I have a small behringer mixer and also truth monitors, have been very happy with them. I had far more troubles with other companies to this date than with behringer. I read on another forum the new controllers seems pretty solid. We'll have to see. One thing is sure, for the price it's a steal.

I think generalizing about "B" gear is unfairly misleading. A lot of people hate B products for a variety of reasons (much of it simply due to philosophical reasons). However, my experience along with many others I know personally have had quite good results with *some* of their products. The UB series mixers seem to hold up well and the mic pres sound equally as good, if not better than the Mackie VLZ series and some folks have reported they prefer them to the VLZ Pro mic pres. Its a very subjective thing but I certainly would not discount their viability out of hand. In terms of spending "a little bit more," my experience is that you typically have to spend *a lot more* to really experience or hear a significant difference within the this budget/prosumer level of gear. Again, there are small subjective differences but nothing to get excited about IMO. Since a control surface has nothing to do sound quality, I think the B control surface units should be considered if you're on a tight budget. Who knows, they may turn out to be quite competitive and budget may not even be an issue here. Then again, they could prove to be crap. ;-)

drbam

You are listening to a salesman at a music store? There is a reason they are salesman. Do you listen for yourself? I find that Behringer has some good(not great) stuff and some crap (octo pre). I always have to put the gear I am considering up against each other side by side. Sometimes the difference is subtle , sometimes obvious.
The control surface has nothing to do with sound and is just a midi device so I'm sure it will work just great. I work in nuendo -but I'd very much rather work in vegas. Vegas is only good for audio only so I don't think it will aid in a Vegas only environment.

As a side note salesman in music stores here in Montreal are among the worst salesman I have ever dealt with. They often misinform customers. Last week I heard a salesman say that Apple crippled MacOS 10.3 so it wouldn't work with Virtual PC, he then invented a story on why apple did that and the customer seemed to beleive the story. That's sad to say but I never met a salesman that was more knowledgable than me regarding musical gear and computer gear.

I have been a long time user of Mackie 1604VLZ and SR24-4 Mixers. The 24-4 has been in my studio for the past 4 years. I recently bought a Behringer UB2442 for the small footprint reason, since all mixing is done in computer now.

On first hook-up and listen to the behringer I could IMMEDIATELY HEAR THE DIFFERENCE in just the stereo playback of music. The spatial imaging narrowed noticably. Now I am not a technician and don't know WHAT I was hearing, but it is obvious that the sound of the Behringer was different from the mackie. Better, worse? I don't know, but different, narrow.

That being said...I got used to the behringer and I still use it. It has nice features that I find desirable (direct outs/reverb/selectable headphone monitoring) and I have gotten used to the sound thru my Mackie 824s.

I suppose the mic pres are not as great as a mackie also, but for my ears, I can't really tell that. I had to move to outboard pres for vocals while still using the mackie 24-4, so the behringer is not to blame there.

All in all, you do get what you pay for, question is what do you want it to do. I wanted it to be "small" on my desktop, and it is certainly that.

If this is any indication of the difference between behringer control surfaces, i can't say.

Well 'sound quality" ain't going to be a factor with this device. The review suggests that the physical build quality seems good.

We will see, when there are a few more out there I guess....

geoff

Bump

Looking at the Mackie and the Behringer the Mackie does seem to have a few more controls and ones that'd be mighty useful like jog shuttle control. Still given the big price difference the Behringer does look mighty attractive.

There's already quite a range of 'drivers' for this thing, it only takes one Vegas user to do the hard yards to add Vegas support.

Bob.

Behringer just released version 1.06 firmware which includes emulations of Mackie Control, Logic Control, and Baby HUI. I just tested the Mackie Control emulation in Vegas 5, and it works beautifully. Before this version of the firmware, I would have said to hold off on buying one of these. This makes it a no-brainer now though. It even has a little app the displays the Mackie Control LCD on the sceen. Sweet :)

JP

One major point, that makes this no good for mixing (but excellent for everything else)
is the faders are not touch sensitive

>>One major point, that makes this no good for mixing (but excellent for everything else)
is the faders are not touch sensitive <<

I'm not control surface savy so would someone please explain the above comment? Are you saying that you can't control volume fader moves "on the fly" with this unit?

Thanks,

drbam

imac,
I don't think touch sensitivity should matter with Vegas and the way they've integrated control surfaces. Or am I missing something?
B.

