Behringer C-2 Reviews

3.9/5.0 based on 6 customer reviews

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Customer Reviews

from Miami, FL
February 10, 2013Music Background:
Jazz guitarist / Arranger / Producer

Great for recording classical guitar

Excellent mic to record classical guitar.

mike whitehead
from Thomaston maine.
March 28, 2012Music Background:
Performer and home studio.

behringer c-2

An amazing mic at any price! Well consrtucted, easy to use. If you don't
like them it means you got a faulty pair. Great anywhere you need a small
diaphragm condenser.

Alan Ramirez
from Chicago
January 31, 2013Music Background:
Recording engineer, live sound engineer, musician, composer

The biggest bang for buck you'll ever get

I needed an extra pair of small diaphragm mics and I picked these for the price because they were recommended by a teacher who knew budget was tight. I've used these on live application and for live recording. They are crisp, clean, and true. I haven't noticed any noise only because I'm not trying to record bossa nova or acapella. I've used these for drum overheads, Hammond organ (top end), and sax. Trust me you will not be disappointed, and your wallet will be happy.

Accidental SoundMan
from Stockton, CA
October 4, 2012Music Background:
Live Sound,Musician

Nice at this price point

Nice set of condensor mics, I've yet to try them with my set up, but a friend who has been doing sound for 20 years or so did a Park concert series had a set.very handy,So I have seen them used quite a bit and looking forward to useing them with my own band and set up.

He used them from hi-hat to,ride cymbals to micing a group of barbershop quartets,Might be fine as overheads, or an acoustic instrument or two.
like I said at this price point its a nice package and good to have for variouse situations.

Only draw back I know of is getting ahold of Mic clips might be difficult, so dont lose them.

Tony Kosinec
from Toronto
March 15, 2012Music Background:
Broadcast & film sound specialist

Mic Madness You Say?

A few months ago I started researching, trying to see if in fact there were ANY cheap entry level interior dialogue mics that could serve the film school student and unemployed :-) indie film maker.

I see tons of questions on pro sound forums about cheap mics that might get the basic job done. The stock answer from many pros is “forget about it. It's not a Schoeps. Save up and buy the industry standard or rent”
I don’t see how that helps.

I had heard some good things in music recording circles about the second edition of an instrument mic called the C-2 which was designed by Behringer and built in China at the 797 mic company.

OK guys I’ll give you moment or two to swear your distain for all things Behringer… done?

Well out of curiosity I ordered a set of these online and determined to test the C-2 against my Schoeps CMC. Madness you say? Actually it's a subjective evaluation based on experience and professional preference. There was no serious contest but definite surprises.

Test One
First I connected both to a pristine John Hardy solid state mic pre amp and recorded some close up voice into Pro Tools through an Apogee converter in order to get an idea of the C-2 as a vocal reproducer, something it wasn't designed for.

I'd been using the Schoeps with the MK41 capsule that way lately to record a talking book and chose it over any of my large diaphragm condensers or shotguns because of its natural warmth and rendition of midrange minus the hype and bite. An audio book is nothing but voice, and a listener needs to be able to hear comfortably for hours. The reader should sound rich but still the effect must be transparent; letting the listener focus on the author's art, rather than the narrator's instrument.

Aftrer recording I did some critical listening. To my ears the Schoeps has 4 distinct qualities in the midrange, the Behringer has two and something else. What the C-2 did capture of the mids,while less detailed, sounded quite acceptable and unlike most Chinese built mics the high end was smooth! - not really accurate but definitely not a problem, actually pleasing: seeming to add a little something to the definition of upper mids. Its proximity effect rounded out the bottom but not much. The pickup pattern rejected far more ambient sound and the self-noise is so low that the voice to room ratio was considerably better than the CMC. This is understandable considering that the C-2 doesn't have near the sensitivity of the Schoeps, but the almost non existent self-noise really helps what it does capture seem to jump forward.

Test Two
But that’s not the important test. What’s more relevant is how they compare on a boom under conditions closer to a student film production. So I set them up in a small boinky sounding room at the same distance overhead with similar input levels and recorded speech onto an H4n using it’s built in mic preamps. One thing I noticed right away is the Behringer and Schoeps have the same low handling noise characteristics. When I brought the tracks into Pro Tools there was another surprise.

Of course both come across noisier and less sensitive due to the mic pres. The Schoeps was still rich, detailed and well balanced giving me a sense of the room and the person in it without the boink. In an edit I might apply a very small amount of NR to take back noise introduced by the H4n depending on the context of the scene. With the C-2 the voice was less detailed though well enough defined while lacking a natural bottom. It was more affected by the recorder’s noise because of its weaker reach but still produced a good voice to room relationship and it too cut the boink. It managed to capture some sense of place and surprisingly the frequency response did not sound uneven or that radically different from the CMC – it sounded, how shall I say… similar but less than, whereas an AKG Blueline has more detail but sounds very different. After adding a small amount of EQ and NR the C-2 dialogue made it into the acceptable category. I’ve heard worse from top notch equipment.

Conclusion: The C-2 is dead cheap (almost free) and gets the job done.

Schoeps CMC6 & MK41 capsule $2000.00
Behringer C-2 hypercardioid $32.00

David Turner
from Michigan
November 1, 2011Music Background:
recording, live sound, church sound, musician

The noise in these will make you cringe.

I purchased these with the idea that I might use them in recording a choir that I have a regular gig recording with. Immediately I noticed a low-end noise that was persistent in both mics and on all switched settings on the mics. Luckily I had my normal mics on hand to save me.

Behringer C-2

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