I've only been playing for 33 years but one thing has been consistent. Two types of people will compliment my playing after a gig: the gear wonks that only want to take pictures of my board and the music lovers that don't even notice it sitting there. I've done the job with a Pod XT Live at times and with boutique pedals costing more than my car too. If I could go back in time, I'd probably stick with the cheap stuff and spend more money on my wife and kids. It's really amazing what you can get away with using inexpensive gear like Behringer keeps putting out.
When the components are the best they Shine, and with that Shine comes the light reflected, there is much light that you can't even "see" a single component. Balance. This is a lesson for life.
Nice Demo and Review John! I've been using that Behringer Tube Overdrive for about 10yrs now. I paid $23 USD from Sweetwater Sound. It works Great! The Plastic housing is really not that bad it's really sturdy. I feel the Pedal sounds like a TS 808 but can be made to sound more fuller if you want. I've had NO problems with mine at all and it's still cookin'. I more recently replaced it with an Earth Quaker Plumes but still go back to it once in a while and it now resides in my Studio. Nice to pick it up, through it in my Guitar Case and head to a Rehearsal. I still use it LIVE every now and again, Love the sound of it. Please keep up the Good Work and Cheers from Salem, Ohio US.
Their version of the Tube Screamer has been on my board for at least 5 years and it's not going to be replaced anytime soon. It's withstood many, many gigs, jams, practices and home use and it's a fundamental part of my sound. Rugged and reliable, it stacks with all my other drives as I need it to.
Those behringer pedals are great for home use or for budget or beginner players. I would have loved a bunch of $30 pedals 30 years ago I would only gig one if I was going to leave it on
I like Behringer stuff and have several of their pedals, as well as 2 of their V-tone analog modeling amps and a couple of their (12ax7) microphone pre-amps. It's the pre-amps that I use at the amp input spot on my signal chain, that actually give me the edge of breakup range I like. So this Vintang Tube Overdrive I use mainly as a boost and don't set the drive beyond 1/2 most of the time. With that combination, my amps, whether tube or solid state, are set as CLEAN foundations/platforms.
I totally agree with your opinion of Behringer gear. I use the X32 digital board. For the money it sounds great. One of the channels is beginning to have some bugs and will eventually fail...but I wouldn't call it junk and would buy it again.
Build quality and tone quality are two different things. It seems like people often forget that. After all, why wouldn't a Behringer sound good? It's hardly a mystery how to make an overdrive pedal.
I have thet Behringer in addition to their EQ and SuperFuzz models. They are an absolute steal at $20-$30, as are some of the TC Electronics pedals (Behringer owned) that recent went on sale for $29+ USD. I do agree that the Gritador has a more immediate and direct sound with more headroom likely due to component specifics. The Behringers tend to have SMD components that makes modding much harder though not impossible, so they could be upgraded. Their EQ appears to be noisy although it would be good to have a head to head comparison with its Boss equivalent (GE-7); not sure if the unshielded plastic enclosure contributes to this.
Ive used/been using some behringer pedals. they're definitely worth trying. Wouldn't want to rely on them, but if you want to try something different, they're worth giving a shot.
I got it's predecessor, the Behringer Tube Overdrive TO100, for 10 bucks, new from Musicians Friend some years back. It's still not the cheapest overdrive I ever got. That distinction goes to the Gihubo GH-22 Overdrive Pedal True Bypass that my wife picked up for me on one of her discount store journeys for $1. It has flamingoes on it.
Haven’t tried any of their stuff myself, but know many local gigging musicians who have, and I wouldn’t had known the difference between the Behringer and a regular Tube Screamer, if I hadn’t been told. At our exchange rates, Behringer can’t go wrong.
Behringer are doing some great work especially in the synth world. Whether with clones or their own designs. I only have one pedal though and that is the dimension c clone which they don’t make anymore. In stereo it sounds fantastic.
I had a Roktek plastic Flanger pedal sound wise it sounded just like High Landrons from Eric Johnson, and that was what I was looking for from a Flanger so it was a win, and it was inexpensive.
