Hey guys.
The Boston stomps thread was very informative and 60+ pages long as of time of this writing. Maybe we can treat another line of stomps and pedals here in one unified thread. Let's discuss Behringer Stomps.
Mostly maligned, sometimes praised, let's appreciate them for what they are and what they're not.
Let me start the ball roling.
Last year, I went to Yupangco coz their special of the month sale was on Behringer pedals. I tried out a couple. I had my eye on the DM4, but trying it...sorry ha...it was HORRIBLE. Maybe plugging it into a Marshall MG50 had something to do with it...the distortion on the amp kicked the pedal so bad that you'd think it's actually a parasite on the signal chain.
Anyway, next was the TO800. Okay lang, plain-Jane generic tubescreamer-ish booster.
I finally got a Behringer CS100, which still is in my arsenal. It's more quiet than a Boss CS3 and generically good...does its job and is cheap. Good enough.
Next that I owned was a Behringer GDI21. Now this pedal exceeds my 50% "OK" factor. It's more than OK. For a cheap pedal, you get multiple voicings. Although in its stock form, I wouldnt say it will kick nor approach the tube amps it claims to emulate. But for the price, oks na oks na talaga sya. I tinkered with it, made it true bypass, attempted to re-house it, until I damaged my unit. Maybe not beyond repair, but beyond my inertia to fix it for now. I was also able to tinker around with sidlead66's GDI, so I applied the tonesuck mitigator mod on it and scalarized it with a metalcore. IMPRESSIVE! The memory of it stuck with me till I got my 2nd GDI21 yesterday. Haven't opened it yet, but I mean to very soon.
Next on my list of rants and raves is the Behringer Hellbabe HB01. Stock, it is a good "attempt" to make a great pedal. Optical wah circuitry means there is no pot to wear out and replace every 2 years or so. Variable sweep control just like on the JD 535Q. Me fine control pa (havent figgered what that's for yet). And a built-in clean booster ! Plastic construction with a very heavy baseplate, pero the good kind of plastic naman. Wowowee.
However, when you play with the HB01, the common complaint is the lack of sweep. Well, we all know it only takes a razorblade to correct that. It's also a tonesucker (Behris are starting to get this reputation!) so the tonesuck mitigation mod is called for. You can also put in a DPDT switch in here to convert it to a "step-on" pedal just like JD's and pot-based Morleys. And finally, as firemodel pointed out once, it is inductor-less so it doesn't sound as warm nor has the response of those wahs that have inductors. So, a simple organicore scalarizer connected in shunt corrected that. So far, there is only one HB01 that carries these mods (radiostationexp) and I'm on the hunt for an HB01 for myself.
Kayo naman ! Post kayo ng rants and raves ninyo on Behringer stomp products !
