Behringer BCF2000

Behringer gets a bad rap. Every audio forum I've ever browsed has a contingency of posters that love to trash this company. Ok, ok, it's not like they have no reason to, but I'd be willing to bet that many of them haven't owned a piece of Behringer gear in the last year or so.
I on the other hand own three Behringer pieces and am very happy with two of them. Today I'd like to tell you about the BCF2000.
For those who don't know, this is billed as a MIDI control surface. It's pretty simple. It consists of 8 motorized faders, 8 endless rotary encoders (with push button feature), 2 assignable buttons per track, and another dozen or so assignable buttons. It connects to your computer either via MIDI cables or USB. All for a street price of $199. Nothing like it on the market for even twice that price.
I won't vouch for it as a straight up MIDI controller, but I do have experience with it in the ProTools realm. In fact, I have three of them giving me 24 motorized faders and rotaries to control my PTLE system. And I couldn't be happier.
I did a lot of research before buying them and found a lot of negative feedback aimed at Behringer in general but nothing about the BCF2000 itself. So again, I took a leap of faith and bought one. For the price, it was worth the risk. Man did it pay off! Within a week I had ordered two more to give me 24 faders for under $600 which is less than half of the Tascam unit I was considering and still 25% cheaper than ONE bank of 8 faders using Mackie control.
It took a bit of work and manual reading (imagine that, reading the manual!), but I got all three working via USB and have been happily using them hiccup free for a year.
There are only two real complaints I have about this unit. 1) Because there is no scribble strip, it can be hard to tell which track you're adjusting. But I can count, so I have overcome this issue. 2) The motors that move the faders are not quiet. To the point that if you have a one-room studio and automate a fader movement while recording a really quiet part and you're near the faders, you may hear them. Again, not something that was a deal breaker for me. I don't automate until the mix usually.
They work well with PTLE and give transport, send, pan, and record enable functionality in addition to the faders. Like I said, I couldn't be happier.
Check out the DUC and search for the BCF2000 for my many posts on the subject there. I knew that I couldn't find any info before I bought so I thought I would help out other people considering it.

Listening to a Pandora station based on Alexi Murdoch right now. It always fits this time of night for me.

Rock on

Ben