Behringer synth teasers

[Paul Dither]

It looks pretty ugly and cheap…

[Sacred Synthesis]

It's called the "DeepMind 12," and it has that department store Casio appearance.  It does sound good, but it looks like the sort of keyboard you'd buy for your nephew on his twelfth birthday.

http://www.matrixsynth.com/2016/07/new-behringer-12-voice-analog-synth.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Matrixsynth+%28MATRIXSYNTH+Atom%29

[Paul Dither]

It's called the "DeepMind 12," and it has that department store Casio appearance.  It does sound good, but it looks like the sort of keyboard you'd buy for your nephew on his twelfth birthday.

Yes. And what a cringeworthy name.

[Sacred Synthesis]

Especially for a twelve-year-old nephew.  I would have suggested the "Umm, Like."

[Paul Dither]

Especially for a twelve-year-old nephew.  I would have suggested the "Umm, Like."

Well, some twelve-year-olds can already have deep minds.

[Sacred Synthesis]

Yes, but they don't have twelve deep minds, only one, so what's your point?

[Paul Dither]

Are minds monophonic only?

[Sacred Synthesis]

Absolutely.  Two minds are called schizophrenic.  But you can always have stereo filters.

[Paul Dither]

Absolutely.  Two minds are called schizophrenic.  But you can always have stereo filters.

How about Libras?

[Razmo]

And the Behringer bashing has begun... *sigh*

Actually I find it to be rather good looking, and the specs so far sounds very promising to me... seems it's going to be MIDI specced to it's teeth, and even WiFi onboard... I will have to wait for a rack version though.

If this is done right (and Behringer HAS BECOME A LOT BETTER OVER THE YEARS, NO MATTER WHAT THE BASHERS SAY!), this will be a major DSI contender. I read that the FX is TC and Klark as well...

I'm anxiously waiting to see/hear more of this.

[DavidDever]

The slider caps as shown in the photos are 3D-printed, so I suspect that the finish quality of the product as released will be a bit better. I've generally been pretty impressed with Behringer's effects (e.g., their emulation of a Roland Dimension-D in the XR-Series small-format digital mixers is pretty spot-on), and they have definitely moved up a few notches as the Music Group has enlarged.

I also feel that, in some respects, their mixers have ultimately performed more reliably after an extended period of time than, say, their Mackie/Loud equivalents, so the perennial arguments about copied designs fall apart.

[Sacred Synthesis]

As I said, it does sound quite good.  We all seem to agree on that.  I just don't like the appearance or name.  And I've learned to be wary of instruments that offer a lot of onboard effects, because most every patch you hear is saturated with them, so that you never really get a good clean listen to the actual tone of the instrument.

[Paul Dither]

And the Behringer bashing has begun... *sigh*

No Behringer bashing here, simply because I never owned anything they produced. I only operated their mixers while a was a projectionist for a while.

The look is object to a personal matter of taste I guess, so there's really not much to argue about.

The only thing I'm concerned about with regard to a company like Behringer is production ethics. - Yeah, I hear the cynics say, "stop moralizing" or "then throw away your computer." However, this discussion will depend on the price they're planning to sell at.

Will they compete with DSI et al? - Yes. Is the comparison just? - No, since Behringer, or rather the Music Group conglomerate is a huge hypercapitalist manufacturer following nowadays' Silicon Valley business model that has production capacities that simply don't compare to small companies like DSI, Moog, Elektron, Vermona, Modal Electronics, and the likes.

The only things I know with regard to the production process at Behringer are based on Uli Behringer's statements. According to these, he thinks that engineers are paid the same in China, the US, and Europe, he adds fitness studios to the mix of employee self-optimization, and that all manufacturing steps "below" engineering are purely automatized.

[Shaw]

And the Behringer bashing has begun... *sigh*

No Behringer bashing here, simply because I never owned anything they produced. I only operated their mixers while a was a projectionist for a while.

