Review of: Behringer Pro-XL MDX2600

[Gary 0]

Review of the Behringer Pro-XL MDX2600.

 

For around a decade now, Behringer have steadily built a name for themselves for great sounding, reliable gear, at stunningly, if not unbelievably low prices. Part of the low retail prices may well come from Behringer embracing the idea of intergrating several related audio circuits and functions into one box. After all, once you’ve got a high quality power supply, a sturdy rack mount casing, colourful bank of signal level LED displays, several gold plated in/out connectors, fused IEC power socket etc, it seems a shame to put only one function inside.

 

So which useful features has Behringer squeezed into this 1 rack unit high device? I’ll need to take a deep breath for this….

 

*) 2 x Expanders/Gates

*) 2 x Compressors

*) 2 x Dynamic Enhancers

*) 2 x De-Essers

*) 2 x Peak Limiters

*) 2 x Sidechain inputs

*) 2 x Tube Emulators

 

If you thought that a Gate was something that kept cows from escaping, a compressor was for blowing up tyres, and a peak limiter was a kind of bra worn by sporting ladies, then read on.

 

Also read on if:

 

· You’ve ever looking through your record/CD’s cases, adjusting your lighting and suddenly dashed back to your mixer to turn down the volume as a particularly loud part of the tune kicks in pinning punters, star-shaped to the back wall of the hall. (Compressor)

 

*) A minute later, you take another dash from CD cases to mixer to turn the volume back up, because the tune has now hit its very quiet breakdown, with just a quiet “wave you hands in the air” moment whispering through the speakers. (Expander)

 

*) You’ve read the “Max Power – Bible of audio” and like running your mixer with all its controls turned to max, have 500watt speakers on a 1000w Amp, and wonder why your woofers end up face down in the buffet quiche, 20ft away when you, or a punter “pops” the microphone switch from “Off” to “On” (Compressor/Limiter)

 

*) You’ve ever switched on your mixer AFTER your amplifers and had half the room look directly at you, and half the room watch Great Aunt Eithel keel over. Both events being due to the cannon like BOOPH you just sent through your speakers. (More on this later)

 

*) During the raffles, speeches, and other non-musical parts of some evenings, your speakers sound like a nest of angry snakessssssss have taken up residence. (Noise Gate)

 

*) Your mixer has only non-adjustable, (or non-existent) Voice-over features for mic use. (Sidechain Inputs)

 

*) Some combination of your microphone, vocal chords, and speakers make SSS-club-SSSSeven, SSShaking SSSStevens, RaCHael SSSteVVens, or raffle ticket number SSSeven SSSixxx SSSeven, sound like the Good Year Airship springing a leak. (De-esser)

 

*) You play CD’s and/or MP3’s and miss (or think that your audience miss) that sickly, warm, fuzzy distortion that vinyl offered, or wish to remove the slight, bright, brashness that digital music sometimes gets attributed with. (Enhancer/Tube)

 

http://www.behringer.com/MDX2600/mdx2600.jpg

 

 

The Behringer Pro XL MDX2600 is effectively a good pair of ears, with a quick, but subtle, pair of hands adjusting the signal level which your amplifier(s) hear your mixer, thereby keeping the level of sound More technically, it sits typically between your mixer outputs, and your amplifers inputs, doing clever things to your audio signals.

 

The unit is 2 channel, meaning that you can either use it for two mono signals independantly, or for left and right channels in Stereo. A “Couple” switch in the dead centre of the units attractive front panel means that when you’re using stereo signals, anything you do to the left hand controls is automatically adopted by the right hand controls.

 

All of the features on the unit can be either bypassed, switched off, or otherwise set to do nothing, so if you’re only needing to use a couple of the units features at the moment, you don’t have to set all the controls, for all of the functions. Just the ones that you’ve got a need for now. You can set the other functions up at any time in the future, when needs arise.

 

POWER PLAY

When you switch on the MDX2600, it deliberately sends no output to the amps for about 2 seconds. This way, if you simply switch all your audio on by flicking the switch on the wallsocket, your amp, speakers and audience wont hear the Fthwump! of the mixer and other gear being switched on.

 

Similarly, if the unit loses mains power, due to some lovely inquizitive toddler pulling the units power lead out of the IEC socket, the Audio In’s from your mixer, and the Audio Out’s to your Amps are fail-safed together directly. Obviously the unit wont perform any of its functions with its power off, but at least the show will go on.

 

FROM THE LEFT….

The leftmost control on the front panel is the rotary “Trigger” control for the Noise Gate or Expander. A push button allows you two set whether you want to Gate or Expand low signals. As a noise gate, simply set your mixer, turntables etc up as normal with no music playing, turn the “Trigger” control until the Red and Green LED’s (one an Up arrow, the other a Down arrow) above the control, change. Now, any noise below that setting will be muted to total silence (excluding whatever noise your amps themselves may introduce, after the MDX-2600.

