Behringer Factory Tour & 20th Anniversary Party

2009. It's the 20th Anniversary year for Behringer. Since we got on so well with Uli when he first came to Australia November last year, Tone and Artie were invited to go to China to help Uli and his team celebrate. A stop-off in Hong Kong was required for a beer and a bite first...


As usual, the video camera came out. If you want to catch any of the 'non factory tour' - sightseeing with Factory Sound, it's here (on YouTube).
But the real reason we headed over to Zhongshan was to visit Uli at home in Behringer City. It's HQ for Behringer, with a large R&D team and plenty of manufacturing taking place there. Plenty is an understatement! With over 3,000 staff on site, Behringer City cranks out over 2,000,000 products per year. Let's just take that in for a moment...

Per day that equates to around 5,500 finished products. Each individual component is checked before being ticked off as 'production-ready' then the products are manufactured, some parts by machine, many by hand assembly. At various points along the way they are checked, before passing a final inspection and packaging. There's no magic packaging machine either!

It was without a doubt an eye-opening tour of 'Team Behringer' and one that we were able to video along the way. Later that night we attended Behringer's 20th Anniversary Party. Amazing.


To see how excited all those individuals were, being able to show off their entertaining talents and getting to put into practice the English they'd been learning was simply awesome. We were given a generous dose of Chinese culture, and have tried our best to capture that on video also.

So...here is both Part 1 and Part 2 of our trip to Zhongshan, China.
Each episode goes for about 8 mins. The first one begins at the party (yes, it was a pretty crazy entrance we had!), and an impromptu interview with the man of the moment, before moving toBehringer City for the tour. We get some good running commentary along the way, courtesy Michael Jago who recently left his post as GM of Behringer Australia to go and sink his teeth into Behringer Europe.
In the second episode we leave most of the talking up to the experts - Michael Deeb (CEO, Behringer) tells starts us off, and then Uli lets us in on some of the secrets of his factory. We swap a couple of times back to the party.
Hope you enjoy, we certainly did!
Part 1


Part 2


www.factorysound.com

the fesitval of Behringer

It was twenty years ago today...
We were invited last Monday night to attend 'an evening with Uli Behringer', which was an intimate affair: a few Behringer dealers from the Southern states of Australia, together with the Behringer Australia team, and on his very first trip to Australia - Uli Behringer.

We expected to walk in to a Sgt Peppers theme, with cardboard cutouts of The Beatles playing Behringer guitars through Bugera amplifiers. However it was a rather chilled affair, and we were treated to a few cool ales and settled down to a relaxed session at a function room at Crown Casino (a short walk from our day at Factory Sound).

Uli hopped up onto stage, and sat down for a Parkinson-style session with Behringer Australia's GM, Michael Jago. Factory Sound was not only well represented with quite a few of us attending, but also very impressed. Uli is (in no particular order) relaxed, intelligent, passionate, charismatic and inspiring. We also got the feeling he is genuinely talented in many areas of audio, whether it is musically, or pro audio. This was indeed confirmed when he came to Factory Sound the following day.

We've no idea how he managed to end up at Factory Sound on the day of his 20th Anniversay (since Behringer began), but Uli spent quite a bit of time chewing the fat with us. It was in our speaker room, that we realised there is a reason why his company is 20yrs old and still rising. The reason is Uli. He has a firm grasp on not only what sounds good, but what is required both now and in the future for all things pro audio. We listened to every speaker in our room, and his face could not lie - Uli has never listened passively to anything in his life. Even when he is Salsa dancing, we're pretty sure he's going to be focussing on more than his feet and his partner.

Really hard to put into words how 'switched-on' Uli is. If you've got a spare 10 mins though, check out our video podcast interview (episode 21)that we did with Uli on the same day. We think it's the only time he's done it before, so we're thankful that he took the time during his hectic 20th Anniversary year to come in and share a beer and a few stories for Factory Sound TV.

Audio milestones - just a few

We don't stop and sit down for too long at Factory Sound, and we've just realised that our original favourite Behringer product has turned 15. For anyone who doesn't remember, the old MDX8000 (multi-band compression) was a terrific studio tool that is almost un-findable thesedays. It was deleted by Behringer sometime in the 1990's...and there are never too many around for sale, but nontheless we remember you. Happy birthday Combinator!


