Behringer DSP1400P Ultramizer Pro

i spent a few hours remixing multitrack tapes with the ultramizer patched into the main inserts on my board. at first it sounded really bad. i didn't realize that you just have to start out really low on pretty much every parameter. then work your way up. read the manual and you should be fine. now it makes complete sense and it sounds good

i'm using it to master cd's. it does put off a little self noise, but i'm using it unbalanced. so i imagine that some of that noise can very easily be remedied with a set of balanced cables. and i'm working with a 16 track reel to reel... so "self noise" is something that i've learned to embrace as a form of character that's not available in new-fangled gadgetry. the compression sounds like the compression you might get out of a 90 dollar compressor. but if you use it mildly and take advantage of the ultramizer's exciter and 3d sound enhancers you can really get some great results. it really adds punch to the mix. lots of reviews i read before i got it said that it sounded really terrible and it "squashes your sound". then i read some review's from seasoned recording engineers that praised the unit. so i think people just get it out of the box and expect amazing things to start happening in their bedroom studio. but, just like anything else in life, great results take a fair amount of patience and creativity. so buy it, patch it in, play with it for a couple hours and read the manual a couple times. and you'll be glad you got it. a word of warning, the "brick wall limiter" feature is useful in the sense that you know you aren't going to overload your mixdown deck. but the way it effects the music when it's activated is extremely noticeable and ugly as hell. so it's best to stay away from it. it's like running your music into a "brick wall". (hence the name)

i've only had it for a few days now. but i've noticed that if you move it around too much, the power cable cuts in and out. so it's not the most solidly built peice of equipment. but as long as you keep it stationary, there is no problem. hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

never spoken to them

it's worth the money, time, and effort to buy this unit if your looking for an inexpensive way to make reasonably polished sounding cd's in your home studio. it boosts the overall loudness of the mix. it doesn't master your cd for you though. so if your looking for professional results...send your recording to a professional mastering facility. the only thing that i still can't get to sound good is the super bass feature. but maybe that just means it's not needed in my particular case.(bluesy-rock) in any case... it's a pretty cool toy to play with. and for the price, you can't go too far wrong.many thanks to behringer for yet another cheap yet effective tool.

Very easy to use, the multi layed menus per button can get a bit confusing. The midi interface software makes it easy to use.

The noise level is pretty high on the unit. It has a built in gate which I had to set at -36db without any source even connected to it to get some silence! The compression is very pumpy, and after an hour of tweaking it over a full mix, I think i made some progress, but NO! i hit the bypass button and the source sounds 10 times better....yes 10 times. (i can't belive the 17 year engineer reviewer said its good sound quality) even on minimal settings it's sounds bad. It has a hefty delay making it impossible to use besides on a main mix. The 3d sound is good if you play video games. I'm not a fan of stereo proccessing for dance music. The bass boost is also not very usefull (a channel eq is cleaner). That leave the exciter...ho hum..I like an eq better. Anyways the only use i could see for this box is for people who transfer casettes to cd, and don't have a computer with basic music utilities. I can't use it anywhere, don't buy one. get a decent compressor if you want some volume. For $79 i guess you wouldn't expect any better. I give it a 3 as for there has to be something worse out there.

none. I used it on the inserts to main mix on my mixer and the channel goes in and out, if the rack moved. I wiggle the cable at the ultramizers jack and it goes in and out. I open the unit and found hot glue and electrical tape holding the unit together. (I am serious!?)

n/a but the registration card has to be sent to germany (and they expect me to pay international postage)

3 i produce dance, compared to a normal compressor i give it a 0 because of the delay. The overall compression routines/soundquality make it not sutibale for recording maybe live performance. but you will have even more delay for your monitors! If it were stolen, i would track down who stole it and thank them. I do like the bass button (for the occasional bottom end for listening..not recording, and the display looks neat) I can only compare this to a dbx compressor i have, but to do that would be unfair and a waste of time. This definatly gets in the way of making music.