I have tried a few Behringers and have allways been pleasently surprised. If they just repacked them in a more robust case I would have no problem at all with them.
I agree with you. Two of my Behringers were great, until they weren't. On one, a control knob seems to have become detached from the gubbins inside, and I don't feel confident enough to pull it to bits to try and fix it. On the other one, the on/off switch is now very unreliable, despite my efforts to clean it. If both pedals were 100 percent reliable, I would be perfectly happy to continue to use them.
It's comforting to know if someone spilled beer on your $20 pedal at a gig, it's easily replaced. Someone spills beer on your $1600 Quad Cortex, whole different story.
I have the Behringer ultra tremolo, I bought it probably 15 years ago, sounds and works great, I'm just not a huge fan of the plastic enclosure, good pedal though.
Most overdrive/distortion pedals use very simple and cheap schematics (in the end practically all of the differentiation between the different devices is created by their pre- and postfiltering parts). So what Behringer is doing is to reduce the cost by scaling effects and reducing their margin a bit.
I need to add that I encourage players who can't play at high volumes but want all the "interaction" you can have with your guitar's volume, and your attack on the strings, to try one of Behringer's mic pre-amps, like the "Tube ultragain mic 100". Velcro it to the top of your amp with a patch chord from it's output into the amp input, turn down your amp and then plug your pedal board into the pre-amp, Obviously you don't want to just max out the gain and volume, but play around with it. I set it up so the clipping starts to show with my guitar volume at about 2/3, and then gets dirtier as you turn up the guitar. I run my amps at 3-4 on the master volume. You'll have to lay back the settings on your pedals a bit, to balance things out. Welcome to my "old school" secret.
To me there is no controversy. Cloning has been going on since the 70's and Behringer is mostly filling a void on products that manufacturer's do not care about. Roger Linn had decades to fill the void and did nothing even though many wanted a retro product, in fact he said he wanted to move forward with his tech and not back. He had zero interest in creating a new Linn drum. I have found the people complaining about Behringer are usually sanctimonious and self righteous prudes worried that us common poor folk are diluting the music pool with our self produced home studio music. One vintage studio owner I know even said Behringer was bringing down the value of his retro synths and he hated them for it. He cared nothing for the happiness affordable gear gave to people, just his own selfish interest. Meanwhile this same guy bought rip off and cloned appliances and phones from Walmart and Amazon. His hypocrisy was blinding!
The sound great, but after my second use, the jack connector on one side went loose, and fell inside the pedal. I’ll fix it one day but I have a real TS available and just went back to that.
I've got their Pro-One and TB-303 synthesizer clones. The Pro-1 is higher quality than the original and metal, getting a few Syncussion clones when in stock.
I have tried quite a few behringer pedals and sound wise tbey are generally good but in my own experience i found that the noise floor on them is not always good. Quite a bit noisier than some of the more expensive equivalents and I don't like it when Darth Vader enters the room when I switch them on. But people keep mentioning the casings, I think the plastic seems incredibly durable but although some don't realise it I sense a bit of induced paranoia as a perceived lack of quality and robustness. When was the last time you threw a pedal or your board at a wall? Yep, never. You step on them, that's all. Great value for money, but they can be noisy as I said.
@@muttonjeff105 I've never seen or heard of a broken Behringer pedal case. I suspect that the force needed to crack it would bend a metal Boss pedal, for example. Noise I agree with. Maybe we could sponsor a hydraulic press channel to do a comparison?
@@ophic Agreed. I am in agreement about the strength of the casings. People just hear the word plastic and automatically start talking about them not being durable. I think that's a fallacy personally.
Why all this Plastic issue? I've had several for a long time - none have broken. But of course I don't jump on them from a height of a meter, I just tap them normally.
