I get buying made in USA or Europe. It is super hard to buy non China made products. Even garlic is imported now from China. I have to read ingredients and buy fewer things as made in USA genuine costs way more. Now if something is made in Taiwan, Korea or Japan that is fine. Personally, I want to avoid supporting slave labor conditions in Communist Red China. Same goes for Amazon which uses slave labor conditions here in the USA with their warehouse crew treatment.
My point is there’s plenty of companies and systems that people support on the regular that do far more harm than a synth company.
And I feel like they’re actually opening a lot of doors for musicians such as myself in regards to affordable music equipment.
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i think behringer is currently a focus within the synth industry for people but there are plenty more bigger companies exploiting people are the world.
apple ? theres a reason they’re the most profitable company around , yet their tax is low , build stuff in china to get the costs down. (and also an easy target and the 1st one that springs to mind ) .
we’re told about recyling yet much of it is just shipped off to india and kept in big dumps with children sorting it out.
every bank charges interest on mortgage , loan , using their servies…
at one level any profit is a sign of exploitation … if you start boycotting anyone because someone/somewhere is being exploited , you wont buy anything . … which is unfortunately consumerism.
intellectual property / film stories / comics / games / tech / food production / growing animals for food / / making solar panels / electric cars / the entire marketing industry / Fashion (selling perfumed water as some type of lifestyle ) , the tabacco industry (theyve certainly taken a bigger human toll than anything behringer could be accused of) , is about exploitation and making profit , it depends how well they market it.
if behringer is any different to most companies i’d be amazed , whether its obvious (making clones of old gear) or not … i doubt they have suicide nets keeping the workers from trying to end it all.
as an induvidual you have a choice , again due to capitalism , i can comment on who i personally support or dont , but i’m not immune to supporting a company that someone else may object to , whether its synth , buying food , watching tv , choosing one sandwich from another.
the subtext of ‘buying from my country’ is something i’m suspicious about too , it plays in to the us/them are evil bullshit … i had no choice in where i was born but as i’m now in general control of my brain i can make my own decisions and not be fooled by politicians/marketing (who are absolutely taking advantage of everything / everyone they can think of … aided by think tanks, polls , focus testing , substantial amounts of cash and the overall focus of whatever party they are branded by/with ) . if there are no kickbacks for a politician if they point out a specific company is good , dont buy from company X , i’d be amazed . it wasnt long ago trumpy dump was complaining that apple shouldnt be allowed to keep data locked on a device… now i’m sure he’s celebrating how he’s responsible for apple being so successful. (no more trump , sorry) … he’s exploiting that situation to benefit himself.
wow , that was fun , only came here to scan through updates.
politics on a forum… wont last long.
if anyone knows of a company that is not exploiting anyone at any part of the product pipeline , please let me know… that company is either amazing or not making any profit / doesnt exist .
Moog sent out a mass email basically saying the taxes on Chinese electronic parts are going to force them to either fire people or move their operations overseas. This impact would only be predicted if many of the components that Moog uses come from Chinese factories. Likely, the same type of terrible Chinese factories that the majority of electronics manufacturers are using to source parts.
Made in the US for many companies is an illusion. Apple was slightly honest about this with the “Designed in the US, Manufactured in China” branding.
As a consumer i believe the best path is to buy what you believe in. If the ethos of a company doesn’t match my own, i will attempt to avoid their products. If that has an impact, yay.
As for on topic about Behringer, I was all supportive of Uli’s making (electronic) instruments affordable for the masses. But the company has done nothing on the back-end to support that this is nothing more than a money grab. Id love to read about a large donation of these “instruments for the masses” going to like schools and organizations whose music programs could greatly benefit.
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its interesting to see how politically ‘taxes on chinese stuff’ is positive , but the reality is either it’ll raise costs of making most things in usa , or companies will need to leave usa to keep competitive.
i saw an interesting documentary about what can be put onto packaging to enable them to put slogans on them.
it was food based , something along the lines of ‘made with natural ingredients’ even though its mechanically extracted / synthesized ingredients , ‘made the natural way’ as long as somewhere a person it moving a spoon just like they did 10 years ago.
companies invent natural sounding locations to brand chicken (look for the tm on the names within some marks and spencers products). hand cut sandwiches freshly prepared can still be a conveyor belt of people using a guillotine with mayo being splatted on from an industrial machine.
so to generalize (and i dont know any details on any particular company) … it is very possible ‘assembled in’ could mean they only screw the lid on , or put it in the card board box… i’ve seen the pictures of moog and their workshops so i expect they do much of it there , its a big part of their brand and marketing.
even then , anything could be assembled in your preferred country though it doesnt mean theyre not being exploited.
china is often portrayed as ‘the bad guys’ , i dont support their policies on families , freedom of speech etc, but many aspects of their regime are conveniently forgotten about by governments and companies if theres profit in it.
