Hey guys, sorry about the delay. Check out my little videos above. I did get to play around with the 606 for about a week, but ultimately had to return the mixer. Something was wrong with the mixer right out of the box. The right side filter frequency knob didn’t work correctly, it seemed to jump to full cut at random spots when turning the knob. Probably a bad potentiometer. The left side’s filter worked fine though, but I use filters pretty religiously so only having one working filter was something I couldn’t accept.
Overall though I did like the 606 and what it had to offer. Obviously it’s a clone of the Xone:92. Pretty much button for button, knob for knob. So if you’ve ever played on the 92 you’ll feel right at home. Pretty much same features and functions, with the inclusion of the FX. Unfortunately though, and probably pretty obvious being a Behringer, it’s no where near the quality of the 92.
Despite it’s size, the mixer is light as a feather, much like the DDM-4000. I did open the mixer up to take a peak inside, and again like the DDM-4000, it’s just one big, but thin PC board, and not much else. I think the rack mount ears included in the box weigh more than the mixer itself. The top faceplate is a nice sturdy metal, however, I found the edges to be very rough and actually sharp. I actually scrapped and finger/hands several times from just my hand brushing up against the faceplate while using the crossfader and whatnot. It’s like they didn’t sand or smooth it down after they cut the faceplate out. Really wish they would have tapered or smooth the edges out.
Being a 92 copy, the 606 features its famous 4-band EQ; a high, two mids, and a low. The EQ curves and cutoffs sounds quite different than the 92 though. The 606 has a low EQ cutoff of 50Hz, the 92’s is 250Hz. This is a matter of preference, but I actually prefer the lower 50Hz cutoff. One thing I (and many others) didn’t like on the 92 is its rather high 250Hz cutoff for the low EQ, it just takes out way too much of the track. And for reference also, the DJM-800/900’s low EQ cutoff is 70Hz. Overall, I’d say the 606’s EQ sounds more closer to the DJM’s than the 92’s.
The EQ knobs themselves have a nice rubber feel a la DJM-800, and good resistance when turning them. However, all the pot stems are plastic, and as such, there’s a good bit of wobble to the knobs and overall plasticly feeling. Unlike the 92 though, there’s good spacing between the EQ knobs so your fingers won’t be cramped.
The LED meters for the channels don’t have any indicators, so you really don’t know where 0 is. It just goes from yellow to red. If you use the logic on most other mixers, then somewhere between the last yellow and first red should be 0. Well, at that point, I found the volume quite low in my headphone (I live an apartment, so I don’t have any speakers and only play in my headphones). So I’d have to crank the gains quite high to get any decent sounding volume. Another thing that bothers me, and I found the same on the DDM-4000, is the gain knobs don’t fully kill the music when turned down/left fully. Also, the cue/master knob for the headphone cue seems odd, when turned fully right, you should only hear the master signal (at least on all mixers I’ve used). I still heard a little bit of the cue channel/signal even with the knob fully right on master. Not a major issue, just slightly annoying.
Next are the channel faders. Very light and plasticly feeling with a bit of wobble too unfortunately. Standard alpha faders, so they are prone to bleeding eventually. The crossfader though is an Infinium optical crossfader, and is one of the selling points of the entire NOX range. This felt pretty solid though unlike the channel faders. Adjustable tension too via a little screw when you take the fader cap off (screwdriver not included in the box).
On to the filters and FX. Filters are good, but again, not nearly as good as the 92’s. But just like the 92 though (and unfortunately, another major gripe with the 92), you get that little pop/clicking sound when you engage the filters, so try to engage them on beat to cover up the popping noise. I mostly only use the high pass filter anyway, so I usually just leave it always on. Adjustable resonance from mild to wild, but quite as much resonance on wild as the 92. LFO knob on the filters as well if you want a cyclic filter. Tap tempo button to tap it in to the beat. Worked as should.
