DJ Equipment Mixer - Gets it Right!
February 19th, 2010 | by admin |I enjoy making recordings of my children’s piano and band concerts. Usually, I can find electrical power close by, but in cases where I can’t, it’s really
nice to have the option of recording 100% via battery power, and the UBB1002 is one of just a few mixers that offer that capability.
I’ve only used mine with battery power once, but it performed beautifully, providing 18v of phantom power to my Rode NT5 mics. I ran the output of the mixer
into a bus powered USB audio interface that was connected to my laptop running on battery power.
I have used a software spectrum analyzer (from [...]) to measure the frequency response and noise levels of the mixer, and it is _very_ flat. The eq controls
also do an excellent job of only altering the specified frequency range. The mixer is quiet as long as you pay attention to your gain structure and keep the
sliders at or below 0 dB.
If you’re experiencing excessive hiss, you’re probably feeding the mixer a signal that is too low. Try increasing the output level on your source or
adjusting the gain control on the mixer. You really don’t want any of the sliders to be above 0 dB! Oh, also the output is line level, so not intended to
feed the microphone input on a laptop PC. You _really_ need an external audio interface like the UCA222, FCA202, or (better) a Creative E-MU 0202 USB that
accepts line level signals. If you’re using an ASIO driver on Windows, n-Track Studio 6.0 does a nice job as recording software and can take full advantage
of the hardware capabilities of your audio interface, up to 24-bits, 192 kHz.
It’s possible to create two different mixes with the UBB 1002–a stereo mix (perhaps for house or recording) and a mono mix (to feed stage monitors) using
the pre-fader “MON” controls. I do sometimes wish that there was an additional row of pan knobs so that the monitor mix could be stereo as well, but that’s
one of the compromises that one must accept with a portable/low cost mixer. The larger XENYX 1204 has this and other capabilities for little more money for
folks who can live without battery powered operation.
All of this said, Behringer has discontinued this mixer and replaced it with a XENYX model (1002B), which has upgraded mic preamps and “British EQs”. Both
models have sturdy metal cases, nice power supplies, and should provide years of reliable service (well mine has, anyway).
Go check it out for yourself by clicking the link DJ Equipment Mixer