Behringer DSP 2024P Virtualizer Pro

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it? It was was very easy to call up the presets and get good initial sounds

How about Editing patches? After reading the section in the manual on doing this, it was easy

How is the manual for it (if there is one)? The manual is useful

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with? Line 6 Flex3+ amp, Fender Strat, Schecter 006 Elite, Behringer FCB1010 floor board

Is it noisy? On what settings? I didn't notice too much of an increase of noise. Some is to be expected with the addition of an effect.

Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?
I was mainly looking for a pitch shifter, and for the price, was very happy with the sound I could get plus the flexiblity - 4 part harmony including myself. Phaser, Reverb and Delay all sounded good. There is an Auto Wah preset that sounded terrible. Not sure what they were thinking there.

Would you use it on a gig without a backup? Can't use during a gig - See below for reason

If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they? I actually had to use customer support and they responded both times via e-mail within two days. Not bad

Overall Rating? I only had one problem with this unit and it is for that reason that I had to return it. I could not use this as an effect for my guitar in a live situation. When changing presets via midi (FCB1010) there is a 1 - 2 second delay which cuts out the signal completely! The manual states that this happens when manually using the jog wheel to select presets, but to have this delay when using midi control to select presets is a bad design IMO and makes it completely useless for live playing, unless you can tolerate 1 - 2 seconds of silence when changing effects or are not planning on changing the effect from start to finish of the song.

I was very disappointed at this because, for the price, it had some nice sounds. I give it a 5 for not making it useable in a live setting.

BUT don't get it if you want to control it using Midi
You HAVE TO uses the Behringer foot controler and nothing else
I have 5 midi racks and 2 foot controls ( ada, digitech, art, line 6 ) None can send the RAM channel 1 that the manual askes for

SO when you change presets using the foot controler all my other gear goes up and down the users banks and presets
BUT all this does is go up and down the factor presets ( totally useless cause you can't edit or save those presets ) AND you have no access to the User presets UNLESS you have the "Behringer foot controler"

BEWARE it put in my studio now I wanted it for my guitar rig tho =(

Sounds good but a small pause between changing presets

it's working right now =)

Bad this is the second version of this product and I'm sure they have got many emails about the midi issue MAKING you BUY the Behringer foot controler is just BAD in my book

pretty BAD unless you
A- have the Behringer foot controler
B- you want to control this thing by hand

Ease of use: 9
No problem getting around without the manual.

Editing patches: 7
It takes a few minutes to figure out how it works, but that's fine.

Manual: 7

I thought this unit was just what I've been looking for. It sounds great and it has a pretty good pitch shifter (wich was what I was looking for) so I was very happy when I hooked it up and it sounded great. It has a very nice price tag too :-)
How ever, after a while I was getting very pissed! I just couldn't make it work with my other midi stuff.
I use a Line 6 Flextone II HD wich has a midi out jack to controll external devices. I have the big floor board wich conects to the footcontroller input. So I can't use another midi footcontroller. I don't want too either, I really like the Line 6 floor board, best there is! So, after contacting Behringer and numerous instrument stores here in Sweden I found out the "midi problem" with the Virtualizer. I just can't belive why the hell they did it this way.
Ok, you get 100 factory presets and 100 user presets. But you can't reacall the user presets via midi unless you got a footcontroller that sends "midi control change messages". So "midi program change messages" are not enough for this unit to switch between presets.
It says "With full midi controll" on the front panel!!!!
You can also restore the factory settings on the user presets within seconds if you like. So what the hell is the god damned point of having the 100 factory presets. They could easily solve this midi problem by just changing places with the two banks! The factory presets can be usefull to give you something to start working with, but if they cause this problem, I don't want them.
The only reason for Behringer to do it this way must be to make people by their latest version of the FCB1010. However, I personally think that, if that is the case, they will not sell more FCB1010's, they will just sell less Virtualizers. Wich is bad for both Behringer and the customers.

>How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

Started work immediately, and blew me away at once.

>How about Editing patches?