Behringer is great for occasional use, sound ok, but will fall apart quicker than a Boss or Ibanez if used a lot. I speak from experience. This includes other brands like Joyo. Off tangent, but in my 40+ years of gigging I have owned Cunetto Relic Strats, JV Squier Strats, Roadworn Strats etc. I recently played a friend’s Harley Benton which he landed in Canada (not the fucking 51st State 🤬) for $350. It plays brilliantly. Perhaps we have been overpaying for a while. This is a golden age for value on some things guitar.
If there is no infringement on Trademark or Patent (Both have regional limitations), you can cry as much as you want. Same as you can't copyright chord progression you can't deny use of electronic component arrangement. There are finite configurations how to get amplification, filtering, distortion, oscillators, etc. Also comments about "putting cheap pedal in front of pricey amp" are bonkers. Components them selves are cheap and the price comes from labor, brand, business management, etc.
Josh at JHS reviewed all of the Behringer pedals and concluded that this one and number of others compare pretty much exactly sound wise to the originals on which they are based.
I love cheap pedals. I am never going to drop serious money on them, as i mostly play acoustic and just wouldnt get value. but spending £20-30 on something like this means I get to mess around in the living room. Its a case of this or nothing really, as spending hunnerds on pedals just isnt an option. And they don't sound half bad. When I'm playing with them the limit is my talent, and not the pedal itself, which is exactly what I'm looking for. If they liked the sound, someone who is actually a good player could use them in basically any setting and noone other than maybe a half dozen of the worlds biggest gear nerds could tell.
Behringer GDI21 - bought it cos it has an XLR out. Atrocious pedal. 15 years later I can get an almost OK sound out of it. VD400, rather good but loses some top end. UV300, good too, loses some top end. Both these pedals are good if you want to take the edge off your tone. SF300, I play mostly single coils so a boost is needed to get the fuzz to work!!! (Maybe I should put the GDI21 in front of it?) This has a clean boost mode and it's fantastic. Yeah, they're plastic but they seem solid enough.
While some complaints with Behringer I take no issue with, I get really tired of all the heat without light. People who know nothing about IP law complain about Behringer is infringing IP law when they aren't. People claiming Behringer "announced" or "promised" something when they've explicitly said "we're not promising anything". People who know nothing about what it takes to "clone" a device talking about it as if it is trivial. Even things like people misrepresenting Roger Linn's situation or what he actually said about Behringer's LmDrum.
Behringer is making fantastic pedals, most of them sound even better than their originals that cost 5x the price. The only part they are cutting down is the cheap plastic construction which is totally fine if you playing in a studio or home. And if you're going to gig them, damn you can buy 3 of them and have 2 backups and still save tons of money.
Been gigging for 30 years plus, I’ve fallen into the trap of believing all the hype about ‘boutique’ pedals and amps and wasted a lot of money chasing the tone. I used to use a Marshall 100 watt valve combo, too heavy now, using a Boss Katana mk 1 sounds as good as all my old valve gear and pedals and I got it secondhand for £150. Tried all the Tonex and Helix stuff and it all sounds the same weak and fizzy through a Pa or powered cab. Don’t get sucked in, wish I’d realised this years ago.
You’ve got the give Behringer credit for bringing good sounding gear to the most modest of budgets.
I've only been playing for 33 years but one thing has been consistent. Two types of people will compliment my playing after a gig: the gear wonks that only want to take pictures of my board and the music lovers that don't even notice it sitting there. I've done the job with a Pod XT Live at times and with boutique pedals costing more than my car too. If I could go back in time, I'd probably stick with the cheap stuff and spend more money on my wife and kids. It's really amazing what you can get away with using inexpensive gear like Behringer keeps putting out.
When the components are the best they Shine, and with that Shine comes the light reflected, there is much light that you can't even "see" a single component. Balance. This is a lesson for life.