if moog (as an example) have to add 20% to a product to ensure its made in america , we’ll soon see how committed the general public are to the narrowing of borders and isolationism. maybe moog have to cooperate with behringer to enable them to keep prices down… wouldnt that be weird.
if i read about ‘a large donation’ , it would be lauded in the media because of the way their marketing department are spinning it. something direct like an agreement between the original innovators would be something i’d prefer though i’d never complain if any products are given to educational / youth etc . something they dont need to do , but is a positive gesture to acknowledge them , which ironically then leads to some type of endorsement for what they’ve done (see trump visiting a regime with slave camps and massive amounts of malnutrition for the way of giving endorsement to people)
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All I can do is be the best person I can, I don’t litter, I try to help others, I recycle, I give to the needy, I don’t waste food, I don’t flush my toilet every time I pee 
But a year ago I bought a $30 delay pedal from Behringer. Great. Now what the hell am I supposed to do.
Curious question (100% serious) - I understand that working conditions are bad, cheap labor & all that. But if everybody stopped buying from Behringer & they had to shut down. What would happen to all the people that were working there? The people that apparently couldn’t find a better job & are stuck working there. Where would they go?
If not buying from Behringer is a “moral” thing to do because of how the employees are treated…wouldn’t they go somewhere else if they could? & if they can’t, this is all they got, wouldn’t the company shutting down put them all out of work?
Or what is this thread about? What would not buying from Behringer do?
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so basically you want USA-made modular gear but want to pay Chinese-made prices for it?
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'Merica
this thread can run and run and is so on a few forums.
ultimately we make a choice as a consumer with the resources and knowledge that we have.
a choice can be but what you can afford , buy what you feel comfortable with and if you have the luxury of lots of money , buy what you like.
there will never be any ‘conclusion’ to this thread , just a lot of opinions (including mine) …
i personally dont ‘buy british’ because I’m born in britain , i buy what is on option … ultimately price and availablility.
would i buy a 2k moog or a £300 boog , its down to the circumstances i found myself in at the time , though i’m not sure if i was ever rich i’d start to consider things a bargain if their were options much cheaper.
i’m perhaps a little odd that way , would i buy a ferrari or something much cheaper that also got me from A to B and keep the money.
probably keep the money … though hopefully buy something i find well designed , i wouldn’t buy some junk . (i’m happy with my sh01a instead of spending more to get sh101)
i think thats where i’ll try to stop posting on this thread. good luck everyone.
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Not all of them. In Germany we also have Chip Factories and component Factories. And my bet ist that there are more in other EU countries.
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I still haven’t seen any real investigation either way re: working conditions in Behringer’s factories. some say they’re crap, the company claim they are above average. does anyone here actually know?
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It’s like this,up to a certain extent,you’re governed by your upbringing and social class,misfortunes and health.
I get that you want to change things in China and yes ,it is unfortunate that they’re working in shit.
I’ve worked for everything I’ve got and worked really hard all my life ,work exams work repeat and no one has ever
give a shit about me .
So after spending 49 years on this earth
and been through all the losses and shit that’s been thrown at me from a great height I’ve become ,careless of the plights of people in situations like this.
Sorry but I know I’ll get loads of replies telling me that I can make a difference ,
The truth is ,I don’t care .
Sorry to be blunt,but Behringer are like any other business ,trying to survive .
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Sorry the boycott boycotts movement got to me first
By the way, I was ORIGINALLY posting in a different thread about Behringer.
That one had a WAAAAAAY less inflammatory thread title.
I would have appreciated a little more discretion when merging those threads, dear @PeterHanes …
If that is how things are done here, I´ll reserve the right to edit out my comments out of such “political” topics should this happen again.
Not happy to be featured in a thread like this - the other one was a lot more neutral and informed. 
edit:
since there was ZERO reply from the moderator who moved my comment without my consent OR informing me about it beforehand, I deleted it.
Sorry if this disrupts the reading flow of this… “wonderfully” informed and non-toxic thread… O_ô
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Dude, PLEASE start with the devices that give you internet.
After that you can go on and throw away all other electronic devices as they surely would not be possible at that price point without any chinese input.
No, that’s actually a logical fallacy.
There is nothing wrong with a hypocrite calling out another hypocrite. Of course that doesn’t make the hypocrisy of the first person any less.
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Any proof of this?
What labor is done in sweden exactly?
Do you mean the final IKEA-style assembly of the modules that make up Elektron devices?
Well, except that they use underhand DDR tactics to manage their online image, among other no-no’s.
And almost their entire product portfolio consists of copycat devices meant to invade markets created by others.
Edit: Oh, and they’re not ‘surviving’, they’re outright thriving.
boycotting Behringer has always been the right thing to do. simply because everything they make is garbage.
Tu qouque - the appeal to hypocrisy. Comical in this context lol
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Yup, that’s the one! 