Behringer MS-5 Keyboard Review

This episode of Knobs & Switches offers a review of the Behringer MS-5 keyboard, an inexpensive knockoff of the classic Roland Sh-5, from 1976.

The review offers an overview of the Behringer MS-5, lots of audio demos, and the synth’s pros and cons.

On the positive side, the review praises the Behringer’s sound, the instrument’s affordability and some design changes that make the instrument more compatible with modern standards. On the negative side, the review takes issue with Behringer’s build quality, noting that the instrument reviewed already has same some build issue, and the lack of customer support from Behringer after two months.

Knobs & Switches previously shared a head-to-head comparison of the Roland SH-5 vs Behringer MS-5, embedded below:

Check out the videos and share your thoughts on the Behringer MS-5 in the comments!

35 thoughts on “Behringer MS-5 Keyboard Review”

  1. Behringer is the synthesizer equivalent of buying an iPhone at the park from some shady character for a great price and then getting home, opening the box and there is a rock inside

    2. I do have an original SH5. The Behringer seems to behave exactly like mine. At this point in time. ‘Discriminate’ a synth just because of the ‘brand name’, for me is like discriminating someone for the color of their skin. Nowadays I am so happy that there are sooo many options out there and some of them are really accessible. Believe me guys. Back in the late 70s a lot of us couldn’t afford to have just one single synth…nowadays all of them sound really amazing. Who cares from which ‘mother’ they came?.

      1. I agree. I remember not being able to afford any of the Synths in the early 80s. The fact that accessible instruments are now available to so many more people is fantastic.

    3. LOL. Behringer is the synthesizer equivalent of buying a brand new iPhone 2 with a warranty from a large retailer (i.e. Sweetwater, Amazon) for a great price and then getting it home, opening the box, and realizing that you can make calls with an iPhone 2.

  2. synthtopia; a cheap kockoff of a real blog. on the positive side, it’s not entirely late on every newsworthy article.

    got enough flip-top case synths.

    1. Behringer fanboys can’t tell the difference between a knockoff and a “kockoff”?

      Does that explain the constant butthurt?

      1. Give him a chance. Almost every Behringer fanboy’s trigger response is from somewhere between 1970 & 1983.

        It must be tough not having much to offer that isn’t more than 40 years old or original.

        1. It must be tough? What’s tough about making products that people want / buy?

          Why is there a new Prophet 5? Or an Oberheim OB-X8? It must be tough that these are based on synths that are more than 40 years old.

          1. Hey! Another xxxxxxxxxxxxx!

            Sooo, let’s take a deep breath & have a think about how rabid it appears when people defend the identity of a corporation.

            Then let’s consider how a companies undermine their competitors & behave online. Not just about access to old instruments, consider how this involves knockoff in-production cheap Arturia* gear & innovative Moog gear. Then there’s an overly defensive social media team (painting themselves as the good guy for being cheap, lying about other synth designer’s involvement in R&D, making really suss posts about critical bloggers, threatening to sue forum users for having opinions).

            Now let’s take off the rose tinted glasses & consider that lots of good instruments have been released in the past 40 years. We’re at a point where the bias for old analog poly synths is starting to fade as they can be recreated digitally almost perfectly. New synths can do things those old analogs just can’t match (MPE, midi 2.0, huge modulation matrices, audio over USB, advanced sequencer integration).

            Lastly we all need to be so very considerate of the butthurt suffered when fanboys have knee jerk reactions to critical thought.

            I personally think it must be tough to live such a life of corporate attachment. If it’s easy please enlighten me as to why.

            *no company is perfect, Arturia mislead the market when they said Mutable Instruments were involved with the Microfreak. At least they retracted the dud statement.

              1. Understood & that was a fair call on your half. I was petty & will avoid that in future. Apologies.

                Thanks for publishing with the edit, it’s much appreciated.

    2. “a cheap kockoff of a real blog“
      And yet it gives some people a wonderful forum to consistently post their tiresome passive-aggressive “get off my lawn” angry old man style comments.

