greetings earthlings I'm back with another interface / mixer review for you guys so today
I'm gonna be reviewing and walking through and explaining the behringer xenyx cue 1202 USB if
you are interested in this USB mixer it'll set you back about a hundred ten bucks on Amazon as per
usual link in the description and for this video I have the rode nt1 connected directly to the mixer
with the gain at 60% level at zero decibels EQ set to flat compression off I'll do no post-processing
to the audio but I may boost it and post so check the doobly-doo for that information now let's go
ahead and talk about what comes in this big box you're gonna get the mixer you silly bastard you
get the necessary USB cable you get the power cable you get some documentation and ah you can
freakin sticker as far as the specifications this thing has a bit depth of 16 bit a sampling rate
of up to 48 kilohertz a phantom power supply of plus 48 volts and the gain of plus 60 decibels
for the XLR input based on the mixers labeling or plus 40 decibels for the 6.3 millimeter input
based on the mixers labeling as far as the build quality it does feel pretty good for the price
tag the front and back panels are all metal while the sides are made out of plastic the dials are
all really nicely attached and they don't seem too loose and the XLR ports are slightly loose
but there's nothing out of the ordinary there now let's have an exercise in tedium as we walk
through every single feature on this mixer so first let's walk through the inputs and outputs
the first inputs we'll look at our channels one through four and each of these channels has either
an XLR input which allows to get 48 volt phantom power to your condenser microphone or it has a six
point three millimeter input for either balanced or unbalanced then you have inputs 5 through
12 which are made up of four sets of stereo six point three millimeter inputs which can be made
up of balanced or unbalanced and then over here you have a two-track RCA line input as well so
now let's go ahead and talk about the outputs and the first thing you're gonna find is an FX send
this allows you to send the signals that you're inputting into the board to an external processor
so you can actually add your own Distortion your own compressor or anything like that unfortunately
you don't have an FX return so if you did want to get the processed signal back into the board
you would have to take up some of your actual inputs next you have a phone's output which is
pretty self-explanatory that's where you plug your headphones you have a set of left-to-right main
outputs you have a set of 6.3 millimeter control room outputs and you have a set of RCA outputs now
let's jump into the meat and potatoes of this thing and that would be the controls so first
let's go ahead and cover channels one through four and although this does seem overwhelming just know
that each of these rows are the exact same so we're only going to cover a single row the first
thing you're gonna find below each channels input would be a game dial and this offers between plus
60 + + 60 for the XLR input or negative 10 through plus 40 for the 6.3 millimeter input then you're
gonna find a compression dial and we'll go ahead and slowly increase this to give you an idea of
how this impacts the sound and simply put this is going to bring up the quieter parts of whatever
you're inputting and decrease the louder parts to help with clipping and just keep everything
more consistent and more easy to deal with in post-processing then you have a 3 band EQ right
here for highs mids and lows as well as a low cut or high-pass filter the high EQ focuses around
12 kilohertz so we'll just go ahead and increase this so you can you hear how it affects the sound
and we'll go ahead and decrease this and show you how it sounds with a high frequency cut the
mid frequencies are focused around two-and-a-half kilohertz so let's go ahead and boost to that to
demonstrate what it sounds like with a bunch of boosted mids and we'll go ahead and cut the mid
so you can hear how it sounds in this setting and if the lows are focused around 80 Hertz so let's
go ahead and boost to that so you can hear what it sounds like and then we'll go ahead and roll
back and cut the low frequencies and then just to demonstrate the EQ is back to flat and let's
initiate the low cut filter and this is how it sounds with the low cut and wow that sounds really
bad next you have the FX send output and this is going to determine how much of this channel
signal is being sent to the 6.3 millimeter FX send output and this may actually be really useful if
you want to do a mix - next you have the pan dial and this is going to do exactly what you
expect it it can pan the input left or pan to the input right I just like to keep it dead center
because that makes sense and lastly you have the channel level I like to keep this at around 0 DB
so I'm not cutting and I'm not boosting and as I mentioned channels 2 through 4 are the exact
same so we won't be covering those so now let's go ahead and talk about the controls for channels
5 through 12 here are the controls for channel 5 & 6 7 & 8 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 and as you can
see it is a lot simpler and you'll lose a lot of the control you had on channels 1 through 4 first
you're gonna find the FX volume dial and this is going to adjust the amount of volume that's being
sent to the FX send output you find a gain button and while it is in the up position you have a plus
4 gain setting and when it is depressed it has a negative 10 DB gain setting then you have pan and
