Behringer Ultragain Tube Mic!! Anyone heard of this one!!

[Solar]

Hi fellas!

Was wondering if anyone have ever head, or try or owned one of this series, its an Vintage one and old but is it any good? Here is the model. Thank you for any further information


Behringer Ultragain Tube Mic - Line Pre Amp Model T1953 Vintage series

[DeeDrive]

Is this it? If so, yes I've heard it, I owned one (shutter) many, MANY years ago. Awful, sooo awful. Couldn't get a single decent sound out of it. I didn't think you could have too much "tube warmth", but this unit has it. Really obnoxious sounding, I don't think I recorded a single good track with it. Maybe I ended up using it for toms or something, once. This one is all about the looks, the "cool vintage vibe".

[Solar]

Hey Deedrive!!

I really dont and can not say because the one you showed me is different formt he picture i have here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/BehringerTube-Ul...QQcmdZViewItem

Let me know if this is the same as the one u had

thanx

[Solar]

I think you're right, this is the same one but i guess the one on ebay is simply the older version more vintage knobs etc.. but i think its the same as the new version that you showed me...here.. so i guess this no good at all

[DeeDrive]

yeah, this is the same one, it's not old or vintage, either, really. It's just trying to look that way. This unit has only been out for a few years. GC was trying to unload them for about $99 each I think a year or so back. I wouldn't want one for free, personally.

[firby]

I have one from when I first started. I got it for like 110 or so at guitar wank. Mine has eq and a glowing tube in the middle. Brittle and flappy. I used it for overheads because the pres in a mackie 1202 (non-VLZ) were decidely worse. It is still in the rack but I have not cabled it to anything currently. The gain stage in my Tascam 8 buss board is better. The only reason that I would use it would be for the phase switch that the tascam does not have.

Hold on. Looking at the picture it is quite abit different than mine. I dunno.

[danasti]

Originally Posted by Solar

I think you're right, this is the same one but i guess the one on ebay is simply the older version more vintage knobs etc.. but i think its the same as the new version that you showed me...here.. so i guess this no good at all

I think it is the exact same unit and version but the photo on ebay is taken closer and only shows the half with the knobs.

I would guess they first came out with this "vintage" model 5 - 12 years ago.

Berhringer's first products (I think) were mixers made to compete with/copy Mackie mixers and sell them at a lower price point. Then came the composer.. NOOOO!!!! I might be wrong.

Anyway - there is a very good reason it's $120 for a 4 channel mic amp and it's not because it is old.

[Jonboy79]

Make sure you guys aren't confusing the 195x's compressor with the 195x's preamp. They almost look the same but one has more knobs than the other and of course one is a compressor and the other is a mic pre.

[Doublehelix]

Stay Away!!!

These things use a staved-plate design of tube implementation, which means that the tubes are only there to add distortion, not the smooth the sound.

Behringer has taken things to a new low with these guys, where they actually place LEDs behind the tubes to make it look like they are glowing!!!

Not worth the bended metal frame it is enclosed in.

I am not a fan of Behringer gear, but these things are the worst of the worst.

[Snatchman]

Originally Posted by danasti

I think it is the exact same unit and version but the photo on ebay is taken closer and only shows the half with the knobs.

I would guess they first came out with this "vintage" model 5 - 12 years ago.

Berhringer's first products (I think) were mixers made to compete with/copy Mackie mixers and sell them at a lower price point. Then came the composer.. NOOOO!!!! I might be wrong.

Anyway - there is a very good reason it's $120 for a 4 channel mic amp and it's not because it is old.

No...Behringer was making products before Mackie was " born" (via Tapco). Behringer ( believe it or not) was once considered Pro gear ( early products)..YMMV.. Numerous Pro engineers used them!.... Then I guess they (Behringer) decided that "Lets not worry about R & D anymore and save some time and money"..... ...

[Solar]

Thanx all of you for the inputs, i think that i will staying away from this.. i was simply wondering if it was any good. Love Vintage Hardwares....

Thanx again

[DeeDrive]

[quote=Doublehelix]Behringer has taken things to a new low with these guys, where they actually place LEDs behind the tubes to make it look like they are glowing!!!
QUOTE]

LMAO, Are you serious?? Dammit, I wish I still had mine so I could rip it apart and see the LED's, so I could laugh my ass off again! That really IS a new low. Unbelievable....

[Kiwiburger]

Lots of cheap 'tube' gear uses leds to light up the tubes. It's normally designed to appeal to the guitar player magazine junkies who have adopted "it's no good if it doesn't have a tube" as their mantra.

Viewed as a distortion effect, there can be applications for these low voltage fuzzies.

[DeeDrive]

Just found this picture of the inside of the Behringer pre. I am so baffled by this. Deceit on a whole new level. Really unbelievable.

[code green]

Originally Posted by DeeDrive

Just found this picture of the inside of the Behringer pre. I am so baffled by this. Deceit on a whole new level. Really unbelievable.

when you see it up close it smacks less of deceit than of desperation--wouldn't/shouldn't fool anyone. just cheeziness.

but hey, listen, the tu1953 (that's the one pictured above--2 channels) was my first outboard mic pre (into a yamaha aw2816, which just has the weakest pres), and i think you all may be being a bit too hard on it.

if the original poster (Solar) were considering it against an avalon or a manley, yeah, ok, fine...but presumably he is looking at it alongside other options in the price range...which to my recollection is a pretty small selection--what: presonus, rolls/bellari, ART?

people seem to like the presonus stuff; i don't have any experience with it myself. heard mixed reviews--from great to horrible--on rolls/bellari gear. and from my own limited experience with ART stuff, i'd avoid it.