Nice Demo and Review John! I've been using that Behringer Tube Overdrive for about 10yrs now. I paid $23 USD from Sweetwater Sound. It works Great! The Plastic housing is really not that bad it's really sturdy. I feel the Pedal sounds like a TS 808 but can be made to sound more fuller if you want. I've had NO problems with mine at all and it's still cookin'. I more recently replaced it with an Earth Quaker Plumes but still go back to it once in a while and it now resides in my Studio. Nice to pick it up, through it in my Guitar Case and head to a Rehearsal. I still use it LIVE every now and again, Love the sound of it. Please keep up the Good Work and Cheers from Salem, Ohio US.
Their version of the Tube Screamer has been on my board for at least 5 years and it's not going to be replaced anytime soon. It's withstood many, many gigs, jams, practices and home use and it's a fundamental part of my sound. Rugged and reliable, it stacks with all my other drives as I need it to.
First pedal I ever bought and still on my board 😊
I've played and gigged a Behringer Vintage Distirtion VD1 on and off for years...same with the Behringer Vintage Delay VD400. No issues ever.
Those behringer pedals are great for home use or for budget or beginner players. I would have loved a bunch of $30 pedals 30 years ago
I would only gig one if I was going to leave it on
I like Behringer stuff and have several of their pedals, as well as 2 of their V-tone analog modeling amps and a couple of their (12ax7) microphone pre-amps. It's the pre-amps that I use at the amp input spot on my signal chain, that actually give me the edge of breakup range I like. So this Vintang Tube Overdrive I use mainly as a boost and don't set the drive beyond 1/2 most of the time. With that combination, my amps, whether tube or solid state, are set as CLEAN foundations/platforms.
I totally agree with your opinion of Behringer gear. I use the X32 digital board. For the money it sounds great. One of the channels is beginning to have some bugs and will eventually fail...but I wouldn't call it junk and would buy it again.
Build quality and tone quality are two different things. It seems like people often forget that. After all, why wouldn't a Behringer sound good? It's hardly a mystery how to make an overdrive pedal.
I have thet Behringer in addition to their EQ and SuperFuzz models. They are an absolute steal at $20-$30, as are some of the TC Electronics pedals (Behringer owned) that recent went on sale for $29+ USD. I do agree that the Gritador has a more immediate and direct sound with more headroom likely due to component specifics. The Behringers tend to have SMD components that makes modding much harder though not impossible, so they could be upgraded. Their EQ appears to be noisy although it would be good to have a head to head comparison with its Boss equivalent (GE-7); not sure if the unshielded plastic enclosure contributes to this.
Some really nice playing.
Great pedal. I own one and think it is amazing for the price or any price. Beautiful performance!
Most "boutique" pedals use chips made by behringer.
My pedal board is all Behringer. Play at home so plastic casing not a problem
I play mine at stage too. If you don't expect them to withstand a sledgehammer - no problem.
Ive used/been using some behringer pedals. they're definitely worth trying. Wouldn't want to rely on them, but if you want to try something different, they're worth giving a shot.
I got it's predecessor, the Behringer Tube Overdrive TO100, for 10 bucks, new from Musicians Friend some years back. It's still not the cheapest overdrive I ever got. That distinction goes to the Gihubo GH-22 Overdrive Pedal True Bypass that my wife picked up for me on one of her discount store journeys for $1. It has flamingoes on it.
Haven’t tried any of their stuff myself, but know many local gigging musicians who have, and I wouldn’t had known the difference between the Behringer and a regular Tube Screamer, if I hadn’t been told. At our exchange rates, Behringer can’t go wrong.
Behringer are doing some great work especially in the synth world. Whether with clones or their own designs. I only have one pedal though and that is the dimension c clone which they don’t make anymore. In stereo it sounds fantastic.
Sounds great as usual man! Thanks for sharing.
I had a Roktek plastic Flanger pedal sound wise it sounded just like High Landrons from Eric Johnson, and that was what I was looking for from a Flanger so it was a win, and it was inexpensive.
I have tried a few Behringers and have allways been pleasently surprised. If they just repacked them in a more robust case I would have no problem at all with them.
I agree with you. Two of my Behringers were great, until they weren't. On one, a control knob seems to have become detached from the gubbins inside, and I don't feel confident enough to pull it to bits to try and fix it. On the other one, the on/off switch is now very unreliable, despite my efforts to clean it.
