Behringer Digital Pro Mixer DDM4000

ryan
June 11, 2009

Rating: 10/10

I think every1 else has coverd most things here! i will just say that this is a excellent mixer with amazing sound quality....

behringer could have charged closer to £500 and i would still have bought it!!!

you wont get a better mixer for less money!

Iain Kay
December 8, 2008

Rating: 10/10

The Behringer DDM4000...what can I say...
For £260 you could probably settle for a cheaper 8 channel mixer but with this available who would want to?
The audio quality is utterly sublime with the full digital processors making hum a thing of the past, even when hooked up in a club/larger sound system. (Obviously I would still recommend a ground loop isolator when using a laptop running off AC power.)
It feels not too heavy but heavy enough to be a decent build and the knobs + faders feel securely in place.
The sampler really packs a punch and works great with the Auto BPM feature. If you\'re mixing anything commercial it\'s unlikely you will have any problems with this but manual bpm set up may be necessary for some genres especially Drum&Bass and Hardcore.
Once you\'ve got your BPM setup you can easily sample 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 beat loops by simply choosing when to start or you can choose to manually hit start and stop defining the loop length that way. Then you can insert the sample to any channel of your choice and use the crossfader or channel faders to mix it in.
It also comes with lots of effects which you can use on any of the channels, using a max of any 2 at once. I\'ve not had a lot of time to play with these but the bit crusher is really great, easy to make some cool sounding cut outs especially coupled with the echo on the mix out.
But all of this means nothing until you touch the midi setup! This can act as a fully programmable controller for Traktor 3, Ableton Live, Reason, anything that will support midi! Whilst it doesn\'t have a USB port, it does have midi in, out and thru ports. You can pick up a USB to Midi cable or a midisport 1x1 which will hook this up to a laptop and for minimal prices. Once it\'s hooked up you will find it comes ready to use with Traktor and has presets already made. Of course over time you will probably want to change these and make your own but they are a great starting point.
You really can take this out the box, plug it in and add the presets to traktor then this is ready to go.

Personally, if you have the dispoable money this still won\'t beat the Allen & Heath Xone 3/4D but for the price tag it really does everything it needs to and more. It\'s a fully digital mixer, a midi controller and a very high quality effects box.

August 31, 2008

Rating: 10/10

I N D E X


1 - First Impression


2 - Quality (Built & Sound)


3 - Conclusion





1. First Impression

1.1 Size

My first Impression was woooooow! I’ve used a smaller mixer before, so the DDM4000 will be a lot larger than the stuff you might have used before. In the end, it’s a 4 Channel Mixer, packed with hundreds of features, so I think the size is justified.

1.2 Weight

For a mixer that size it is incredibly light! 4.2 kg is not much - when you lift it it feels like you’re carrying your shoes around, believe me, it’s light as a feather !

1.3 First Glimpse

Again, Wooohoo! So many knobs, buttons, faders, all conveniently placed within different “sections”, it’s like India from space! They even included a LCD Screen with Backlight! Switch off your room lights and the baby lights up like a christmas tree, shiny shiny! One problem though (our first), the Status light of the Mode Selector for the EQs is way too bright, if you’re mixing in the dark it really blinds you! You can barely see the other controls around the area since these tiny LEDs are right in your face bright. That’s a con! Also, having the Headphones Jack on the TOP of the Unit is simply stupid, you always have your cable hanging all over the unit, not Good!


2. Quality (Built & Sound)

2.1 Knobs

As my first impression I have to say that most of the Knobs turn easily, unfortunately very few of them have this small resistance when you zero them in (to let you know the Knob is at the ZERO Postion), which is irritating because if your mixing and you turn your EQs back to 0 you’re never really sure if they are at Zero already or not - Not Good at all! Also, the knobs don’t feel heavy, yes, it’s plastic, but they turn really nice and are precise, and that’s all that counts!

2.2 Faders

Faders are amazing! Since this is a digital Mixer, all Faders are digital, giving them more life expectancy and more precision, which is awesome! Both thumbs up! Incredibly precise, a good feeling to them, what else do I want! You can even set each Volume fader into 3 modes: Sharp / Mid / Soft, which determines how fast and how much sound they cut out and in if you move them. Works like a charm.

2.3 Buttons

Made out of plastic as well, but hell, they are solid, very precise, and only require one push to activate! Awesome!

