Behringer has introduced Swords, a clone of the Mutable Instruments Blades module.
Mutable open sourced its designs when it shut down in 2022, so anyone can make clones of their designs, if they provide attribution and follow the open source license. Features:
- Dual multi-mode filter for a wide range of smooth to aggressive tones
- Based on Mutable Instruments Blades
- 2 musical 12 dB state-variable filters
- Analog circuitry based on 2164 semiconductors
- Continuous morphing from low-pass to band-pass and high-pass filtering
- Input overdrive ranging from soft clipping to two-stage wave folding
- Self-oscillation at high resonance settings, extending into very low frequencies
- Continuously variable and CV-controlled routing from single to parallel and series
- Eurorack specs: 18 HP, 150 mA +12 V, 140 mA -12 V
Behringer Swords Intro Video:
Pricing and Availability:
The Behringer Swords is shipping from their factory, with a street price of $99 USD.
Note: It typically takes about a month for Behringer’s gear to be available at their retailers after it starts shipping from the factory.
Move over tall dog, blue lantern and after later audio! beheringer is coming to change the mutable clone Etsy game by lowering the bar even more! Haters back off!
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i wish they stuck to one panel design, it’s starting to look like a mess – unless you like that kind of thing. my first Brains has orange point knobs, then they came with white. plus they’re switching to knurled knobs? ugh.
pure hardware like this one is fine, but i buy mutable clone modules i can load my own firmwares on. i don’t favor dropping the open source capability for cost. or the possibility of mechanical compatibility for panels.
depends on whether you’re building a modular instuments, or just a box of fun modules.
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You could always buy any other 3rd party panel or design your own
Such is the rich tapestry of life
no, behringer changes the mechanicals. 3rd party panels do not fit.
Ok fine, it sounds pretty damn good.
Of course it does, it’s a mindless copy of a good Mutable design.
Aren’t all mutable clones just mindless copies?
I’ve seen very few that add anything other than original panel art to the designs
Clouds maybe the exception
Nice for those who has a tight budget.
the only concern I see, is that the smaller providers of similar clones might turn the key with these kind of outcomes in the longer run and then there is only one provider left.
IT’S DISGUSTING WAAAAAAH! BEHRINGER ARE EVIL WAAAAAAH! I JUST SHAT MY PANTS!
Hey Uli !!
Momo Modular called. They want their mutable instrument clone game back!
Keep disrupting the industry!
Somebody needs to offer alternate panels for the entire Behringer line of MI clones!
In most cases the panels would cost almost as much as the modules themselves; might be a hard sell for this clientele!
if you make front panels from pcbs, like qu-bit / make noise for example, then its pretty cheap, around 6 dollar a piece if remember good
In most cases the panels already exist seeing as the MI Blades was eventuall made opensource and DIY builds have been a thing for a good while now
https://oddvolt.com/products/black-panel-for-mutable-instruments-blades
You seem to be missing the part where B repositioned some pots and buttons and made these panels useless for their modules…
Well the point still stands. I’m pretty sure I noticed someone on here or reddit making behringer panels. Or you could just do it yourself if it bothered you that much. It’s hardly rocket science
The designs of these panels are just terrible.
I have the wonderful Excalibur from CalSynth, and let me tell you, as filters go, it’s fantastic. It takes what a filter does to the Nth.
I like the panel design.
It’s weird, in the past, Behringer haters (like me) would preemptively hate on Uli & B-word for ripping off the designs & work of others.
Now Behringer-Hater-Haters come on and preemptively attack us, before we even say anything about how Uli & B-word rip off the designs & work of others.
Obviously, Behringer makes low-quality, affordable clones of products. It seems less objectionable when the clones are of products that are no longer available; but it would still be better if they could go about it in a more ethical way. There’s just no getting around how jerky that company and its leader have become. I get that its a cut-throat business, and you are free to celebrate that awful fact, if you want. But I shan’t.
I used to be angry about Behringer’s lack of creativity, not designing their own synthesizers and modules in favor of cloning other people’s designs, but now I don’t give a rat’s ass. How many companies have cloned the Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul? Cooler companies design their own stuff like Korg’s Wavestate and ASM’s Hydrasynth. There will always be funky Modules like the Doepfer A-127 Triple Controlled Resonance Filter and the Blue Lantern Asteroid VCF, so who cares if Behringer makes another MakeNoise clone?
I was never “angry” about Behringer’s lack of creativity– you are most certainly entitled to that– I’m just saying there are much more valid reasons to be angry at Behringer.
We’ve heard many times the comparisons about the world’s copious clones of strats and les pauls; but I don’t think that is a fair comparison.
Behringer’s cheap clones tend to target smaller innovators. Their practices often push legal and ethical boundaries, and they lean hard on replication as opposed to adding any improvements or different spin on products, this stifles innovation by directly hurting the companies that innovate.
Imagine pouring your life and hours into designing a brilliant product and Uli is proverbially spying on you through your window– with a high-powered camera.
In regards of the MI stuff it targets just the small copiers and not the small innovators 😀
Yea, but pull those threads.