If both pedals were 100 percent reliable, I would be perfectly happy to continue to use them.
It's comforting to know if someone spilled beer on your $20 pedal at a gig, it's easily replaced. Someone spills beer on your $1600 Quad Cortex, whole different story.
I have the Behringer ultra tremolo, I bought it probably 15 years ago, sounds and works great, I'm just not a huge fan of the plastic enclosure, good pedal though.
Most overdrive/distortion pedals use very simple and cheap schematics (in the end practically all of the differentiation between the different devices is created by their pre- and postfiltering parts). So what Behringer is doing is to reduce the cost by scaling effects and reducing their margin a bit.
Behringer and Flamma......killer value.
Both sound great and very similar if not the same
when a pedai can be produced, packaged, shipped to amazon and then delivered for £22, how much does it cost to make? 50p?
I need to add that I encourage players who can't play at high volumes but want all the "interaction" you can have with your guitar's volume, and your attack on the strings, to try one of Behringer's mic pre-amps, like the "Tube ultragain mic 100". Velcro it to the top of your amp with a patch chord from it's output into the amp input, turn down your amp and then plug your pedal board into the pre-amp, Obviously you don't want to just max out the gain and volume, but play around with it. I set it up so the clipping starts to show with my guitar volume at about 2/3, and then gets dirtier as you turn up the guitar. I run my amps at 3-4 on the master volume. You'll have to lay back the settings on your pedals a bit, to balance things out. Welcome to my "old school" secret.
I use an art tube pre in the same way. I replaced the 12ax7 with a 12au7.
Very subtle OD😀
To me there is no controversy. Cloning has been going on since the 70's and Behringer is mostly filling a void on products that manufacturer's do not care about. Roger Linn had decades to fill the void and did nothing even though many wanted a retro product, in fact he said he wanted to move forward with his tech and not back. He had zero interest in creating a new Linn drum. I have found the people complaining about Behringer are usually sanctimonious and self righteous prudes worried that us common poor folk are diluting the music pool with our self produced home studio music. One vintage studio owner I know even said Behringer was bringing down the value of his retro synths and he hated them for it. He cared nothing for the happiness affordable gear gave to people, just his own selfish interest. Meanwhile this same guy bought rip off and cloned appliances and phones from Walmart and Amazon. His hypocrisy was blinding!
Sweetwater sold 5 Behringer pedals for $100. I’ve used them on a gig once, not too bad, and nobody wants to steal your pedals.
The sound great, but after my second use, the jack connector on one side went loose, and fell inside the pedal. I’ll fix it one day but I have a real TS available and just went back to that.
I've got their Pro-One and TB-303 synthesizer clones. The Pro-1 is higher quality than the original and metal, getting a few Syncussion clones when in stock.
Only one Ive had a - result from is the sub octave pedal. Tis a wompwomp.
I have tried quite a few behringer pedals and sound wise tbey are generally good but in my own experience i found that the noise floor on them is not always good.
Quite a bit noisier than some of the more expensive equivalents and I don't like it when Darth Vader enters the room when I switch them on.
But people keep mentioning the casings, I think the plastic seems incredibly durable but although some don't realise it I sense a bit of induced paranoia as a perceived lack of quality and robustness.
When was the last time you threw a pedal or your board at a wall? Yep, never. You step on them, that's all. Great value for money, but they can be noisy as I said.
@@muttonjeff105 I've never seen or heard of a broken Behringer pedal case. I suspect that the force needed to crack it would bend a metal Boss pedal, for example. Noise I agree with.
Maybe we could sponsor a hydraulic press channel to do a comparison?
@@ophic Agreed.
I am in agreement about the strength of the casings. People just hear the word plastic and automatically start talking about them not being durable. I think that's a fallacy personally.
Analog delay is also great sounding. The Behringer analog pedals are mostly good, avoid the digital ones.
