I'm trying to decide which of these mixers to buy as a front end and mix down tool for a 16 track recording setup. I can't see (from reviews) why I should spend twice as much on the Yam - but am naturally wary as I'm relatively new to recording. I've bought a bit of Behringer gear in the past and its been fine but have always been led to believe their mixers are bad. Any advice would be welcome - the Behringer looks great at this stage - does anyone know more about the quality of the fx - Apart from the 96 sample rate, has the Yamaha got aces up its sleave?
Many thanks in advance.
Redstevo
ps - I tried a forum search on the Behringer and came up empty handed so apologies if this has been done to death before-hand!

Hello Red and wellcome to the SOS forum..
I haven't had a play on the 01v yet but I do own a dx3216 and love it very much. Its four effects units do come in very usefull I think the 01v only has two (but I might be wrong) I think if you're not worried about the money I would hire/borrow both and see which one sounds best to you.

Tascam DM-24!!!

Rich C did a nice little A/B of these 2 in the old forum: HERE about 1/2 down the page.

The 01V96 is a better mixer than the DDX. It has
1. Better mic pre's
2. Better converters,
3. Midi fader level to control your DAW. Plus you can still sum in the 01V96 if you want to route to use the effects in the mixer.
4. Jog wheel.
5. Can record at 96

With that being said, the DDX is more than half the price of the 01V96.
The benifits are
1. More I/O including 16 lited encoders for pan for each channel and for adjusting effects in the Aux. The 01V96 only has one pan button.
2. LED meters to show your signal strength, while the 01V96 has only meters in the small display.

You can make good recordings with the DDX, however if you have the money to get the 01V96, I would recommend it.

To improve the quality of my sound using my DDX, I just purchased a Mytek 2 channel converter which I know will greatly enhance my sound. You can also get a Lucid on Ebay for about $400. You would still spend a lot less money than geting the 01V96. However if you need more pre's, the 01V96 are a step above the DDX. I would put the mic pre's on the Yamaha closer to the Focusrite Platinum pre's (though the Focusrite are a little better). The DDX pre's at this point for me (as I continue to improve my studio and get higher end pre's) are not acceptable at all. Too filtered sounding. I route my better pre's in the inserts of the DDX to bypass the pre's in the DDX. Now with my Mytek, I will go straight into my RME. Needless to say Behringer improved their pre's since the DDX came out, and I have a feeling a new digital mixer from Behringer with 96 capabiltiy, updated effects and pres will be out in the next year. Heck they have all these updated things in other boxes that just came out this past year. It will be a very acceptable mixer when it comes out, and will most likely still be cheaper than the 01V96. But can you wait?

--------------------
revelationsoundstudio.com

Edited by Blueberry (30/09/04 01:07 PM)

Excellent post Blueberry! Pardon my hijack but have you heard something about a new digital mixer from Behringer? I am feeling a bit tortured these days on whether to grab a 01v96 or wait for something new from Behringer at half the price. I agree with you that the quality of the Behringer preamps has improved a lot over the last year and it is precisely the mic pres that have prevented me from buying a DDX3216 [although I do use a Midprint channel strip for VOX, Guitars and Bass]. Better mic pres will be the deciding factor for me as I will be recording a lot of acoustic drums over the next year or so.

--------------------
www.gpsystems.ca

Quote CdnBcn:

---

Excellent post Blueberry! Pardon my hijack but have you heard something about a new digital mixer from Behringer? I am feeling a bit tortured these days on whether to grab a 01v96 or wait for something new from Behringer at half the price. I agree with you that the quality of the Behringer preamps has improved a lot over the last year and it is precisely the mic pres that have prevented me from buying a DDX3216 [although I do use a Midprint channel strip for VOX, Guitars and Bass]. Better mic pres will be the deciding factor for me as I will be recording a lot of acoustic drums over the next year or so.

---

If you need something now, get it now. If you can wait and get by until next year, wait. BTW, I like the Mindprint pre's. If you have enough outboard pre's, you may want to get the DDX, as I said just put the output of the pre's in the inserts of the DDX to bypass the Behringer pre all together. I still love the small hall reverb, chorus, EQ, gate and compression on the DDX. Much better than Cubase's effects.

--------------------
revelationsoundstudio.com

Thanks for the info. I can probably wait until Christmas/early new year before I buy so not too long. I'm recording demo level songs on a laptop using Sonar at present. Once Ive sorted them in terms of arangements and whose playing what, I'll want to get a good mixer to do the tracks properly. One thing I don't understand is why none of these mixers (and a lot of analogue ones too) dont have direct out jacks - surely if you are wanting to use the mixer as a quality front end to multitracking, you need direct outs - or have I missed something?
redstevo

Just solo the track and have it head out of the main XLR's. Also you can use the Omni outs, on either the DDX or 01V96 through the Aux. (DDX does not call it Omni outs, but it does the same thing).

--------------------
revelationsoundstudio.com

cheers Blueberry,
But what about a band performance - say 8 tracks at once? is there a way to do this?
In some of the forum postings I've read, people say that the qualitative difference between products like these is so small it shouldn't be an issue in "real world" situations - is this a realistic arguement? Can people really tell what a cd was mixed on in products of the same class (given that I do want a clean detailed and warm sound!)
redstevo

Presumably you'll be recording on a digital recorder, in which case for either desk use Adat so you stay digital. If you must have analogue outs then you can get something like the behringer ADA8000 which gives you 8 analogue outs.

I too have been wondering about Behringer's next generation digital mixer. The DDX is great little desk and to be honest is fine for everything I use it for. The only time I've really found fault with the preamps is when trying to record a choir and needing quite a bit of gain, it all gets a bit noisy.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. Behringer haven't released any updates for the DDX in over a year, and they're really cheap to buy new. It'll be interesting to see if they can bring to market a desk that's as nice to use, but handles 96k without losing channels and has better mic amps and still beat Yamaha on price.

--------------------
need to get rid of this stupid sig...

Quote Blueberry:

---

I route my better pre's in the inserts of the DDX to bypass the pre's in the DDX.

---

Interested in this as have been running external pres straight into the line inputs.
How do you wire this? - will it not make the input from the external pres unbalanced - does this matter?

Are the pres on the ADA800 substantially better than on the DDX - is this a reasonable (cheap) route to upgrade the DDX via the adat I/O?

thanks

--------------------
Nick

I've been told that the mic amps in the ada8000 are both better and the same as the DDX. So it depends on who you're listening to. I think I'm right in saying the converters are different, which doesn't necessarily mean they're better.

I have both and can't really tell the difference. Then again I think the Mic amps on the DDX are fine, but I've only compared them to a Joe Meek MCQ3 or whatever it's called and an old studiomaster desk.

--------------------
need to get rid of this stupid sig...