New Gear -- Behringer X2222USB

Disco Bots end of the season party was tonight at my place, and while I was setting up I found myself in need of a new board (the one I use for video, an old Radioshack, seems to have kicked the bucket) so I flew on over to Evans planning to pick up a smaller Behringer personal mixer.

As you can probably tell, that didn't happen. Evans was having a sale, and this model was priced fairly reasonably, I figured you can always mute channels but you cant (easily) add more, so I pulled the trigger. This particular model has 8 mono channels with preamps and four stereo channels, the real kicker however is the built in USB sound card routed to the tape in and out.

The USB feature will be so useful for me in both the environments I work in. Obviously having built in USB in a broadcast application is great because it means I can plug the mixer straight into the computer I'm broadcasting from without another interface, The mixer also has built in effects (including delay) which will make syncing audio to video a cinch. For live sound I get a direct channel to Adobe Audition to record, and I can play standby/background from my laptop with the touch of a button on the mixer (and without losing a channel on the board.) Behringer has always been one of the first to integrate features like this into their product lines. They make cheap, lower end gear, but to stay relevant in the market they pack it full of features like built in effects and compressors. A USB interface like this is a no brainer, all it is is a cheap USB sound card attached to tape in and tape out, but it still adds an awesome feature to an already great board.

So far it looks like behringer knocked this one out of the park.  I've had issues getting the software to install, but it is recognized fine by Adobe and Garage Band. Once I put this guy to use on a more serious gig I'll be able to comment further on performance but so far I'm super excited!