#278

I’m only suggesting that a raw Roland VCO may be an educational experience in a full system, but that having a simple, performable, stable VCO with diverse timbres and a quantizer is a much more muscially useful choice in the same pricerange as a consideration. Which is to say, people other than Behringer can make solid, original, affordable entry level modules. (I do not have Hysteria, but I do have Nostalgia and Ataxia, and they’re neat.)

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#279

i’m skimming the thread and didn’t realize it was a rhetorical question until after i had already checked youtube for factory tours.

vs

obviously not a direct comparison (for a number of reasons, eg it’s not clear how much of the dreadbox assembly work is done in house or where they get their raw components from, etc), but the difference is pretty striking.

one is a small team designing, assembling and shipping their products in greece. the other is 3000 workers in their early 20s living on site in dormitories in zhong shan, a city described by the narrator as being “a building site the size of tasmania. it’s smoggy, and everything is covered with cement dust mixed with diesel.” (they have since moved facilities but as far as i can find, no outside media groups have actually been invited to see the new building, which, yikes?).

the working conditions don’t seem worse than the ones that produced my phone or the computer i’m writing this on. but it sure doesn’t feel great. on the other hand, i am very sympathetic to the argument that behringer clones expand access to folks who can’t afford the expensive originals, i would never judge anyone for using a behringer product.

bleh. nothing i’m writing hasn’t already been better said by others here. i guess what i have a hard time with is the enormous environmental costs associated with producing and transporting these consumer electronics, which is compounded by the fact that, prior to the IT’S ANALOG resurgence a couple years ago, most people seemed to be totally content with software emulations of these classic pieces of gear.

i could be wrong, but to me it seems that, to the extent that gear or any kind of non essential product can be produced in an ethical/sustainable way, behringer has not been set up to produce in that way.

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#280

where they get their raw components from

From Chinese mega factories not owned and operated by an EU company like behringer, probably

#281

@Mattb, this was the assertion I was responding to:

… and you are correct, it’s hard to understand why someone would compare them.

#282

I didn’t suggest they couldn’t be compared. They’re easily comprable as low cost means of getting into eurorack.

#283

I am a Belgian living in Indonesia, and I am 100% sure, that the people here definately appreciate the Behringer prices(and still can’t afford them). Probably 40% of the youth here have an acoustic guitar… for 95% of them it’s a non-branded guitar. And for those, who can’t afford a guitar, they buy an even cheaper ukelele. I am talking about native-Indonesians, not the richer Chinese-indonesian.

A friend of mine, his mom, makes 100$/month… you can imagine how long it took him to buy a Korg Volca.

So, seeing it thru the eyes of my Indonesian friends… Behringer = God.

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#284

(thank you for correcting my dumb typo!)

i won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of what this means, but as far as i can tell behringer is owned by “Music Tribe Global Brands” in the philippines. but it’s also registered in bermuda for some reason? there are also documents tying it to Red Chip Company Ltd in the british virgin islands, and at some point singapore as well…

if being an EU company is supposed to subject you to some specific standards, it seems unlikely to me that they are identifying as an EU company.

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#285

Interesting. Ha probably true that the fact that they are originally a German company probably doesn’t mean much… but still, everyone else mass producing electronics is to some extent part of the same system and is using similarly problematic factories and un-environmentally-friendly technology as Behringer

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#286

I really appreciate this perspective and can only imagine your friend’s excitement at having a Volca! I would love to know what music they are making with it, but don’t want to derail this thread…

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#287

20 chars of tax evasion

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#288

This is pretty much the ultimate clone, though it likely won’t be cheap:

Screenshot_2020-01-18_13-16-45
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#289

He makes dance stuff, but also covers Bauhaus and john foxx and stuff like that. Really great taste. I just noticed, he took his stuff of Bandcamp.

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#290

I guess for me the one issue that remains to be seen with these things is build quality.
I know there have been build quality issues with many manufacturers of boutique synths and modules. And I’ll admit it feels good to have a villain (or to invent one) by thinking that somehow Behringer is unethical by playing by-the-book Capitalism. It feels good to sling the mud at someone, even if there are others who also deserve it. Behringer just takes a lot of the heat.
But really, are we expecting these things to sound good and last long? My friend has a Boog and it’s already busted from regular use… it sounded great for the few months it worked.
I remember hearing a rumor at some point (still not verified) that the circuits in Behringer mixers are all tied together — if one channel blows, the whole mixer fails. Wondering if these modules are also somehow more prone to failure. (To be fair, I have lots of gear from other companies that’s failed before it ought’ve.)
I just worry, at these price points, what corners have been cut. Ethics aside.

#291

The build quality thing is pretty interesting. Behringer might cut more corners using cheaper components and so on than boutique manufacturers, but on the other hand synth modules can be quite complex things and small, one person shops and such may not have resources for comprehensive quality controls and testimg and the component choice can be restricted by what they can get in suitable quantities for fair price. “Hand built” does sound good and all and at least to me it gives an image of quality, but I’m not entirely sure if I trust some lonely human in his/her toolshed soldering complex electronics more than high-tech automated production line. And in terms of feel of knobs, jacks and finish I’ve had some very sketchy experiences with some high-end priced boutique eurorack modules.