just like previously this pans at left or pans at right and lastly you have the level or volume so
now let's go ahead and jump to the main section the first thing you're gonna find is a phantom
power button this just turns on or off the phantom power that's being provided two channels one
through fours XLR ports then you have the master FX send volume this will just allow you to adjust
what's going to the FX send even more so now we have this very confusing and poorly designed USB
to track section so right now I have some music playing in iTunes but I can't hear anything
because both buttons are set to the up position if I press the first button down the two phones
slash control room I can hear what's going on in iTunes in my headphones but I am unable to monitor
my microphone so that makes it very useless in my opinion now both buttons are set back to the
up position and we have this two main mix button which is very confusing and poorly designed as
well so right now I still have music playing from my computer being sent through the mixer but I
can't hear it in my headphones now if I were to press this button down the two main mix I would
be able to hear what's being played through my computer but it wouldn't mute my microphone input
so I wouldn't be able to record anything so to me this button is completely useless and there
is no way to monitor what you're saying while listening back to the audio being played through
your computer and I did find a single solution to this problem it was presented by Ray Ortega and
I'll go ahead and link the video up in the upper right hand corner somewhere to help you see if
that's gonna work for you now one solution that I personally found for this issue is if you have a
dog that allows for input monitoring for instance right here the I if I click that now it's going
to play any audio that this mixer is putting to the software through my headphones unfortunately
this does create an additional issue though and that would be latency what I mean by that is it
takes a certain amount of time for the audio to go from your mixer into your computer through the
processing and back out to your headphones so you're not going to be hearing it at the exact
moment that you're speaking which may throw some people off if the latency is great enough okay
back to the walkthrough now then you have this FX to control room button and what this does is allow
you to check the mix that you're sending to the FX send so by pressing this down it lets me hear
what audio is being sent through the FX send output which is very useful if you're creating
a bus for a mix - or anything like that then you have a headphone slash control room volume control
which is very self-explanatory you have a main mix button which is going to control the output volume
being recorded as well as sent through the main outputs then you have a very limited volume meter
to give you some indication of the levels you're getting or if you're clipping you have a plus 48
volt phantom power light to let you know if the phantom power is turned on and you have a power
light to let you know if the mixer is plugged in and getting power so right now you can see
that my gain is set at around fifty percent I'm gonna drop this to zero and slowly increase it so
you can hear what kind of noise is generated by this interfaces preamp about 25 percent
about 50 percent about 75 percent and about 100 percent ASMR are a bit now I have Logic
Pro open so we can check the latency so with an i/o buffer size of 256 samples we have a
round-trip latency of 18 and 1/2 milliseconds if we cut it down to 128 we're at 12 and a half and
if we cut it down to 64 we're looking at just under 10 milliseconds now to demonstrate how
much gain the cue 1202 USB can offer I now have the shure sm7b connected directly to the mixer
because this is a notoriously quiet microphone my input gain on that channel is set to about 90
or 95% I have kept the level at 0 decibels and this is the level we're actually getting I will
not boost it in post so although this mixer does have a lot going for it considering the
price there are some pretty serious flaws that almost ruin it for me as far as the pros this
thing is just relatively cheap considering what you get the build quality is pretty dang nice
for the price tag you're getting quite a lot of features for your money you have 12 channels of
input and the gain on channels 1 through 4 is pretty ridiculous it can even drive the shure
sm7b and then in terms of cons the inability to monitor your inputs while also hearing the
computer playback is a pretty serious design flaw and also the fact that everything is mixed down to
a single stereo output is also a drawback in my book but with all that being said I think this
still is a pretty good option for certain people and the main group of people that I think this
mixer is for is likely going to be podcasters because typically when you're podcasting you
don't need to monitor your computer's output you only need to monitor what's going into the mixer
but on the other hand if you're a musician you absolutely need to be able to have zero latency
monitoring of your inputs while also hearing the computers playback so you can record multiple
tracks so if you're a musician this is not gonna work for you at all alright guys I guess that'll
do it for today if you found this video full-on interesting your health well go ahead and give
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description and I will see you all on a Friday thanks for watching and checking it out bye