Behringer VIRTUALIZER 3D FX2000 High-Performance 3D Multi-Engine Effects Processor, Silver and Black

INTRO I have had the Behringer FX2000 3D for 10 years now. I have played with it for many hours each day after work and on the weekends. I've used every single setting there is for all the effects. I figured out all the menu options pretty quickly, mostly without reading the manual. It's pretty easy to use for this type of effects box. It's so jam packed with effects and options. I love it. BUILD QUALITY The quality of the build is fantastic. I love the rubbery slip free feel of the knobs and I like the solid feel of the switches. It has durable metal housing also. It's built like a tank. I have had zero problems with this unit after 10 years of use. There are no software glitches. Everything works perfect and reliably 100% of the time. SOUND QUALITY The sound quality is really good for most of the effects. The pitch shift effect is the main exception to this (see below). I found the reverb and echo effects to be of very good quality. They sound realistic. There are quite enough options to keep me happy. I was able to get that cosmic mind blowing reverb some people seek, especially in the trance scene, by setting the reverb controls just right for the cathedral reverb effect. Other than the digital artifacts present in the pitch shift effect (see below), I found no noticeable noise for any effects except when using the distortion effects turned up pretty high (which is normal for a distortion unit). I love the distortion on this unit. There are tons of options allowing me to get just the right distortion style for a particular sound I'm looking for. The distortion effects are very good quality. Noise is only present when they are over used, just as is the case with real analog audio distortion units. I found the digital distortion to emulate analog distortion very well in many settings. SURPRISES One effect that surprised me was the sampler, which is not really an effect. It supports looping and overdubbing, which is quite handy when messing around live because it's so easy to use. It can also play in reverse, and at 1/2 the speed in either direction. While I do have digital recording equipment that can also do this, it's simpler and quicker to use the FX2000 for creating basic audio loops. I found that I use it quite a bit for this purpose. There's 1 additional multi-effect chain present in the distortion section called Vocal Distortion which is distortion + delay + flanger. This is a pretty useful multi-effects combination. Two other surprises are the Auto Panning and Tremolo effects when used with the Saw Down waveform option in conjunction with the Auto Modulation setting turned up all the way. This produces a rapid banjo-like strumming sound which increases in speed as the input volume level increases. Used with a synthesizer, this can produce a very interesting effect. COMPLEXITY Each effect has up to 6 controls that can be changed, and some control settings produce very dramatic changes in the effect. For example, the basic echo effect's control settings are a bit complex, more complex than most echo effects I've used in the past. It takes some getting used to. I would be very disappointed if it wasn't as complex as it is though. There are other simpler to use, less feature rich effects boxes out there, and for the less technically inclined they might be a bit overwhelmed by the many options available in the FX2000. But for people that love tweaking effects to get the exact combination they are looking for, this is a great effects unit. Some of the sound effects available are not obvious at first, and require tweaking to get them to be very useful musically. For example, the rapid banjo strumming effect requires going into the Tremolo effect's menu options and selecting the Saw Down waveform and turning up the Auto Modulation setting, producing a pretty awesome sound that's totally unlike a typical tremolo effect. NEGATIVES The one effect that was a bit disappointing was the pitch shift effect. I was hoping it might sound as real as the other effects, but it doesn't. It would be unbelievable actually if it did at this price, because realistic pitch shifting units are super expensive. Real time live pitch shifting effects require very intense processing power. This unit's pitch shifting is not accurate, producing very distinct digital artifacts as you shift up or down past 5 semi-tones. It can be used for some very interesting effects, but because of the digital artifacts which increase as you bend further up or down it's not that useful for a vocal harmonizer. It's got it's uses, but expect that if shifted too much it doesn't sound real and is not accurate. For example, if I play a pure perfect digital sine wave at middle C using a digital synthesizer and then I shift it up 1 octave using the FX2000, the sound it produces is no longer a pure sine wave. I can very clearly hear frequency beating in the sound wave as if there are two voices playing slightly off key from each other, even when just playing the single shifted sound from the FX2000 without the original middle C sound playing. Even when set to just shift 1 voice up 1 octave it always sounds like it's producing 2 voices shifted up 1 octave that are slightly off key from each other producing a beating effect. There is no way to get rid of the beating effect. The beating is very obvious when shifting 1 octave. It does sound pretty cool though as a digital sound effect. Sometimes a digital effect that's obviously digital can add a nice touch when used properly. The other disappointment is that you cannot create your own multi-effects chains. The multi-effects chains it can produce are presets only (i.e., delay+reverb, flanger+reverb, etc.). You can alter the parameters for them, change how they are ordered, but you cannot create your own effects chains. If you wanted tremolo+phaser, for example, there is no option for that effects chain. SUMMARY This unit is GREAT as an addition to any synthesizer. It's got some really good effects that none of my synthesizers have built in. I can get some pretty amazing mind blowing sounds from this unit when used in conjunction with my synthesizers. I highly recommend this to anyone using synthesizers who's familiar with tweaking complex effects, filters, LFOs, etc. This unit is almost like a super effects synthesizer without the oscillators and keyboard. I am VERY SATISFIED with this purchase. The FX2000 is truly a Swiss army knife effects box. It does a ton of things not found on other effects boxes. It does most of them very well and most of the effects sound realistic. The distortion alone is worth the price of this unit. But if you're looking for very realistic pitch shifting effect, you are better off buying units solely devoted to pitch shifting, and expect to pay MORE for that affect alone. A realistic sounding pitch shifter alone will cost about 5-10 times as much as this unit costs. Live real time pitch shifting requires a very high level of processing power in order to sound realistic. After owning this and using it several days a week regularly for over 10 years now, I haven't had a single issue with it. It works as well as the day I purchased it. All the knobs and buttons are all still in great condition. This is a really well made quality device, built like a tank. Highly recommended!

