BehringerADA8200 Microphone Preamp

Item is exactly what it claims to be. Works beautifully as a slave to my Scarlet interface and allows me to run all of my drum mics while leaving the scarlet open for the guitar amp mics. I don’t have a need for the on board phantom power in my current setup but tested it and works flawlessly!

Absolutely amazing for the price. Be sure to buy two adat cables if you’re using it with a focusrite 18i20. Super easy to connect and lock. Feels a bit on the cheaper side. But does a great job and sounds good.

I'm a “one man band” Multi-Instrumentalist operating out of a well-equipped home studio, playing and recording each instrument individually. It's not unusual that one of my productions consumes 25 tracks or more.My previous recorder was a standalone Tascam DP-32SD. Although this is a great unit for home studio starters, following the actual recording I had to export tracks, transfer them to my PC via USB, then mix/master the completed song using my Windows-based DAW.While this worked okay, the process was getting to be quite the tedious hassle, not to mention the fact that REAPER (in my opinion, the best DAW on the planet) has so much more recording function than the Tascam standalone it's almost unbelievable. That said, I decided to purchase a Behringer UMC1820 and give direct-to-DAW recording a try.Man, the difference was like night and day, especially sampling at 48kHz/24-bit. Plus, all of the required post-processing work I previously discussed is now a thing of the past.The only remaining problem was, I use 8 drum microphones. This required cabling my mixer to one of the UMC1820 inputs to accommodate the 8th sub-kick drum microphone, and all other instruments. So, I took it a step further, purchased a Behringer ADA8200 and attached it to the UMC1820 as a slave using Toslink fiber cables, providing me with 8 additional inputs.I should note that Windows and REAPER immediately picked both interfaces up without the need to install any additional drivers whatsoever... They're truly plug-and-play.To avoid being redundant and going over all the features of these two excellent interfaces which are already listed on their product pages, I think it would be much more beneficial to continue discussing my personal experience with them, along with the end results.This configuration has allowed me to totally dedicate the UMC1820 to my drum microphones, and use the ADA8200 for all other instruments. I was also able to keep my mixer involved by cabling it to one of the inputs on the latter interface.I then topped the whole thing off by mounting them both in a “Procraft 2U 9" Deep Equipment Rack”. This is one super-high quality rack, and an incredible value:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CDG8QLI/The bottom line: Between these two interfaces I now have 16 MIDAS pre-amplified XLR/TRS inputs fed directly into my PC with all controls at my fingertips, sitting directly under my DAW displays (see photo). Most importantly, I'm able to take full advantage of REAPER's myriad of recording functions, which completely blow the Tascam standalone recorder away.If you're thinking about using direct-to-DAW recording, this combination absolutely can't be beat for the money. The only regret I have is, I'm kicking myself in the butt for not going to A/D interfaces long ago. Look up my latest song “May You Never” on SoundClick, and judge the sound for yourself.In closing, these Behringer interfaces have exceeded my wildest expectations. I can certainly say without hesitation they're deserving of my highest recommendation, and if I was able would rate them both at 10 stars in a heartbeat.

I was expecting problems-nope nothing bad at all-took all of 5 minutes to hook up and test it into my DAW. VST effect files and impulse response files sound great-not what I expected at all. I am a happy camper with 8 more mic inputs into my system. Five stars easy!

The first thing to understand is that this unit is NOT a pre-amp. It's an ADAT analog/digital/analog converter.So if you are buying this to act as a stand-alone pre-amp, make sure to order a short TOSLINK optical cable, so you can patch the ADAT ports together, to get the inputs routed to the outputs.I bought this because I needed an XLR splitter. I wanted to plug a microphone into the front and get an analog signal out the back, plus a digital signal out the ADAT port. this would allow me to route one microphone to two different computers.To make that work, I ended up having to use two optical cables and patch the ADAT inputs on my Scarlet interface back around to the ADAT outputs. Once I did that, I was able to use this to record through my Scarlet and connect the mic to an external mixer at the same time.I'd give this 5 stars if the unit actually had a way to route the input audio to the rear ports without needing a workaround.

I'm using this unit with a Focusrite Scarlett 1820 audio interface and it gives me an additional 8 channels via a single ADAT cable. Setting up was easy. Make sure you order an ADAT connector...this one works perfect although a bit pricey: just search B005LJQMZC. I am now able to have all my synths, drum machines, and an old rack TX81z hooked up ready to go when my fellow musicians show up each week. You can do quite a bit with 16 inputs total and although most get used up, it saves a lot of time to have them all set up by levels in Ableton Live with VST effects on each channel as needed. As to the sound? It sounds okay to me. I don't run a pro studio so I'm not going to spend my time and money looking for the pristine sounds of high end gear. The guys I play with just want to make music and enjoy and these extra inputs help with that. We've consistently made some very good-sounding songs. For the price it is just unbeatable. Now, my only gripe is that all the inputs are on the front so be prepared to have all those wires running across the front of the unit an partially blocking your view of each channel and the on/off switch and lights. I'm using velcro tie-downs to keep things in place. It's not a deal-killer but it's also not too cool. I would much rather have had inputs on back and controls for inputs in the front...then it would be perfect. So, I'm giving it a "5" since the price is just too good. But the real rating would be about a 4.5. Why quibble?