The All-New Behringer Keyboards 'n' Stuff Thread

[muzines]

This kind of thing must be driven by company culture, surely?

I mean either Uli is saying "I want you to copy this product, it needs to be in production in three months", or, management is putting so much pressure on people to get products to market in short timescales that their only option is to copy something else so they can sidestep the time it takes to design and refine new things.

I can't believe there's a whole company of people who just think it's perfectly fine to rip off other companies' products shamelessly, without even attempting to even hide it a little...

[BJG145]

Arturia have now commented.

Arturia’s CEO and co-founder, Frédéric Brun, took to the Simply Synthesizers Facebook Group to make a statement regarding SWING. “This product is in no way the result of a partnership between Arturia and Behringer”, the post reads. “We have worked hard to create the Step range. We have invested time and money to imagine, specify, develop, test and market the KeyStep. Along with our distributors, we have been evangelizing this product, placing it in stores, explaining it, servicing it.”

“Of course we accept competition, and would absolutely understand that Berhinger give their own interpretation of a small and smart controller that would also be a sequencer. Others do, we have no problem with that and see good for the customer, as well as for the industry, in fair competition”.

He closes the post with: “But this is not fair competition here. Coco Chanel once said: ‘If you want to be original, be ready to be copied’. So we could in a way consider the Swing as a compliment. We could. In any case, thank you, everyone who came out and supported us these past 36 hours! It’s been very helpful, very much appreciated”.

[The Elf]

What the world *doesn't* need is yet another DAW.

[Agharta]

What the world *doesn't* need is yet another DAW.

Don't worry as they won't be releasing a new DAW, but a series of new DAWs at the rate of one per month.
I look forward to the names:
Plogic Y
Queue Bass
Bot Toupee
Bro Spoolls

[muzines]

[Eddy Deegan]

I have an Arturia PolyBrute on pre-order, expected to arrive in a couple of weeks, all being well.

I also have a Behringer 2600 clone on order, expected to arrive at the end of Februrary.

I cancelled a Poly-D order after the cork-sniffer incident and bought a Hydrasynth instead.

On this occasion, I'm mulling my options. I've paid the deposit for, and committed to the purchase price of the 2600 with a friendly and helpful contact from my usual supplier but I could trivially pivot that towards something non-Behringer.

At this point I'm seriously considering converting the 2600 price into something towards the cost of an UDO Super 6. I'd be without a tasty 2600 clone but the manner in which Behringer is conducting itself is very much at odds with my personal moral compass.

I shall watch what happens over the next week or two. I have a Keystep and am not in the market for the clone but it's a horrible thing they've done here and it concerns me greatly.

If Behringer backs off, apologises and settles or withdraws the product then that's one thing but if they double down, I think they'll finally make my 'no go' list and I'll take that, and future money elsewhere even if it means going without the 2600 clone (and the other clones I would really like that could be in the offing later).

I've tried hard to be balanced when it comes to the 'copy vs. innovate' model from Behringer but this specific incident is a step too far and my wallet will always follow my conscience.

How unnecessary, and how sad, that Behringer would do this.

As I'm a mod here: For the avoidance of doubt this is my personal view and does not necessarily reflect that of Sound On Sound.

[Arpangel]

I see Behringer appear to up to their copying game again with the new "Swing"

Not sure what you're talking about? The differences seem pretty obvious to me.


Behringer's keyboard is white, whereas Arturia's is black.

Behringer have got away with it for too long now, and it’s too late to suddenly get all moral.
We’ve all done it, bought their stuff, but the reality of this "Keystep" is that it’s a blatant "rip-off" and there are two things working here, Behringer's ruthlessness, and people’s greed.
I’ve got three Behtinger products, a compressor, some speakers, and an interface, all boring utility stuff, mostly bought when I had no money, I’ve got an inherent dislike for "copies" or replicas of anything, I’d rather go without than have a copy, as I have said many times here, most of the time the compromises make them unacceptable.
The trouble with this Keystep clone, is that it’s just another utility, there aren’t any complicated decisions to make, it either works or it doesn’t, and if it’s cheaper than the competition, then a lot of people will buy it in preference to the original, but would I?
In this case no, this is aggressive "market stealing" if I were a business man I’d not want to go anywhere near an idea like this, and I know people that if it was their ideas that were getting ripped-off there would be no discussion or moralising, it would be a case of stop, or step outside.
We seem to be living in a morally bankrupt world, where if you can get away with it it’s OK, but where is all this going to end? no doubt in a lot of "positive bullshit" trying to justify it.
How about companies actually inventing things of their own, innovative things, you know, like they used to do, companies that have. gone down in history, Moog, ARP, Obeheim, Sequential Circuits, EMS, just a few, is it a sign of how much we owe to them, and admire them, that we are prepared buy these cheap imitations.
These instruments aren’t made anymore, but maybe we should let them sleep peacefully, they had their time, we should move on.

[The Elf]

This is why I once refused to buy anything Behringer (leaving aside the quality of their gear, which was reason #1). Over years they seemed to have cleaned up their act and they gained my trust that those day were finally behind them.

