49 thoughts on “Behringer DeepMind 12 Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer Effects”

  1. Nice effects. Pity there’s no stereo aux input on the back so that the device could be used as an effects box as well.

    Apparently the back has on/off switch, AC IN, L & R output, phones, sustain, pedal/cv, MIDI in/out/through, and USB. But no analog audio in.

    Despite this, the ability of envelopes, LFOs, velocity, aftertouch, and all other modulation sources to be routed to every single FX parameter is a fantastic killer feature not found on many synths, not even the prior gen of top synths produced by the accepted roster of legendaries… apparently asleep on their laurels.

    2. Price points are price points but it is indeed a total bummer that those effects aren’t available to an audio input. With a USB port, it’s possible they could expose the effects to digital audio though that’s a lot less interesting.

      Maybe 2017 will bring a Behringer USB breakout box that’d work with it? Maybe with 8 knobs that can automap to the current effect (or the missing sets of ADSR controls)?

        1. With EVERYTHING that Behringer/Midas have gotten so right about this board– and with this highly configurable effect section being so nicely tied into the 8 path matrix– it is all the more disappointing that the audio input (even a mono one) was left out. It is one of those seemingly tiny features that is worth well more than the cost of including it.

          If it was available either through the USB connection, or perhaps via a path in the app (?!) that would be sweet. But I suspect we’d have heard about it by now.

          If they unveil that in a later teaser, well, — my spouse and I are going to talk about it. “Ok, there’s this piece of gear.” “Sigh. How much?”

        2. so if i use the digital effects and then record the synth to my computer its not an analog sound anymore….wow… makes you wonder.

  2. Some aspects of this are reminding me of my ten year old Kurzweil. Small pixelated screen and lots of sub menus. I understand you’re not going to get knob per function, nor a big hi-Res screen at this price point.

      1. I would hate the Elektron screens if it weren’t for OverBridge. Almost never look at it. Also, why I haven’t bought an Octatrack and only two outputs.

        Remember, they said DM12 will have an iPad app so that’ll be better any way.

    2. I assume they will rely heavily on the iPad / android app to provide the “nice screen” we are all missing. Most of us have a tablet device of some kind which will be well suited to the role of replacing this “retro” display. they could do with installing a sort of music stand for just this purpose (holding the iPad / screen in place”

      1. Theyre getting almost everything right so far, so my assumption would be the app doubling as screen / control surface for menu parameters, even customizable to suit your preference.

    3. No offense, ShallowMind, but that is a weird comparison. If you look at the top panel of the DM12, you see what? 26 parameters with sliders, some with multiple function buttons below?

      If you think going down one or two levels is menu diving, well, you haven’t gone as deep as a K2xxx can go which is about 6 or 7 levels deep.

      The kurz’s have soft sliders that you can patch to params. This is as different as you can get.

  3. If Akai can build a unit with a 7″ full color touch screen for under a 1000 I think Beringer can add a 5″ hi res full color one.

    Still a dope sounding synth and I’ll be saving my pennies.

    2. Akai’s machine you’re referencing is entirely digital other then the analog audio ins and outs. A very different game in 2016.

  4. Ok, I’m curious if anyone is impressed with Behringer. I mean, you have to give credit when its due. After watching the swarm of videos for the past few weeks, I must say, If I put my ego aside, I’m impressed. This is easily a 2 grand synth. Whats been great about the market now is the overabundance of tools for the home recording musician and the prices that make it available to us. I purchased an Analog Four, got lost in those menus and sold it, bought a minilogue now and I cant keep my hands off.
    Behringer could easily sell this for waaay more and they chose to keep it reasonable with such a powerful machine and a nice tone.

  5. I think its pretty clear FX and modulation are this thing’s key work features. Makes even more sense why Uli wanted 12 voices in that light. The dry sounds aren’t particularly thrilling, but overall patch building is gonna be deep. I dig it.

  6. I’m mostly on the one-knob-per-function team, but I have to politely disagree with those who can’t stand the Elektron menus. I personally have no trouble navigating through my A4. For me it became second nature fairly quickly. I know this is completely subjective, but I wanted to weigh in on the matter.

    I have a different experience with my JD-XI, and my Shruthi-1. Both of which I found counter intuitive and a pain to deal with. Consequently I don’t spend any time designing synth patches for either.

    Also.. WOW! I can’t wait to get my hands on this synth!

    1. I fully agree with the Shruthi-1. I have one with a polivoks filter which is really great sounding, but sound programming is not really intuitiv. The DM12 looks to me that a manual isn’t really necessary. From the videos one can see that everything seems well structured.

