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Behringer Pedals ?


gardo

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Oh, the JHS guy. I like him.

 

We all know the deal by now...

 

1) Most are clones/work-a-likes of Boss pedals

2) OMG, plastic stompbox!! Won't hold up to gigging! (No mentions on forums of anyone's Behringer pedal housing breaking)

3) Made in China (like 99% of consumer electronics)

 

Supposedly most of them sound very much like their Boss counterparts, which is what he's showing in the video. Cliff notes version: the analog pedals sound spot-on compared to their Boss counterparts, but the digital pedals don't sound exactly the same.

 

I thought Behringer is phasing out their pedal line?

 

 

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I go by the rule of thumb, buy it right the first time and buy it once.

If the Behringer pedals work for you, do it. They have a digital modeling tube amp for 24 bucks. You can afford to by 2 or 3 of them, which you may need to do.

 

 

On that note, I'm not a pedal collector.

 

 

 

 

 

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They may 'sound as good' [i had watched some of that video the other day out of curiosity, but he never discussed build quality issues...] but the switches, jacks, pots, leds, etc. are all el cheepie Chinese junque...a month of daily play will quickly kill the stomp switches. The guy owns TC Helicon for pete's sake, this is just ego gratification for him....

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I'm fan of China peddow. I now have more good tone for less than the price of one boutique anything.

 

I still haven't seen any of the Chinese companies making clones of the "boutique" stuff that I'm personally most interested in - but that often tends to be the more complex, large and expensive stuff like the Mutron Bi-Phase and the various Lovetone pedals. Not enough of a market for them I guess... :idk:

 

 

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They may 'sound as good' [i had watched some of that video the other day out of curiosity' date= but he never discussed build quality issues...] but the switches, jacks, pots, leds, etc. are all el cheepie Chinese junque...a month of daily play will quickly kill the stomp switches. The guy owns TC Helicon for pete's sake, this is just ego gratification for him....

 

So how many have you personally killed ?

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Me? None, however, some of the guys I mentored over the years, as well as my studio partner have owned or own Behringer units [including their 'Eurotrash' mixers],and they ask if the unit can be repaired. Most of them are so cheap to buy, there is no point in even opening them up. Most typical failure has been the stomp switch, I've seen at least six dead ones over the past five or so years...then pots...either 'collapsed' or scratchy to the point of just creating noise. I have a credo 'friends don't let friends buy Behringer'.

BTW, I love their high-end pro mixers like the X32...done a number of big stage gigs through them, but the low-end stuff is fakakta...

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I still haven't seen any of the Chinese companies making clones of the "boutique" stuff that I'm personally most interested in - but that often tends to be the more complex, large and expensive stuff like the Mutron Bi-Phase and the various Lovetone pedals. Not enough of a market for them I guess... :idk:

 

 

(thankfully) I'm not the sonic monument type and concern myself with credible drive tones. Towards that end I've found wondrous tones from several China companies covering Fender/Marshall/ and Dumble of all things. Happy as all the clams I play.

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When I Was an asst GM to a chain of music stores in Washington state, I met with the Behringer rep. First thing he said, was "stay away from our guitar stuff." That told me a lot. (That WAS 11 years ago, so I am pretty sure their QC went up, or else they would be out of business.)

 

For the most part, Behringer's are pretty good clones of other makers work and ideas. their one mixer, a direct clone of the Mackie 1604. Sounded the same, same headroom, all the same bells and whistles.... EXCEPT reliability. For every 10 we got in the stores, 6 were defective in some way. And of the 4 that went out, 2 would come back a month later with various issues.

However, 25 bucks for a clone of a $250 vintage pedal.. Yeah, I'll get. I have a soldering iron and skill in replacing parts. Besides, I don't gig out anymore.

 

 

 

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The last time I shopped for a pedal I looked at Behringer but passed because of the plastic case

 

I read that Behringa opted for plastic because of the sheer volume of their production. They also supply a good deal of their parts to the cloners. Most of the Cino stuff comes in sturdy metal boxes and when they say this or that clone, you get a pretty satisfying rendition albeit not exactly the sonic detail of the originals.

 

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I read that Behringa opted for plastic because of the sheer volume of their production. They also supply a good deal of their parts to the cloners. Most of the Cino stuff comes in sturdy metal boxes and when they say this or that clone, you get a pretty satisfying rendition albeit not exactly the sonic detail of the originals.

 

That might actually be fine for what I do.

My pattern iis

-buy pedal

- use constantly for a few weeks

-set it off to the side

-think about using it again

-put it on the shelf

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That might actually be fine for what I do.

My pattern iis

-buy pedal

- use constantly for a few weeks

-set it off to the side

-think about using it again

-put it on the shelf

 

I drill unplugged as much as possible. Every time I crank it up the neighbors (cops and otherwise feral denizens) gather in a theft team for any scraps they can use. In deference to that obstacle my chops are getting better if not the practical value of my gear.

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I've bought a couple Sonicake tone bars For $60 you get reverb/echo/ overdrive & chorus ( Rockstage) or reverb/echo/blues drive&comp (TwiggyBlues) . I've used them Live for gig & in the studio no complaints. Metal boxes. Replaced my Racks and TC Nova system no more menu searching scrolling and tweaking.

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I've bought a couple Sonicake tone bars For $60 you get reverb/echo/ overdrive & chorus ( Rockstage) or reverb/echo/blues drive&comp (TwiggyBlues) . I've used them Live for gig & in the studio no complaints. Metal boxes. Replaced my Racks and TC Nova system no more menu searching scrolling and tweaking.

