Jump to content

Bought a Behringer PMX 2000 last Friday morning...


Recommended Posts

  • Members

...the local Guitar Center had one in stock. I've been checking these out for a few months. Although they've received "mixed" reviews (pardon the pun), I thought I'd see for myself.

 

I needed a small powered mixer for rehearsals and for a reunion this August, and compared features/cost on this Behringer unit, Mackie, Yamaha and Carvin. It appeared that the Behringer PMX 2000 had them all beat in the feature/price catagory, and since GC gives a 10% discount to all card-carrying ASCAP members, the price (including two Speakon cables) was too good to resist.

 

We had a jam/rehearsal yesterday, where I got to try it out for the first time. It was connected to a pair of very efficient JBL floor wedges, and had several vocal mics plugged into it. It was very clean, quiet and punchy. We used a touch of one of the onboard digital reverbs to sweeten the vocals a little, and everyone marveled at how such a small piece of gear was able to produce so much sound. We were rehearsing in an open garage; the air temperature was about 89 degrees F yesterday. The only thing that overheated and quit playing was our drummer, after about 4-1/2 hours of playing!

 

So far, I'm very pleased with my $324 investment (including the cables). It sure beats hauling out the big board, amp rack and front end for jams, rehearsals and small gigs! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Originally posted by Kid Klash

...the local Guitar Center had one in stock. I've been checking these out for a few months. Although they've received "mixed" reviews (pardon the pun), I thought I'd see for myself.


I needed a small powered mixer for rehearsals and for a reunion this August, and compared features/cost on this Behringer unit, Mackie, Yamaha and Carvin. It appeared that the Behringer PMX 2000 had them all beat in the feature/price catagory, and since GC gives a 10% discount to all card-carrying ASCAP members, the price (including two Speakon cables) was too good to resist.


We had a jam/rehearsal yesterday, where I got to try it out for the first time. It was connected to a pair of very efficient JBL floor wedges, and had several vocal mics plugged into it. It was very clean, quiet and punchy. We used a touch of one of the onboard digital reverbs to sweeten the vocals a little, and everyone marveled at how such a small piece of gear was able to produce so much sound. We were rehearsing in an open garage; the air temperature was about 89 degrees F yesterday. The only thing that overheated and quit playing was our drummer, after about 4-1/2 hours of playing!


So far, I'm very pleased with my $324 investment (including the cables). It sure beats hauling out the big board, amp rack and front end for jams, rehearsals and small gigs!
:D

I can't imagine gigging with one as a band,but for practice,they should be fine. No need to be loud just for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Originally posted by tlbonehead

I can't imagine gigging with one as a band,but for practice,they should be fine. No need to be loud just for that.

 

 

Well, the one I bought is amazingly loud, given that the JBL wedges it's plugged into are VERY efficient. As I wrote before, it's only got about 5 hours on it so far, but it kept up with a large Ludwig drum kit, me and my JCM 900 2500 half stack and Strat, a double bass cabinet/bass head/precision bass, and Keyboard/amp. We were playing louder than we needed to, but since some of us hadn't seen one another in 37 years, the enthusiasm (and volume) was running pretty high that day. For a vocal PA, this Behringer is more than powerful enough for what it's being used for. We're into harmonies (not much of that being done these days), and the clarity and presence was quite remarkable. The reverb algorithms were quite good and very usable too.

 

We do mostly blues and blues-rock; no ear-bleeding SPL required (or allowed in most bars, clubs and small venues on the west coast and Canada these days).

 

When we do the occasional big gigs, we still have our big board, amp rack/effects, full front end and monitors to handle it.

 

If you're interested check out our site and give us a listen :

 

http://mp3.com/theexecutives

 

Peace - Kid

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

My JBLs are actually floor wedge monitors; they've got a single 12" JBL full range speaker and a JBL "075 bullet" tweeter in each cabinet. We're using 2 for our "mini front end", and two for monitors, with the PMX-2000 powered mixer.

 

I'd go to your local M.I. store and try out a bunch of speakers to see which ones fit your needs. Guitar Center has a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you buy some gear and don't like it, you can return it for a full refund. Many other stores do the same thing... I mentioned GC since they've treated me well. Most of the sales people at GC don't have much product knowledge, so you'll need to know the answers to most of your own questions! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I got a PMX2000 about a month ago for our band's jamroom. I plan on using it for our first few gigs (probably 8-12 months from now). Our speakers only consist of some generic stereo speakers as well as 2 floor wedges for vocals. It's a very nice mixer for the price.

 

The one thing I dislike about it (and maybe it's becuase I don't know how to use it correctly) is that there's no panning! It's a stereo mixer, with L/R main outputs and L/R preamp outs, but there's no way to assign the channels left or right.. heh.

 

I was hoping to replace the AudioBuddy with the mixer in the process of buying it, and it hasn't because I can't record 2 tracks at once using the mixer. The audiobuddy has 2 in and 2 out, the mixer has 10 in and TWO outs that act like ONE out.

 

Heh.. I don't get it.