Intuitive. No problem. If you need more than a four-character display, then pay more. I got it right in about trwo minutes. Read the manual.

How is the manual for it (if there is one)?

As good as it gets - no manual can get it quite right in terms of what you already know. Some homework required, if you don't know the audio business ('Balanced input? What dat, huh?') but Behringer take the trouble to explain why certain effects, e.g. the Vinylizer, are included: not everyone is aware of the postmodern take on pop music - why anyone would WANT their stuff to sound bad/dated!

Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded?

No

I've had it for 36 hours...

>What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?
Home studio. Mainly singers, or live instruments (violin, flute). I don't do popular music. Bought it just for reverb only... but wow...

>Is it noisy? On what settings?

Only where 'noise' is reqired because it's fashionable. Nil noise where you don't want it,.

>Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?

This is a subjective area, but to me, they are great. Far better than I expected for the price.

>What amp are you using it with?
Headphones and stereo playback hi-fi amp.

> Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
Pierre Schaeffer isn't on MTV, so 'pass'. I don't do 'take-away' music. But some of the Behringer's effects sound like the pop-culch crap my sons watch/listen to, so if you're into throw-away music for the iPod nongs, this thing will do that, no problems.

>Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?

See above re 'subjective'. The 'Major 7' thing is amazing - allows one vocalist to sound like a 1940s close-harmony quintet - and you can shift the parameters during performance, if you're slick... woooooo.

Thurey sixz hoiurs in the studio.

I don't do live music, but my budget is too small to buy a new unit every month. My Behringer gear (two mixers) have never failed me in five years, I expect the same from this God-box.

Pass. No contact required.

>What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?
Electro-acoustic, musique concrete. I'll be pushing this to its limits and feeding some wierd stuff into it. Good match because it has flexibility but is also transparent in operation,l

How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?
Since 1965. DAT recorder. Revox B 77 Open Reel recorder. Neumann and Rode mics. Sorry, no guitars, drums, or amplifiers.

>If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
Same thing.

>what do you love about it? What do you hate? What is your favorite feature?
It does everything I expected and more. I love the vocalizing possibilities. HAve been working with microsound, and want to explore the human voice's capacity for glitch.

>Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?
Others were just way damn too expensive. Art Music composers do not have rock music incomes.

>Anything you wish it had?
Headphone socket, but then, you need a mixer to drive it anyway, so...

>Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way?
Will enhance all my projects by adding extra dimensions to my own conceptions.

>Anything else you'd like to share?
Culturaly speaking, the unit is a kind of sardonic comment on the empty and imitative nature of current popular music - 'Like, who do you want to sound like, dude? Okay, like, push this, like, button. Cool! You sound, like, just like them!'

How 'bout sounding like yourself?

The Behringer has enough knobs to sound strange and different and, like, be, like, creative. Dude.

I give this a 7 for a few reasons:
1) The knobs are great and intuitive. No nonsense there.
2) This is sound related, so I'll mention the quality below. But as to that, it can be a bit difficult to configure useable sounds.
3) I don't like the display--I don't like having to configure parameters with a manual in hand to find out whether or not I'm tweaking reverb room size, saturation, or delay time.

Reverb and delay sound good. Chorus is okay. Pitch modulation is horrendous. The overall sound is too digital--there's no dithering at all (please look up dithering on google as it applies to digital recording).

I would certainly find this a dependable item

Customer service responses are very quick and friendly. Great support.

I play guitar, mostly rock and metal. I can't say this would be a good item, but if you're just looking for reverb and delay, and a decent chorus, here's your thing. There's some really interesting effects that may be useful, maybe vocoder, but I haven't messed with it much.
I've been playing for 14 years, I think. I don't think I would buy this item again if I lost it

Just a note to people who say it's noisy - check the +4/-10 level switch on the back. If it's noisy, you may need to change it to -10.

The manual is a little vague - assumes you have previous experience with effects units, compressors, etc. Once you're used to Behringer manuals, it's okay, but I can see it must be very frustrating to new users.
Don't try and read the manual without the thing infront of you wired up!
Getting to grips with the 4 to 7 parameters for each effect is a bit of a bind, and initially you have to keep refering to the manual or supplied information sheet, but you soon pick up the common ones.
Combined with previous knowledge and the params sheet, it's very easy to use. 9/10 for the sketchy descriptions and omissions from the book.