    2. For what it’s worth, the Shruthi is simple enough that external control is well worth setting up. I made a simple Max4Live editor that makes it a breeze and use the Shruthi much more since doing it.

  7. Can’t wait for this synth. But consider the Roland FA06. Big hi res screen, huge polyphony, sequencer, sampler and pads for less than a grand? It sounds huge too. I know it’s not analogue but it has a few tricks up its sleeve! Seems there’s a big Roland influence and I’m excited.

  9. this synth is a killer in terms of features. and soundwise it is more than acceptable, especially with all these effects.

    having said this, i do not really understand why they did not put more effort in some sort of visual design. the dm12 tries to look a bit like a juno which is not a good idea anyway, i did not like it even in the 80s. a bit more of a progressive approach could not have done wrong. and good visual design is the cheapest thing in such a huge project.

    anyway, this thing is a dream come true as far as i read wishful posts in the past years in this forum. behringer did the job more than 90% right on first take. and this is pretty good.

    1. Looks good to me. All the basic up front, lots of buttons so probably a pretty gentle learning curve even for the menu-divey stuff. I really like how slim it looks, seems like a breeze to cart around. Those extra few cm’s of depth on a nord or virus make for a real arm-buster when cased up. 61 keys would have been nice. Maybe DM16 with split/layers?

      1. Can anybody think of a technical reason why splits/layers couldn’t/wouldn’t be implemented here? It seems like a potential software/firmware thing–I mean, if my old Ensoniq SQ-80 can do it… This would be an absolute killer feature and a perfect use of all those 12 voices, even if layering halves the polyphony.

        1. The hints from the first preview video were that this is the start of their foray into the synth world, with more to come. Were they to incorporate every feature mentioned in this forum, from the off, it would ineveitably ramp up the price over the benchmark $1000, cutting many out of the ownership equation, and from a business point-of-view, leave less development opportunity, so why would they? Just look at how successful Apple are at that process. It’s done them no harm.

  10. I’ve been watching this series from the very beginning and we’ve now reached Episode 11 – I’m looking forward to the Season 1 finale. It will be some sort of ‘cliffhanger’ no doubt.

    1. Hopefully, the cliffhanger isn’t production delays. It took them a year to start shipping their larger preamp audio interfaces that were introduced in like 2014.

  11. I think it’s great that there are so many on-board effects. I also appreciate the working style of patching up things in the studio or recording entirely dry signals and then sculpting them later on in a final mix, but for playing there’s nothing quite like a self-contained instrument. I suspect that this synth is geared very much toward keyboard players. It’s relatively compact and expensive at all so you might very well bring it on stage even if you wouldn’t trust the venue with your more precious instruments. For me it’s a bit like the virtual analog synths we saw in the 90s and early 2000s but this time with real analog. Oh, and about the display: It might not be pretty, but it certainly seems sufficient for the editing you’re typically going to do on the device itself. It’s also probably one of those cheap standard dot matrix display you can buy almost everywhere. So if the display fails, you can likely change it quite easily without having to hunt down rare and expensive spares. I just hope that Behringer will disclose everything that is needed to build a fully fledged editor as an insurance against the future discontinuation of the development of their own editing solutions.

      2. a bit of an over reaction to my comment, in fact its not comment at all it’s a personal attack since at has nothing to do with the product or any other topic than me.

    1. really stupid video. sorry. dave smith did a similar thing with his prophet5 decades ago: attacking the market from the low end. he knows the game and is still able to play it, i assume. a market has many niches, and the people who (rightfully) crave for the dm12 are no clients of dave’s high pricepoint gear anyway.

  18. I wonder if they’ll sell a standalone DSP effects box like Ensoniq DP4? Would love something like that for external processing for like $200.

  19. Overall i find this a nice synth. One thing that confuses me being no expert is the Screen and Ipad editor etc. So is this synth difficult to program or not? If i would buy a hardware synth i would like it to be usable 100% without computer connection-help. I am in no way a religious “analog is the best in the universe” person.
    I often work for hours a day with a daw. So when i buy an external device i like it to be complete standalone. I need it as a switch-mind reset cause the computer screen feels like it`s sucking your energy if you spend too much time so i need breaks. So when i take these breaks i want something easy to use and independent from my daw-computer. Do you think this synth is that? Or should i stick to my Minilogue? Better said, is it`s ease of use similar to the minilogue? cause if it is like the D.S Mopho X4 i don`t want it. I had the Mopho and sold it after 5 months cause of the Menus and Submenus labyrinth. Nice possibilities but no fun at all if you are new to synths

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