[Review] Behringer AM100 Acoustic Modeller Pedal

[spudulike]

Given the amount of - erm - comment around here recently I thought I'd post an actual review of one of the new Behringer pedals.


Bought from Dolphinmusic in UK for the extortionate price of £15, for my son who is learning to play. Opening the package was a surprise as there was a bit of weight to the pedal, but it still looked like a pocket-money toy. Its a bit higher than my Boss AC2 but the same length/width, and about 3/4 the weight due to the plastic box. The instruction" leaflet is minimal, but is written in real english (not a dodgy translation), clear and my son understood the controls before plugging in.

First gripe - installing a battery. You have to press the hinges on the pedal in at both sides, the pedal comes off and you can install a battery. Now find the spring that flew out, use the third hand God gave you and re-assemble. While its open you notice the lump of rubber that hits the pcb tactile switch and mentally calculate the number of stomps before it breaks (about 7).
was custom ash strat into an AC30. All controls to centre, standard acoustic mode on ... actually, not bad. Took a few minutes to get the levels right, but flicking between fx and dry was pretty good. Large mode boosts the bass and lower mids to emulate a dreadnought, again after a few minutes fiddling got a pretty good sound. Piezo mode - surprisingly like my Takamine after the fiddling, light and responsive, but a bit scratchy in places. Bright mode - oh dear. Treble and high-mid fizz, lower mids gone on holiday and the bass left a suicide note.

Second test was the strat into my Carlsbro Sherwood acoustic amp. Much better.More responsive, more "zing" and the tone improved noticably. No doubt due to the HF horn. Quickly switched off as this pedal is NOT meant for such use. Or is it? The Sherwood was £175 (s/h, beat-up). It gets used for the Takamine and as a cleaner-than-clean amp for the Tele. The pedal was £15 so for £200 I get a nice switchable acoustic-ish setup. Then I re-read the manual.

In "active " mode, the effected sound comes out of the "OUT" jack. But in bypass, the direct (buffered) sound comes from the DIR OUT jack. Simple. OUT goes to the Sherwood, DIR goes to my pedalboard and the Vox. Now this is a usable setup. The buffering doesnt affect the clean tone of the guitar, I can still get my electric sounds I love, but the footswitch now puts me in acoustic-ish territory. Hmmmm.

I'd sum up all the sounds as its an exciter-type circuit, and we all know what that sounds like. Zingy, lots of upper-order harmonics but ultimately a bit - well - flat. But stick a chorus in there and its altogether a different beastie.

Level - what it says. Best kept backed off for noise.
Enhance - brightness and fizz basically, should be labelled jangle.
Resonance - alter the size of the (simulated) guitar body.

The pots are very smooth travel although the range switch is a bit fiddly and definitely a no-no on a darkened stage.

The LED is waaaaay too bright. Its an ultrabright red running far too hot, and gets in the way trying to read the pots.

DISASSEMBLY.
Easy. Four screws hold the three components of the case together. The plastic box is deceptive. Taking it apart, it has a thick baseplate which gives the weight. There is a metal butterfly that presses against this plate and screws against the pcb, presumably a ground plane/extra shielding. The knobs come off after a good tug, D shaft pots, no grubscrews.

Case splits easily enough, and 3 screws hold the pcb, one of which also holds the groundplane clip. And its an all-in-one pcb with sockets/pots/switch onboard. Pots are the cheaper "big-trimmer" type but good quality. The jacks are like those on a cheap hifi but do the job well.

THOUGHTS
CONS
1. Naff battery replacement rigmarole.
2. Noisy. Overdo the the controls and it hisses like a snake on steroids. Despite the metal gound plate it is still quite susceptible to external noise and it hates flourescent lighting too close.
3. Plastic case is not stage-friendly. At all.
4. The footswitch pops. Quite badly actually.

PROS
1. £15 gets you a very usable acoustic-ish sound that expands your sonic range.
2. £15 and my son gets the world's best dad. He absolutely loves it to bits, and has been playing with it for over three hours now.
3. £15 is a week's pocket money.

