Behringer Kobol

[marino]

Still "just a prototype"

 

[SteveCoscia]

Hmmmmm.....

[Tusker]

Not what I expected from them at all ...

 

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/rsf_kobol.php

[AnotherScott]

Interesting strategy to consider... reproducing not just the ubiquitous old boards, but also the rare birds.

[GRollins]

I'd never even heard of it prior to this.

 

Given the time lapse between other Behringer announcements and the finished product finally being available for sale, it will probably be a while before it's on the streets.

 

Grey

[Theo Verelst]

I'm nor sure I'd buy a "B" imitating some ancient Russian (?) synth, and feel like I own the world or something, but I suppose it's a nerdy thing or collectors like it, I don't know.

 

T

[CEB]

It"s French. Made by RSF. One of my favorites. It had tons of character. XILS lab put out some cool VSTs of The Polykobol.

[Bill H.]

Yea it's French. I'd heard of the PolyKobol. Never heard of the Kobol. A quick check at Wikipedia says there were less than 200 made - all by hand.

 

It's just Uli getting weird I guess.

[Muad’Dib]

Another synth? Shouldn"t Uli slow down a bit, and get some of his other synths to market? Like the UB-XA, or the MonoPoly, or the 2600? Is he trying to corner the synth market? Other manufactures take time too develop a synth. It KORG a awhile to produce the OPSIX. Although, they did produce other products ahead of this. I just feel, maybe Behringer should slow down a bit. That"s just my opinion.

[CEB]

Just because I think the PolyKB is cool.

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

[CEB]

Overview of the mono Kobol.

 

[video:youtube]

[uhoh7]

I had not even heard of it (the original). Some quick research, it looks pretty cool. I still don't have a model D or anything in that fat bass niche. The choices are really increasing. By the time I get a clue how I might use one, another choice appears. I like this one.

 

Thanks for all the links and the heads up!

[GRollins]

Important distinction: The Behringer Model D is available now. The Kobol--assuming that previous timings hold true--is probably not going to hit the streets for two to three years. Place your bets accordingly.

 

Grey

[marino]

Is he trying to corner the synth market?

 

I don't know if that's their plan, but I think it's happening already. Someone, somewhere, is designing a great, *new* analog synth (not a clone) - let's say a 6-voice poly. But not having the resources, facilities, and large market numbers that Behringer have, has to price his instrument at 3,000 or so. Now if I were that guy, my first thought would be, "Behringer has *announced* five synths with comparable specs, at a fifth of the price. Probably, a good slice of my potential buyers are going to wait to buy one or three Behringer synths, rather than one of mine - even if they will have to wait another year." So he just gives up and stops developing it.

[David Emm]

"The Synth Market" is both small and fierce. Its hard to imagine many people piling up B synths and no one else's. They're more like vintage sprinkles. You drop a couple of them on top of a more substantial sundae. Man does not survive on Moogs alone. He also needs a Nord Stage, a Minilogue and a wife to tell him its too early in the fiscal year to also buy a Hydrasynth. A few marriages have been saved because he bought more software and less hardware. Vintage emulations & arguments over filters wow me a lot less than useful new hybrids.

[Tom Williams]

^ Nailed it. ^

[Dr Mike Metlay]

The Kobol was and is in the class (IMNSHO) of "this was an alternative to the usual, manufactured for a market that might not have been able to get the usual easily or affordably." There are a lot of vintage monosynths, and a few very impressive vintage polysynths, created in Europe, the Soviet Bloc, and elsewhere, that came into existence strictly because cost, import duty, and shipping (to say nothing of the dubious availability of aftermarket support and repairs) made it a real dangerous gamble to buy a Moog or Oberheim or SCI.

 

That said, I've always liked the RSF sound. I'd enjoy playing the XILS Polykobol if the user interface were more practical and less unnecessarily skeumorphic, but that is definitely one of my own personal weirdnesses.

 

As I have noted many times in the past, the very first product Uli ever made, when it was just him in his parents' home, was a synthesizer. He has always had a passion for synths, and there is some weight to the argument that his entire career up to now has been focused on generating the product construction facilities, manpower, and mindshare to do synths right and be taken seriously for it. Why NOT recreate some of the rare synths from his youth, along with the famous ones?

 

Also, someone above mentioned the lone synth designer or tiny team designing and building hardware synths... imagine a company with the money and resources to create FIFTY of those little teams and give them endless funding and support as long as they delivered great synths at the end. (People always complain about how, instead of the usual "get it out the door now and fix it later" mentality of every other B product, the synths always seem to take forever. This is why.) He can afford to shotgun the market, make a gazillion no-sound chassis prototypes and hint at them, see what sticks, and adjust schedules so the more popular ones come out first.

 

My guess is that the engineers have been ordered to work under the dictum "fast cheap or good, pick two", but with "good" substituting for "fast". I'm unaware of any B engineer being fired for not going fast enough on building a synth that sounds close -- in some cases QUITE close -- to the original, while using modern tech to add features and cut prices, all without sacrificing quality.

 

Uli knows that the one place where the growth timeline of his company has hurt him is its reputation for poor quality, and he also has realized that it would take years to overcome that in the world of synths. Now he's getting there, and the Kobol is only one drop in a cresting wave.