2.4 LCD Screen & Built-in Menu

As already mentioned above, the screen comes with Backlight (duuuh xD), which is not too bright or too weak, it’s just perfect. The Contrast can be adjusted in the Settings, you can set it up the way you want to. Overall, crystal clear Screen with good and easy to understand Menu Structure. Again, Thumbs up!

Another cool thing is that you can save different user settings, so if you have different DJs in a club using this mixer, each of them can always save, load and edit his own profile in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, there is one problem: for each effect section you need to assign a channel (this can be CH 1-4 or the Master), this works great, but this option doesn’t get saved in the user settings, so every time you load your profile you need to set these settings again. Well, once you know how to do it it’s fairly easy and can be quickly done, but still a nuisance.

2.5 Effects

There are 9 effects in the unit, each with various parameters:

- Flanger

- Phaser

- Pan

- Delay

- Echo

- Pitch

- Bitcrusher

- Reverb

- Filter

The effects all sound amazing, they are all beat syncable, and have many parameters you can tweak - some of them are still a mystery to me, but I’ll get there! Controlling the effects is simple, all corresponding menus have a nice structure and make perfect sense. It takes a while to get used to though!

2.6 Mixer Sound Quality

For me, the sound quality is simply impressive. Clear highs, clear lows, clear everything! If you use the kill buttons to cut off various frequencies (Lows & Highs for example) you think it’s part of the song, so impressive!

2.7 Mic Quality

Haven’t tested that yet, won’t be needing it, but I’ve read that the Mic Gains are sometimes over-sensitive, resulting in great volume jumps? Couldn’t confirm that!

2.8 MIDI

Almost every single button is Midi Mappable, that includes all the faders + the Crossfader - the entire Midi Setup is very easy to configure, once you\'ve connected the unit to your MIDI Interface you can just use the LEARN Function in e.g. NI Traktor DJ. Another Job well done!


3. Conclusion

I think you already get the idea, this baby rocks! It retails at roughly 250 pounds in the UK and for $399.99 in the US, for that price you get an extremely versatile mixer with a lot of power and quality, both sound and built. If you’re looking for a decent mixer, or want to kick Traktor up a notch, I can only recommend this little baby! It does have a few downsides, yes, but these are minor sacrifices you will be able to make or fix!

Therefore: RECOMMENDED! 5/5

August 31, 2008

Rating: 10/10

I N D E X


1 - First Impression

2 - Quality (Built & Sound)

3 - Conclusion





1. First Impression

1.1 Size

My first Impression was woooooow! I’ve used a smaller mixer before, so the DDM4000 will be a lot larger than the stuff you might have used before. In the end, it’s a 4 Channel Mixer, packed with hundreds of features, so I think the size is justified.

1.2 Weight

For a mixer that size it is incredibly light! 4.2 kg is not much - when you lift it it feels like you’re carrying your shoes around, believe me, it’s light as a feather !

1.3 First Glimpse

Again, Wooohoo! So many knobs, buttons, faders, all conveniently placed within different “sections�, it’s like India from space! They even included a LCD Screen with Backlight! Switch off your room lights and the baby lights up like a christmas tree, shiny shiny! One problem though (our first), the Status light of the Mode Selector for the EQs is way too bright, if you’re mixing in the dark it really blinds you! You can barely see the other controls around the area since these tiny LEDs are right in your face bright. That’s a con! Also, having the Headphones Jack on the TOP of the Unit is simply stupid, you always have your cable hanging all over the unit, not Good!


2. Quality (Built & Sound)

2.1 Knobs

As my first impression I have to say that most of the Knobs turn easily, unfortunately very few of them have this small resistance when you zero them in (to let you know the Knob is at the ZERO Postion), which is irritating because if your mixing and you turn your EQs back to 0 you’re never really sure if they are at Zero already or not - Not Good at all! Also, the knobs don’t feel heavy, yes, it’s plastic, but they turn really nice and are precise, and that’s all that counts!

2.2 Faders

Faders are amazing! Since this is a digital Mixer, all Faders are digital, giving them more life expectancy and more precision, which is awesome! Both thumbs up! Incredibly precise, a good feeling to them, what else do I want! You can even set each Volume fader into 3 modes: Sharp / Mid / Soft, which determines how fast and how much sound they cut out and in if you move them. Works like a charm.

2.3 Buttons

Made out of plastic as well, but hell, they are solid, very precise, and only require one push to activate! Awesome!

