# Behringer Pedals Vs. Boss and others.



## KingCore

What do you guys think of the Behringer pedal line? 

I'm looking for a noise suppressor and a pedal tuner, and I've come across the Behringer - Tu300 and Nr100. After watching many video reviews, and browsing review sites, it seems that the Behringer - Tu-300 and Nr-100, is almost identical to the Boss Tu-2 and Ns-2.

As a guitarist I am on a between tight and medium budget, especially when it comes to pedals. I plan to use these pedals with a Peavey 5150 head. The difference in prices between pedals in very significant, but my problem is - should I take a chance and go with the cheaper brand or just play it safe, and go with Boss on this one.


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## fudb

you get what you pay for. they're not bad but they're not as good as pro pedals... not as tough, not as inspiring...


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## ronmac

I agree. If you are curious, and just want to try out somle new effects they will get you a box for less money. If you are serious about building up an arsenal of tools you can rely on for a decade or two, save your pennies and buy the tried and trusted.


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## keeperofthegood

I like them because they tend to be 20 and under on the used tables. That said, they are 20 and under for very good reason.


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## hollowbody

Yup, like others said, the Behringers are fine for what they are, but you have to realize what they are. They're made of plastic and are NOT built to last. Certainly not to BOSS standards. If you find one you like, you'll probably have to buy a few more down the road to replace them as they eventually fail. And fail they will.

They're a good way to get into effects, but if you'd rather have something reliable, spend the extra dough and buy BOSS. Alternatively, find used BOSS pedals. They don't tend to hold their value too well since there's so many of them around, so you can easily find them for half the price or less used.

FWIW - the Behringers are also direct rip-offs in terms of circuitry of many well-known BOSS, EHX and other pedals. Don't know if you care about this sort of thing or not, but they're making coin off someone else's ideas.


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## Morkolo

I'd get the Boss pedals, but much like my Zoom pedals I have from when I started if you don't take them out playing and just keep them home to yourself they'll last a long time. But I can't imagine them lasting in a live setting for too long.


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## Milkman

I think they're very good for the price. No they're not as durable as Boss, but I think there's some merit to buying them.

If I want to spend a lot on pedals I'm looking at better stuff than Boss anyway. I have a Behringer digital delay pedal I bought used somewhere. Until I can scrape up enough for an Eventide or Empress delay, it sounds clean and works fine.


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## mhammer

If it was something that you tended to stomp on and off a lot, then it might be a less than optimal choice, but pedals like noise suppressors tend not to have to put up with a lot of heavy duty, so yeah, thumbs up.

Just note the many caveats that accompany *any* noise suppressor. Checksome of the various noise gate/supppressor-related threads here....because frankly, my fingers hurt from typing it out over and over.


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## The Lullaby

Boss over Behringer, better to spend a few more bucks and have something you'll keep.


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## Milkman

The Lullaby said:


> Boss over Behringer, better to spend a few more bucks and have something you'll keep.


With all due respect to Boss users, I think many people choose other brands once they get over $100 per pedal so it really depends on whether the Boss sounds are what you really want to end up with. If you're just starting out and can get four Dalelectro or Behringer pedals for the price of one or two Boss, it's not a bad way to go. When you get to the point of needing long term reliability I would consider the Behringer stuff expendable. 

Just my opinion of course.


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## fudb

If you buy used, you can get more value for your dollar... if you're a student of guitar, then you have to realize you can say more with a more expressive tone. you get this by simplifying and shortening your signal path, and by optimizing your pedal choices. more is not better. more poor effects don't have well voiced controls that produce interesting possibilities. it's like comparing a big mac to your own, lovingly barbecued burgers. sure it's a burger... but which one do you want to eat? it's better to spend more on fewer effects (since the dollars are relatively low), you'll get _useful_ ones. i'm not saying go buy the most expensive thing. be prepared to invest dollars if you want good results. if you want to maximize your options for the least amount of money, you should buy a used floor effects unit. you can get slightly older model for very little money nowadays.


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## Chito

Since he's talking about getting a tuner and a noise suppresor, I suggest not to 'scrimpt' on the tuner. Tuners are things that you'll need for a long time and the better the quality, the longer it will be in use for you. But instead of getting the Boss TU-2 at about $100, add a little more and go for the best pedal tuner tuner you can get, the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner. 

