Earlier in 2016, I purchased a used Behringer DDM4000 to learn some basic mixing techniques. It has a great feature set with two dedicated FX modules plus a sampler. I knew Behringer isn’t exactly known for quality, but figured if I crossed my fingers everything would go well and it would work perfectly. I also knew if I wanted anything with comparable features I’d be spending an additional grand.
Unfortunately, the mixer started to semi-randomly glitch out after about a week, with rapid volume changes, flashing lights, and settings changes not ideal for human ears or my speakers. A quick reset would bring things back to normal but the issues would always return fairly quickly unless I left the mixer turned off for a few hours.
I figured these signs pointed to an overheating issue on whatever cheap electronics Behringer had thrown in the box. Opening up the box revealed a circuit board covered in what I hope was only flux residue. I also found two processors big enough for a basic 20x20 mm heat sink.
I cleaned what I could with denatured alcohol, attached a heat sink to each processor with some thermal tape, and tried crossing my fingers a second time. Two months later of fairly consistent use and I haven’t had any additional issues, minus some low level noise that’s only noticeable when nothing is playing.
Hope this quick writeup helps anyone else seeing problems with this mixer. Credit to this blog post for giving me the initial hope that the thing was fixable. You can find more in depth teardown pictures there.
