Are These The Synths That Behringer Will Clone Next?

Behringer shared today that it has bought a stack of vintage gear, all units from a Tears for Fears auction.

The synths and other gear come from Tears for Fears touring rig, and came with the band’s original patches and presets and the road-proven flight cases:

Gear in Behringer’s Tears for Fear haul includes:

  • Eventide Ultra Harmonizer H3000
  • PPG Wave 2.2
  • EMU Emulator II
  • Sequential Circuits Prophet 5
  • Yamaha DX1
  • Hammond C3 with 2 Leslies
  • 2 LinnDrums.

Are these the synths (and other gear) that Behringer will clone next?

At this point, the company says that “Right now we’re bringing them to our Kidderminster Care center so we can give them a lot of love so they’ll shine again.”

Check out the lineup and let us know what you think!

70 thoughts on “Are These The Synths That Behringer Will Clone Next?”

  1. In before the moaning begins. They’ll have a winner if they can design a decent interface for a DX style synth with the effects from the Deepmind imo.

      1. I would never expect anyone to recreate the DX1, but I’d seriously consider a spin on the 6-op DX7 that had real buttons (ala DX7 II), knobs, and built-in effects.

    3. Come on Synthtopia, Elliot Garage releases the EG waveshaper synth a few days ago after it’s pre-order info came out even before that and not even a mention? But we get yet another “what will Berhinger do next?” post.

    1. Hopefully that’s way down in the queue. So many other synths to cover before some second rate Russian knock off. Get a grip.

  3. oh c´mon, uli, stop that bad marketing technique. everything you claim you want to do here–namely bringing orzabal´s iconic sounds back to life–was already done by rob puricelli a year ago…

    The Ian Stanley Fairlight CMI Series III Restoration – YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc8KB7rV3i4

    why didn´t you purchase the item? it was offered for sale. oh, you weren´t interested in tears for fears sounds back then? well so why now? *facepalm* long story short: stop trying to attract the public´s attention with this kind of laughable stunts.

    2. This is called content marketing, as all modern companies do nowadays, not bad marketing. Seems you missed the progress in marketing the past decades.

  4. Does anyone really want a new hardware PPG Wave or EMU Emulator? These old digital synths never had great user interfaces, and you get incomparably better performance and usability today from an iPad.

    Clones of hard-to-find analog gear are fine, but if Behringer’s going to make a digital synth, they’d be much better served by doing something original.

    1. ‘…you get incomparably better performance and usability today from an iPad.’

      Bingo.

      My beloved Triton Studio is in the shop for only the third time since I bought it, and based on the serial # it was the 536 model made, it is loaded with expansion cards and is my fav synth after my Vsynth rack but the fixit will be about $380. I own tons of hardware and a few years back I had even more. My jp8000 sits in the closet because sunrizer which I can still run on an old 3GS iPhone kicks it’s ass. FunkBox which also still runs on the same old iPhone is amazing. I had an original 909 and I hated it back in the day, for the music I was doing anyway, whatever.

      The fact is each week it seems more cool stuff comes out for my iPads that blows away any of this old reissue stuff. In the end I am about sounds and that is why I still do this after 45+ years and TBH 99% of the people that are kind enough to buy my music and support my sonic endeavors could care less about what gear I use. They care about what I create, like I do. The tools are just that, a means to an end, when they become the actual end, I think the art always suffers. JMO.

      1. You’re right but two things: (1) I like playing instruments realtime and find the latency on software instruments is pretty bad, although I haven’t tried an iphone yet; (2) I do music for fun and get bored of staring at computers at work all day.

        1. Fair enough. JMOs
          (1) me too my fav instrument is 50 year old Baldwin baby grand but my Kronos 88x blows it away for actual recording of piano stuff
          (2) my oldest pc I still use is a 10 year old dell precision 360 running last version of XP no latency that is noticeable for my uses in the studio, live I always used hardware synths etc
          (3) totally understand boredom with looking at screens

          No disrespect to anyone wanting to buy hardware clones or any hardware, use whatever works,
          Cheers

          2. So the answer is buy a cheap windows tablet off eBay for about $40
            then use a half decent USB audio interface and have about 5ms of latency.
            and a portable setup well under $100.
            you might need a magnifying glass for the tiny screen though

      2. The VST exerpeince will NEVER be the same as the dedicated hardware experience. This is why the market has exploded with (mostly) new analog synths in the last few years. VA’s too. They are hands-on, and can last a lifetime. VST’s have a short shelf life, as they rely on a computer’s OS.

    2. I want a new sampler with 12 bit ad/da and variable sample rate. But I want it to have several gb of space and other modern amenities.

    4. The PPG Wave 2’s digital oscillators have a sample rate up in the Mhz so it has a crystal clear high end without aliasing. It does have alot of quanitization noise because of the low bit rate but that’s a much more musical sound IMO. It then has an analog signal path through the analog VCF’s and VCA. It would be tremendously interesting to clone and have access to these unique pieces of hardware. Used models are many thousands of dollars, rarely come on sale and are aging.

      Send in the clones.

  5. By acquiring and cloning all this gear, Behringers team also acquires a broad and deep knowledge for these synthesizers architecture/design.

    I am not particularly interested in shitting on what they do, however i do hope they preserve and overturn all that knowledge into something innovative and unique, as stated by other posters earlier.

  6. They have good controllers with LEDs already.
    Can’t be too hard to come up with something that beats a TX81Z, a Reface DX or a Volca FM…

  8. Now a pre-PRE- Teasing. The tease before the tease of the tease. Even roadcases start a long conversation. Marvelous. Soon, we will see roadcases for new Burger King Sandwhiches.

