Episode 101 - Behringer UMC-1820 Audio Interface - worth Buying?
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- I've changed a slow and increasingly annoying PC to a Mac Mini M2Pro - and the old Presonus Firepod seemed a good candidate for updating too, so the Behringer UMC-1820 seemed a well specified unit to try. 8 Midas pre-amps, like the ones in my Midas M32 - and well thought through front panel controls. I'm quite pleased - sounds fine (as virtually they all do) but some very handy features that will work for me like a dim and mute on the output. So many times I plug in a mic to discover instant feedback when the gain was cranked up and the inputs routed to the output - I can just bash a button and it goes silent! It also has an extra 8 ins and outs on ADAT Light Pipe - I doubt I'll use these, but I could.
Behringer has hit a home run latley. This interface I have as a backup in case my 500 series rack of pres go down etc. and honestly when I used it I A/B it between SSL pres and a CaPi pre and it was very minimal difference. Like scary close. Of course the 500 pres had more clarity and low end but with some eq no one would know. Only thing is gain for certain mics may be limited somewhat but for tracking drums or whatever at home I've made pro level recordings with this interface. And it's ADAT little sister the ADA2200. It's scary good for the $.
Do you mean ada8200? Looks like a great set
@@herberdth yes. sorry was a typo
Nice review, I’ve got one coming tomorrow!
Just before christmas somebody commented on the sought after revox A77 I have saying how wonderful it was - the fact is this interface and a free DAW produced quieter, and better recordings! Have fun with it!
The odd thing is that they just do the job without fuss. I tend to plug in a mic, and not even stroll to the rack because the level is a bit low or high. The preamp seems to be very level friendly.
Nice to see people not "hypped" by the uad stuff :)
Behringer is amazing for the bucks !
Indeed there is a small noise (I wonder how it is with other sound cards) and amp are a little bit weak for dynamic mics (I have no issue with static one, the level is high enough).
And I feel that having dsp within the device may be limiting: you cannot upgrade it to avoid performance issue).
Fully agree with you concerning the leds. Green and red are not enough, at least orange would have been a killer feature.
Thanks for your video.
Cheers.
Yeah, but you didn't talk about the software drivers! 😮 I'm always concerned about cue monitoring abilities. I still use a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 in Firewire on Windows 10. I'm so in love with all the preamp emulations that I've resisted upgrading to Windows 11. I was going to upgrade to a Steinberg UR816C with onboard DSP monitoring effects, but then the pandemic hit and they stopped selling them here in the States. Grrrrrrr.
To be honest, I didn't think - Cubase 12 pro, running on an old imac - 2019 probably, maybe older. I plugged it in, and it worked. BUT - after your message I just checked and the latency is 11mS - I expected better than that. I'm going to head off to the other studio to try the mac there - but this isn't sounding great - thanks for letting me know - I'll report back. Paul
Well - plugged into the Mac mini - the latency displayed in Cubase was 9.3mS - halving the buffer down from 256 to 128 brought it down to just over 6. My old Windows system ran at just over 9 and I'm OK with that as a setting, but I'll try 6 for a while and see if there's any issues. For what it is worth, the correct cable to connect the Presonus, and remove one adaptor didn't work, and there are no updates for the ancient thing from Presonus - so the Behringer will work nicely. Somewhere in the office I might have a firewire card, so maybe that could let me replace the Tascam?
Can we do 5.1 mixing using 1820??
It has plenty of outputs so what you would do is assign the usual 1 and 2 to l and right, rear l and r to 3 and 4 and then use two more for subs and centre. The key thing is your daw. Can that let you monitor and encode it?
@pauljohnson4590 ya im using logic n cubase,,,,
Did the Behringer fare well on your Mac once you hooked it up and is your Mac running Apple Silicon (M1 or higher processor)?
The latest Mac is a decent spec mini Mac - and it is seamless - I have discovered one small annoyance. Cubase keeps forgetting it! Every time, no matter what boxes I tick in various menus, the INPUTs auto connect to the Behringer, but I have to manually set the outputs to it - every time. No idea what has changed, but I suspect it's not the interface - as adobe audition AND Steinberg Spectral Layers pick it up automatically, but Cubase Pro 13 is resisting me! I really like it. In any meaningful test, if it sounds different from the old Presonus and Tascam before it, I cannot hear it!
@@pauljohnson4590 good info, thank you. Price just dropped to $189 on it so I’m going to cop it.
One thing I love about this unit, and it's not a big deal really, however... they decided to keep the Behringer name off the face of the piece. Personally, I'm a huge fan of all of my Behringer gear but I have to admit, it doesn't always scream "professional gear" when it's seen in a studio environment. The multitude of "Midas" branding across the front of the interface is much more welcome, in my opinion, than a big wonky "Behringer" slapped on it somewhere. It's such a shame that not long ago Behringer was an incredible outboard gear brand, certainly one to be more proud of. The original gear, especially the German made reverbs, were top of the line back in the day. Sigh....
I never noticed that - I had to go and check! Thanks for this!