The look is object to a personal matter of taste I guess, so there's really not much to argue about.

The only thing I'm concerned about with regard to a company like Behringer is production ethics. - Yeah, I hear the cynics say, "stop moralizing" or "then throw away your computer." However, this discussion will depend on the price they're planning to sell at.

Will they compete with DSI et al? - Yes. Is the comparison just? - No, since Behringer, or rather the Music Group conglomerate is a huge hypercapitalist manufacturer following nowadays' Silicon Valley business model that has production capacities that simply don't compare to small companies like DSI, Moog, Elektron, Vermona, Modal Electronics, and the likes.

The only things I know with regard to the production process at Behringer are based on Uli Behringer's statements. According to these, he thinks that engineers are paid the same in China, the US, and Europe, he adds fitness studios to the mix of employee self-optimization, and that all manufacturing steps "below" engineering are purely automatized.

A corollary to that train of thought is this: would I rather spend just a little bit more and get a synth that was handmade by a guy who's been hand making synths and synth components most of his life, and therefore knows and cares about what he's doing? Hell yes!

[Paul Dither]

Especially for a twelve-year-old nephew.  I would have suggested the "Umm, Like."

Oh, you gonna love this: According to this German article, the prototype was called "Phat 12" (first photo in the article).

https://www.amazona.de/preview-interview-behringer-deepmind-12-analogsynthesizer/

[Sacred Synthesis]

Especially for a twelve-year-old nephew.  I would have suggested the "Umm, Like."

Oh, you gonna love this: According to this German article, the prototype was called "Phat 12" (first photo in the article).

https://www.amazona.de/preview-interview-behringer-deepmind-12-analogsynthesizer/

That's funny, because I was just thinking, "We've finally passed through the Mopho-Moogerfooger-Phatty phase of instrument naming."  Both DSI and Moog seem to have retired those raunchy names, although I'm not sure about the "Mother-32".  I'd be happy to see these companies use a little more taste and decency.  But "DeepMind 12"?  Kinda tacky.  It makes me better appreciate the Prophet theme.  I also liked the name, "Tetr4".

[goodweather]

Whatever the name, it is its capabilities and sound that are the most important.
What is also good is to have synths coming from different brands in order to extend the sonic palette.

This video tells us more about it:

What will be interesting to test is the ratio between what you can do on the synth and more or less directly with the knobs without too much menu diving and what will be possible to do with the editor that will come with it.

I guess we can expect a price 1500-2300 EUR which would be competitive for such synth.

[Sacred Synthesis]

Whatever the name, it is its capabilities and sound that are the most important.

That's not true for some of us.  My wife wanted to incorporate a small monophonic synthesizer into her music classes for children.  The instrument that perfectly suited her needs was the Mopho Keyboard.  Could she use a synthesizer with such a name in such a context?  Positively not.  And there are other contexts where the same problem prevails. 

It's a reasonable request: just keep it clean.

[Paul Dither]

I guess we can expect a price 1500-2300 EUR which would be competitive for such synth.

I'd rather assume anything between 1000 and 1500 $/€. If they want to be competitive, it will be cheaper than a Prophet '08 although it has 4 more voices. That's my guess at least.

[chysn]

I don't get the objection to DeepMind as a name. It's not vulgar and it's not too insouciant (like, say MicroBrute), nor a stupid pun (like Timbre Wolf), nor meaninglessly numeric (K2500). It's sort of like "Dark Energy" or "Tetra," not the best synth name in the world*, but by no means deserving of being a point of contention.

As for the looks of it, it sort of does look like one of Casio's better arranger keyboards, but that's probably not really fair. My impression is that this isn't some off-the-cuff junk, but approaches some pretty serious territory... speaking as someone who's never been impressed by the s#!& Behringer s#!&s out.

As for effects, yeah. You'd totally want to hear it without them to get a real feel for the thing.

* Which is "Minitaur"