Bumping this again. I am really curious if anyone is using these with Vegas 5 and if so, please post your impressions/experience. Also, imac, I'd very much like you to expand on earlier touch sensitive fader comment. Thanks!

drbam

Well, given the price difference between the Behringer and the Mackie you can always add a Contour Shuttle Xpress or ShuttlePro and still have lots of cash left. This way you have the transport controls as well.

http://www.contourdesign.com/

I have a ShuttlePro, and almost never use the wheel. My BFC2000 evidently will arrive on Monday (US$219 AudiomIDI.com). Unfortunately (or not) I will be away on vacation the whole week (skiing season here in NZ, with a 2.8 metre snow base !).

I guess I'll just have to wait !

geoff

the touch sensistivity adds LOADS to the usefulness of the mackie control in vegas. I have been spending five generatioins of Vegas, forgetting how to ride faders.

We are now back to mixing using our EARballs instead of our eyes!

Put vegas in touch mode, and loop a section

when you hear a spot that seems quiet, keep pushing up the fader till you like its level, dont worry about where in the loop you are,

now hold it there

Next loop pull it back down to the original level, but when the part you needed to raise comes up, just let go!

bango, it sounds backwards but it can work pretty easily this way
Or go the other way and just keep grabbing and riding it when ever you need a change. You will notice you setting your compressor thresholds a LOT higher and less destructyive as you will need them les and less for volume control, and instead spend time using them for sound altering

Thanks for the input Pipe. I'm still confused however as to exactly what limitations does the BCF2000 control surface present with Vegas. What can I do and not do with it? I certainly understand that for $800 more I can virtually do everything with a Mackie Control but at this point I'm primarily interested in doing some volume, panning, and perhaps a few automated efx moves mixing with faders in real time. Just some very basic stuff. Can I not do this with the BCF2000?

Thanks,

drbam

not sure exactly. Peter was saying a while back, only the Mackie could get feedback, as in vegas would move the faders and turn on the :LCD's and lights on the mackie control

maybe this is fixed now

The behringer looks like a deal, and the option of USB looks cool, instead of the mackies silly ass midi

is the behringer motorized?

>>is the behringer motorized?<<

According to the literature, yes. This unit is selling for around $220, so if it does even some of the basic functions, then I'd really like to try it. Behringer recently released Mackie control drivers so theoretically I think that it should work with Vegas. Before Peter left the forum he stated that Sony was working with Behringer to get this happening. Anyway, I'm still carving out my mixes using a mouse (along with some traditional console mixing) and this controller stuff is completely alien to me, hence all of my questions.

drbam

jeez man for the price of my mackie, I couldve got like 5 of these things!

There are some WAY cooler features on the mackie, and I have some serious moral problems with behringer, but this sure looks like a deal

>>There are some WAY cooler features on the mackie, and I have some serious moral problems with behringer, but this sure looks like a deal <<

I certainly agree Pipe. However, a primary factor for me is that I intend on continuing to use my 32/8 bus console for awhile (monitoring and utilizing outboard efx). In addition to the higher cost of the mackie unit (as you point out, 5x), I'd have to completely rearrange my mix station to incorporate the physical size of it and I'm just not ready to do that. Alternatively I could set the B unit on a small piece of foam on top of my console and just move it or set it aside when I'm not using it (much like a computer keyboard or the like). This would really suit my current work flow.

drbam

just received my BCF2000

The Mackie emulation works best rather than learning the controls in Vegas and then learning parameter feedback on the behringer

There is no documention that matches Vegas so my first feedback is: -

Use the Mackie Cubase emulation

Use the two left encoder group buttons as shifts to switch on automation and to switch between video/audio modes (bottom left encoder group switch and edit to toggle automation, bottom left encoder switch and learn to toggle audio/video modes)

Feedback works great moving the faders with the vegas timeline and when switching between audio/video modes and switching banks

The Mackie window utility works well showing additional information in a small window that sits easily on top of the Vegas window

Mute/Solo buttons works and the lights match the state of the button with the Vegas tineline

Pans work and the leds follow correctly

Play/Stop and Play/Pause work along with fast forward and reverse

First impressions are it is a great tool at the price when combined with the shuttle pro

Hope that helps

PAW

PS. I am going to drop Behringer a note saying they could do with doing a Mackie/Vegas emulation in firmware just so the layout is logical and documented, I wonder if this would then work straight out of the box with the Mackie support in ACID 5? ;-)