At the same time, what is truly innovative though? I see a lot of synth manufacturers basically cloning or mimicking classic synth designs (with a bit of mix and match – oh wow, a digital oscillator going into an analogue filter), and with analogue synths, I think the polybrute12 is the only serious one that could be said to do actual new stuff (by copying things the CS80 could do in 1979).
Sequential has been re-releasing its classic synth with 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 or 16 voices, sometimes throwing in an extra oscillator (I mean wow, I wish Robert Moog had thought of the three VCO design, it’s really radical) for over 15 years now. After Korg’s highly innovative clones of the MS20 and Arp Odyssey/2600 they are now innovating by cloning the 1980s wavestation and 1990s MS2000 (with fewer hands on controls of course). Roland of course is at the forefront of innovation with their ACB technology not quite achieving what their analogue synths did so well back in the 70s and 80s.
With the possible exception of the Arturia Keystep and some modular stuff I really couldn’t care less about, most of Behringer’s cloning has been focused on classic synths and designs by big high end brands like Oberheim and Moog. This representation of Uli sneaking around stealing from poor renegade designers inventing highly original new stuff whilst suffering from malnourishment and Berlin winter-frostbite is a bit ridiculous. Dave Smith and Bob Moog are warm and cosy in the afterlife, and their companies are doing fine. So is the Roland corporation. Curse you Uli for making the CEO’s of Roland sell fewer digital 303 emulations to gullible teens!
The synth industry had it coming is all I’m saying. With the vintage market going absolutely insane (I saw a Kawai K1 listed for 550 euros last week), and manufacturers spending 2.5 decades telling synth players that “no you don’t want our old analogue poly’s, you want minikeys and bad digital emulations”, someone was inevitably going to come along and give people what they wanted.
True, Uli hasn’t “dedicated” a synth to vulnerable women like Dreadbox did (and that really helped further women’s rights, didn’t it?) And I’m sure the chinese kids making those clones aren’t as happy as the kids in the Taiwanese factory currently producing my ordered Moog Muse. But you can’t have everything.
Competition doesn’t stifle innovation, it encourages it. No longer can you just release that cloned TB303, stick a price tag on it of over a 1000 euros and watch the money roll in to your bank account without ever having to design anything yourself, other than a cool logo and a social media persona sending out the right “cool” vibes to potential customers. Heck, nowadays you might even actually have to come up with an original idea and develop it to compete. God forbid.
(On the other hand, Teenage Engineering seem to be doing just fine, so even now you can get by on “cool image” alone, without having to come up with original ideas. Don’t worry.)
I mean “tend to target smaller innovators”? Like Robert A. Moog, Korg, the Roland corporation and Tom Oberheim? Maybe it’s different in the modular realm (which I don’t follow), but in terms of synths they released, I can’t name a single example of a clone they did of a synth from a “smaller innovator”, apart from the Kobol Expander, and that was a “small innovator” from half a century ago that no longer exists.
And this particular module seems to be a repackaging of a module by a company that’s folded and explicitly made their designs open-source. Perfectly fine, except for people who were planning on repackaging that same open source technology and selling it at 4 or 5 times the price Behringer can manage. I wouldn’t call those people “innovators”, however small they may be. It’s still just taking someone else’s design, sticking a new frontplate on it, and head to the market to sell as many as possible. The only difference is that Behringer can sell more, because they can sell for lower prices.
I haven’t bought any of the Behringer synth clones btw, but it’s nothing to do with ethics as far as I’m concerned. Give me a specific example of where Behringer is ripping off “smaller innovators” and I might change my mind, but I can’t really think of an example I’ve come across yet, other than the keystep, which is a usb midi keyboard from a no-longer-very-small-at-all company and hardly an innovation.
It feels like 3 or 4 of these posts in here seem to follow a pattern in most beheringer discussions, like random musings from a person who used to criticize them but now sees their value, or the high compliments paid to beheringer always come attached with some mundane criticisms and then maybe 1 of 4 tried and tested lines about democricizing the industry or making synths for all or criticizing moog for their prices being out of this world. Or saying that any negatives are from the beheringer haters or something. I’d love to know if it’s the same behringer employee across all platforms or multiples, and are they in house or sourced out? Or is it uli himself, you never really hear from him directly regarding when they are called out.
No.
Up until your comment no one has mentioned “democricizing the industry or making synths for all” and not one comment has “criticiz[ed] moog for their prices being out of this world”.
There has been the standard Fender / Gibson argument however, I’ll give you that.
Yes
The pattern was for all posts and not just this one. If you don’t think beringer has their employees crap posting in forums and comment sections on YouTube then great. You disagree, that’s wonderful. I wish you well. Now if you don’t mind I have to move to the other new behringer gear thread and post something sarcastic before I go to bed. If that’s okay with you donglebob
No.
Up until your comment no one has mentioned “democricizing the industry or making synths for all” and not one comment has “criticiz[ed] moog for their prices being out of this world”.
The has been the standard Fender / Gibson argument however, I’ll give you that.