  12. Of this bunch, the only thing that It would make sense to clone is the LinnDrum.

    They could also build a new synth, based on the Prophet voice, but it wouldnt make sense to build a straight clone.

    The rest are classics, but more of interest for collectors.

    1. Why wouldn’t it make sense to make a straight clone of a Prophet-5? They’ll already have an analog polysynth platform, complete with CEM3310 envelope emulation after the UB-Xa, and their factory is remaking the other required CEM chips. If there is a market for a Prophet-5 clone, Behringer would be crazy not to tap it!

      BTW Behringer are already working on a new synth based on a Prophet voice. It’s called the Pro-1.

      1. Why build a clone of a 5-voice synth in this day and age, when Sequential has moved far beyond that?

        Does anyone but collectors want a Prophet 5 knockoff taking up space I; their studio?

        If they took the DeepMind 12 and gave it the analog synth voice of the Prophet 5, so you’d have a modern synth with effects and decent polyphony, that might actually make sense.

  13. Sometimes I think the 80’s craze within hipster version of music genres is allowing down, even chromeo has gone pop, and Bruno Mars had some 90s style stuff going on… I think we are at the proto advent of 90s gear revival, even though all that said sucks and the interfaces are horrible and compact.

  16. As the proud owner of a Deepmind 12, Behringer deserves some kind of vapourware award. They have announced and made prototypes of well over a dozen synths, mostly clones. However, as I type this, they have released only three synths, two of which are original designs: The Deepmind series (6-voice, 12-voice, and 12-voice no-keyboard), the Neutron, and their Minimoog clone.

    The only unreleased Behringer product that I’ll probably buy is that June-60 pedal, mainly to give my Deepmind12 the ability to make any sound a Juno-106 could make in 1984 (I use two $20 chorus pedals in series in the meantime), although that VP-330 clone would be very tempting if ever released (it would be the first MIDI analog string synth ever made).

    I would not be surprised if the current analog craze wore off before Behringer releases half of the synths and drum machines they have announced so far.

  18. holy crap! I am excited for the pro-1 but a prophet 5 is even crazier perhaps. What a cool purchase and media moment. Look the lead-up teases to it on the fb page also.

  19. YAWN. I’d pay $20 to not see or hear the name Behringer for at least 90 days. That’d be a new revenue stream for the company. Half of the group is clearly frothing to sit in the middle of a prog rock stack and the other half is constantly grousing for something “new.” The Hartmann Neuron was super-new. Why aren’t those popping up all over reverb dot com? Oh yeah… it was smarter than anyone but the designers, including me, to be fair. I also (casually) predict that you’ll (almost certainly) never see a Behringer CS-80, Emulator or Synclavier. The CS-80 is/was a serious *keyboard* player’s instrument; it fails today’s trend-and-form-factor test. Remaining Emulators often sport a USB upgrade in the floppy drive bay for obvious reasons and had tiny sh*t displays besides; the design makes no sense as a direct clone. The Synclavier is so far outside the target zone, its orbiting Venus. Uli is about the low-end and mid-rangers, such as the Roland VP clone. However, if he could actually clone an Eventide Harmonizer that worked, a few people would get Behringer logo tattoos.

    1. The Hartmann Neuron is actually #1 on my list of what I want Uli to clone (of things that are realistic, there are others but they are so improbable that they are not worth the mention)….and it would be easy to clone since it is basically a VST in a box…..if he can crack it.

  23. Oh buoy! I would buy a Behringer leslie speaker in a heartbeat. And if they made a legit electro mechanical organ ala Hammond, well hell, that’d be pretty cool too. Even you Behringer trolls have to concede that.

    1. **what the fack is wrong with Tears for Fears though!?!!? why the hell would they get rid of all this great gear?!?!? Mental.

      To clear the garage of old gear that’s gathering dust because they went all-out for Ableton? To pay off a divorce settlement or beat down a mortgage? To donate the proceeds to charity like Moby did? Because someone suddenly said “Oi, why the fack are we slaving away over a bloody DX1 in 2018??” Because someone lost big to Uli in a game of 3-D chess? Because they became Buddhist monks? To upgrade their studio and come back strong? I know: because they’re sick of putting a disk in the Emulator and hearing that GGGRRRNNNXXXX!! sound.

  28. I’d love a Hammond clone, given that today it’s relatively easy to produce a good organ. But I doubt it’s on their plans, given that they’re focusing on synths. Plus, it couldn’t possibly cost less than a Reface YC (which I own and sounds amazing, not top-tier but surely Nord-tier), and the Numa is already priced pretty reasonably. Besides, while the Yamaha DX would be a great choice, I don’t think synths like Eventide would actually sell decently, or the EMU (which doesn’t make sense today given the quality of sampling we’ve reached).

  31. Okay – would definitely buy a Behringer Prophet 5 if it was accurate in sound and appearance, and was a reasonable price ($1599 or lower). But my ‘top 5’ wishlist for Behringer is:

    1) ARP 2600
    2) ARP Quadra
    3) Roland Jupiter 8
    4) Roland System 100 (original) – complete
    5) Yamaha CS-80 (but I really doubt they could make it affordable).

  32. EDP Wasp please Behringer. You know how to do it. I’m pretty sure the synth community would love this one back too! You could call it the Behringer “Sting”, credit me and throw me a free one for the idea as you would make Millions! Oh hell, call it what you want, just make it already??.
    I’m asking as you’ve done such a great job with the must have MS101.?

  33. Pretty soon Behringer will buy/steal you while you’re sleeping, then clone you. And you will have no rights, since your human patents ran out centuries ago. You’ll have nothing to say except wow’ I have a twin!!!

    1. aaron mark smith.
      This is frighteningly close to the truth.
      Lets hope their A&E dept is better than their customer service

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