anyway back to the tu1953: i didn't find it unusable. far from it--i got a lot of use out of it. at the level where you're--as the OP seems to be--you're just starting out i think it's a perfectly viable and economic option. it's not so much that you're suffering with it while you have it; it's more that its shortcomings become readily apparent alongside better gear.

so my advice would be to listen to and gather opinions about other stuff in the same price range as the behringer...and then seriously consider investing some more money into a pre. consider whether you can make do with one channel (i.e., are you recording/overdubbing alone, one instrument at onece...or are you playing/singing simultaneously/playing with someone else). but i doubt you'd expect to get very much from a $100 guitar or a $100 keyboard (though, on another subject, you might just be able to score an alpha juno for this price!)...and it might help to think of mic pres in the same way.

one really nice option for (i think) about $500USD is the grace mic pre. in that range i know there are several others, and that might be a good place to start, if you're willing to do some more saving up.

and since you say you like vintage stuff, you may also want to check out ebay an old ampex mic pre (or two)--they are the detached pre-amps from old ampex reel-to-reel machines. the most renowned of these is the 351, and these can get pricey but there are other (tube) ampex pre models to be found and sometimes you can get a real bargain. that's the route i took--i got a pair of mystery model (despite hours of research) ampex pres and i love them: they're deep, they give a nice response across the spectrum, they're the epitome of warm, they have a hell of a lot of gain, and when they overload they do it in a great way.

but they don't have phantom power, and that's something to consider if you want to use a condenser mic (my solution is calling in favors from time to time with a friend who has a UA6176--a luxury, to be sure). and if you start getting serious about an ampex make absolutely sure that a power cord comes with it because otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life trying to find a match. further--as with all vintage gear--you need to be prepared for the possibility of having to spend a couple hundred$ more on service. in the case of a mic pre, perhaps on retubing or re-capping.

Anyway...IF you can't spend more than $100 or so, my 2 cents is not to rule out the tu1953 out of hand. in my experience, it gets the job done, and that's about all you can expect from something that price. is it real tube gear? no (i just always turned the "tube" stage all the way down on mine). is it everything and a bag of rice? no. but it is serviceable gear that, imho, gets a bad rap from the reflexive behringer bias out there.

[Tibbon]

I can make you something that sounds better with a 50 cent op amp and a handful of passive compenents for amplifying a signal. I've used this preamp and it's not even good for distorting stuff. It's ok maybe if you wanted to go for that "lo-fi beyond belief" sound.

[Jonboy79]

Any of you that think a starved plate tube is actually going to glow is an idiot. BTW Behringer is not the only company that does this, my old presonus tubepre also had a LED behind the tube.

[mac black]

[benjikan]

Originally Posted by Solar

Thanx all of you for the inputs, i think that i will staying away from this.. i was simply wondering if it was any good. Love Vintage Hardwares....

Thanx again

I have owned the Behringer 1953 for several years and consider it to be a fine pre-amp. It is very clean and neutral when not using the tube stage. I changed the tubes for the JJ 12AX7's quite an improvement. I may change the JJ's for the Silver Dragons 12AX7B's. They are the finest tubes to come out of China and may be a bit warmer. As for all the negative reviews about the Behringer, I cannot add to them as my Behringer that I bought new in 2002 has worked flawlessly...

http://gearslutz.com/board/images/smilies/leapfroga.gif

[arthurchino]

yes LEDs behind tubes. hilarious. Opened up my Electro Harmonix tube filter pedal, something was shorting it out. I assume it uses the stave plate design specifically to add distortion. It's a great crappy filter for f***ing with the output of drum machines, synths and as a trashy insert / send, but the tubes are not even close to glowing. If it started sounding "good" I'd sell it!

Why even bother? ah well, not fooling us. idiotas.

[SlamSound]

okey i did the test one day when i was bored & whent to my studio. there was this crappy tube ultragain thing laying on a flightcase. and sayed to myself "i wanna know if there is realy sound going through tis F****** tubes" so i openend it up. and i removed those silly lightbulbs & throw them away.

put the power on hmmm... they were on & glowing a litle. so i put the power of & bend that rubber aside & ripped the tubes from there socket.

Put the power back on and connected a cd player for hearing if there was stil signal trough the thing. well damn no it wasn't... so there is actually going audio signal trough the tube.

annother test was when i played back some music i ripped the tube while power on out of the socket and the signal was gone. since i am a groove tube guy like in several guitar amps & such i have some 12ax7's lying around and placed them in. but first i wanted to know if the warth/cold did annything whitout tubes and that was what i was expecting.

yess! i could here a litle signal when i was turnig the knob clockwise & nothing when i turned to cold (counterclockwise)

this is nothing but a exciter or something that boost some high freq & ads distortion!

so i put some groove tubes in it and i was verry pleased with what i heard. but Don't turn the knob warm to cold i have bypased this in my unit. i also changed some capacitors with better ones and rewired the whole thing and hardwired it where i could. used some neutrik conectors and wbt silver solder. changed cables and rebuilding some of the prints. now its a hobby of mine to do this kind a stuff.. so i dind't waste my time cause it was kinda fun

if you do this you can get a decent sound out of them. i use it now as a leveling (pre) amp in my kitchen when i'm cooking sommething hahah and now it sounds realy good, better than to listen to a stereo bought @ some store that sels microwaves e

see you guys! and keep it fun

[Tibbon]

This device only generally serves to take up rack space. If you want to do something with it, the only thing I could advise is ganging the channels into each other and slamming the hell out of it and only using it for distortion. It's not going to be "good" distortion, but maybe something fun to use once or twice.

[shaggseb]

Am I the only one who think Solar was joking ?




S.