This is aimed straight at my son's market. Its cheap, but it does the job, and actually sounds ok. I'll stick with my Boss AC2 thanks, but if you dont gig, and just play for fun its unbeatable. Its not worth re-potting to a Hammond because the noise is inherent in the pedal. May be ok for recording with care, but again Id go for the Boss.

I liked it though, and have just ordered the Chorus and Delay to go with it for young Rory upstairs

[bioroids]

Thanks for sharing this! Good disecting post

Miguel

[Basstyra]

Thanks !! Great description. Quite usefull.  

But you definitively should stop playing guitar and learn to take photos, now !!  :lol:  :lol:  :wink:

[ryanscissorhands]

I've been debating taking one of their delay pedals and re-boxing it up in a hammond. . . Here's the question: IF it was in a Hammond, and was shielded, would the noise still be a problem?

[spudulike]

Wow, I guess this wasnt the place to put a commercial pedal review.

170 reads, 3 replies, one of which slags off my (phone camera) phots.

Maybe if I had said it was a piece of crap and that Behringer were assholes it might have got more interest.  Funny how some people can spout bullshit about Behringer over vapour-ware pedals, yet cant be arsed to comment about a real one.

Back to the perfboard I suppose.
:roll:

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Spudlike,

What you have done is (at least should be) of GREAT interest to all guitar players and specially those who make their own boxes.

Thank you for such a very nice review. I don't think I have read any reviews as helpful as yours. And I've read a lot of reviews.

I think I'll be ordering a couple of behringer boxes to try them out.

Again, Thank you!



Fp

[JimRayden]

Lol, yeah. I read it yesterday and here are my thoughts:

-Now that's the most resistors and caps I've seen on a single board. Even my damn motherboard has less bits and pieces than this one

-The switch sucks indeed. I have one of those in my Tone-Lok and I'm noticing it's starting to give up.

- This thing seems sturdy enough for me to actually gig a few times. I am kinda energetic on stage but I'm generally nice to my gear.

- The more actual reviews of these lil' fellas, the more my disbelief is being reduced. (did this sentence make sence?)

----------
Jimbo

[theplastictoy]

Hi. Thanks for the review. I tried 3 of the Behringer pedals (acoustic modeler, tremolo and blues overdrive).

I quite liked them all, but the best one is the blues overdrive. VERY simillar to a blues driver, but it seems to have a better sparkle when using single coils. So far i've tested it with a les paul and 2 rickenbackers 6string and 12string.

It sounds incredible with the ricks, not as good with the les paul. But for the price, it's unbeatable.

I've only tried them with a peavey classic 30 amp, but i'll plug them into my vox ac30 later this week.

[MartyB]

Just read your post and the replies.  Tyhankyou for sharing your findings Spudulike   .  I'm interested in building Mark Hammer's ac sim and am waiting on the CA3080.  For the money you paid it seems worth re-doing it with a more durable case, switch and battery holder.  A project for young Rory?

[ninoman123]

Good review. Nice to see someone actually give Behringer some praise. I think these types of pedals would be great for bedroom giggers like me. Ive never played through an acoustic simulator but Id like to. All of that SMT is crazy. Does Behringer use a FET type switching like Boss or do they have a true bypass? These pedals might be good for taking them out of the case and repackaging them or just buying them for the cases even.

Cool review.

[MartyMart]

Spud, great "dissection" and glad to see that Dolphin had some stock !
I missed my delivery on friday, so my "little bunch" of Behringers will
arrive today ......  :-(
I'll do a similar review with the Tremolo/Amp sim also.
I'm not expecting "miracles" for £15  !!  

Marty.

[j.frad]

great review! I've been waiting for reviews of those pedals for a long time and this one is really complete! Gutshots of the pedal were really welcome! thanks a lot!

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I enjoyed the review too. I didn't reply because I have nothing to contribute on this! except, how easy does it look to put in a proper case?
And don't take it personally about the pics.. I don't even own a camera. It will be a while too, because my pocket money (defined as "untied discretionary income") is less than your son's :shock:  :x

[Basstyra]

Yeah, sorry for the comments on the pics. It was meant to be a simple joke.  :wink:

[puretube]

more boreing pics

it wouldn`t be fair to tell my test-results of the Blues Overdrive & the GDI21 here...

the latter however now found its regular duty as a paper-weight on my desk