Using this in live and recording situations, there has never been any issue with noise. It's usually connected between an Aux Send and a regular mixer channel. We do tend to use +4dBu level (studio) rather than the 'home recording' level, and only use balanced connections. As with most kit, using unbalanced will probably be painful if you don't manage things properly and keep an eye on levels, using lower levels increases the noise ratio anyway (It's a physics thing, rather than a product thing).
The effects quality is everything I'd expect from Behringer. The important effects all sound very good - the silly ones aren't so good, but for the most part you don't need those to sound perfect!
The unit is grounded, so it may be an idea to check that all of your kit is grounded, or that you have a ground lift box in there if you have issues with hum. Don't lift the power ground on the FX unit - the power supply filter will pull the case up to half of mains voltage. Also, don't drive it too hard. Digital clipping sounds awful.

Other than headphones, Behringer seem to have the reliability thing pretty well sorted out. It runs cool, its chassis is the usual Behringer stuff - nice heavy grade front plate for mounting, sturdy base plate and metal case. The audio connectors are all bolted to the case to reduce the risk of damaging the solder joints to the mainboard.
Although a backup is on the shopping list, it's not a priority. Never had a Behringer unit fail.
Regularly gig with no dedicated backup, if we were desperate for a reverb, there's one in the mixer anyway.
If it weren't mounted up properly, it might not fair too well gigging, as the front controls are somewhat vulnerable. Look after it, and it'll last you a very long time.

Not had to call Behringer about this unit so far.
With other issues I've had with their stuff they were extremely quick and helpful if it was a known problem (took 3 days to get a replacement EPROM shipped airmail from Germany, for free).
If you happen to discover a new bug in their software, beware. They really don't like being told there's something wrong, and will send you copy/paste solutions to a variety of different problems. Sending a step-by-step 'how to make it go wrong' email usually makes them acknowledge the problem. (Fixing it doesn't appear to be a priority unless lots of people complain, I think)

Overall, good value for money so long as you know what you are doing. Done 40 or so events now, using Behringer mics (as well as Sure's and a few others), mixer (fx2222pro), feedback destroyers, crossovers, companders, patches and processors into Carlsbro amps and speakers. Sounds good every time.
It's gone on the gigging insurance - if it gets damaged or stolen, we'll definately buy another.
Would like a tap feature for delays and reverb, and that LED display could be swapped for a higer resolution LCD to make selecting things a little easier. Perhaps ability to save various samples (Like "Time at the bar!")...
Love the fact people are amazed at the overall quality of sound, then really amazed when they see all the Behringer kit hooked up!
Tip: Laminate the 'Algorithms And Parameters' sheet so it doesn't end up stuck to the desk at a venue in a pool of spilled beer.

Very easy to use. I slapped it i my amps loop, began spining knobs and pressing buttons and was actually getting great sounds by behaivig like a monkey.

The second day I actually spent 5 minutes looking at the controls and figured out it was really damn easy to use. You may need to reference the manual for the specifics of which parameters you are editing and what they do but it's still rather simple.

The manual is good but lacking in some areas and over explanatory in others. Behringers manuals seem a bit confusing at first or at times but are pretty informative and cover most the bases well.

The sound quality is AMAZING.
I use this processor in my Crate heads effects chain and place it before my Digitec RP-80.

My tube emulation is unfucking believable now. I mostly play metal, blues/jazz...basically metal rhythms and fancy leads.
I can now put my amps gain on FIVE. It's the only gain I'm using. For what this unit did to my tube emulation and amp modeling, I would have bought it if it didn't even do anything else.

It seems to have an expanding effect even with the processor switched out. My bass is MASSIVE now and I no longer dime it. It joined my gain by being reduced to 5 too.

