape channel labels have X's under the bad ones so you know not to use them.
If you need 12, buy 16, you're going to lose some along the way I always say.
Went back to using my old USA-made Mackie from before the whole outsourcing and LOUD takeover and a few pieces of outboard gear. No fancy stuff, no built in effects, not even a sweep control on the mids, but 6 aux's, good sound, and it all works.
Haven't had a need for the feedback unit with this band (maybe we should play louder??). My issue with the mixers isn't so much a sound quality thing, I mean they're no Neve console, but I don't have a problem getting decent sound out of them....it's the fact that they've all started dropping channels for no apparent reason. It's not a dirty contact type thing that cleaning fixes, they just start losing strength and eventually fall silent...one channel at a time in no apparent sort of order. On the 10-channel board, 1 is weak, 2 is dead, and the last time I used it 7 was extremely weak and dying. My masking tape channel labels have X's under the bad ones so you know not to use them.
If you need 12, buy 16, you're going to lose some along the way I always say.
Went back to using my old USA-made Mackie from before the whole outsourcing and LOUD takeover and a few pieces of outboard gear. No fancy stuff, no built in effects, not even a sweep control on the mids, but 6 aux's, good sound, and it all works.
Pretty much same age and playing experience here. I have had some amps go down. One I don't think was mis-used/abused but did have who know how many thousands of hours of play time on it, always turned way up of course. The other were user stupidity (that being me). And a couple due to maintenance that should've been done that wasn't, checkups, re-caps, etc.
I'd tend to agree. Most things should have a long service life as long as they're properly maintained, not abused by the user, or don't have some glitch in them from the start.
The exception being those behringer mixers I posted about that mysteriously lose channels with no rhyme or reason, which I guess is some glitch, or the result of cheaping out on stuff too much. It's one of those things that are calculated to last through the warranty period but not much longer.
It gets confusing for some people. They could present numbers that show and extrordinarily low occurance of reported problems or repairs needed.....and they'd be right....because they're so cheap nobody bothers getting them fixed or complaining about it....they just throw it away and get another one. No failures or fixes get recorded that way.
Some peoples problem with them goes beyond the bottom-of-barrel budget and everything that comes with it and gets into the fact that they have no R&D. They instead choose to spend that budget ripping off ithers designs, have techs change just enough about it to not get sued, and a team of lawyers to make sure that happens....or rather doesn't happen.
Believe it or not, I own a piece of Behringer gear. It's not bass related. Must go now. I've already said too much.
M. M.
M. M.
I've been using a Bugera as my main gigging amp for 2 years now, and have not had a single issue with it, and I actually love the tone I'm getting from it. And I don't really care how much crap people talk about them, because I love the fact that I was able to get an amp for less than 300 bucks that sounds great and has been solid as a rock for me.