And then this.

It seems it's not been licensed from Arturia, or the designer. Nor should it have been. Behringer appear to have faithfully copied a flawed, short feature-list, low value toy.

And Uli is happy to see years of trust-building publically sacrificed on the altar of this toy? It beggars belief.

I sincerely hope that we hear more of the background to this story - and I hope it clears the air, because right now there's one heck of a stink.

[Rich Hanson]

Part of me is wondering if this is a cynical ploy on behalf of Behringer to get people talking about them.

I admit that I am uneasy about owning Behringer stuff. I was aware of their history - I had hoped they were leaving that stuff in the past but we've had Cork Sniffer, then Crave and now this. It looks like they haven't really changed at all.

It would probably be pointless divesting myself of my Behringer synths now, but nor do I feel comfortable about owning something with that name either.

Mind you, I've been considering ways of getting hold of a Modal Cobalt 8X - if somebody buys me one of those, they can have my Behringer synths

[The Elf]

For anyone wondering...

[Arpangel]

Mind you, I've been considering ways of getting hold of a Modal Cobalt 8X - if somebody buys me one of those, they can have my Behringer synths

The thing about owning anything by Behringer is that it’s still seen, after all these years, as something you bought because you couldn’t afford to get what you really wanted, or as a some sort of cheap substitute, and you try selling anything by Behringer? it’s almost impossible, plus, you’ll get hardly anything for it if you do.
I bought my Behringer stuff with no thought about resale, it’s pointless, and if I do change it, it will probably end up in a charity shop.
That Modal synth Rich, you’re already ahead because if you bought one it’s a unique thing, in its own right, it’s not a copy of anything, and it’s not a cheap substitute.
I can’t have too much a go at Behringer, I’ve got their stuff, and I’ve thought about their synths, but I’ve never been tempted that much to do anything about buying them, for some of the reasons mentioned above.

[BJG145]

At this point I'm seriously considering converting the 2600 price into something towards the cost of an UDO Super 6

I'm interested to hear the UDO caught your eye. It's the first mention I've seen since picking up the new SOS review, which was the first I'd heard of it, though I see it's cropped up before.

I thought that blue model looked really appealing. But I wouldn't cancel your 2600 because of this, having ordered it in good faith. It's the product of a lengthy development process by some great people, and it would be unfair on them to blacklist it because of poor subsequent decisions from the company boss.

(They'll either mend their ways because of this, or they won't; it seems to have stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest. My guess is that they wanted something to integrate in some particular way with their new DAW - there have been hints of this - and this was handy, so they pinched it. Poor move.)

[Folderol]

I'm very disappointed to see this. I really thought they'd turned the corner - as it were - but apparently not

[muzines]

Now that I look at it, there are key differences that Behringer have added to the design.

The labels on the keys are *centre* justified, whereas on the Arturia they are *left* justified.

Clearly there was a hole in the market appealing to those folks who prefer centre justified text that Arturia just weren't servicing.

(I bet when they hit the centre justified text icon in Photoshop, the Behringer guy was all smiles going "genius disguise! No-one's *ever* going to know where *this* came from!")

[IAA]

We’ve all done it, bought their stuff

I haven’t, ever, for many reasons and don’t regret it. The 2600 looked good, but I’m sticking to the Arturia plugin!

I do wonder where this will end up. We need innovation, we need companies to push and invest scarce R&D funding into new synths and instruments, if huge corporations are going to just stand on your shoulders and benefit from that .....why would you?

I think the UDO looks pretty interesting actually and if I was buying again I’d be looking there.

[BJG145]

I think they should have called this the Behringer MisStep!! Geddit?

...I'll get my coat...

[ManFromGlass]

The logo doesn’t say Swing, it says Sexing.
Can’t unsee that. . . . Yes I’m wearing my glasses.

[muzines]

Update: And Behringer's response via Musictribe:

"Since various magazines and Arturia have publicly called us out over the launch of our Swing MIDI Controller, we would like to respond and share some facts around the principles of competition and clear up some misconceptions.

Competition is a highly effective tool to drive innovation by empowering Customers to make their best choices and force manufacturers to constantly reinvent themselves. Innovation means progress and this happens on many levels, whether it relates to customer experience, functionality or cost efficiencies etc.
There are 4 established marketing strategies: market leader, market challenger, market follower and market nichers. Here is a great article: https://aytm.com/blog/brand-positioning ... ge-part-3/

The competition law was designed to avoid companies creating a market monopoly and stifle innovation, which would be detrimental to the rights of the Customers to expect better offerings. The law was specifically designed to encourage everyone to fiercely compete, even when it means over the same functionality and design, provided intellectual property such as utility (functional) and design patents as well as trademarks etc. are respected.

How many Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul clones are out there in the guitar world and how many SM58 clones are available? How many cars or mobile phones look alike? It is not surprising that Gibson recently lost a substantial legal case trying to prevent others from making V-shape guitars or Fender, who lost all trademark cases related to their Stratocaster design.