Why all this Plastic issue? I've had several for a long time - none have broken. But of course I don't jump on them from a height of a meter, I just tap them normally.
Behringer is great for occasional use, sound ok, but will fall apart quicker than a Boss or Ibanez if used a lot. I speak from experience. This includes other brands like Joyo. Off tangent, but in my 40+ years of gigging I have owned Cunetto Relic Strats, JV Squier Strats, Roadworn Strats etc. I recently played a friend’s Harley Benton which he landed in Canada (not the fucking 51st State 🤬) for $350. It plays brilliantly. Perhaps we have been overpaying for a while. This is a golden age for value on some things guitar.
No offense to the Gritador, but Boutique would be something like a Landgraff Dynamic Overdrive.
If there is no infringement on Trademark or Patent (Both have regional limitations), you can cry as much as you want.
Same as you can't copyright chord progression you can't deny use of electronic component arrangement. There are finite configurations how to get amplification, filtering, distortion, oscillators, etc.
Also comments about "putting cheap pedal in front of pricey amp" are bonkers. Components them selves are cheap and the price comes from labor, brand, business management, etc.
Josh at JHS reviewed all of the Behringer pedals and concluded that this one and number of others compare pretty much exactly sound wise to the originals on which they are based.
I don’t know technically what it means, but somehow the Gritador does sound “chewier”?
Behringer is the Borg
I love cheap pedals. I am never going to drop serious money on them, as i mostly play acoustic and just wouldnt get value. but spending £20-30 on something like this means I get to mess around in the living room. Its a case of this or nothing really, as spending hunnerds on pedals just isnt an option.
And they don't sound half bad. When I'm playing with them the limit is my talent, and not the pedal itself, which is exactly what I'm looking for. If they liked the sound, someone who is actually a good player could use them in basically any setting and noone other than maybe a half dozen of the worlds biggest gear nerds could tell.
John showing us that only thing that matters is the player lol! Not really a sonic difference between these 2.
Yeah but 90% of your tone is in your slippers.
Behringer GDI21 - bought it cos it has an XLR out. Atrocious pedal. 15 years later I can get an almost OK sound out of it.
VD400, rather good but loses some top end.
UV300, good too, loses some top end.
Both these pedals are good if you want to take the edge off your tone.
SF300, I play mostly single coils so a boost is needed to get the fuzz to work!!! (Maybe I should put the GDI21 in front of it?) This has a clean boost mode and it's fantastic.
Yeah, they're plastic but they seem solid enough.
literally
While some complaints with Behringer I take no issue with, I get really tired of all the heat without light. People who know nothing about IP law complain about Behringer is infringing IP law when they aren't. People claiming Behringer "announced" or "promised" something when they've explicitly said "we're not promising anything". People who know nothing about what it takes to "clone" a device talking about it as if it is trivial. Even things like people misrepresenting Roger Linn's situation or what he actually said about Behringer's LmDrum.
Electronic components arent magic. Even the most expensive pedal only has a fiver worth of parts in it.
Behringer is making fantastic pedals, most of them sound even better than their originals that cost 5x the price. The only part they are cutting down is the cheap plastic construction which is totally fine if you playing in a studio or home. And if you're going to gig them, damn you can buy 3 of them and have 2 backups and still save tons of money.
Been gigging for 30 years plus, I’ve fallen into the trap of believing all the hype about ‘boutique’ pedals and amps and wasted a lot of money chasing the tone. I used to use a Marshall 100 watt valve combo, too heavy now, using a Boss Katana mk 1 sounds as good as all my old valve gear and pedals and I got it secondhand for £150. Tried all the Tonex and Helix stuff and it all sounds the same weak and fizzy through a Pa or powered cab. Don’t get sucked in, wish I’d realised this years ago.
Behringer sounds really good
It's a simple circuit with components that cost pennies, why would it need to be expensive to sound good?
The only reason why cheaper pedals get no love is because the cork sniffers think higher price = better product aka (You, Rhett, Mythos pedal man etc)
Utter Nonsense!