I hope Behringer will start to innovate and experiment at some point. I feel like there are enough affordable, basic stuff on the market already, but maybe if they could do their own thing with some stuff that might be out of reach for many, and bring prices down in the process. I don’t hope for cheaper clones of complex and expensive modules, but how they could advance the eurorack space in their own way. They have mixer division, maybe they could bring something from the traditional desk-world to eurorack. Multichannel mixer with built-in effects from X32-series could be really cool, and I don’t think anybody does anything like that. Even more basic mixer with something like one-knob compressor on master would be nice. Or multi fx-module with several effect slots etc. But bringing the same stuff many others do, but cheaper, is boring and potentially disruptive.

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#292

Last year, I bought a mixer from them… the first thing I plugged in and the mixer died. No idea, what the fault was.

Recently, I got it fixed… now, the panning-knobs, make sounds go louder or softer, but no panning. Maybe, it was a problem before… I will never now.

As I said before, I am happy for people who now, because of Behringer, (maybe) can afford synths and stuff, that they couldn’t afford otherwise. But, I am probably not going to be their customer anymore.

#293

not sure that buying cheap and failing gear would be a viable strategy for economically less well-off artists (not that I even know what would be the good strategy in this situation). For my current release I just bought a pre-owned guitar pedal from Elektron for a very reasonable price with no signs of usage. I also have a nice 8channel Mackie mixer that I bought second hand for a little money. If we take some time to look around we can discover several good options outside of this cheap cloning business that are actually well built and great to use.

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#294

I think @fjna is talking about humans with a monthly average income far below USD 250 and places which may actually not have easy access to Western online platforms because of acceptance-of-means-of-payment issues due to their location. What help is it owning a legitimate credit card (if one does at all) from a developing country when western online stores decline your payment simply because they don’t trust your location? The only alternative is then to check out the local market and/or suppliers which may not have any Elektron Gear on offer (for affordable prices) besides myriads of cheap Chinese made rip-off gear from the likes of Behringer and many many others.

In such a scenario, your point mentioned points to simple privilege and not economic wisdom. Sorry for having to put it out so bluntly…

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#295

sure, no need to apologise, I’m aware of the huge differences in income and thats why I emphasised that I don’t know the good strategy for that situation. My comment was more general observations/suggestion for the broke artists (something we all can relate to is some point in our lives). And even with that, it’s not the ideal solution with all the scammery happening in used gear trade.
EDIT: I also have to add that for me buying pre-owned instruments is as much as lifestyle choice as it is the economical decision. Electronic appliances (especially DSP based) can be the most carbon heavy products we own.

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#296

I think the image you have in your head is likely to be somewhat inaccurate. Most complicated electronics are just too small to be soldered in by hand, so even very small shops will usually have a machine do that part or contract it out.

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#297

@Quru not addressing you directly, just putting this out there…
I work in hand-built electronics production, and there are many on this forum who are the “lonely human in the shed.” One of the problems with putting more trust in an automated production line is error scale. If there’s a failure in a small batch I’m working on, one of us can catch it and fix it early in the process, whereas with machines the errors are caught after the whole batch is finished. Lots more waste. And there’s room for mistrust either way – I’ve received soooo many faulty boards from contract manufacturers who use pick and place and can’t or don’t do proper QC.
The other issue is that when we have machines do things for us, we put all the responsibility on the machine and stop taking it on ourselves. I may be an anomaly, but I can say with heart that I care very much about my work, and that makes me do a good job – or at least the best job I can. Of course, these things are super tiny and pretty fragile and require lots of care and attention to get right. That’s the main issue – if Behringer is putting care and attention into their build quality, I take very little issue with what they’re doing. Their copying is blatant and unethical, but so is this version of Capitalism so what are you gonna do.
I use my dollar to try to buy things that will last. If it won’t last, I don’t buy it. If I’m unsure about whether or not it will last, I let early adopters buy it first and look for reported failures. I’ve seen enough already to know that I don’t trust Behringer, and that’s enough for me to opt out.

I guess my other question I’ll put out there is – what’s the one thing (other than CV on everything) that is a guilty pleasure in the modular community? GAS. Perpetuating GAS with the masses (“mass gas?”) seems, ecologically, like a very serious issue, no? Not that guitar pedal culture hasn’t already been through this multiple times. But I’m just freaked out by how much mass consumption is celebrated, even with pretty serious and professed guilt, without concern for where these things go when they stop working. It’s one thing with batches of 500, and a totally different thing when we’re working on a global scale and dealing with 100,000+ units/country. And yes, everything stops working eventually, and I own some electronics and I participate in all of this. But man, is it freaky.

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