Behringer UMC1820 5-stars Reviews

Good sound card for iPad

Good sound card for iPad

Surprisingly good!

This replaced my old MOTU, which, simply just stopped working...

Anyway, build quality is really good, pots are good, all-in-all, a really good interface.

Keep in mind the price and warranty, there is really no alternative...actually, below a certain level, there is no alternative to Behringer AT ALL!

Great for the price

If you need 8 in and 8 out, and don't want to spend a lot of money you really cant go wrong with this. I've been using mine for about a month now with no issues.

Awesome!

This interface is awesome entry-level device! I'm using it for non-professional recording and I can't be more satisfied.

Recommend it to everybody with a tight budget!

Works without issue

Pre-amps are of good quality - fairly transparent, delivered in a timely fashion, well built, great price, excellent features.

home studio interface

This is a good value interface. It lets you hook up old analog consoles or digital desks that dont have usb recording like 01V96 that im using. It gives you 18 track mixer for live recording. The latency seems to be fine as i had no issue yet. I use cubase as my DAW and it works just fine with it. I cant see any reason why this interface wouldn't be in any home studio.

Great product

I am useing my Behringer UMC1820 for recording drums and band practice and it work great. Haven't had any problems with the interface and I have been useing it for almost a year now.

Makes solid drum recordings and demo tracks.

I am using mine with 8 mics and a MIDI in for my bass drum triggers.

Very happy with the product and the price!!!

Love it!

We haven't fully explored all that this piece of equipment can do, but so far we've been very impressed. We have done some 4 input recording, and the sound quality is excellent. We're new to recording, but this interface and the Tracktion DAW software (free licence included) have proven fairly easy to use. Really looking forward to using this equipment more in the future. Thanks Behringer for a great product!

Not dissapointed!

I bought this card as an upgrade to scarlett focusrite 2i4 because I needed more recording inputs:

1. I connected the device without any problems (butter smooth experience)

2. I was surprised that you have to conect it to pc's DAW for line outs to work (i figured it out and now it makes sence, couse I can route signals however I like)

3. Knobs are a little on the downside and the one for mixing live monitor and PC sound sometimes makes a shshsshsh sound.

4.Connection to PC is very stable (i had problems with focusrite)

5.Latency is depending on samples and efect you are using and I find my conputer handling it without notice on 32samples having my izotope on vocals and kontakt on guitar. But i do rock an asus gtx 970.

OVERall It is top for things i need it. So live recording and studio recording for demos.

Unmatched in price and features

I know that there is alot of gear-shaming going on out there whenever Behringer is mentioned but I think that this could be something to silence some of that. For the price it cannot be matched.

I have used this almost everyday for two years. I have all my outboard gear connected to it as well as two ADAT extensions and I have not experienced any problems whatsoever.

The only thing worth mentioning is, that it can get a little hot when turned on for longer periods of time. It is a good idea to leave 1U of room both over and under it if it sits in a rack.

Besides that, it is a GOOD interface no matter what others say. In 5 years from now it will still sit in my rack.

Love it

Very loud compared to my last interface but this has a dim button for the main output which is great. Sounds nice and clear through inout monitoring or computer output. Slightly higher latency than the Fast track Pro II I had last but not so much that it causes issues.

Plug and play/no drivers needed for Mac, works perfectly. Easy to install drivers for Windows.

\m/ Excellent! \m/

This is an excellent audio interface, easy to set up, seamless to use and a sonically transparent to use. A bargain at any price.

Wonderful interface, but be cautious of location.

I bought this interface after having to return an M-Audio MTrack 8 for internal PSU issues and channel crackling, so I was slightly cautious, particularly with the price.

The Front panel is filled with all your controls, including two combi jack/XLR sockts for easy input, with the other 6 round the back. Phantom power is in two banks of four, with easy sight if it's on or off. All inputs have pad and line/inst switches, which makes hot signals easier to manage, and the gain knobs control nicely. The monitoring section controls well, and the input/output mix control is exceptionally useful for pre-processing monitoring - great advantage for vocal recordings in high latency systems. Two headphone sockets with individual volume controls make a nice change to some other systems, and are completley independant of the main monitor control. The MIDAS pre amps are gorgoeus, but not sure if they're original MIDAS or MIDAS-style, but that would need more research.

The rack-mount size and wings make it great for a rack, but be careful - the top right hand side of does get a little hot, so it would suite a spaced rack or desktop better.

Great interface though.

Good Value interface

I bought this interface a few months ago mainly for recording drums. I'm working from a small attic room with budget microphones so this isn't a professional recommendation by any means.

I Found the Midas Pre-amps to be very clean.Everything I have Recorded hasn't had any noise or hiss so the preamps and converters are all good.

I was able to track drums easily through a PC (with Plugins) without any problems with latency, and if you were to have a problem with latency the interface has a handy direct monitoring feature, where you can monitor inputs directly without latency.

The whole unit is very compact and is solidly built. the rear of the unit is basically a metal box, but the front panel is plastic and felt somewhat flimsy. the xlr combo plugs Gain knobs and buttons were all solid.

Overall I was very happy with the unit. Its a great unit if your on a budget and has the ability to be expanded with another 10 inputs and outputs over Adat and Spdif. However I haven't tried these out yet, I'm still working with the stock 8 inputs and 10 outputs.

Overall I'm giving the unit a 5 star rating as it is an excellent quality interface with plenty of features for the price.

