Good Gear

I’m just tired enough that I can’t guarantee that this post won’t sound a little loopy.  But I wanted to give a shout out to Behringer.  I have a teeny, weeny Xenyx 502 mixer by them.  It’s a five input, two bus box that I’ve been using with the rest of the stuff I use for my phone interviews.  I like it, in part because it’s got all of these cool little knobs.  In the nomenclature of audio mixers, it’s referred to as ”British” style, whatever that means.  But it’s also real metal, and not that pot gut stuff that tools from Japan used to be made of in the 70′s.  It’s gun-grey steel with rounded corners and welds.  The kind of thing that is small enough to snatch off a desk with one hand but tough enough to knock somebody unconscious with it if you had to.

I am surprised at the quality of construction as well as the quality of performance.  It has +47 volts of phantom power, so my mics all work w/o a hitch.  Its got two EQ controls on the mic channel and a trim pot, which is nice.  Its also got balance and level controls for all of the other channels as well as headphones inputs, a main mix downstream and a cool bank of LEDs.  All that for under $50 bucks.

And the sound is nice and crisp.  It plays well with the rest of my gear and unless I’m pumping something through it, I always know it’s on because of this one, no nonsense blue light.  I like the blue light.  I’m tired of these interpretive uses for lights – green means good or go or on, red means bad or stop or going off.  Or, red could mean danger, you’re about to get electrocuted.  Or green could mean, friendly … I’m friendly and prepare to be assimilated.  Blue is non traditional, and to me, blue means business.  Damn, I just interpreted the light, didn’t I?

It’s a nice, simple, portable, durable, functional, affordable, attractive little package.  Good job, Behringer.