A/D Converters are getting better and better. This unit stays in the house, and we're getting two more. We've owned, tried, and sold almost all the sub-$1000 rack FX units on the market for guitar-- TC GMajor/etc., Digitech 1101s, Lexicon MXs, Voodu Valves-- they all mute and remove tube chime and tube tone in our tube guitar racks. I tried this on a whim as an effects pedal replacement, and it's the cleanest digital box we've put in the racks with our vintage tube gear. It's that nice. You'd have to go over a grand to beat the tone, in a rack format. It's got nicer conversion than the 96k DEQ2496. I assume that's just newness? I think it's just shy of the Eventide H9 as far as preserving tube characteristics at both low and high gain. Spectacular for the price. Issues: There is a slight delay when switching presets. I'll use this with MIDI looping for live off/on if I need realtime FX switching. Also, if you set this unit to follow MIDI Program Changes, it follows with Internal 1, Internal 2, etc. 0-99, and NOT with the user bank, 1-100 which is "bank 2". So by default it will NOT just follow Program Changes on your user-customized saved settings. It will only follow by default on the ROM presets, which is a drag. You can send a bank 2 command, or leave it on bank 2 / User / ROM when you power it off and on, etc.-- but some MIDI out will just kick it back to internal every Program Change. Even if you slave it to something that doesn't send default bank 1 Program Changes-- it has no way of selecting 0-99 instead of 1-100, so if you get it to stay on bank 2 / User / ROM, it will often be one numeral off. This is a throwback to lots of well-established professional keyboard gear, that has historically thought NOTHING of randomly putting user presets into higher banks, and forcing you to either get a MIDI event processor to manually add a bank 2 command to every Program Change, or programming a better floor controller to send multiple commands on Program Change to the MIDI channel the unit lives on. So, this was lazy and really unfortunate. You can fix the problem with a cheap MIDI Solutions event processor blackbox, or use a nice programmable controller to send custom Program Changes. So, that's what you live with, in exchange for pretty pristine amp tone, somehow magically coming through the damn thing. Really nice sound. Really old-school lazy MIDI implementation. The best digital ODs I've heard, great reverb (the presets are too much, tone them down) and a phenomenal auto-wah with multiple settings. I've even already found two nice univibe settings, which absolutely blow a pedal like the Shaky Jimi waaaaay out of the water.

