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Behringer and cloning


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There's certainly validity to both sides of the argument... But I am an imperfect GAS lusting synth nut, and it's going to be increasingly difficult to resist some of his offerings, like the 2600, Moog / Roland modulars, UB-Xa (if/when), etc.

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Parenthetically, that's why Behringer's synths have a much higher standard of build quality than the rest of its gear. If any other Behringer product falls apart in a month, Uli shrugs and sells another one. If a Behringer synthesizer, even a cheapass one like the Craze, develops a reputation for anything other than Uli's often stated goal of "twice the features for half the price", someone at Behringer will be hung upside down and bled like beef cattle as an example to others.

 

That explains why the Pro-1 build quality exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be more like my old Microbrute - no offense to Arturia.

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I preordered a DeepMind 12 the moment I saw the press release. It is a beautiful instrument. It started as a Juno clone but goes so much 'deeper'. The Midas division really did a fine job of engineering this board. I love to just turn it on and dive deep or simply scroll presets and continually tweak them to my tastes. Years of fun so far.

 

I"ve wanted a Neutron since it was announced. I really like this 'original' bit of kit over the clones. However just can"t justify it for my needs right now.

Odyssey 'out shines' the Korg reboot imho. I for one love the wanky, buzzy Wasp redux...on my short list. The Poly-D is a wonderful temptation as well.

 

As much as I respect Dave Smith and love his products, his representatives must be careful not to belittle and talk badly about other manufacturers. The lawsuit was extreme, but the name-calling obviously struck a nerve. I am glad it didn"t go through, though.

 

The atrocious retaliation on the reporter really went too far and probably caused a great loss of respect for Uli and his brand. It certainly did for me. I removed every Behringer item from my wishlists immediately upon hearing of the incident. I might have a Neutron right now if I"d not seen or heard of their horrible reactions to a bad review. This may be going out of the way to defend them, but the redacted video WAS followed up with a public apology. However it is understandable that many will never forgive such behavior from a corporation that made such a personal attack upon an individual.

 

That last fiasco has cause me to pause all Behringer purchases ever since, but I"ve seen most interviews with the Midas guys and Uli himself. He and his team really seem driven to provide good gear at inexpensive costs so that even people of meager means might enjoy the experience of creating the music they hear in their heads. They do make some wonderful musical tools and know how to pluck those nostalgia strings.

 

 

Paul, this is a controversial subject. No need to feel bad for brining it up. The difficult conversations are often very valuable. Thank you for posting your thoughts and prompting others to do so as well.

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I play chrome-plated noseflute.

best line in this thread !

 

Agreed. :cool:

 

I actually do own a Japenese nose flute, but it is wooden, not chrome plated. A few years back I saw the great Troy Roberts playing one on a gig with Joey DeFrancesco. After the set I asked him what it was, he told me, and I ordered one before I went to sleep that night. :)

 

Maybr Uli will start cloning them one day. ;)

:nopity:
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At first I was excited, but over time my feelings have changed. When, I heard Behringer was going to build a $200.00 Minimoog, I though great, I can now afford one, then i saw the module, and said: Are you kidding me? It would be cool to own say a Poly D or a UBX-a whenever that is finished? Behringer has been teasing a lot of synths, but then they delay getting something out. It"s nice they can build affordable synths, but can they be reliable? it"s too the point where the excitement is starting to wane.

 

Honestly, I was more excited when KORG revived the Odyssey, at least they brought in David Friend, the guy who designed the original one.

 

If the prices for vintage synths were more affordable, I"d probably go with the original.

 

Behringer does a lot of hyping, but it turns into one big disappointment.

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It boils down to supply, demand, marketing insight and quality manufacturing. Behringer tapped into customer demand for vintage synths and they're selling - the product line is diverse. I bought the Poly D and my next Behringer synth purchase will need patch memory.

 

Pure and ethical synth manufacturer behavior probably doesn't exist anywhere. Compromise eventually surfaces and results in unethical choices that are rationalized for the greater good. The unethical threshold varies based on the circumstances. Reading my 1980s and 1990s Ensoniq journals makes my skin crawl, yet it seemed no other choices existed back then. Hindsight is 20/20. The moment at which people rationalize is not always filled with crystal clear objectivity.

Steve Coscia

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All he has ever really wanted to do was to have the ability to make all the synths he'd ever loved in his life, and market them with his own name on them.

