Unbelievable. I thought that Behringer would eventually change his tactics and allow us to forgive the past belligerence. I could have put it aside, but it doesn't seem to be the case. The bullying continues.
He ain't gettin' my money, ever.
The return of the Oberheim name to Tom was announced approximately a month after that article was published, so I don't know to what extent the events are related, or if Uli's marketing people simply decided that the bad press resulting from trademark hijacking was doing more harm than good. I haven't heard of any highly visible trademark offenses since then, but then again, I haven't exactly been looking for them.
I feel like the current marketing spin for the Pro-800 is to present the product such that it appears to pay respect to Dave Smith in a backhanded way, in part because of the timing / Dave's recent passing. Perhaps also that Uli got the message and realized that musicians and producers can be a somewhat karmic group, and that being a trademark shark was not going to be good in the long term. If he has in fact turned things around, should he be given a chance to make it right? Well my own opinion is that anything's possible, but personally in order to even begin to forgive, I would need to see him come out and directly address the events of the past, admit prior wrongs and THEN talk about future plans, and even then it doesn't guarantee I would suddenly be interested in buying into the brand. It just means the bridge to redemption would then be under construction and that it could get utilized in the future.
But even with all the legal tomfoolery aside, there is one thing I believe will never change. Their instruments are designed with price limitation as an initial design priority, where cost of production takes precedence over everything else, including sound and build quality. While I understand that's "smart business" I do not believe it's good for the industry or the consumer, and as an example of that: I once had a direct email exchange with the creator of one of my favorite analog monosynths, the Xenophone.. out of production now and increasingly rare, it has a feature set that is not often found on a fully analog mono, and more importantly has a special tone with sweet spots everywhere. The conversation was mostly technical in nature, but I asked if new hardware synth products were in the making. He said his most recent design effort had been cancelled due to the influx of discount synths (specifically mentioning B) pushing him out of the market. My point here is just that even with all other factors off the table, products with a seemingly attractive price point often come with a cost that is far greater than the money saved in the initial purchase. And it's sad to think of how many special, quality instruments will simply never be created as a result of the flood of cheap gear.
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