2.4 LCD Screen & Built-in Menu

As already mentioned above, the screen comes with Backlight (duuuh xD), which is not too bright or too weak, it’s just perfect. The Contrast can be adjusted in the Settings, you can set it up the way you want to. Overall, crystal clear Screen with good and easy to understand Menu Structure. Again, Thumbs up!

Another cool thing is that you can save different user settings, so if you have different DJs in a club using this mixer, each of them can always save, load and edit his own profile in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, there is one problem: for each effect section you need to assign a channel (this can be CH 1-4 or the Master), this works great, but this option doesn’t get saved in the user settings, so every time you load your profile you need to set these settings again. Well, once you know how to do it it’s fairly easy and can be quickly done, but still a nuisance.

2.5 Effects

There are 9 effects in the unit, each with various parameters:

- Flanger

- Phaser

- Pan

- Delay

- Echo

- Pitch

- Bitcrusher

- Reverb

- Filter

The effects all sound amazing, they are all beat syncable, and have many parameters you can tweak - some of them are still a mystery to me, but I’ll get there! Controlling the effects is simple, all corresponding menus have a nice structure and make perfect sense. It takes a while to get used to though!

2.6 Mixer Sound Quality

For me, the sound quality is simply impressive. Clear highs, clear lows, clear everything! If you use the kill buttons to cut off various frequencies (Lows & Highs for example) you think it’s part of the song, so impressive!

2.7 Mic Quality

Haven’t tested that yet, won’t be needing it, but I’ve read that the Mic Gains are sometimes over-sensitive, resulting in great volume jumps? Couldn’t confirm that!

2.8 MIDI

Almost every single button is Midi Mappable, that includes all the faders + the Crossfader - the entire Midi Setup is very easy to configure, once you\\\'ve connected the unit to your MIDI Interface you can just use the LEARN Function in e.g. NI Traktor DJ. Another Job well done!


3. Conclusion

I think you already get the idea, this baby rocks! It retails at roughly 250 pounds in the UK and for $399.99 in the US, for that price you get an extremely versatile mixer with a lot of power and quality, both sound and built. If you’re looking for a decent mixer, or want to kick Traktor up a notch, I can only recommend this little baby! It does have a few downsides, yes, but these are minor sacrifices you will be able to make or fix!

Therefore: RECOMMENDED! 5/5

Stenchman
May 13, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Very good bit of kit amazing value for money, only slight niggles is the crossfader is a bit stiff so not really suitable for scratch use (altho this isnt really the market that the mixer is aimed for) and it can be quite fiddly to change between fx programs which means u need a bit of practice before u can get really creative with it. apart from that tho quality buy very happy with it

Jay
April 3, 2008

Rating: 10/10

The DDM4000 is an amazing bit of kit. Hands down its the best mixer to come from behringer ever, considering the price, this beast is actually really good quality and packs some serious features.

Its fully digital so all EQ's can be tweaked and the effects and sample features are really well made. Every effect can be customised to generate a truly different experience. Im really happy with it, i think its perfect for DJ's who ant afford to spend £1000 on pioneer stuff!

buy one!

dal808
March 26, 2008

Rating: 9/10

It's a brilliant mixer for the price. Loads of useful features with lots of configuring available through the display menus - if you're a performing dj in the middle of playing a long track, there's plenty of tweaking that can be done to make you look busy - from many sound effects to 2 bank sampler and all the usual tone controls, it's great fun to use and you'll look the part. Build quality is good and probably all the outputs at the rear you'll ever need(including midi). The bottom line really is the cost - it's a lot of kit for a very, very resonable price. You can't go wrong with the DDM4000 - I recomend it.

Chris
March 6, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Awesome piece of kit, wipes the floor with any similar priced mixer. Its a beast, with many extra's that other DJ mixers don't have. The faders feel mint, the effects work like a dream, Sampling is made easy with the controls provided.
The BPM counters are spot on, counters that actually work how they should. The service provided by dolphinmusic was untouchable, It was delivered in under 28 hours at a price which not many other T'internet company's can match!
Cheers very much dolphin, i'll defo use ya site again! Chris.

jamie cole
March 6, 2008

Rating: 10/10

well where do i start this product was well worth the wait absolutly amazing bit of kit a must for any dj as this will complete your setup lots of functions and buttons to play with so that will keep your fingers busy and an added bonus its compatible with traktor dj software which you get a demo off to try out with this mixer well 10/10 from me many thanks guys