Behringer continues its blitz of the synth world, announcing plans for a knockoff of the Oberheim OB-X, a classic analog poly synth design from 1979.
The company shared previews of the Behringer OB-X, above, and said that they plan to offer an 8-voice UB-X for US$ 1.199 retail.
While details are to come, they shared this with the announcement:
“The OB-X is quite different from other synths, as it uses predominantly discrete circuitry, which makes the design and manufacturing more challenging.
As we recently shared with you, now that we have fully developed the firmware platform for the UB-Xa, we can reuse up to 80% for the next Poly synths such as the UB-X, which will tremendously speed up the development.”
Behringer has previously shared a demo of their UB-Xa prototype, and plans for a UB-Xa desktop model:
Pricing and Availability:
The Behringer UB-X is expected to be priced at $1,199. It’s still in the design stage, so details on specifications and availability are to come.
Another day, another Behringer synth announcement that isn’t shipping.
*yawn*
Let me get this straight, they’re making a synth called the Oberheim OB-X Knockoff?
Boy is that thing ugly! Shesh. Sounds great though.
I 100 % disagree, I think it looks great!
Well it’s not suprising, they yet to make somthing that looks nice
Does sound nice making this simple sounds, but anyway, i can’t trust this kind of money from this kind of manafacture.
It looks and sounds.
The DeepMind looks pretty good and their Vocoder, too.
Pretty much everything else looks like a bad photocopy.
If you like the look of no-name 90’s cheap mixer/mobile speakers and cheap car AC knobs 🙂
I think it is Awesome! Now us people that can not afford a real one can get that sound !
I love the way they tout reuseable code as a feature.
Do you think they need to reinvent the wheel every time MIDI I/O, keyboard support, patch saving, etc?
It’s a lot smarter to do it once and do it right and then focus your efforts on the things that differentiate each synth.
Dave Smith did this well with the Prophet 6 and the OB-6. They share a lot of DNA but are still very different synths.
They aren’t touting reusable code as a feature
Quoting the article: “…now that we have fully developed the firmware platform for the UB-Xa, we can reuse up to 80% for the next Poly synths such as the UB-X, which will tremendously speed up the development.”
In other words, they’re back for doing something that’s standard in the industry.
Are people really gonna buy it? Seems quiet expensive
If Oberheim does a full-size reissue of the OB-X and OB-Xa, they’ll be accurate recreations, like Sequential did with the Prophet-5. And they’ll come with vintage reissue prices – like $3-4k.
The knockoff version will probably be 1/3rd the price and will have its audience.
well why not. Talk is cheap and the war is still going on. P.s they must have an amazing creative team. continuing to think out of the box…
“they must have an amazing creative team. continuing to think out of the box…”
So far they’ve made two original synths – the DeepMind and the Neutron – both introduced about 6 years ago.
Since then, they haven’t released anything original, it’s all been knockoffs. I guess you think that’s ‘thinking out of the box’.
Can a knockoffs also include improved features?
Sure – obviously the cheap prices of Behringer synth knockoffs are a huge feature for a lot of people.
Behringer’s knockoffs also add basic MIDI control, which many of the originals did not have.
And, even though Behringer build quality is pretty cheap, it’s mass produced, so it’s consistent and doesn’t have some of the problems that you can expect with 40 year-old hand-made gear.
I’d argue that some of the things that they do to cut corners, like shrinking everything down to fit in Euro cases, may be a feature for many. So you can have Pro-1 and Minimoog copies in a rack together.
“doesn’t have some of the problems that you can expect with 40 year-old hand-made gear”
Do you have any experience getting Behringer gear repaired when it breaks? Cheaply mass produced using SMD make these unrepairable, whereas that 40 year old gear is still repairable due to discrete components. These cheap Behringer synths are not future classics, they are more likely future landfill.
You really don’t get irony, do you?