Strobe Tuners by Sonic Research - Turbo Tuner Home Page

As for the noise suppressor, for now, get the Behringer. It's something you might not even need if you are able to figure out the source of the noise you are hearing.


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## Milkman

fudb said:


> If you buy used, you can get more value for your dollar... if you're a student of guitar, then you have to realize you can say more with a more expressive tone. you get this by simplifying and shortening your signal path, and by optimizing your pedal choices. more is not better. more poor effects don't have well voiced controls that produce interesting possibilities. it's like comparing a big mac to your own, lovingly barbecued burgers. sure it's a burger... but which one do you want to eat? it's better to spend more on fewer effects (since the dollars are relatively low), you'll get _useful_ ones. i'm not saying go buy the most expensive thing. be prepared to invest dollars if you want good results. if you want to maximize your options for the least amount of money, you should buy a used floor effects unit. you can get slightly older model for very little money nowadays.



Why eat burger whe you can have lobster or at least steak?

The problem with your statement is that the Behringer pedals are basically clones of much more expensive pedals with cheap housings. You won't necessarily get better sound out of a Boss. You'll just get it for a longer duration and when you decide to get some really good pedals you can sell the Boss for more.


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## fudb

Milkman said:


> Why eat burger whe you can have lobster or at least steak?
> 
> The problem with your statement is that the Behringer pedals are basically clones of much more expensive pedals with cheap housings. You won't necessarily get better sound out of a Boss. You'll just get it for a longer duration and when you decide to get some really good pedals you can sell the Boss for more.


well your first question is a rewording of my post.

the behringers are indeed "basically" clones of more expensive pedals. but they make every component decision based on expense. if they can sub out a similar component that does the same thing on paper for less money, they will every time. maybe you can't hear the difference between cheap pots or caps and cts pots and sprague caps.... but I can. On paper, they do the same thing. 

Of course, if you can't hear the difference then there's no reason to spend the bux... as with all things tone related, YMMV


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## hollowbody

Milkman said:


> Why eat burger whe you can have lobster or at least steak?
> 
> The problem with your statement is that the Behringer pedals are basically clones of much more expensive pedals with cheap housings. You won't necessarily get better sound out of a Boss. You'll just get it for a longer duration and when you decide to get some really good pedals you can sell the Boss for more.


For the most part, they sound very good for the price point, but I find the Behringer knock-offs of Boss, EHX, etc. products tend to be a little noisy at some points. Maybe this is due to cheaper components as fudb suggested, or maybe it's just a sloppier layout or bad soldering, etc. Who knows. Not all are like this, but the ratio of poorly-made to well-made pedals is a lot higher with Behringer products than with other brands.


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## BRXM

Hmm, I might annoy a few people with this reply, so if so, I apologize in advance. I used to be the import and customs person who handled all Behringer imports into Canada and I know these products well. Yes, they are all ripoffs of other products and are totally cheap pieces of crap (IMO). I have had 2 Behringer pedals, both were defective from the factory, which is quite common. I had an octavizer pedal which was wired in a way that the power from the battery went around the pedal and back into the battery, causing it to superheat when you plugged in the pedal. That is VERY dangerous and could cause the pedal to blow up in your face and the other one, a copy of a Big Muff, wasn't grounded properly. I checked the pedal myself and its the design, not a manufacturing defect in that one. Every store in TO, will tell you that they even hate to sell them because so many of them come back. These things cost about 35-40 bucks each and Behringer 32 track boards only cost about 45 bucks(actual cost), so guess what a pedal is worth? Save your money for something worth buying. If you want a great tuner, that also happens to come in what I think is the best multi-effects pedal, try a Deltalab DGFX-1. Has the best built in tuner I have ever seen. I had that new Polytune pedal that has come out recently and returned it because it wasn't as good as my DGFX-1. This pedal sells for about 79-99 bucks at GC, depending on whether its on sale. I sold my Digitech RP150 and Pocket Pod once I got this pedal, and I use it more than my big pedalboard which is full of BOSS, MXR,BBE, EH and other pedals, because its just so much easier to use, and actually sounds better than about 2 grand worth of other pedals combined. Go figure.


