The Behringer Gear-in-progress Thread

This makes me very happy.

Very happy indeed.

2 Likes

The pulse is picking up. They’re using the hinged format again, which i like. The article includes a video with the original Roland SH-5, so you can get an idea of the sound, if you’re not already familiar with it. Quite a distinctive sound.

ADDED: From this thread, The Behringer Gear-in-progress Thread - #324 by Gint – Gint found a video about the SH-5, that Behringer showed in their “Heritage Synth Collection”. That was two and a half years ago. My comment after it was wrong, wrong, wrong ! Any other synths in their collection that haven’t been announced ? They had another video on restoring a Linn Drum, which has already been teased as product now too.

ADDED : It has been said that Bob Keeble of AMSynth is doing the design of this, which means it will be really well done. He also did the 2600, and 2500 Eurorack modules.

3 Likes

It’s gone quiet on the Solina front. I thought that might have been out by now.

2 Likes

… though not completely cold. They did make the detailed video on the internals, and the challenge with recreation of the Solina just five months back. I posted that. (Adam is good in that video.)

Perhaps there’s some issue with getting the volume of the repeated parts, or they decided to change the limitations they duplicated from the original.

Yeah I watched that at the time. Yeah, maybe it’s a parts supply issue?

The other one that has been talked about for a long time in this thread, that has some real excitement behind it is the SYNTHI VCX3. You might suppose 2600 sort of pricing with that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more word on that not to long from now.

ADDED: E’nauts thread for this.

2 Likes

I absolutely love the SH5. not just the sound but the looks. and to me, there’s something very ugly about this clone. I can’t put my finger on it, it’s just hideous to me. maybe it’s just me liking the original so much and seeing it in my studio for so long… I mean it does looks pretty damn close, and all they did was shorten it to three octaves and bring the BPF underneath the mixer. but it just looks wrong to me now, I guess :man_shrugging:

anyway, it’s cool they’re making it. not something I would call an “iconic” synth but I guess they’re kind of past that and on to higher hanging fruit now. I will say the standout to me is what they didn’t include: modulation for the band pass filter. this is the absolute number one complaint of anyone whose ever played an SH5. the BPF is the star of the show here and it’s a shame Roland didn’t provide a modulation option, and absolutely insane that B didn’t either. the only other thing I’d like to see would be a switch for linear or exponential envelopes. the original’s are linear, so slow and not good for fast or percussive sounds. and you’d want these included, for sure. but it’d be great to have the exponential ones as well.

really, this is always my biggest complaint about B. they don’t take old synths and make better versions, they just clone them. but anyway… it’s cool more people will be able to experience the SH5 sound now!

5 Likes

I guess if there’s enough interest for those mods they may make it to the final model? They have been known to listen to that sort of feedback. It would be cool to see more of that sort of thing - improvements over the originals.

1 Like

yeah, I’d say at the very least, add patch points to the top/back to allow modulation of the BPF. that’d be non-intrusive to the look and should be pretty straightforward from a circuit and production standpoint.

1 Like

Just had a nosey at the schematics for the SH5and it doesn’t look like it would be straightforward to add cv control. The BPF is a fixed filter with a dual gang pot for the cutoff control. That said it could be adapted with a couple of vca’s I guess? It’s only built around a jellybean op amp.

2 Likes

Just an observation, and perhaps wrong, but Behringer seems more willing to break from the original and enhance a little when they bring in a product champion, like gligli on the P-800, and Bob Keebles on the 2600.

I’ve been wondering if Polivoks may get changed around by Kuzmin too.

And the TD-3-MO, but again not much variation from a pre-existing modification.

1 Like

That sh5 photo has a lot of temporary stickers / labels on it … maybe that is making it look untidy.

1 Like

Agree, especially if you zoom in the picture and start to examine the look in details…
I guess the same will happen sound wise…

Would take Roland SyS 500 any day to get “modern classic” Roland sounds.

1 Like

Malekko/Roland did it with the euro rack 500 series version of the SH5 filter. there’s probably others as well. how authentic the circuit design is to the original, I don’t know. I would think it’s absolutely possible though.

Yeah, at its basic level you could use an (well, a pair of) OTA’s as a voltage controlled resistors in place of the cutoff pot. Again, something similar could be employed for the resonance amount. That would keep the rest of the circuit the same. But in terms of filters it’s quite a straight forward affair. That’s not a judgement of its sonic qualities btw! It would be interesting to see how others added cv control.

And as a matter of fact, and venturing toward off-topic, G-Storm Electro just announced a Eurorack SH5 Filter. As it happens G-Storm, kind of known for putting classic parts of older synths in Eurorack, just dropped their 2600 oscillator product. They knew the gig was up, with Behringer bringing out the same thing. (The Behringer model is prettier, for those tuned in to that.)

They said, and i quote from the article i linked:
On the bright side, this will free me up to develop new and exciting designs.

As has been said elsewhere the smaller companies that have made their market niche in the one Behringer now controls need to find a new niche.

Behringer Syncussion SY-1

Keeping up the tempo, another new prototype from Behringer. Important to note this is prototype only, no guarantee this ever becomes real.

A two channel drum synth with the low level controls all laid out in front of you, in a useful and primitive way. Recreation of the 1979 Pearl Syncussion, redone in the large Eurorack format that Behringer seems to like – another one for the Behringer wall of synths if they ever do go ahead with the manufacture of this.

You can read more in this Gearnews article.

If you don’t think this is worth having in steel, there’s always Dataline’s Sound Pack of the Syncussion.

EDIT: Fixed broken link to image.

ADDED : January 2022. Behringer says on their Facebook forum, that they have completed the engineering on the SY-1, taking three revisions to get the sound just right. They also say they have secured access to the components needed to manufacture this, and are in process to go into production. No word on exactly when, nor the price, so stay tuned.

This is an interesting unusual sort of product. I’ve got to say that this approach of producing these functional bedrock sort of musical devices, has gained an appeal with me that i had not expected.

I’ve started a thread for this.

3 Likes

I would love to see this remake of the Syncussion come to fruition! Excited about the SH-5 clone too.

(Ha. I have never really checked this thread because I thought it was about Behringer fx boxes for synths. Maybe a title change to “Behringer Synth & FX thread”? Just a friendly suggestion.) :smiley:

2 Likes

Hope OP is happy with my reworking which seems apt

5 Likes

First Behringer remake/clone/knockoff/whatever that had me slightly interested, but that size… Ugh. I wonder what it will cost though.

Might as well go for the Michigan Synth Works SY0.5 reissue/recreation/shabubu instead. It’s smaller and has cool modulation features.

2 Likes