Focusrite Vs Behringer Audio Interface Comparison with Audio Examples

behringer make one of the cheapest audio interfaces available and focusrite make one of the most popular audio interfaces which one's right for you and why does one of them cost twice as much when it's not necessarily twice as good hi i'm ed from edthorne.com here to help you make the most out of your home studio and i hope this video finds you well in this video we're going to be comparing the behringer umc 202 hd with the focusrite scarlet 2i2 let's get straight into the audio comparison and see how they sound to help me with this i have my friend simon caviani who performed an acoustic version of his song decaffeinated love to help us demonstrate these two interfaces in action i've mixed this track using the free focusrite plugins that come with the scarlet interface to give you an idea of the sounds you can create with that bundle i'll talk more about the free plugins that come with the scarlet later on in the video now i'm not going to tell you which audio is which interface but i want you to have a guess which one is better leave your thoughts in the comments below and i'll reveal this later on in the video [Music] one time we used to shine like the night sky like exploding suns up there so bright we never needed a blue sky you're my decaffeinated love giving me everything you've got it's never enough you're trying but i'm afraid i just don't buzz i don't feel much [Music] [Applause] i didn't have air mode selected on the focusrite for this recording because i wanted it to be a fair comparison without any additional eq trickery giving the scarlet an advantage air mode is a feature on the scarlet interface that imposes an eq curve onto the signal based on the classic focusrite isa preamps this adds up to four decibels to the frequency response in the higher register this is similar to the legacy 4k mode on the ssl interface this does sound good and if you'd like to hear a side-by-side comparison with air mode on and off on acoustic guitar and vocals and also a side-by-side comparison with the scarlet's largest sibling the claret click on the link for this video in the description below links to buy all the products featured in this video are in the description below these are affiliate links so i do make a small commission on eligible sales but this is at no extra cost to you this is a great way to support the channel and you still get the same great deals on the vocals i think the bearing just sounds a little cold i think the scarlet sounds a little bit fuller and warmer you're my decaffeinated love giving me everything you've got it's never enough you're trying but i'm afraid i just don't buzz i don't feel much as you can see we use the short sm58 to record the vocals here with one microphone going into each interface to hear how this microphone compares to three other classic studio mics check out this video you'll also notice that we used a pop shield in front of the microphones a pop shield is designed to reduce plosives which are our butt and purse sounds and i highly recommend using one when recording vocals i use the k m one and there's a link for that below as well moving on to the acoustic guitar as you can hear from the scarlet track examples the condenser mic is picking up generic background noise mostly my computer from being in the same room but this is nothing out of the ordinary [Music] the phantom power on the behringer though introduces a lot of low end noise now this can be reduced with a high pass filter but this is not ideal [Music] [Music] now i'm surprised to hear a difference between the jack inputs i assume these would be identical but as you can hear on the behringer it just sounds a little bit muffled [Music] um all right i can reveal the interface one was the focusrite scarlet and interface two was the behringer which one did you think sounded best leave your thoughts in the comments below both devices record at a bit depth of 24 bits and a sample rate of up to 192 kilohertz if you're unsure what these numbers mean exactly click on the link for this video in the description below both devices are usb powered with xlr and jack instrument line combination inputs 48 volts phantom power for your condenser mics quarter inch jack output for your monitors and some form of direct monitoring direct monitoring is a feature most audio interfaces have now which enables you to blend your input signal with your door input signal so you can monitor what you're recording with minimal latency this feature bypasses the round trip it takes to go from your microphone into your audio interface into your computer back out into your audio interface and then into your headphones which often causes latency both these devices assume the role that input one is left and input two is right on your direct monitoring so if you plug your vocals into input one it will only come out of your left side and if you plug your guitar into two that will come out of your right side this can't be altered on the behringer but the scarlet has a neat little trick to get round this you'll see there's a mono and a stereo button pressing the mono button means that both signals come out of both headphones at the same time in mono mode and stereo means that it goes back to the traditional left and right monitoring if you have both of these off you will not get any direct monitoring on the focusrite speaking of headphone monitoring let's compare the headphone outputs in my recent video comparing 10 audio interfaces under 300 the scarlett was one of the worst performing in terms of headphone output volume it's a decent sounding output and it boasts an output of 104 decibels but it's just not very loud even with my austrian audio headphones which are 25 ohms the behringer however has a ridiculously loud headphone output much to my surprise in terms of sound quality they're both very similar here if you're finding this video useful please hit the like button it does help you to recognize the video and that helps the channel grow and i really appreciate your support let's move on to the monitor outputs and this is something i nearly forgot to check but i'm glad i didn't the scarlet monitor outputs are loud the behringers are perfectly acceptable you're not going to miss out on anything by getting this device but the scarlet was so loud i was actually i was quite surprised now in terms of sound again they're very similar but i think the scarlet just sounds a little bit warmer and a little bit fuller through my monitors now i find it strange that focusrite have prioritized the monitor outputs over the headphone outputs this is the opposite on the behringer and i think behringer have this priority the right way around the preamps on most low-cost audio interfaces introduce noise towards the top 10 percent of their gain input range and this is no different on these two devices the scarlet has an input gain range of 56 decibels which really translates into only having 50 decibels of clean input gain now if you're running a microphone such as an sm7b unless you're a really powerful singer close to the microphone you are going to struggle for game with that microphone this is marginally better on the behringer but if you do want to use an sm7b i suggest using a cloud lifter the jack input on the behringer again to my surprise is far hotter than that on the scarlet to the point where i had to use the pad button to attenuate the signal from simon's d-eyed electric guitar the scarlet has a traffic light input gain halo meter displaying signal detection input clipping and overload in comparison the behringer only has a green light for signal and a red light for clipping which i find a little bit limiting i much prefer the traffic light system on the scarlet so far the performances of both of these interfaces has been very similar so what justifies the extra 100 expense of the scarlet well the scar is supplied with a whole host of additional software and plugins which actually makes this interface quite good value for money it comes with the pro tools focusrite creative pack with a collection of samples and loops ableton like live a three month subscription to splice which is a royalty-free loop library xln audio addictive keys which is what i use for my piano sounds when i'm demoing songs the soft tube time and tone bundle and a selection of scarlet compressors and general plugins you find natively in most daws the bearing doesn't come with any free software however pro tools first is available for free for mac users and for pc users there are plenty of free daws available including cakewalk by bandlab which seems to be very popular all right those are the pros and cons of both of these interfaces are you considering getting one which one do you think you'll get let me know in the comments below a big thank you to stefan marinov who's a bass player friend of mine who's kindly lent me the behringer interface for this video today he runs a channel called the baseball if you're a bass player go and subscribe to that channel stefan is a monster bass player and you're going to learn loads from his channel a big thank you to simon as well for coming in and performing for us to demonstrate these interfaces in action check out his social links in the description below he's got some really catchy songs thank you for watching please consider subscribing if you haven't already for more reviews and comparisons and content coming out weekly stay safe and i'll see you all on the next one

Channel: Ed Thorne Music Production

Views: 105,390

Keywords: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Vs Behringer UMC202HD Audio Interface Comparison, focusrite scarlett, focusrite scarlett vs behringer, focusrite scarlett 2i2 vs behringer umc202hd, focusrite scarlett vs behringer umc, focusrite vs behringer, focusrite vs behringer interface, behringer vs focusrite audio interface, best budget audio interface for home recording, best cheap audio interface for home recording, cheapest audio interface for home recording, ed thorne, best audio interface

Id: ZcXOoXdQ9Z8

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020