 

I like to use 2 mics on 1 cab and record in stereo, but I can only record in mono with the mixer... >:|

 

Am I doing something wrong? Bleh.. I have the left and right preamp outputs on the front of the mixer going into our UA-1A USB interface, which has a L/R input.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I guess the stereo is only used for the 4 stereo inputs...? So, there's no way to assign an XLR input to either left or right.. you can only plug in 2 mics to one of the 1/4" input stereo channels to use the left/right of the outs...?

 

Ugh..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Originally posted by KipH

I guess the stereo is only used for the 4 stereo inputs...? So, there's no way to assign an XLR input to either left or right.. you can only plug in 2 mics to one of the 1/4" input stereo channels to use the left/right of the outs...?


Ugh..

 

You can "pan" any of the mono mic input channels left, right or center by using the main and monitors as stereo left and right.

 

Want something on the left, turn up the main only on that channel. Want something on the right, turn up the monitor only on that channel. Want something in the center? Turn up both the main and the monitor on that channel.

 

In our case, we wanted our vocals centered, so we could go the conventional way for a stereo front end (4 x 8ohm speakers), or go for a mono front end (2 x 8ohm speakers) with a single channel monitor mix (2 x floor wedge monitors). For some small upcoming blues gigs and an upcoming reunion, we'll be using the latter rather than the former. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

This thing also might do a resonable job at gigs as a moniter amp and use a line out and put it into a power amp for your mains.... For small gigs where I would just use vocals through the pa i think this thing would do an awsome job.... Hmmmm Its a lot more porable than our current set up.... amp rack case and a large 12ch mixing board.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

We used our new PMX-2000 powered mixer again yesterday... the air temperature where we were rehearsing was 92 degrees F... our rehearsal lasted 3-1/2 hours... not a single problem with the PMX-2000, although the four of us overheated and shut down sooner than expected! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Originally posted by Kid Klash



You can "pan" any of the mono mic input channels left, right or center by using the main and monitors as stereo left and right.

OHHHHHHHHHHH

 

Damn.. I'm retarded. I guess I should have read the instructions... bah!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • Members

Hi there,

 

Well, I've had my PMX 2000 for two months now, and it's been a great investment. We played at an outdoor reunion on August 23, 2003 in front of 120 people, and we had more than enough clean power for our vocals. It was not only used for our live music, but was used for MCing the event, and for "canned" music between sets. We're still using the built-in digital effects (reverb setting #5) as our primary effect and have had nothing but great results. Including the two 25' Speakon connector speaker cables, it's been the best $324 I've spent in a long time. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

What are you using for mains?

 

Our band is still using ours for our vocalist. We actually miced our 2 guitar amps for fun with vocals (to even out the guitar sound in the room) and it still ran fine!

 

I'm planning on using the PMX as a monitor amp in the future if I need to get mains for us to use. I was thinking about a new amp and a pair of JBL SF15's, coming off the PMX's preamp outs, and then using 4 wedges on the PMX's powered outs (2 per side) for the monitoring.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Each PMX output would have 2 monitors (wired parallel) on it (I do this now in our rehersal room with 1 monitor on each side). The preamp outs would go to the new power amp with the mains coming off of the new power amp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Originally posted by KipH

Each PMX output would have 2 monitors (wired parallel) on it (I do this now in our rehersal room with 1 monitor on each side). The preamp outs would go to the new power amp with the mains coming off of the new power amp.

Does it have stereo mixer/pre outs? Also,do you control the volume of all monitors with your monitor/aux controls,or do you have to use the mains volumes for one side of the amp? Also,can you keep the effects out of all monitors this way and still have them available for mains? BTW,Andy,what are you going to do tomorrow night if it rains?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

As I said, I only have 2 wedges running off the mixer right now. I guess there would be some complications dealing with the different volumes though. Didn't think about that :p

 

I imagine I'll have to end up getting an actual decent mixer as well as seperate amps for the monitors, subs, mains. This isn't anything I'm worrying about right now though -- we haven't even gigged once yet. This mixer serves its purpose for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • Members

this is good to know. i've got an MX602 that i use for teaching (plug guitar, bass, student's instrument and CD in and send it to a single practice amp -- FANTASTIC for a teacher on the go). The quality of the preamps is as good as the reviews i've read, and i became interested in the PMX2000. I was wondering about how clean the power section was, and you've answered the question.

 

i love when the forum does what its supposed to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Originally posted by tutu-1

The quality of the preamps is as good as the reviews i've read, and i became interested in the PMX2000. I was wondering about how clean the power section was, and you've answered the question.


i love when the forum does what its supposed to do.

 

 

Hey Tutu-1,

 

That's a cool teaching rig you're using! Very clever.

 

I've been using my PMX 2000 several times a week for over three months now, and it's still working and sounding great. The amps are quite clean IMHO, and I've yet to see anything else available for the same price that can compete with it. As I mentioned earlier, we use it for a vocals-only P.A., but we also run a CD player through it during breaks, and it sounds great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...