I'm not one to read manuals, so going right to work with this processor i had no problems with using it. I saved a patch without reading how. I suck at the whole compression thing, so with a few trys i got it down with this product.

Great quality! It adds some kick to a mix, the more practice with this processor the better my masters sound. I am using it for mastering my songs recorded in vegas and on a BR-8, and it sounds as good as going to a mastering house and paying $50 or more an hour for an engineer to master it.

Can't say, had no problems with it yet, and thats a good thing

again, i really cant say

I am working on progressive metal songs, and it does the trick. Before i got the ultramizer, i would spend hours using PC programs to get the right compression and now it can be done in minutes. I feel the only thing wrong with this processor is me, and lack of compression knowledge. I have used the finalizer by TC Electronics, and i feel the Ultramizer is up there with the finalizer in overall rating. The difference between the 2 is price, the cheap version of the finalizer is $999 and the ultramizer is only $90. I feel mastering engineers are still better, but not a whole lot better then the finalizer and the Ultramizer. Buy it, i know this is going to pay for itself with one song, a mastering engineer cost more for one song then this processor!

Well to be short, I had a hard time with the manual, and managed to get a really nice sound of it about 6 hours after starting to edit my own set.
I first tryed to configure it without the midi interface, but bought one because it was not that easy without it.
When you get the software and the MIDI interface, it is really simple and quick to set up, but without seems to me that it looks like a nightmare...
Anyway, I'll admit that everybody can afford one midi interface, and so can easyly configure it.

very good as soon as you are able to configure it correctly and your diffusion is enough strong to accept compression :)

not the first behringer product I buy, never had a problem with any..

Never had to contact it...
anyway good documentation and good software, and this is a part of the support..

only one person put bad feelings about that product on the net...

A product about 99 USD or Euros is really cheap and has a nice quality.
GET IT IT ROCKS...

I found it confusing at first, it was just a matter of how much time I spent messing around with it. After playing with it for about 2 days, I had it figured out quite well. The manual is good, and I was referring to it constantly to start. This is the first time I ever messed around with compression, besides a guitar pedal.

I like the way it sounds. I use it to master, and it does wonders to old cassette tapes. I found the denoiser to be useless when mastering tapes, so its a good thing my deck has noise reduction. Using to much compression can squash your sound, so you have to start low with all of the settings and work your way up to the max you can go without distorting the sound. Just as Behringer said, this thing adds punch. It could be easy to ruin your sound, but you just have to hold back and remember that you only paid $200-$300

I haven't had any problems yet, all my other behringer gear is rock solid. German built stuff is solid, just look at their cars. I wouldn't worry about a backup at a gig.

Never had to deal with them, which says good things of their products.

This works good for mastering, which is what I bought it for. Most of the time it really helps to beef up your tunes, other times not as much. The times that it doesn't do much to your mix, don't be mad, because it probably means that you did a good job of recording and mixing. The limiter really is nice, because it allows me to push levels to the max without worrying about clipping when mastering to digital. If it were stolen I would buy another.

Its pretty easy to use. The compressor settings are unusual, as it doesn't deal with millseconds and compression ratios, but after some tweaking you get used to it.

I've tried it on single instruments and on whole mixes, and it IS designed to be used on whole mixes, and thats what the manual mostly is about. Unfortunately, it sucks. This is mostly due to the compressor section. It is very hard to find any compression setting that doens't just make the mix sound worse. If it had been a three-band compressor it might have been useful, but as it is now, you will not be able to get any useful compression on a mix without getting pumping effects.
It works nicely on single instruments though, so if you have single instrument stereo sources it's useful.

The exciter part sounds good though, and exciters can be pretty expensive in themselves, so it's not all wasted money. However, the "bass exiter" to give more bass in sounds sucks too.

All in all, after tweaking and twaeking and finally getting as good sound as possible, when I hit the "bypass" button, every single time, the final mix has always sounded better without any processing at all.

