General Music Chat

Well... I was in a bind for this Thursday Night's show. (The contest)...Found out the venue has no PA...It was ON me (Hee Hee) gulp!

So I had a small budget and obtained:

- A 1600W 16 channel board with Multi Digital Effects /FX capability, (Behringer Europower PMP4000)
- Two Behringer 800W (ea) Passive speakers (Used), Cables (snake comes later)

and my rectum feels strange...

I paid 800 for all of it.. (I know prolly got raked over the coals)

Also have Mics and Boom stands So I think I got all the basics...


Now keep in mind, this equipment will take some beatings and I will uses it for my Acoustic sets whenits not used in the contests. I intend to look at Jeff, Johnny 7 and other's suggestions for other PA equip

I have no idea if I made the right choices here , but this was an emergency decision...and I feel that at least my cred at the venue, by my contestants wont be totally demolished... (as they have something to plug into now)

Sorry Dog. That's not good news.

Sorry Dog. That's not good news.

ACKK! Well, Live and Learn I Guess!

I'm not a bargain hunter, never was , never will be... I dont know sh*t about equipment ...I just pluck on strings!

Grant you try and do something cool....
Any way you can cover your good intentions?

Grant you try and do something cool....
Any way you can cover your good intentions?

I could use the equipment and then Return it for a refund when I am done.
Or... I could grab a bucket, a rag and jump on cars at the red lights, dirty their windshields and then offer to clean them for a fee...

It'll be fine Dog. Play with it, learn to use it well and enjoy. I own several Behringer effects processors and stuff. They are useful tools for making music.

They do tend to take a bit of artistic license in their advertising though:

*The anti-feedback processor sounds just awful. Avoid it.

*The 1600w actually breaks down to 150w RMS @ 8 ohms per side if you do the math. It's not as impressive sounding number as 1600w but plenty of power for acoustic gigs.

* The onboard digital effects are obviously budget oriented but many will be useful.

In the end, it's probably better than 80% of open mic venues around the country. I'd call that a win.

It'll be fine Dog. Play with it, learn to use it well and enjoy. I own several Behringer effects processors and stuff. They are useful tools for making music.

They do tend to take a bit of artistic license in their advertising though:

*The anti-feedback processor sounds just awful. Avoid it.

*The 1600w actually breaks down to 150w RMS @ 8 ohms per side if you do the math. It's not as impressive sounding number as 1600w but plenty of power for acoustic gigs.

* The onboard digital effects are obviously budget oriented but many will be useful.

In the end, it's probably better than 80% of open mic venues around the country. I'd call that a win.

Cool ! Thanks Johnny7 . This was an emergency decision and it was available so I definately will make best use of it. I do intend to do more extensive shopping, along the lines of yours and others recommendations , once i get my budget where i want it... I am already so far deep in the hole on this round, That I can see the bottom soles of my feet

Paper dont sweat it man.

My son has a little Behringer that I use for practice and for my old acoustic gigs, did a really good job, if you are going to use the onboard effects, well what I do for vocals is use the shortest delay in my sons and it fattens up the vocals real nice, you dont want to really hear the delay, just set it real short so that it kinda doubles your vocals.

Good Luck and Enjoy!

Grant, congrats on your aquisition of the new gear! Behringer is not to bad. I have a multi-comp in my rack made by them. The only thing with Behringer is they use cheaper parts. The switches and faders can be finiky. Other than that their signal routing options are good. I have a small Behringer mixer that I used to submix drums with before I got the larger Allen & Heath Mixwiz I have now. I still use that litlle Behringer to practice with. I use it every day and still works fine. Its 7 years old and has taken a beating. The next piece of gear you should get is a power conditioner. They are needed to protect those delicate electronics and cost around $100.00 bucks get one with lights they come in pretty handy!

CARVIN . . . just sayin . . .

For a band / man on a budget their stuff is hard to beat price wise for professional grade equipment.

I've learned some ( quite a lot actually ) about what to avoid in their line of equipment.
And their customer service warranty has been good to their word thus far.


I have an RX1200 that I will be putting up for sale as soon as my wife has her shop fully functional.
Damn fine piece of equipment.

congrats on the new toys, p-dog. behringer gets a bad rap and a lot of folks look down their noses on anything that carries their name.

it'll no doubt serve you well for what you need it for. like Jeff...i have one of their smaller 10 channel mixers (Eurorack UB1002) that i use at home to route my sound modules and drum machine thru. i've had it awhile and it's never given me any grief. very transparent and i think it ran like $75 new.

as for CARVIN....as much as i like to support a USA company...i've not had very good luck with their stuff. i had one of their boards that was constantly crapping out on me. i have one of their powered mixers that's been sent back twice and now has only one of the three amps in it still working...several channels have given up the ghost (tried to send it back a cpl of yrs ago for them to put right and they refused saying it was "too old") but they'd give me something like $100 toward a NEW mixer.....eff that! gtr/sax guy i play w has their Nomad amp....he's had several problems w it. so all in all.....i can't recommend CARVIN based on my exp.

as for what you paid for it....no point in beating yourself up now. yeah, ya might have saved a few bucks but it is whut it is.

[quote="Dizzizz"]

You did get hosed, though. You can get all that (short the cables) for something like $650 new.

You saying with the two Speakers...? Where would I find that deal?

Dog,

I have two Mackie boards and two Behringer boards used for recording. The Mackie boards cost 3 X what I paid for the Behringers. In my opinion, as someone who has been doing repair work since I was 8 years old (In my uncles shop) I think that the Behringer gear is as well made as much of the higher dollar gear. I also have several Behring power ampsr, Peavey power amps, LJB Lansing, Crown power amps and a Yamaha amp.

My Behringer mixing boards have very good low noise FX built in, the Mackies do not. Just another bonus. The Behringers are every bit as quiet as the high dollar Mackies.

Some of the power amps are a bit heavier duty but the Behringer amps are also well constructed. Personally, I don't feel you made a bad choice at all.

I have read good reviews of the Behr PMP powered mixer. My experience on a Behr unpowered mixer - I took it back the day after I got it as the mic preamps were terrible.
Like already said, those power numbers are way overstated. For $800 I would have picked up 2 Mackie Thump 12's or 15's and an unpowered mixer (like my Mackie ProFX12).