 

I had considered going with a Fender Mustang GT100 amp and having all the efects built in ,but this is my main objection, Menu searching scrolling and tweaking. It's all in thereif you can find it I know you can save settings ,but from my experience with a Mustang the tweaking never ends.

I really am torn on this

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I bought my first behringer pedal a couple of years ago, vibrato, after listening to a “No Guitar is Safe” podcast. I heard a cat A/B his clean sound to his clean sound plus fairly long, shallow, vibrato, it was crazy. (Reminds me of a slight trail on keys) I added the behringer to my rig after one of the guests on the same podcast said he couldn’t tell the difference between the behringer and Boss. I now have the echo park clone on my board as well. Both sound great! I just tried the fuzz. That one had a couple of decent tones, but fails to recreate the boss counterpart. There are A/B videos on YouTube for all of them, watch those first.

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I have a bunch of them I've collected over the years. They eventually wound up on my Guest pedal board in the studio and work out quiet well for that.

 

Most of them are passible with some sounding better then others.

The Tube Screamer is actually good, it uses the same chip in fact.

The phaser and chorus are kind of blah sounding. You could do better with other brands on those.

The compressor that copies the MXR isnt bad but its is a bit noisy when cranked much like the MXR does so its not my favorite comp circuit.

The noise reducer is just like the boss version.

The Maestro Fuzz clone gives you 2 Fuzz types and a clean boost, I haven't found much use for it.

The 24 bit mono in to stereo echo out is excellent. The quality of the echo is top notch and quiet. Its the one pedal I keep on my main pedal board.

The Bass limiter isn't bad. Used one for recording direct for awhile. Does the job plus its got a tine knob that targets bass tones for bright or deep.

The Big muff clone is actually very good. One drawback, are the cheaper pots. They spin a bit too easy. haven't had any actual failures with them.

I have one of those DI pedals for bass and guitar for direct recording and they both work flawlessly. A bit limited in usable sounds but good overall.

 

 

I may have some others around, I may need to check.

 

The biggest weakness are the pots in most of the boss look alike are actually mounted on the PCB, not bolted to the pedal housing like most pedals. They use long shaft knobs which go through the housing and grip the pots on the board. The pots themselves are plastic and feel wobbly.

Amazingly they hold up however. If you step on the knobs they don't harm the switch. They don't twist all that smoothly however. I came up with a fix for them however which works like a champ. I simply pulled the knobs off and stuck rubber washers between the knob and case and the knobs cant be bumped out of place any more.

 

The other things are the jacks. These pedals have bargain basement plastic PC mount jacks. If you step on the connector it will it can bend the connectors inside the jacks and you loose connectivity. I had two give me problems and had to dig around in there with a spring hook to bend the tams back out to make a good connection again. Replacing a damaged one, probably wouldn't be worth the effort unless you were really hard up for $20, the cost of buying another entire pedal.

 

Would I buy these pedals again? Probably not.

 

At the time it was an inexpensive option for getting some backup pedals for my guest amp rig in the studio. It saves having people come over and having to set up their rigs and trying to get a decent sound setup each time. I could set those pedals then simply have someone plug in and hit record. I think I paid between $10 to $25 each and for someone needing an inexpensive pedal they are OK. Instead of spending $150 on a boss pedal you can buy one of these clones cheap to see if they are something you actually want to add. Then you can sell that one and buy the real deal and be sure its something you wanted.

 

Of course you could just go to the music store, try out pedals and skip that all together.

In my case I probably should sell those extra pedals off now they I have better ones to replace them.

 

Too bad I wasn't younger. In another 20/30 years they will likely sell for hundreds of dollars each, just like many junk pedals from the 60's and 70's sell now.

 

 

 

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I have a Behringer Chorus Orchestra which sounds GREAT but is a little noisy and will distort a little bit with a humbucker guitar. I still like it but only use it at home.

 

I also have a TO800 tubescreamer clone. I absolutely LOVE IT!! Sounds awesome. Nice fat warm Tubescreamer sound. With a Strat and a nice amp I'm in heaven :) Not too noisy that it bothers me at all.. I gig with it semi regular.

 

Slighty less warmth than my TS-808 Ibanez but still excellent imo.

 

 

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I've had mostly good experiences. I really love the Ultra Metal UM300, mainly because it has TWO mid controls, you can fatten your sound as much as you want. Especially useful because I play through a '70s Bassman 50, which doesn't have a mid control! I also have two tube amp modelers on my board. One is set to 'tweed' for a barely gritty semi-clean, and the other set to a Marshall sound. Also have the distortion modeler, which does 3 pedal tones. I usually leave it on distortion +. Only ones that had issues were the green tube od, you can hear the clean an od sound at the same time, and the hellbabe wah, which seems to have distortion if it's on or off. But I bought most of these off ebay, so not new.

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Glad to see Behringer is finally getting it's over due respect.

A few years ago, a friend gave me his Behringer AM 100 Acoustic Modeler. I thought, " Cheap plastic pedal" and put it away in my collection of pedals.

I got a RJM Mini Effect Gizmo and worked with it and I was amazed on how much it was better sounding than my Boss AC 2.

 

 

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Glad to see Behringer is finally getting it's over due respect.

A few years ago, a friend gave me his Behringer AM 100 Acoustic Modeler. I thought, " Cheap plastic pedal" and put it away in my collection of pedals.

I got a RJM Mini Effect Gizmo and worked with it and I was amazed on how much it was better sounding than my Boss AC 2.

 

 

Because of the price I never even considered them. After finding this video I bought one and had no complaints so I ordered a couple more that are now on backorder. So I'll have to wait and see if that fuzz pedal is as good as he claims it is

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