No sweat. Works like a charm, but then I haven't used it much.

There are better stereo compressors than this, and as a mastering processor it totally sucks. It might work as an exciter, though. Buy something else.

Very easy to get the tracks kicking with it, good general presets.
Individual parameters can be edited easily, though at first glance editing is
a mystery.

Compared to price I paid (1200FIM) this unit sound great. It makes life
easier, I could do the same sound editing procedures on computer
that this unit makes, but it would take lots of time.With this unit I
can experiment more easily.

You can make this unit sound very ugly, but then - RTFM.

I haven't had it for very long now, but the jog wheel has become a pain
in the neck. Yes it works, but it kinda stucks on one position, so editing
is not very much fun.

Don't know, haven't tried yet.

Good. Gives extra kick to tracks just as advertised : )

Very easy to get full effects

Just Perfect !!!!!

I am a sound engineer for over 17 years in Greece and I have used all the Well Known Effects processors from Eventide to Fucusrite, Drawmer, TC Electronics, Lexicon PCM70, 80 ...... Behringer is Excellent and it very effective with a neutral sound without any hissin.

Try it and you will be amazed with it sound quality

Definately 10 points Excellent

The sound studio is the Best place to test and compare effects processors and also to see how this unit react on many different musical kinds from classical to jazz, pop, rock, synthesizer music, acoustic music etc.....

The Ultramizer DSP1400 pass all the Tests with a Distinction 10+++

This unit wiil add so much to your mix or live sound.

Put this unit between your desk or amp and watch your production quality to go through the roof.

You get audio quality that's comparable with very expensive studios and your music gets a much better hearing.

That really is a bargain !!!

Very easy - out of the box with a mixture of OTT presets (like "heavy pop") and very useful ones. With some fine tuning the Ultramizer can fix a mediocre cassette recording, using the denoiser and exciter carefully. Editing and saving patches is fairly easy, not saving them is a little harder.

The manual is a bit dry but includes basic guidance on use of the max level to achieve the promised result.

The free software is not bad but setting the Ultramizer to bulk dump its presets is a little fiddly. Also the data transfer received by the software had errors every time I used it, mainly in the crossover frequencies. I await version 2.0!

I am using it with my Tascam 8 track cassette on the main output at mixdown. I have used it specifically for mastering between my cd player (the mixdown) and cd recorder (the master). Also used on vinyl albums it can do a good job although bad scratches and clicks would the proper specialist treatment.

Very good quality sound and quite warm sounding. I have had some very good results already but...

I was looking forward to using the multiband compressor and limited whilst recording tracks. However the approx 30mS processing delay is hard to play with. But you can duplicate the tricks used for early guitar synths: patch the playback and virtual tracks through a delay, then mix in the live signal (i.e. before it goes into the Ultramizer). Yes I have worked out how to do it (for overdubbing mistakes add tape cue to the delayed mix) but I prefer to hear what is going onto tape. Now I will stick to my old analogue compressor for recording.


The Ultramizer is superb value for mastering (score 9) but the processing delay makes it less useful for recording (minus 1 if you don't have a compressor already).

Yes - quality piece of equipment at a good price. It is now hardwired into my studio rack and patchbay.

I have never contacted Behringer with a problem. The autocoms and ultrafex I have owned never gave me any problems.

I have been home recording for 10 years and using low ratio compression to create polished mixes. Occasionally I have been given mixes to clean up, i.e. "master," and a multiband compressor is ideal for these uses. With the Ultramizer's extra tools like exciter, sub bass processing, stereo enhancer, and denoiser, it is excellent for mastering. Well done Behringer!

However the Ultramizer's processing delay is a problem. Certainly the Ultramizer could not be used on subgroups at mixdown, even if some ingenuity allowed it to be used in track recording.

But for what it's designed to do, it's superb value for a home studio or similar.