 

 

Imo his story (not your recant of it Mike) always sounds somewhat contrived and maybe a bit twisted. Why anyone's lifelong dream is to have their name on copied work? If this is truly one's passion wouldn't you at least want to pay tribute to the creators?

 

I'm not disputing the business/financial/legal or even ethical aspect of this. Everyone draws their own line and acts accordingly.

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The original teaser was clones of every synthesizer for 99$... but Behringer certainly showed it was capable of making them.

 

It's great advertisement to the originals and didn't even make a dent in the vintage market prices.

 

 

What's the problem?

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Imo his story (not your recant of it Mike) always sounds somewhat contrived and maybe a bit twisted. Why anyone's lifelong dream is to have their name on copied work? If this is truly one's passion wouldn't you at least want to pay tribute to the creators?

 

Indeed. And if it's your passion, wouldn't you want to devote your time to making new things and putting your name on those?

 

This makes me like the company even less. It's rather pathetic.

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I have owned Behringer gear and recently they seem to be making good stuff (my interface at least has been great especially for the money).

 

That said, the incident with the journalist was not only very telling into the culture of that company, but led me to read up a bit more on them. I no longer consider their gear for purchase, until such time as I feel their corporate culture has changed. Considering it seems to be the owner driving that culture, I'm not holding my breath. I have a short list of restaurants/companies that I don't give my money to, they joined it. I'm sure they won't miss me, for every person like me there's 1000 who don't care, so be it. I can only control who I give money to and it's not like I'm going to be out protesting in front of their headquarters.

 

I don't care that much about the cloning, as that is something many companies do (look at all the cloning of marshall amps)--though I'd prefer instrument makers do more original designs like the Deep Mind and don't stick so slavishly to the originals...improve things with the benefit of hindsight and modern tech!

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Moog reissued the Minimoog, KORG the MS-20 first as a MIDI controller, then a mini synth, then a full size kit, then a desktop module, and a full size. Dave Smith with the Prophet 5. Of course there is the OB-6 not a reissue, but a new version of a classic built by Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim, and Roland introduced a new Jupiter synth, with the X. I owned an MS-20 mini, until it bit the dust, although I wouldn"t mind another one, just have to take better care of it, and not get dusty.
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I"m not sure how I feel about buying Behringer products. I don"t own any as yet.

In a world of mass eco-vandalism and slavery-like conditions by corporations, Uli being a jerk is kinda small potatoes.

Perhaps I shouldn"t have bought a Volkswagen, given its history with the Nazi party...

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Admittedly, I own a two (2) Behringer products...1) Virtualizer FX2000 effects processor and 2) X32R digital mixer. Both products serve me well.

 

Despite his backstory of being a synth enthusiast, I have not bought into Behringer's forays in that regard. However, I have test driven the DeepMind and MS-1. Not bad. :cool:

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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Several points:

--I own two Behringer Model Ds.

--I love them. They're built well and sound great.

--If it was a question of buying a real, used Moog Model D versus doing without, I'd be without at current used prices.

--Uli seems to be a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism and reacted poorly to the bad review.

--Uli personally saw to it that I was taken care of when my original D turned out to have the update problem and had a bad warranty repair experience. (Note the contrast with the above statement.)

--I have a low-to-medium GAS factor for a Deepmind and a peg-the-meter GAS factor for an ARP 2600.

--Used prices for "real" used ARP 2600s are out of reach for me and they frequently need service to get them happy again--which would add to the purchase price...assuming that the parts could be found and a guru could be found, etc.

--The price for a Behringer 2600 is supposedly going to be on the order of $600 once they're available in the US.

 

Older circuits become public domain after a period of time, even if they're patented. Elseways, we'd not have any oscillators, digital memory, or even amplifiers. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Get over it. Anyone who whines over this one should look up the definition of "hypocrite," then sell every single piece of electronics they own, including their phones, TVs, blenders...everything. EVERYTHING! Welcome to the Stone Age, hypocrite. Enjoy your wooden club. Oh, wait...you didn't invent the club? Ooops! Toss your club in the fire and...wait, you didn't invent fire? Man, are you going to have a hard winter! I find this one particularly annoying because of the foolish, sanctimonious attitudes of the people who advance the argument. AAARGH!