The amount of cooling vents on these products is concerning…
food for thought: the more this site fetishizes “legit” no-longer-manufactured tech and badmouth’s a corporation’s attempt at making dead synth tech available for regular, working people, the more they contribute to the inflated synth market prices. Also, it’s 2022: unless every synth record is pressed to vinyl or cassette, the virtue/purity-signaling that there’s any difference between and Arturia/Full Bucket Music/Cherry Audio/Xils-Lab “knockoff” and a physical hardware one whose sounds will MOST LIKLY END UP AVAILABLE DIGITALLY ANYWAY is — y’all need to get a life. Roland makes plug-ins and no real physical analog devices and yet I can’t realistically replace the Jupiter 6 I bought at a nice low price of $650 in 2003 (they were between $600 and $1k then (maybe)) and sold it when I went on tour in 2006 for $750 to a friend, now they’re nearly 10x the price because of collectors, not musicians. Is the issue cheap, Chinese labor and sweat shops? Then say that. Or STFU and make music. If and when Oberheim makes a new synth, well, let’s talk about the tech. This complaints department forum is just gross troll-centric immaturity. Get out of the house, see a band, smell the roses or something.
How do you think this site ‘fetishizes’ some synths and ‘badmouths’ another?
You’re clearly hung up on the term ‘knockoff’, like many Behringer fanboys.
Nobody would call Arturia/Full Bucket Music/Cherry Audio/Xils-Lab software synths ‘knockoffs’, because they’re software emulations.
Nobody would call anything Roland does a ‘knockoff’, because they don’t copy other company’s products. They have their own history to build on.
So it seems it’s you that’s trying to troll the site.
“Knockoff” Not Cool, Synthtopia.
Agreed. It comes across as derogatory.
Why the butthurt? Seems like it reflects on your own biases more than the site’s.
A Behringer ‘UB-X’ exactly meets the definition of a knockoff (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knockoff).
The fact that this is the only topic ‘TimS’ ever complains about, and that your comments are consistently hyping Behringer, raises questions about your agenda.
LOL. Where can I buy a new, original OB-Xa?
I know, it’s tedious. I come here pretty much to see if there are any new Behringer releases, as whether they like it or not, Behringer are the synth company that is making the most exciting releases for many visitors. They come across like pathetic keyboard warriors, but who are they fighting for? Roland that don’t want to chase ghosts anyway (they have completely lost their way) or the over priced, underwhelming USA synth manufacturers? If they aren’t able to provide the public with what they want at a reasonable price, allow them to go to the wall without whining about it.
it’s just for clicks. webmonkey’s have to eat too.
Behrigner’s created a “People’s Convoy” for synths; just like the last Convoy of Clowns; don’t let them use your bathrooms, they’ll go away.
First they tried to trademark the name and now 12 days after Oberheim announce they are back they show this picture with nothing new to add except for the price?
“Bigboote… more power to him…”
Even the thought of (maybe) being able to own something even close sounding to the OBX soon makes me giddy.
And Uli should just own the “knock off” label and make a non-knock off, original Behringer KO – especially since he’s been knocking out competitors left and right with amazing bargain synths 😉
I think they are taking steps in the right direction. Adding presets and a display to show patch names (and possibly parameter values) to a classic design (that hopefully somewhat sounds the part) should be acknowledged at least.
Why B chooses to waste time and marketing dollars by creating clones is an interesting company direction. A better reputation for their product could probably be achieved by creating a new innovative design and speak of its specs as (being inspired by…) . I think the Deepmind project stands out as possibly “being inspired by …the Juno line up. And therefore does sit in the shadows of Roland but stands on its own as a great product at a reasonable price. It would be really nice if B would stop comparing and just create something new. I know in the creative field of music if you want to turn a lister off…start off by saying…” yeah here is a song I wrote like Michael Jackson, or Madonna, or Phil Collins….and most A&R reps will reply saying…”great..but we already have Michael, Phil and Madonna …and we have already done that…if you claim to be an artist or creator….which f the song projects sound like ‘YOU” ! Oberheim has a great sound, Sequential also has an awesome sound. Roland . But what’s your sound ” B ” ? Your sound doesn’t have to be expensive…it just needs to be yours? Food for thought!
For me, it’s all about those filters. I don’t hear anything but the same old stringy sounds again and again, and while they are nice, inspiring isn’t what I would call em them. For me. I want to hear yom sawyer sweep, 1984 filters, snappy oscillator sync, pluck square wave sounds…. Anything but damned slow strings. Again, just me. I have several instruments I can get slow strings out of…I want you to sell me this!!!