With FX, they are pre-fader unfortunately, just like on the DDM-4000, unless you have to effect set to the Master, then they are post fader. But if set to just and individual channel, they are pre-fader. So sorry scratch guys, no scratch echo or reverb outs for you. Kind of big oversight on Behringer I would think, considering they put a “scratch” crossfader in there.
As for the FX themselves, I particularly liked the tape echo and reverbs, but not nearly as good as the DDM-4000’s effects, and quite cumbersome to use honestly, at least for the beat effects. I like the intensity fader as a dry/wet (could be longer though), but for whatever reasons, Behringer decided to make the beat amount a knob (labeled Frequency) with no indicators telling you where on the knob is which beat amount (e.g. 1/2, 1/1, etc.). So you either have to just get to know where on the knob each beat increment starts/ends, or cue the effect prior to applying it and dial it in. Maybe with enough practice you can set the beat correctly on the fly, but I couldn’t. Certainly not a simple as using the FX on the Pioneer DJM mixers. Other oddities I noticed is the flanger and phaser effects don’t start at the top of their cycles. You know, as with the DJM mixers, when you engage the flanger or phaser, they start at the top of their cycle when you push the big glowing on button and go through the cycle to whatever beat amount you have set. Not the case with the 606, they just seem to start randomly somewhere in the middle of the cycle. Unless of course you tap the beat in prior via the tap button then it seems to start on cycle, but then that throws the beat amount off on the knob and you have to adjust it again.
The non-beat effects though are strait forward enough to use. These include the reverbs, filters, vocoder and limiter-distortion. I liked the reverbs and probably used those the most. Sounded pretty good actually. There’s really no need to the extra filters in the FX section on the 606 as you have dual filters already (well, only one in my case 
), really wished Behringer would have swapped these out with different ones on the 606. But the FX filters sound quite different than the channel filters. Much more digital sounding. The limiter-distortion effects is pretty much useless. The vocoder is only really good for vocals and didn’t play around with that one much.
So overall, the beat effects (echos, flanger and phaser) seemed quite troublesome to use on the fly and get sounding right. I really wished they would have used buttons for the beat amount or even just a simple notched knob selector, this would make using the beat effects much easier. In comparison, the DDM-4000’s effects sound much better, more options, and a lot easier to use in practice.
Onto the MIDI and soundcard. The MIDI is fairly limited in comparison to the DDM-4000. The 606 sends MIDI clock data, and only a few buttons and knobs and the crossfader only send MIDI controls. To be honest, I didn’t test the MIDI out as it does not work over the USB connection, only through the 5-pin DIN connector, and I don’t have DIN to USB (M-Audio UNO) cable anymore.
The soundcard is a good bonus though. Makes it super easy to record your set. It’s just a generic USB Audio Codec driver, so nothing to install, just plug it in an select that as the soundcard in Audacity, Soundforge, Adobe Audition, or whatever program and record away. Recordings sounded good (see FX demo video, the audio was recorded this way).
Most people are using either Traktor or Serato these days, so it might be a little redundant. I mainly use Scratch Live, but I don’t like recording in SL. Plus I end up opening the recording anyway in a wave editor program to normalize, split the tracks up, etc., so might as well skip Serato all together and just record strait into the wave editor.
The soundcard can also be used for playback from most programs. Though only on channel 1 on the mixer. It’s just a 2-in/2-out soundcard though, so no DVS capabilities. Good if you just want to playback a song from iTunes or something. Well, you can use it with Traktor or Ableton of course, but you’d have to sum all the decks/channels to just that one output.
I think that about covers it all. Overall, I think the 606 is a decent mixer for the price (I paid $339 on price match), but compared to the DDM-4000, I think the DDM-4000 is still the better mixer from Behringer. You get a lot more features and functionality for roughly the same price. Actually cheaper for me, I got the DDM-4000 for $299 when it first came out. Used DDM’s go for cheaper than that.
Just a few things I would have liked to see on the 606:
*Effects could easier to use
*Post fader effects when set to channel and not master
*MIDI over USB
*Gains fully kill music
*Better level meters
Questions, comments, concerns?