Game changing product

Firstly I'm really glad I bought this when I did, it's gone up in price significantly since I purchased, and I can see why. The price is still good for what you get.

I needed a 8-in 8-out interface (of course more I/O with ADAT) and I naturally looked at all the options from other makers, and because this was a secondary setup I decided to go for the cheap option.

out of the box you notice that Behringer have lifted their game in terms of construction. It's seems more than tough enough with good finishing. At this price point I don't expect pots with fastening nuts or exotic textures.

How do it sound? Very, very good indeed. I've heard some critics talk about how Behringer have just slapped the midas name on front of these products to make people think they are higher quality. I can assure you the preamps are as good as anything you'll get in the home to small project market. For instance they compare very favourably with my A+H ZED R16.It's also a noticeable step up from their Xenyx preamps (although they weren't bad at all), especially in terms of SNR. Indeed the SNR is very good and the sound is lovely and clear. I also achieved more than acceptable latency in DAW monitoring with no glitches. The first recording I made with this is one of the best sounding I've ever made, but this could be coincidental.

I tried out the ADAT with my ZED R16 out of interest and play back was fine. I found that I had glitches when recording that ended up being printed. The UMC was correctly slaved to the ZED so the glitches must be due to some other problem. I cannot blame the UMC1820 as I also tried SPDIF with a different input device and that was fine. So this is not conclusive, but I'm pretty confident with the right config the ADAT I/O will work fine and is no reflection on this unit. This kind of thing is sometimes tricky anyhow...

The provided control software is simple but effective. That suites me just fine. The only thing I had was that sometimes when turning on the PC, the UMC1820 was not recognised and needed reinstalling. i think this might be to do with USB 3.0 bus standards. However, I found that if I made sure the UMC was switched on before switching on my PC, the problem didn't occur. So I think it's mostly likely a glitch of some kind in one 'popular' operating system.

In summary I think this unit will make the heart of a fairly serious home or project studio, especially if you also combine it with an ADA8000 or perhaps the ART Tube opto 8 for extra inputs/flavour.

UPDATE: the problem with the unitmnot being recognised sometimes is completely solved by switching to a USB 2 port. No problem for me.

UPDATE 2: managed to get the ADAT working perfectly now both ways too.

UMC1820 Device not found issue, but who cares!! and I fixed it

Bought this unit along with a ADA820 after reading some super reviews so I can have 16 mic inputs for kit.

I am re editing this older review as although I have had problems with the device being found when switching the unit on, I have been able to get around this issue, although we are replacing the unit which has a little fault. However I have to say as a recognized drummer and record producer the should is very very good and all syncs perfectly. Using these two units for drum recording along with my Grace Design mic preamps I am well impressed, so much so that I am now working alongside Behringer on product review and artists association, also the company music-group.com have been a great help, thanks to Patrick at customer service. Yes there are some amazing products out there but for the money these top the lot, and those who say this is just entry gear really don't know what they are talking about, its not about gear its what you do with it, I send tracks out all over the world and my clients seem very happy and I dont have tons of $$$$$ gear, make great records and great music, simple as that!

www.garrykingmic.com

Bang for buck!

What can i say, 8 midas mic pre's for this price is outrageous value. Its a solid piece of gear,not flimsy like i thought it would be. Im a drummer so using this to record drum tracks at home through cubase and it works like a charm. if you linked this up with the ada8200 you have 16 mic pres for under 400 euro that is amazing. would highly recommend this product, that is if you can get it. seems to be always out of stock

Outstanding piece of gear at a killer price

I purchased the UMC1820 for use in a home studio to record drums. It replaced a convoluted setup involving a couple mixers and an old M-Audio firewire interface. It's coupled with the Behringer ADA8200 (via ADAT) for 16 inputs total.

The unit is built very well. It's not especially heavy, but not too light or flimsy-feeling. I've had several Behringer rack units in the past and they have definitely stepped up their game with the build quality.

The UMC1820 packs a ton of features into a small single space rack unit and at an amazing price. The preamps have plenty of headroom and sound great. There are Line/Inst switches and a -15dB pad for each input. There are two +48v phantom power switches, one for channels 1-4 and the other for channels 5-8. It has MIDI I/O, SPDIF I/O and Optical ADAT I/O.

The main thing this unit is lacking is better software control over the features. The UMC Audio Control Panel is very bare bones, giving you only the very most essentials options. You can't select the operating frequency, it's determined by the DAW. There are no routing options and the unit cannot be used in stand-alone for anything other than stereo monitoring of the analog inputs.

If you're looking for a ton of inputs at a low price, look nowhere else. The bottom line is that this unit sounds great, looks nice and is extremely affordable.

Pros:

? Lowest price, hands down!

? Small footprint (single rack space and very shallow)

? Sleek look and sturdy feel

? Smooth knob control

? 8 MIDAS preamps with +48v phantom power

? ADAT SMUX and SPDIF inputs and outputs

? MIDI I/O

? 2 Headphone outputs with independent volume and channel selection

? Direct (zero-latency) monitor/DAW blend knob

? Per-channel Line/Inst buttons

? Per-channel Pad buttons

? Solid drivers allowing for low latency performance

Cons:

? No option for stand-alone operation

? UMC Audio Control software is very limited

? No LED meters (just a single LED for signal)

? Unit can run a little hot