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Today's Bonus:
- Everything you need for professional podcasting, music production and digital home recording
- Get a full recording studio "out of the box" including FireWire interface, mixer, microphone, headphones, professional music software and more
- Professional 8-input 2-bus mixer with premium mic preamps and 3-band EQs
- Table microphone stand, microphone windscreen and cable, four 1/4" jack cables and two FireWire cables
- Powerful DAW software (Ableton Live Lite 4 BEHRINGER Edition, Kristal Audio Engine, Audacity)
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I'm setting up a voice-over studio, and wanted to start with as little hassle as possible, and without laying out excessive amounts of money until I found out what I really needed quality-wise. I got so confused from what I read about what equipment I'd need, not to mention the number of different microphones available, that I came to a standstill about buying anything! Then I discovered this kit, and thought it might be a good way to get started. Well, it is! It's got everything I need except a pop filter, which I bought separately and now I can use it while I start doing voice-overs online and find out what I might need as I go along. So far, the mic seems just fine, in spite of all the dire predictions about one needing to spend hundreds of dollars to get one for adequate recording.
My advice is, if you want to get started doing anything with your voice, get this kit and just do it!
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Sorry for the long hyphenated review title, but it pretty much summarizes my conclusions after my recent research binge and eventual purchase of this product.
It's really rather ingenious, to package these separate items together (you can't beat the price by buying them separately, even at a behringer outlet site) and furthermore, because each item can be easily upgraded piecemeal without having to discard the entire system, it really does allow for a great deal of flexibility as and when needed.
Furthermore, the quality is more than substantial for the novice and amateur. The mixer performs well and preamps seem pretty clean for vocals and instrument with good gain and eq. The mic may be inexpensive, but picks up very well. I would recommend a pop filter though, as the windscreen (included) isn't always enough. I did notice a tendency for sibilance with the mic (so watch your "s" sounds). The firewire audio interface was flawless in setup with my Macbook pro -no drivers, no software, nothing was needed besides plug n' play. Headphones are solid, and has the 1/4" adapter. And how do you beat the fact that all the requisite cables are included?! Really, the closest such package (such as an all-in-one) would still cost $150 without the mic, cables, headphones and stand.
So while I contemplated the USB mic, Lexicon Alpha, Fast Track and others. This really was the best deal with individual components that I could upgrade in the future. And it really sounds great I've cut several tracks with vocals, guitar, and a podcast and I'm really impressed so far.
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I bought it for music home recording, especially voice. It comes with everything necessary for immediate recording (cables, windscreen and a little stand for the microphone). The C1 microphone has a very good response. I had the opportunity to test it together with a Shure SM86 and differences in the recording were minimum in my opinion (I'm not aiming anything professional, but a good home recording, with high quality sound). The Xenyx mixer is also pretty good. It's simple, no internal effects, exactly what I was looking for. Headphones are good, but don't work so well with bassy frequencies.
However, I didn't have the chance to test the FCA202 interface yet, because its driver is not compatible with Windows Vista. Behringer website says that they are already working on that. But, considering that Windows Vista still has its problems and is not 100% trusty yet, I can live with that and will wait patiently for an update.
I didn't use the Ableton Live 4 Live software that comes with it.
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Overall, I'm happy with this purchase and would recommend it to others.
I purchased this set specifically to do some audio recording for some online topics I'm publishing for my company. I had previously been using a USB microphone, but was unsatisfied with its quality (low background noise), and the inability to listen to myself recording through headsets. With the Behringer system, I can better set my recording levels, and I can listen to myself though headsets to better monitor my recording. Overall, I like the setup with the connection to my PC via Firewire. I still get a little noise that I would like to get rid of, but think that's more a product of my environment and PC than the board.
I bought this primarily to work on my Vista 64-bit system, which is primarily where I do podcast work. The hardware the system includes is good stuff, particularly for beginners. The documentation on setup is thin, but if you read the manuals you can connect everything with few problems.
When I connected everything, my system wouldn't recognize any driver. A quick look on the web for information yielded the fact that Behringer has drivers for Vista 32, but not Vista 64. After looking for any workarounds and finding none, I decided to use it on a laptop with Vista Ultimate (32-bit) and everything worked flawlessly. The firewire interface is fast and reliable and I didn't have any problems recording in Audacity (which is supplied ... but I already had a copy loaded on this system).
The hardware is good and for the price is far cheaper than the components would have cost separately. I am giving it 4 stars for the following reasons:
1. The setup documentation assumes you know a lot about pro audio setup and is a little thin on detail. The manuals are better on detail, but still assume you know all the terminology.
2. There is no mention that this will NOT work on a Vista 64-bit system. This should be made clear to potential buyers as 64-bit becomes more mainstream. Even better: Behringer should develop 64-bit drivers.
3. The included software is great for producing music, but the package was developed for podcasters, not music producers. How about bundling something useful to podcasters in the kit?
One of the things that many podcasters like to do is record Skype conversations. I had to scour the Internet for information about this and found nothing specific to this setup. If you want to do it with this kit, here's how I did it with an M-Audio Microtrak recorder (which takes balanced inputs). Note that the person on the other end of the conversation will not hear what you say into the mixer mic, so you will need a regular mic attached to your computer in addition to the mixer mic. The regular mic will not be recorded using this method, as your voice will be recorded from the mixer mic, but it's what the person on the other end of your conversation will be hearing you through.
1. Unplugged mixer outputs from the firewire box and put them instead into my recorder balanced input jacks. If you don't have such a recorder, you should be able to use an adapter cable (dual RCA Y to single 3.5mm stereo jack), connect the RCA to CD/Tape Out and the 3.5mm stereo plug into the line input jack on a computer and use Audacity on that computer to record. If you do this, you will need to buy this cable separately, as one doesn't come with the system. Actually, you will need two, as the input from the Skype call will use an identical cable. Also note that this will need to be a second computer ... NOT the one running Skype. Alternatively, an mp3 player with recording capability could be used instead. Note that I did not test this method, since I was using a pro quality recorder.
2. Make sure you push the buttons that send CD/Tape to control and CD/Tape to mix.
3. Plug your headset into the Control Room Out jacks.
4. Using a 3.5mm to dual RCA cable (you'll have to purchase separately), plug the 3.5 end into the computer headphone jack and the other ends into the RCA inputs on the mixer. This captures the other end of the Skype call into the mixer.
5. Make sure Skype output volume on the computer is fairly low. The other person's volume will be controlled by the computer running Skype, as there is no volume control for the RCA inputs on the mixer.
6. Press record on the M-Audio (or your recording device or computer) and conduct the conversation
7. Stop the recording operation and save the file.
After using this method and fiddling with levels, I was able to get a nice Skype recording ... very high quality, especially from my end.
Be ready to spend some quality time with this setup before using it for any real production. Ultimately, it will work well for creating podcasts.