 

If you play a lot of music containing very quiet passages, then the Expander option may be ideal for you instead. Simply press the Gate/Expander button out, and adjust the Trigger control to set the threshold at which you want quiet passages to have their usable dynamics (not background noise) increased. A “Release” switch allows the Gate/Expander to be set to react correctly in different music types eg: Ballads & Classical music, or beat driven dance music.

 

FEELING THE SQUEEZE….

Next along, are 5 rotary controls which allow you to adjust the Threshold (The signal level at which you want the signals adjusted), The Ratio (used to make the change between compressed and uncompressed sound levels virtually inaudible), The Attack Control (How fast the unit should react to an overly loud signal), The Release control (How fast/slow the unit takes to subtly uncompress the signal levels, once the mixer/music levels drop back below you pre-set threshold.), and finally and Output Gain control which allows you to boost compressed signals at the units stage for certain situations.

 

Several push buttons adjacent to the compressor controls allow you to set “Auto” which takes care of the “Attack” and “Release” controls described above. A button marked IKA, brings in the “Interactive Knee” which tailors the units performance to a more subtle and musical compression of overly loud signals. An In/Out push button is offered here to allow you to remove the compression options completely, if you’re a saint with your levels. A 12 LED, 3 colour signal level ladder shows you exactly whats happening on incoming and outgoing signal levels.

 

The Tube simulation button completes this area of the unit. Musicians everywhere often still buy tube, or valve amplifiers, instead of MOSFET amplifiers, often mumbling about “tonal quality”, and “warm fuzzy sounds”, and they’re right too. Digital music, either from MP3’s or simply shop-bought CD’s are a 100% accurate, verbatim copy of what the sound was like in the studio when the tune was recorded. That level of exacting accuracy was never around during the vinyl and pre-MOSFET days, and indeed the brashness of precision can be a little hard on the ears. The Tube Simulation can give all your output, that tonal glow so popular with todays musicians., without the worry of a cold raindrop meeting the hot glass valve, via an air vent whilst loading your vehicle at the end of a rainy night.

 

BACK ON THE SIDE-CHAIN GANG

Near the Compressor controls, sit the Side Chain controls. Side chain is basically another set of inputs to the unit, which allows compression of the main inputs, when the side chain inputs exceed a certain, adjustable threshold. Whereas a band might use this feature to allow the rest of the band to be faded out slightly, whilst a soloist steps forward to wow the audience with some raunchy guitar licks, a stunning useful application for this feature by us humble DJ’s is extremely controllable talk overs. Using the Threshold to allow the unit to determine when we’ve switched the mic on and started talking, using the Ratio to fade the music out by an adjustable degree, then the Release control to adjust how quickly the music returns to normal levels after you’ve finished talking.

 

ENHANCING

Due to the nature of dance music, the part of the music with the most signal energy, and therefore the part most likely to trigger a compressor, is the low frequency bass notes. This normally means that the higher treble notes can often get “left behind” making the output sound dull or lifeless. The Dynamic enhancer however listens to the music, and watches the compression characteristics of the signal, and gently applies more higher frequencies back into the signal. A small, independent LED display and a rotary control allow you to see and adjust the amount of enhancement that is used.

 

“SSSpray it again SSSSSam”

Rounding off the units functions is the De-Esser. SSSimply (sorry, force of habit) Simply put, it stops S’s, particularly at the beginning and ends of words from sounding like a lisping gas leak to your audience. A rotary control allows you to adjust for regular vocal usage, or turn to maximum for the tongue twister competitions about females trading the discarded outer casings of aquatic crustateons, or the poorly woolly livestock of the Arabian hierarchy. Speaking of females, a small button adjacent to the rotary control, allows you to set the unit to expect either Male or Female voices, for better anticip…..pation of those S’s. A set of LED’s above the Rotary control is also featured to allow you to see the amount of De-sessing you’ve applied, providing that the LED’s aren’t covered in saliva from the tongue twisters competitions of course.

 

LOOKING PEAKY

Whats left. Well, its more a question of whats to the right. At the very right most of each channels controls is a Peak Limiter. Any signal level that exceeds the threshold that you set with the Peak Limiters rotary knob just doesn’t make it out to your amps. Safety. However its safety at a cost of sonics. But whats more important, your speaker drivers not blowing, or a couple of seconds of unnatural sounding music until you turn a mixer control down a little.

 

“But wait!”, I hear you cry, stopping signals from exceeding a certain limit? Isnt that what the compressor section did? Well, sort of. If the Compressor could be considered the audio technology equivalent of a cautious precision brain surgeon, gently easing loud input signals down to acceptable levels, the Peak Limiter is the Arnie Terminator of audio technology flattening high peaks in the music to flat toped rises.