Fantastic effects. Great unit. Doesn’t break the bank. Lush reverbs!

My Euro-Rack on-board effects module died a couple of months ago and I wanted to have a new hardware unit to replace it (rather than using plugins which are always lagging a bit). This box does the job, is very similar to the old on-board effects and has a little more flexibility in modifying the parameters of the effects. For me, very good value for the price, has pretty much alway for Behringer's products.

This thing is amazing. I hooked this up in parallel with a Behringer 31 frequency graphic equalizer connected to a Yamaha R-S700 receiver driving two Polk Audio TSi300 speakers and two old 80 watt Pioneer floor speakers (1980s vintage, but still functional) and the effects of the two working together are incredible. With 71 algorithms and 200 presets, which can all be custom edited to suit your tastes in sound and stored, you can create virtually any sound effect you desire. It does feature an equalizer effect and adjustable low cut, but its effect is nominal compared to the HD graphic equalizer so I don't use that, but there are 12 different edit modes so you can do virtually anything with it. Once adjusted, there is a Mix knob to increase or decrease the overall effect at a touch. It also has powerful output. I noticed very quickly I had to turn the gain down and there is a button select on the rear panel to go from +10db down to -4db which took care of the frequency clipping I noticed at higher volume settings initially. You do have to turn this on first and off last or you will get a pop through your speakers, but that isn't big deal. Given its functionality, it can't be beaten for the price.

I purchased this unit to function as a delay for my whole house stereo. The Zone 2 preout timing on my Denon receiver didn't quite match up with the 7.1 Main Zone. This is because Zone 2 on my Denon receiver (AVR-X2200W) can only pass analog signals (had to hook up RCA in addition to HDMI), so the processed digital signal lags slightly behind the straight analog signal. Since I couldn't seem to find a spec for this listed anywhere, I'll let you know that the MAX Stereo Delay is a whopping 5.499 seconds! This is adjustable in coarse (100ms) and fine (1ms) increments. I had a bit of trouble with the initial setup due to the cryptic instructions, so I figured I'd include some simple instructions on how to set a straight delay with NO echo: 1. Hook up the unit and power on (make sure amp power is OFF when you turn on the unit, else it will POP loudly) 2. Press the EFFECTS button 3. Turn the LARGE black dial clockwise until the screen shows DLAY (it's number 13 on the effects list, you shouldn't have to go far) 4. Turn the MIX knob all the way clockwise until it reads 100 (100% wet = full effects) 5. Press EDIT to change the light on the row with the 4 dials to show row [Edit E, Edit F, EQ LO, EQ HI] 6. Turn the first and second knobs (E and F) all the way counter-clockwise to zero (0) to eliminate all feedback (echo) 7. Press EDIT again to return the light on the row with the 4 dials to show row [Edit A,Edit B,Edit C,Edit D] 8. Use A and C to make coarse (100ms) adjustments to the output delay for each channel 9. Use B and D to make fine (1ms) adjustments to the output delay for each channel 10. Once you've tweaked to your heart's content, press the blinking STORE button 11. While the LCD display is flashing, select a user preset storage location using the LARGE black dial (i.e., U.001 - U.100) 12. Press STORE again to SAVE Note: Minor annoyance... The 1ms fine adjustment will NOT go past 99ms (it does not roll up to the next 100ms value). For example, if you are trying to go from 199ms to 212ms, you must use the coarse adjustment to move up to 299ms, then roll back to 212ms using the fine adjustment. Just for reference purposes, my perfect delay was 140ms. Yours will probably be different. I hope someone finds this helpful! EDIT: You may need to create different user presets for different sources on your receiver (if you have a setup like mine) due to the type of input connection, digital decoding, features like lip sync, and so on. The delay amount of 140ms was in reference to my CBL/SAT source.

I love the quality of sound voicing this unit performs

At this price point you really can't beat it. I have long been a fan of Behringer for delivering quality gear at a remarkably good price. The presets are good, but be sure to match up the right effects with the right instruments! Not all effects are intended for universal use. But if you know something about applying effects in general, this unit will be pretty straight forward and versatile. For my small home studio this is a perfect addition.