The Clone War - Behringer. Good or Bad?

The Lounge Other Gear
#172

…behringer is better than their price tags suggest…

…bringing back classics that are long gone but not forgotten, for cheap, is no bad thing…
…and cheap only means own china production capabilities, use of cheaper parts that are simply cheaper because their invention is no fresh thing anymore while many copyrights are vanished by now and the global market has grown a lot since the 70ies…

it’s only bad karma, once u clone existing gear that is still on sale by others…

but that’s just the ugly face of capitalism again, that only regulates itself but nothing else for good…

companies…and their designated purpose…well well well…we all like companies that are truly designated to what they really do in first place, than just do the math and counting their growing in nothing but numbers…

#173

no worries, I know it was floating around here and there on the inter webs, so I understand why it became something of a fact…

#174

It honestly blows my mind that people go for a Boog instead of a Typhon, or a MS-1 instead of a Microbrute/Microfreak.
There are so many options for cheap modern synths that push the envelope instead of “just” reproducing old stuff. Sure the originals sound great and you’ve heard them on those records you love. But those records are from the 80’s and the artists who made them would have exchanged their old synth for our modern ones in a heartbeat if they had had access to them.

3 Likes
#175

Still many new analogue synth do not sound as nice as the classics. I don’t own a Behringer, just saying. I can understand why someone prefers the sound of a Juno to a minilogue etc

#176

I don’t know, it really feels like capitalizing on nostalgia, as is a big part of our consumerism these last years, the Stranger Things effect. And by fetichising these old synths, you walk pass many awesome modern but less “mythical” ones.

3 Likes
#177

A friend of mine got himself a Poly-D during the summer…
He’s not particularly violent, but managed to break 4 knob caps in no time.
His Octatrack, Digitone, Keystep and ASM are perfectly fine, if we need something to compare to this.

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Getting replacement knobs was a PITA (like it was his fault, of course) and he finally sold it once repaired.
Got an A4 mk2 instead, couldn’t be happier.

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#178

I see this argument a lot, it is easily debunked though, that being that consumers have no choice under capitalism, which of course is incorrect, consumers can choose not to buy from any company, it isn’t mandatory.

I can’t think of an alternative that offers more choice.

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#179

Trying to justify themselves…

Since various magazines and Arturia have publicly called us out over the launch of our Swing MIDI Controller, we would like to respond and share some facts around the principles of competition and clear up some misconceptionshttps://t.co/biL4rlayAx:#Behringer #SWING #32Keys pic.twitter.com/R7bSVKIUuU

— Behringer (@Behringer) November 24, 2020
#180

From that, the DAW is confirmed as free at least

#181

Their customers don’t care, all they care about is the cheapest price, and when cheaper versions of Behringer products become commonplace on Ali Express etc they will jump ship, I wonder if Behringer will still have the same opinion, I suspect not.

But regardless the tweet hardly proved a point other than equating Behringer to other knock-off companies, which of course is what they are, amongst other things, but the other things are not what people think of when they think of Behringher, mostly.

Its a shame for Behringher, a shame for customers and a shame for the synth industry (IMHO) but when you have to be right all the time, you probably won’t notice that.

3 Likes
#182

"The free Music Tribe DAW will form the heart of an incredible eco-system, where all our controllers, synthesizers and drum machines etc. will integrate seamlessly, thus dramatically improve connectivity and workflow. This will make it incredibly easy for our Customers to create, edit and share their music. "

OMG, they are cloning Overbridge ? They respect nuttin’ ! :sweat_smile:

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#183

Hmm, I doubt all of them, given that most of them don’t even have midi cc implemented.

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#184

the question is not if? but when?

how far a way till Uli behringer does his artistic interpretation of the elektrons music boxes?

this thread now is classes a bunker in preparation for the bombshell that will come

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bump this thread when happened

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#185

They have my blessing to have a crack at the Monomachine and Machinedrum. It’d probably be the only way I’d ever be able to afford one :frowning:

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#186

In order to do that would require the actual software, which isn’t as easily copied and is subject to more protection than circuitry, that isn’t to say they could not do some kind of lookeylike/soundalike but would it not just be better to do their own thing?

1 Like
#187

I’m not too passionate about this issue on either side. I will say I have a Deepmind12 and I love it and will probably keep it forever.

The stakes of Behringers cloning to me seem much lower than the internet sometimes makes it out to be. I doubt they’re stealing much bottom line business from more established manufactures (I could be totally wrong here though), and their price points I think make gear more inclusive and not limited to people with tons of disposable income.

I think at best they’re encouraging other companies to innovate in the price brackets they play in, and at worst they’re just racing themselves to the bottom.

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#188

Until the pots start getting scratchy that is. Watch out for that one. Happened to my Deepmind 6 after 3 years. Made me sell both it and the Neutron.

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#189

It’s happened already, I’ve needed to clean it inside a few times. In all fairness though, the filter pot on my Moog Sub Phatty also got scratchy after a few years, just spent some time the other day cleaning it. :man_shrugging:

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#190

Of course all gear ages, but I’ve had old Nords and Virus racks from the 90s that still had pots that were fine. At most a Virus B might need a new battery or LCD screen light. I’ve had old Elektron gear (Mk1 MnM) that worked fine too.

The behringer gear was barely 3 years old and already acted up. If you want to see the fate of your Deepmind in 10-15 years, go shop around for used Alesis Ions. I digged my Deepmind and really digged my Neutron, but the quality wont last you close to a lifetime.

2 Likes
#191

I think that’s a fair criticism. I definitely don’t expect it to keep going forever. I typically don’t have that expectation of most of my gear though. Maybe it’s because I’m a Millennial and I don’t have much experience with “buy it for life” type products, but in my limited experience most stuff that gets made these days doesn’t have that kind of lifetime.

Not trying to be defensive either, I think the build quality/lifetime stuff is an absolutely valid criticism of Behringer gear – don’t buy their stuff if you expect it to last for that long. You still get what you pay for at the end of the day.

5 Likes