The reason is simple: the law encourages competition and provides maximum freedom for companies to engage head-on, all for the benefit of the Customer.

We are spending large amounts of resources on innovation, which is reflected in products such as X32, XR18, Flow, DDM4000, etc. This made us the global market leader for analog and digital mixers and over the years we have built an extensive patent portfolio:
https://community.musictribe.com/pages/ ... l-property

However, we also clearly choose to follow successful brands and products, while adding more features and/or competing on price. Much of our innovation is invisible to the Customer as it relates to our highly advanced and automated design and manufacturing processes and for that we are spending hundreds of millions of US$.

For this reason, we have become strategic partners with Microsoft, Siemens, Adobe and many other Tier 1 companies as we are pushing for extreme digitization and automation.

The follower marketing strategy is a very common business model in any industry, which is enabled by law to encourage competition. With our new Swing MIDI Controller, we followed an established concept, but of course wrote our own firmware with added functionality. However, these unique features will only come to life when we launch our free DAW.

The free Music Tribe DAW will form the heart of an incredible eco-system, where all our controllers, synthesizers and drum machines etc. will integrate seamlessly, thus dramatically improve connectivity and workflow. This will make it incredibly easy for our Customers to create, edit and share their music.

Only our upcoming controllers will feature total integration with our synthesizers, drum machines, digital mixers and other Music Tribe equipment, while also offering standard functionality with all 3rd party products.

For anyone familiar with the industry landscape, Arturia has been cloned for years (Worlde MiniMidi, etc.), while the company has also been “borrowing” from others with their VST replicas of legendary hardware synths, open-source code from Mutable Instruments, the “Expressive Touche” controller or the registration of known “DX7” and “Synthi” marks. Equally, our own analog Xenyx mixers and many other products have been widely cloned.

We will absolutely continue to deliver innovative products but also follow our competitors as we expect our products to be cloned - fair play.

We are very cautious when it comes to our follower approach and employ expert intellectual property firms to ensure our products stay within the boundaries of the law; we are committed to never intentionally infringe on other companies’ intellectual property.

Many years ago, we were entangled in bitter lawsuits with Mackie and Pioneer, which we all won. But we also recently lost a case against Yamaha in China related to a simple fader knob design that involved a design patent we were unfortunately not aware of. We changed the design, we will pay the fees and move on. Notably, Yamaha themselves were sued by Dr. Dre over their headphone designs (https://www.cnet.com/news/dr-dre-sues-y ... eadphones/) or entangled in other legal matters (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/musi ... tition-law), which clearly shows how competitive business is. The heated Apple versus Samsung disputes are a prime example.

It is our Purpose and Mission to empower Customers who don’t have deep pockets and provide them with the best possible equipment at fair prices. We do understand that we are a fierce competitor and at times controversial as we’re relentlessly push the envelope.

We would like to thank all our Customers who have supported us over the past 30 years. We are absolutely committed to continue to deliver the best possible products at the lowest possible cost."

Not exactly confidence inspiring, that response, is it..?

Business as usual, then...

[zenguitar]

That just highlights the bit that Uli can never grasp.

It may be posted by him and in his name, but it is clearly written by his legal team and reads as an opening statement to the court. He's letting everyone know that he's got all his legal ducks in a row.

However, whilst the law may not have anything to say on the subject; some things leave a bad taste in your mouth that no amount of sugar can disguise.

If Uli were here now (and I remember when it was proposed that he would have a Q&A here on the forums that he ultimately pulled out of), there is something I would love to ask him...

"If you are so confident in the designers, engineers, and manufacturing of Music Group; why can't you resist demonstrating your lack of confidence in your team by reverting to blatant copying?"

Andy

[Dan LB]

At this point I'm seriously considering converting the 2600 price into something towards the cost of an UDO Super 6

It's the product of a lengthy development process by some great people, and it would be unfair on them to blacklist it because of poor subsequent decisions from the company boss.

I disagree.

Indeed it is the product of a lengthy development process by some great people, but all of that has been undermined by the company's business practises.

I think think the decision made by the company to issue this blatant rip-off should be held against them. This sort of practise needs to be called out, and what better way than hitting them in the pocket. If Eddy decides to vote with his feet it will be a small moral victory, but if more people would do the same it might make them reconsider.

Just because they have released some great products recently, based on past designs that people want to see being made again, does not give them the right to blatantly rip-off current products which have had massive R&D costs ploughed into them. That is not fair competition and Behringer have a huge history of such conduct. They are basking in the light of their newly created image and are taking the absolute piss! I don't buy into the BS by Uli (or his lawyers) as quoted in desmond's post above - innovation has been doing just fine without companies blatantly ripping each other off.*

Eddy, if I were you, I would not entertain the shoddy business practises of Uli Behringer and head straight for that UDO Super 6**

Dan

*Yes, this happens to a degree, but not on the scale that Uli Behringer does it.

**I'm biased because I have never lusted after a 2600, but that Super 6 though........