    3. Your comment is needlessly dickish.

      This is not a personal attack. I don’t know you at all. You might well be the greatest person on earth. You might be the EMT that saved my cousin’s life last year. If so, thank you. As such, I am 100% *not* presuming that you are a dick. This post though… needlessly dickish.

  3. I’ve had a few of their synths, and currently own a Pro-800 which is great so far. The Mini D and the Neutron I had seemed well built. I can’t speak to their instruments which have keys, etc.

  4. I had an SH-7 for a while, with 2 VCOs and external input. I went Moog after a while for the weight of the sound. Roland seemed too thin back then. I learned plenty from it, so I’m glad to have the basic sound & unique tone from the Roland Cloud now. It feels better than struggling with a dodgy vintage piece or a dubious reimagining.

    1. A few years ago I was pretty much against the whole subscription based model but after multiple $$$ repairs to some of my hardware favs, and then eventually just not being able to find a shop that would even still do repairs I further embraced inside the box world. The Roland cloud thing was the first foray and I have not looked back. JMO obviously.

      Side note- last December I set up 2 different studios …the first was one of my MacBook Pros using all the Korg plug-ins, the second was in a different room with KronosX 88, Triton(76 key), Karma, old wave station SR, Triton Rack, Radias, TR-Rack, and MS-2000R.

      My experience after a month or so was I got more stuff done on multiple levels with laptop version using many of the hardware counterparts as plug-ins vs the roomful of hardware. Not even counting the physical stuff like room size needed for all the gear, the cabling, the mixers, midi interfaces, the turning of everything on and off, dust, comfort of trying to reach and play all the hardware, blah, blah. Just the simplicity of saving everything at the end of a session, running multiple instances of any plug-in I wanted, editing on a giant monitor vs crappy little windows smaller than an iPhone with endless menu diving, or being able to take my “sessions” to another location and work from pretty much anywhere if needed were just a few of the pros. I was also more productive and creative with the laptop version studio.

      Again just my opinion and experiences YMMV, but though I still have hardware favs that I love to play, I will never go back to the massive studios I used to have full of hardware and racks and basically GASing lol, so in regards to the dreaded Roland Cloud Sub issue, 2k for ten years or whatever it comes out to be…equaled about 2 years of repair hassles I dealt with on just my beloved Triton. Not even counting, issues with some of my other hardware favs like fading LCDs, wonky keybeds, knob issues, limited preset memory, menu diving, eye strain editing on tiny windows, etc
      Again, JMOs

      1. Interesting take. Out of interest what midi controllers do you use on the plug-ins studio? I wonder whether or not that makes all the difference.

    2. Interfon on YouTube has done this.
      I did try commenting with the link, but I’m not sure if links are allowed.
      The title of the he video is “Behringer MS-1 MK2 – Very Disappointed”.
      No doubt the title will give you some clue!

  8. LFO-2 rate slider response on my MS-5 seems normal, not sure why the review says the weird linear response of the LFO-1 rate and S+H sample time sliders also applies to LFO-2 (maybe it does on his, but it’s not demonstrated). I’d be interested to find out what the two LFO-1 calibration options on the back do, a little trepidatious about just experimenting with them.

  9. You may spend thousands on fixing your old synth, or get a cheap Behringer that does the same – often with some nifty improvements added. To me that choise is easy. But yes – for some of their products I question their ethics.

  11. I find that a “cheap knock-off” that actually work as it should and on top of that integrate seamlessly with the rest of your gear is a good thing, from a musician’s perspective that is…
    I just ordered one of these btw. Hope I didn’t offend anyone from doing so.

    1. You gotta love how the fanboys get their panties in a wad if you call a Behringer product a ‘knockoff’, and then they comment on every new product that they’re going to wait until Behringer makes a cheap copy.

      Why’s it so hard for people to admit that Behringer makes cheap knockoffs, and sometimes that’s all you want or need?

      1. Arrived yesterday, sounds like the dogs… hrrmmm… favourites.
        Adds that elusive ‘cool’ Roland sound to go with my Moog Matriarch and Erica Perkons. Couldn’t care less what people call this – if it’s a knock-off then I’m very, very fine with it being that! 🙂

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