If you stop and look back at the last 15 years of professional audio innovations and milestones, plenty has happened:
The home studio explosion - amazing how many musicians (and stand-alone engineers) have incredible studios in their own homes. The quality of gear versus cost is simply astounding. Besides, there's currently not enough enough spare water in Australia to justify digging up your backyard for a swimming pool...so spend your hard-earned on a studio!
The powered speaker revolution - we're now well-and-truly into the 2nd wave of powered speakers having paid for themselves several times over. Notables along the way included JBL Eons seemingly everywhere at the start, and then RCF Art300A going louder and harder to become a real alternative for many small bands. EV, FBT, JBL and RCF are all now so far ahead of where they started with powered boxes. Just look at JBL PRX series, or RCF TT series to see how much sound you can easily get from one little box!
Changing of the guard (effects) - About 10 years ago, just about any 'soundguy' could turn up to a gig in and around Melbourne (and probably anywhere else in the world), and know that they could pull up their favourite preset on the house SPX900 or SPX990 Yamaha. But then TC Electronic came out with the twin powers of M-One and D-Two, and it was all over. Within six months of their release in Australia, M-One had all but replaced SPX990 as the effect of choice for mid-level PA systems, and D-Two was a perfect companion. Of course now both TC Electronic and Lexicon are very popular for both live and studio applications.
Moving operations to China - We're sure that the Behringer motto was never 'Keeping the bastards honest' but that is what happened when the German company founded by Uli Behringer moved to China for its manufacturing.

We spoke with Behringer Australia's GM (Michael Jago) who has been with Behringer since it was first imported into Australia (originally through a company called Musiclink). He agreed that Behringer had driven the price quite seriously downwards, making it much easier to either make a start, or to simply get heaps more gear with your budget. "I have found our old (Music Link) 1999 catalogue....This product could be your story. The MX802A (pictured above) was $499 in the 1999 catalogue. Then when Behringer Australia started in 2002 it come down to $299.99. It's closest current day replacement would be the 1202. It has the 4 mic pre's and has a 2008 RRP of $159.99 Quite a price drop from $499 to $159 in 9 years. Young blokes today don't know how good they've got it"

That's quite true...and Behringer has had a far-reaching (positive) effect on our industry. It is without question that Behringer products offer maximum bang for buck. Manufacturers such as DBX have been kept honest by Behringer's pricing policy, and have since lowered prices to a level we would never have imagined 10 years ago. There are many manufacturers based in China, but only the ones who have invested time, energy (and lots of $$$) are consistently producing products for our market that just seem to work.

Have you seen this clip produced by Audio Technology magazine?


Watch part 2 here...

There have been so many other audio milestones: like Neutrik winning the connector armwrestle, Shure & Sennheiser going head-to-head and leaving the other live mics in their wake while doing it, the rise and rise of Rode microphones...

We'll come back to this one.

Help us catch a thief

Usually you'll find us in good (often great) spirits both in and out of the shop, but Olympic Friday 08.08.08, we woke up in a foul mood. The burglary alarm went off at about 4.44am Friday...we've been invaded by a thief.

We got some great video footage on our CCTV, so once we've got clearance, it will be posted here. In the meantime, please keep an eye out for us if you can. We'd love to make sure some justice is served. 

The burglar had a rummage through our computer music room, but the 2 macs were well secured. He did a little damage trying unsuccessfully to detach them from the security lock.

Here's the one that will hopefully unstick the unfortunate individual...he took a TL Audio VP-1 preamp. We don't imagine there are many of them in Australia. We've still got the box, including serial number 160291 and spec sheet signed by Tony Larking. 

For those who don't like clicking...here's a pic:

For those who want to keep an eye out, this is what else he took: Pioneer DJM800 DJ Mixer, Numark TTXUSB Turntable, Klark Teknik SQ1D Dynamics Processor (purple in colour), the TL Audio VP-1 Recording Preamp, Fostex D2424LV 24 Track Recorder, Behringer Xenyx 1204FX mixing console, Denon DNS3500 CD Player, Avalon U5 Instrument DI.

The Denon DNS3500 might be another clue if you're looking....he smashed off the spinning platter on his way out, so the unit is basically rooted for stunt use (though it will still play CDs).

He left us with some damaged goods: Apple MacBookPro 15", Apple iMac20", Pioneer CDJ400 and Joe Meek OneQ.

Really, at the low prices we normally sell this stuff for, he should have just walked in the front door during business hours and asked for a deal. What a prick.

Hopefully, with a bunch of audio-minded people packing it into South Melbourne for the AMAC show at Jeff's Shed, we can listen out for anything out of the ordinary.

Please keep an eye out if you can.

Thanks. More to follow!

here's the VP-1 document we have (pdf)