I was always able to clone ANYBODIES tone, but since most the greats use tube I always had a bit of a rougher sound because the level of gain I needed to match their sustain and note depth. NOT ANYMORE!!!

This unit is superb. An unbelievable amount of effects including a sonic maximizer, de-esser, tube and cabinet simulators.....basically it takes the place of a DOZEN units.

You might as well buy 10 of these rather than an eventide, no joke. They are that useful AND impressive.

Solid State guys, here's your answer for toning down your gain to smooth over your sound while maintaining optimum sustain, clarity and tonal density.
To top it off it even looks really nice too. All metal chasis with a polished steel face and black knobs and printing.

I've only had it about a week.
It is built like a tank though and THANK BEHRINGER no wall wart power supply. Just a nice heavy duty 3 prong removable cable. That's right, it's actually grounded.

I've dealt with Behringer USA several times and they are great. Very quick to respond and very informing.

Hopefully I never need servicing.

I thought the V Amp was the best piece of gear a musician could own. After this unit perfected my main rig, I'm no longer certain about that.

I can not stress enough how with no effects even in use, this unit maximizes your sound. I LOVE being able to set my gain at 5 and have a dead on Vai sound. I had it before but it just was never as smooth due to needing so much gain. Now when I emulate one of the greats tube tone, I have the smoothness they all do.

It's got every feature you could ever want. There's nothing I wish it had, it has everything!

If it dies I'll send it in under warranty, if it gets stolen I'll be really pissed and have to buy another one some how.

There's not much point in getting any other processor on the market. It's about the cheapest one around but best of all it does the most. Rather than buy a noise reduction unit, a sonic maximizer, a de-esser or whatever, buy one of these and get it all. It even has a voice canceling effect......

Very easy to use. You need to know what you're doing though, cause the manual won't learn you what certain things mean.

Very good quality. If you know how to use it with a mixing desk (via aux send & return), it's easy to avoid the noise (increase the "send" level and decrease the "return" level, and - magic - the noise is gone). But you should do this: for the reverb on the DSP2024 the mix should be on 100% so you use the dry sound from the sound source directly, and only the wet sound from the DSP2024. So you can also use the stereo dry sound (useful if you don't have stereo aux sends).

Solid rack. 1-unit 19" nothing else to say about it.

Never needed them. Behringer makes solid hardware, no doubt.

Good EFX module for an incredible price.

fairly easy. good thing too because the manual sucks. unit deserves a 9 for ease of use, but, gets a 5 due to the poor operator manual.

for the price, this is easily a ten any way you look at it. the chorus is o.k. and the reverb is o.k. they sound similar to the digitech chorus and reverb to me. but, it is loaded with tons of great effects other rack processors do not give you such as the nice fuzz and the panner. it smokes the panner in my t.c. electronics g major if you can believe it! the delay is good, but,pretty much standard run of the mill. there is no " dynamic" delay like my g major. however, the echo really kicks butt after a little tweaking. there is a sh** load of other cool stuff but, they are to numerous to mention here.

no problems yet. one thing to note is the strange wiring set up in the back. there is the 2 right and left "inputs" on one side and the other right and left "outputs" on the other. pretty easy huh?.....wrong! when plugging in the stereo inputs on the back, one channel will go to the left pair of inputs and the other to the right pair of inputs. same with the left and right "outputs". took me a long time to figure out how come it sounded like shit. but, once I figured it out, all is well. sounds great!

an easy ten for the price and it is now a "must have" piece of equipment in my rack not only because of my favorite the panner and the echo, but, because there are tons of great effects my g major nor my lexicon have. also, I have been playing for 32 years now and have a half dozen guitars and I am using a line 6 pod pro into a mesa boogie 50/50 power amp into 2 4x12 cabs in stereo. I mention this to establish some small measure of credability because I feel compelled to hammer the last guy who posted a review about the virtualizer and said it was noisy. there is no noise and sure, maybe some of the effects are not world class but they are not bad and there are several that are outstanding. which is more than I can say for some units I have owned that cost more. this is a great unit and I was pleasantly surprised when I heard it. I would buy it again in a minute.