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## Milkman

It'a always funny to me when I hear the "well, if you can't tell the difference" response. I'm a sound man. I assure you I can hear quite well and I've spent more than four decades training my ears.

Sit behind the board for awhile and you may find that many of these tiny nuances and incremental improvements provided by tiny differences between one piece of gear and another are pretty much imperceptable.

The difference between the sound of a Boss and a Behringer is tiny. You have to go into the higher ticket pedals to really hear a substantial improvement.

I'm sorry to knock Boss. They're good for what they do and they last a long time. But if you want a big improvement in sound, changing from Behringer to Boss is not going to deliver that in my opinion.


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## Milkman

BRXM said:


> Hmm, I might annoy a few people with this reply, so if so, I apologize in advance. I used to be the import and customs person who handled all Behringer imports into Canada and I know these products well. Yes, they are all ripoffs of other products and are totally cheap pieces of crap (IMO). I have had 2 Behringer pedals, both were defective from the factory, which is quite common. I had an octavizer pedal which was wired in a way that the power from the battery went around the pedal and back into the battery, causing it to superheat when you plugged in the pedal. That is VERY dangerous and could cause the pedal to blow up in your face and the other one, a copy of a Big Muff, wasn't grounded properly. I checked the pedal myself and its the design, not a manufacturing defect in that one. Every store in TO, will tell you that they even hate to sell them because so many of them come back. These things cost about 35-40 bucks each and Behringer 32 track boards only cost about 45 bucks(actual cost), so guess what a pedal is worth? Save your money for something worth buying. If you want a great tuner, that also happens to come in what I think is the best multi-effects pedal, try a Deltalab DGFX-1. Has the best built in tuner I have ever seen. I had that new Polytune pedal that has come out recently and returned it because it wasn't as good as my DGFX-1. This pedal sells for about 79-99 bucks at GC, depending on whether its on sale. I sold my Digitech RP150 and Pocket Pod once I got this pedal, and I use it more than my big pedalboard which is full of BOSS, MXR,BBE, EH and other pedals, because its just so much easier to use, and actually sounds better than about 2 grand worth of other pedals combined. Go figure.


I don't have enough experience with Behringer pedals to argue with this. If their QC is this bad, that's another problem altogether.


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## ThePass

hollowbody said:


> FWIW - the Behringers are also direct rip-offs in terms of circuitry of many well-known BOSS, EHX and other pedals. Don't know if you care about this sort of thing or not, but they're making coin off someone else's ideas.


Just like everything else in the world I guess...

I have the Behringer BO100 Blues Overdrive. Never had an issue with it, it's gotta be at least 5 years old now. True, I don't play out it now (replaced with a Visual Sound Jekell & Hyde) but when I did use it, one would need to have ears as sensitive as a dog's to tell me it didn't sound like a Blues Driver.

It's almost as if asking "Esso or Shell" which gas makes my car go faster?


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## fudb

Milkman said:


> It'a always funny to me when I hear the "well, if you can't tell the difference" response. I'm a sound man. I assure you I can hear quite well and I've spent more than four decades training my ears.
> 
> Sit behind the board for awhile and you may find that many of these tiny nuances and incremental improvements provided by tiny differences between one piece of gear and another are pretty much imperceptable.


Have done... No they aren't. Not to me at least. Are you going to tell me you can't hear the difference between a behringer mixer and an allen and heath? Or between an SM-57 and a cheap knockoff? Or that yorkville stands will take abuse like a K&M?

But like I said... if you don't perceive a difference, then you shouldn't spend the money. I'll agree that in the cacophany of a bar band through a cobbled together PA fine distinctions are lost... but I can absolutely hear the difference between a high quality rig and a budget one. I appreciate that it's not a big deal to you, and probably won't be to many players... but I find it worth the expense nearly every time. In the end though, you have to go with what YOUR ears tell you, and not what a collection of random guitar players tells you on a message board (myself included).


