The Clone War - Behringer. Good or Bad?

The Lounge Other Gear
129

Seems to be exactly like this … as far as synths are concerned Behringer “copies” legends of old days, which have been discontinued by their original manufacturers long ago. TBH the original manufacturers could have listened to us ages ago and done it by themselves. I would call this an opportunity missed. Gibson learned that lesson recently … and is doing well :wink:

How many of us craved how long to get a Jupiter 8, ARP 2600, EMS Synthi, Prophets, Oberheims, and others. Those vintage synths have a vibe, which musicians love, or I love :wink: , but who has the money to get one of those originals of the 70ties or 80ties, which might have about 30 to 40 years of duty, and needing expensive maintenance …

As far as new stuff is concerned, I think the guys, who developed the DM12 and Neutron have potential. It could be like in the days, when Asian companies first copied technology and later became market leaders, because good old companies from the US or EU rested on their laurels … :wink:

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Keep in mind that Behringer were late to the affordable analog party, Korg and Arturia were already offering budget price analog synths a good few years before B entered the fray.

Before this all these classic sounds were still readily available in the form of digital synths or software, virtually every rompler or software had for example an 808 kit, analog pads, bass etc. Yeah not exactly the same sound, just like modern clones aren’t.

Throw in a bit of hyperbole and marketing though and I guess it is quite easy to feed into peoples sense of nostalgia.

I fully agree that B could do much better, even though it would not interest me surely they could make modern, full featured analog gear that bring something new or less common to the market. There is the potential to do new things with analog technology which would have been impractical or impossible in the past as Elektron have shown.

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True … and Korg and Arturia have brought some new ideas to the analog synth world and seem to continue to do so.

Having some old stuff and comparing it with my software emulations, I think I hear not only a difference, but doing an A/B comparison I like the old stuff better. Maybe this is some kind of nostalgia?

IMO samples of synth circuits do not compare well to the sound of real circuits, because many parameters have been frozen at the time of sampling. Using the real circuits can give us so much more. But TBH this goes for all synths inclulding software synths :wink:

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Deepmind-12 and Neutron are both quite nice and have features not available elsewhere, if you want something else than direct clones.

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I think the statements above that B is making low-quality knock-offs is a little misleading.

Sure, B is NOT Sequential. B is NOT Oberheim. B is not Moog or Roland or whatever. (in Roland’s case, that might actually be a good thing :stuck_out_tongue: )

HOWEVER, of the few of their new synths that I’ve owned, they’ve been quite well made, well thought out, and in some cases equal or even superior to the originals in some ways. Other than a few firmware issues (that they’re currently actually working on) I found the RD-8 to be better than an 808 in just about every way.

The Model D is built like the proverbial tank. It uses the same parts as most other modern analog synths as well, and using similar if not identical manufacturing practices. I’ve had it apart, and didn’t see anything that I would flag as incorrect. Sure a REAL MiniMoog is going to have some higher quality potentiometers, a real (and nice) key-bed, and have a few other quality trade-offs being a “mostly-boutique” item. That said, there was nothing about the B “D” that I would complain about for the money. It’s as good as any other Euro product more or less.

The TD-3 is a piece of plastic…

…just like the original 303. :stuck_out_tongue: and… it’s great! It’s not 100% the original, but it’s damned close.

Anyway, the boutiques and high end are still just as boutique and high-end as they were pre-B. They’re every bit as desirable, and if money isn’t as much of an object to a given person, they’re going to choose those every time over B. It’s nice to have B in the cases where one doesn’t have that kind of money though, and even to fill in a few gaps if one does.

As a semi-boutique custom synth builder who considers himself in the higher end of things, I can’t see anything wrong with the big-B doing the big-B things. At least the way they have so far on the synth side.

On the recording-gear side… well, they’re going to be fighting their image in that arena until the end of time probably…

People still buy a Ferrari when a Volkswagen will get them to the same places… Silly analogy, but it’s true. Both have their place.

And one last little anecdote. I LOVE quality products. I think Dave Smith is absolutely amazing, and I’ve owned, and enjoyed his products. (and plan to buy more when time and money allow) I love Moog too, but if I’m going to spend this type of money on a synth, I’m going for Sequential before I’d buy a Moog. (for a lot of reasons though quality is generally similar IMO) While I had my Rev2 (which I plan to again actually) it was nice to be able to pick up the B Model D to fill in a gap that I wasn’t going to fill with a real Model D.

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bump

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Something I’ve noticed with some new smaller companies is a focus on ethical production and sustainable production, would love for this to become a trend with things like making products that are repairable instead of multiple layered boards that’re pretty much as good as garbage if something goes wrong.

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Totally with you on that. The sad reality is that companies will always make more money by designing “disposable” products, and it is also why we have these unflinching waves of releases and all these GAS discussions we have.

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Only if suckers keep buying ‘em.

I like the maker/hacker ethos:

“I you can’t open it you don’t own it”

It is very important for me to be able to fix my tools myself or get fixed by a tech if I am unable, surface mount components if too small can make home repairs tricky without the right equipment, most analog stuff is ok though.

I’m quite aware of the varying quality in components too, some brands are excellent and last for years, others fail within a few years, whenever I build something I never scrimp on cheap components it isn’t worth it IMHO.

I have no idea if any of this applies to Behringer, I think it would be reasonable though to expect that they are saving money somewhere, whether that is in components or not remains to be seen.

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To paraphrase Mr Takahashi,
“Entering a market to destroy it (with cheap knock offs of old ideas) makes no business sense, unless you are very short sighted”

I dont think the other synth companies really care about berhingers copies.

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Lol, some dipshit in the comments on youtube is asking Behringer to do Digitakt and Digitone next, I think he is actually serious. :joy:

Edit: And OP-1 :rofl:

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they have a groovebox in the works

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Bro P One

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Whats next? A Baldorf Ulidium?

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Hahaha. Amazing. Behringer can’t do screens tho, especially not of Swedish quality. Look at the crap screen on DeepMind for example.

Back on topic, I went to the Behringer Facebook earlier to see if there was a torrent of hate for the KS ripoff. Surprisingly there was very little. Most were loving it!

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Wait, until the First Units Stop working…:grin:

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I had a dream last night that I got a Linn Drum and it made me soo happy. If Uli wants to amazon arturia on their keystep, in order to fund projects like the Linn Drum, JP8, and that sweet Prophet poly, more power to him. It makes sense that they need cheap safe bets to fund the less popular stuff and this certainly fits that profile given the continued success of the KS and explosion of bedroom producers.

Meanwhile, I’ll still be in the market for new gear from innovators in the space.

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Wait, what?

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They teased some kind of MPC One clone some time ago. But everything tells me they will never pull that one of: they don’t have the capabilities to develop solid and complex firmware that the MPC (and other sequencers like the Circlon) require. Otherwise they would have cloned the Keystep PRO and sold it for 50%.

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Where did they tease about it?