 

While I can understand that people feel that they'd rather spend their money with the people who developed the original circuits, it's not currently possible to buy a Moog Model D new. Period. Moog (and this is something I took up with the minions in the Moog store) missed the boat by not making rack mount and/or Eurorack versions of their older circuits. The minions expressed frustration because they had told their masters exactly the same thing and been ignored...for whatever reason(s). We, as consumers, are not responsible for bad business decisions on the part of manufacturers. ARP, as a company, no longer exists. You can't buy an ARP 2600 new from ARP. There's no company to buy it from. I find some of the soi disant reasoning I've seen on this topic to be inconsistent or illogical.

 

I can understand and sympathize with the people who choose not to deal with Behringer because of his...uh...anger issues. My point here is that there are very few saints. If you dig deep enough on the owner of Company XYZ, you'll probably find that he kicked a dog once upon a time. How far are you willing to go in insisting that everyone have a halo before you buy from them? Uli chose to screw up publicly. Maybe that's worse than screwing up quietly, but is it really worse in the objective sense?

 

Quality issues? I have only ever owned the two Ds, and have no basis for judging the quality--or lack thereof--of other Behringer products, but anecdotal reports I've seen indicate that Behringer's quality has improved from the "bad old days." I have not seen any hard numbers to back this up--I doubt any are publicly available. It's all just posts on the web saying that things are better.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Probably a dozen threads on this topic. It's like :deadhorse: ^5
I'll bet those horses are actually grateful to be dead, considering the impact point.

 

Regarding Behringer, since they actually purchased Midas, I'm grateful for the X32 and XR series mixers, which changed the entire mixer market to the advantage of the consumer. On the downside, the FCB1010 is so badly implemented that Behringer actually tells you how to replace the OS with a UNO chip.

 

For me, the Behringer positives outweigh the negatives, and I expect to purchase more of their stuff in the future.

-Tom Williams

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PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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There's certainly validity to both sides of the argument... But I am an imperfect GAS lusting synth nut...

.

 

That's okay, Greg. We are all errant dogs. My ex-spousal unit did nickname me 'Gearlord'.

 

 

...and it's going to be increasingly difficult to resist some of his offerings, like the 2600, Moog / Roland modulars, UB-Xa (if/when), etc.

 

Yes, a UB-Xa might be difficult to resist. But I'm leaning toward the 'new and different' concept. Been having GAS attacks over the Modal Cobalt8. The Modal YouTube channel is an ear candy fix.

'Someday, we'll look back on these days and laugh; likely a maniacal laugh from our padded cells, but a laugh nonetheless' - Mr. Boffo.

 

We need a barfing cat emoticon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Well.....

 

Hammond B3 - clones attempted by Roland, Korg, Crumar, Numa, Viscount etc.

Rhodes - same goes for Vintage Vibe, Crumar, Viscount and others.

Not to mention all the companies who have attempted to recreate vintage synths and keyboards in software.

 

Is it really that different. Or should we insist only Roland reissue Roland synths, only Korg should be allowed to make an MS20? Patents expire.

 

Whatever your opinions of Behringer you have to accept they have brought affordable synthesis to the masses. I could never justify buying a Mini Moog but love the sound. The Model D gave me the chance to revisit it (I last played a Mini Moog in 1978!) - I love it despite the small form factor. My ears don"t give a monkeys about the size of the knobs or buttons.

 

BTW Behringer are now looking to improve their distribution in the US.

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I doubt I'll ever drive a Toyota, even if they'd be cheaper. The discussion here with electronics manufacturer U.B. wasn't very much about designing electronics or synthesizers. I don't think the added value of most of the originals in the studio necessarily can be available from the clones in a A grade production, but I can't be sure.

 

TV

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I really like my DeepMind 12 and the model D is on my list. I also have a UMC404HD interface and an XR-18 mixer. These products have worked great for me. Having bought many guitars that are clones of Strats, Telecasters , Les Paul and ES-335, I have an appreciation for clones of vintage gear. The only line they really crossed with me and I would never buy is their clone of the Arturia Keystep. While probably legal it does no service to their brand reputation by cloning an already extremely affordable and relatively recent popular product. So by not even considering it we can show our displeasure.

Boards: Kurzweil SP-6, Roland FA-08, VR-09, DeepMind 12

Modules: Korg Radias, Roland D-05, Bk7-m & Sonic Cell

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