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## Morkolo

fudb said:


> Have done... No they aren't. Not to me at least. Are you going to tell me you can't hear the difference between a behringer mixer and an allen and heath? Or between an SM-57 and a cheap knockoff? Or that yorkville stands will take abuse like a K&M?
> 
> But like I said... if you don't perceive a difference, then you shouldn't spend the money. I'll agree that in the cacophany of a bar band through a cobbled together PA fine distinctions are lost... but I can absolutely hear the difference between a high quality rig and a budget one. I appreciate that it's not a big deal to you, and probably won't be to many players... but I find it worth the expense nearly every time. In the end though, you have to go with what YOUR ears tell you, and not what a collection of random guitar players tells you on a message board (myself included).


I couldn't agree more, no good going out and buying gear to please others who could care less what you're using in the first place.


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## Milkman

fudb said:


> Have done... No they aren't. Not to me at least. Are you going to tell me you can't hear the difference between a behringer mixer and an allen and heath? Or between an SM-57 and a cheap knockoff? Or that yorkville stands will take abuse like a K&M?
> 
> But like I said... if you don't perceive a difference, then you shouldn't spend the money. I'll agree that in the cacophany of a bar band through a cobbled together PA fine distinctions are lost... but I can absolutely hear the difference between a high quality rig and a budget one. I appreciate that it's not a big deal to you, and probably won't be to many players... but I find it worth the expense nearly every time. In the end though, you have to go with what YOUR ears tell you, and not what a collection of random guitar players tells you on a message board (myself included).



There is a huge difference between a Behringer board and an Allen and Heath. I'm happy somewhere in between. I use a Mackie. I 've mixed with many boards. The Soundcraft and Allen and Heath boards are nice but for the extra money I judged the Mackie to be the best value.


And yes, there's a big difference in a real 57 and a Chinese knockoff. They sound completely different. The durability is another issue altogether.


I haven't spent the time to sit and A/B test Behringer pedals and their Boss counterparts, but the little Behringer delay I'm using until I can pick up one that's better, sounds pretty much like a Boss to me. It's just built more cheaply.


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## zontar

I've tried a few Behringer pedals, and they were all noisy.
The Ocatver one also tracked very poorly.
I plan to stay away from them.

But if you want to risk $20--go for it, but I would look for used Boss or other brands.
Not that much more.


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## Morkolo

zontar said:


> I've tried a few Behringer pedals, and they were all noisy.
> *The Ocatver one also tracked very poorly.*
> I plan to stay away from them.
> 
> But if you want to risk $20--go for it, but I would look for used Boss or other brands.
> Not that much more.


That's what I've noticed with a lot of the bargain priced effects, they don't all track very well especially the octaves. And they do seem to be noisier, not just behringer but Dan Electro too. My buddy used to swear by them saying they were just as good and his rig would hiss so badly, he didn't hear it.


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## Chito

Don't discount the Danelectro Cool Cat pedals though. The Transparent Overdrive as well as the Drive are pretty darn good pedals. Some other ones like the older Cool Cat Chorus is also worth looking into as well as the Dan Echo.


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## mhammer

zontar said:


> I've tried a few Behringer pedals, and they were all noisy.
> The Ocatver one also tracked very poorly.


There are VERY few analog octave-down units that track well. That's just the way they are, and not a function of anything unique to Behringer.


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## Rahlstin

Tried a few Behringer as I could try about 4-5 of em for the price of almost any good pedal. I think they are total crap.


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## zontar

mhammer said:


> There are VERY few analog octave-down units that track well. That's just the way they are, and not a function of anything unique to Behringer.


Except the Behringer I played was noticeably worse than the others, and noisier as well.


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## Milkman

I guess I haven't tried any Behringer pedals except the digital delay I have. It's cheaply made but sounds pretty much the same as the Boss delay I had years ago.

Again, when it comes time (soon actually) to upgrade, I'll move up higher than the Boss level anyway.


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## modblaster

i have BOSS metal zone mt-2 and behringer UM 100 , and it's SAME things.... same distortion...... the boss cost me 160$ and behringer cost me 45$......
for same price i can buy 3 behringer pedal for 1 boss pedal 
behringer copie BOSS...http://thetoneking.com/wp/behringer-stomp-box-cross-comparison-chart/
check the link!!
but i love my behringer and boss pedal


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## mhammer

In some cases, Behringer has "resurrected" long out-of-production Boss pedals (DC-2, VB-2, DF-2, HF-2, SP-1, SG-1, etc.) that would cost you a small fortune on e-bay.


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