 

We’ve nearly all probably seen a computer sound editing program, with thousands of jagged up & down “mountains”, the louder the signal level in the sound file, the higher those pointy peaks reach. A compressor would gently bring down all the peak energy so all the peaks get a little smaller, smaller but still perfectly formed. A limiter on the other hand would simply go across the page, decapitating the top inch or so, off of every excess peak, leaving a flat top to formerly loud peaks, leaving all the slightly smaller peaks alone as if nothing had happened. The result is an unnatural sounding output, treble and midrange sounding louder than Bass etc.

 

However, if you’re not bypassing the Compressor section, and have those controls set sensibly, the peak limiter should never be envoked.

 

All in all, a great unit - and at around only £110 its amazing how Behringer offer so much more than units offering fewer features, for over twice the price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DJshaggy 0]

Another great review there Gary. WoW all those features in a 1U space!?!?!

 

If i decided to buy one i could also just get my techie to read this instead of the long instuctions that make little to no sense http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif

 

 

[Kingy 0]

Great review, well done Gary.

 

I have used this bit of kit in the past and it really is very useful, particularily for large venues.

[Ian Stewart 0]

Gary,

 

Is this easy to set up and configure, or do you need a certain amount of technical knowledge.

 

in other words are they idiot proof

[Gary 0]

QUOTE (Ian Stewart @ Apr 2 2004, 09:50 AM)

Gary, Is this easy to set up and configure, or do you need a certain amount of technical knowledge. in other words are they idiot proof

Yes! Its idiot proof to a certain point.

 

Ok someone could set everything really wrong, at once, resulting in too high, or too low an output to he amp(s)

 

However, the useful inclusion of bypass switches on each feature mean that you can start off with everything on bypass selected on the expander/gate, bypass the compressor, bypass the peak limiter etc, etc, etc and just "un-bypass" one function, set it using the LED indicators, then, when your're happy that that feature is set ideally, then either bypass it again, or not, and move onto un-bypassing the next feature, and the next etc.

 

The 12 page manual, comprises of 6 pages of "How to set up your MDX..." then other 6 pages are warranty, specs & measurements, a welcome and a diagram page of how to solder jack plugs and xlr leads etc (Chris made my leads using arc welding...eg: welding last seen on the ark!)

 

The 6 setup pages are clear, easy to understand and "step by step" ...lots of "turn the rotary control until the LEDs change from red to green" etc...

 

Several diagrams are included but these are all of the controls which each paragraph is refering to; Theres no complicated frequency curve Vs Db plots or graphs to decipher. Nice.

 

The only thing in the manual which might bemuse is that the manual covers the 4 channel version of the unit, whose layout differs cosmetically from this 2 channel unit, but all diagrams refering to the 4400 are labelled accordingly, so the bemusement is short lived.

 

A PDF acrobat copy of the manual is downloadable from the Behringer website for those intrigued.

 

 

[cjcom 0]

Gary,

I've done it for 35 years,disco I mean (it started in'68 for me), tube (valve) amps used to give a nice full round sound but since I've used a Behringer Pro my Yorkville amps sound just as good.

In other words the Behringer Pro is excellent kit at a cheap price.

[YourBigEvent 0]

As always Behringer produces an excellent piece of kit for next to nothing to buy, there mixers are the same,bomb proof too. They also now do the world smallest mixer...

[chrismk 0]

 

 

OK so I got one, what do I do with it now, all those knobs, lights I mean..............

No, just kidding, its a great piece of equipment I kid you not.

Just getting to grips with all the features as its really that damn good.

 

Inccidently Gary have you sidechained a graphic into the 2600 yet, if so do they

work well together.

 

Cheers

[DJshaggy 0]

My father picked one of these up for me whilst i was on holiday last week and a big massive EQ. can work the EQ fine of course BUT havent got a clue how to use the MDX2600 http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/fear.gif

 

Im usually good with these thngs.... mind you read the book at this post twice and still havent got a clue! haha might need to spend more than ten imnutes with it i thinks http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

 

 

[chrismk 0]

QUOTE (DJshaggy @ Jul 4 2004, 12:31 PM)

My father picked one of these up for me whilst i was on holiday last week and a big massive EQ. can work the EQ fine of course BUT havent got a clue how to use the MDX2600 http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/fear.gif Im usually good with these thngs.... mind you read the book at this post twice and still havent got a clue! haha might need to spend more than ten imnutes with it i thinks http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

 

Yeah definately read the manual its not as daunting as it seems, good piece of

equipment and is a must if you really want to push your amp and speakers to the

limits of Borg terriotory, what sort of graphic have you got, make and model

would be great.

 

cheers