"Meet our Tribers. Today we’d like you to meet Michael, who is one of our many truly passionate engineers working on your synthesizers. His team is currently developing the PRO-16, which is making excellent progress. We’re already working on the second revision, which is hopefully final.
Our PRO-16 will be much more powerful and feature rich compared to other available models, while targeting a much lower price.
Now that the UB-Xa development is completed and the software platform fully mature, we can easily scale and develop poly synths at a much faster rate since 70-80% of the firmware code can be reused. While the UB-Xa design took several years, we are confident that over time we can develop poly synths within only 6 months.
We’re immensely proud of Michael and his team, who love delivering incredible synthesizers to you.
Please send him and his team some love
If you want to collaborate with our synth developers and make your voice heard, join our “Synthesizer and Drums Behringer Music Tribe" FB Group.
#synthsforall #WeHearYou #synthesizers #behringer"

​

 

I couldn't find the original UB-Xa thread if there was one so I put this here.​

 

I forgot to say, useful information aside the actual sound demo was terrible imo. The prior short demos were better but still not enough. They need to get a skilled musician that knows what he or she is doing. I doubt I'll be able to demo the thing in person so I hope they get their stuff together on the demo. They said they're going to do 1:1 comparison with the original. We'll see.

As for the video the story is: "it sounds like they left the camera microphone on during the sound recording which caused interference and phase cancellations with the direct sound from the synth"

Whatever happen it was awful.

Feature wise it looks like you get quite a bit for the money. New to me: 16-voices, poly aftertouch keyboard, full MPE and several different modes.

Behringer says that: "UB-Xa uses the exact same circuitry of the original synth, including the 3340 and 3320 VCO’s and VCF’s"

Behringer says: "We hope to ship the product in the next 6 months and target a price below US$ 1,500"

I've been eyeing that new Oberheim OB-X8 but that brand name tax is insane.

 

Better, more on the way "soon"

"This video showcases a few of the custom presets I´ve created for the UB-Xa. The sounds were recorded without any effects, dynamic processing or whatsoever straight into the audio interface. For the performances in split mode I´ve added a slight touch of reverb. The synthesizer in the video is an early preproduction unit with the firmware in development.Stay tuned, there is a lot more to come"​

 

Last edited: May 20, 2022

Here we go again with fake dates

 

its me or it does sounds really like a toy?

 

Not a toy, @freefeet12 video sounds cool. 1500 € (expected approx. price in Europe) seems a good price for this machine who's supposed to include the same i-circuits as the original, plus an extended polyphony... but too high for me tho ==> pass.

 

For comparison

Not the same sounds/user made presets of course.

I'm interested in seeing the side by side comparisons they say they're going to release. ​

 

That poor Anderton guy got into a planetary embarrassment: the first demo was terrible! In the second demo instead, the vibe of the keyboard is more evident, but it still doesn't convince me.
You know, $1500 is a lot of money, with this gear, Uli is leaving the low price range and entering the major league: the competition is very strong up there. Now Uli has to fight analog poly synths like Prologue, Prophet, Peak, .... and from what I hear, UBXA can't do it, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe I have to try the keyboard for myself.
Furthermore, Behringer company is famous for having a shoddy quality control & bad aftermarket service: at such a pricetag I am no longer willing to ignore this issue.

 

I'm going to wait to hear the final product put up against the original hardware, preset for preset. Hopefully good presets. Then I'll decide if it's worth it to me.

The truth is you can program a OB-Xa to sound pretty boring. There are some examples in the video above. Good playing and good programing goes a long way.

Don't forget there is also a desktop version coming which I think will be a lot less.

Which Prophet are you talking about? I don't care for the Peak. The Prologue sounds pretty decent. Ron Cavagnaro on youtube does a couple videos on it with no FX which I appreciate.

"Furthermore, Behringer company is famous for having a shoddy quality control"

Is it deserved though? Or is it that they sell high numbers and have a lot of haters? I've only ever bought a couple Behringer products, one 3 years in, one 4 years in, so far no problems. I've seen a few complaints here and there but considering the thousands of people buying their products and chiming in on their facebook page regularly it doesn't seem like a lot of people are complaining. I do know they clean up complaints, but I see them anyways. Don't ask. I'm taking about their synths/drum machines BTW, I don't know about their other stuff.

 

Last edited: May 20, 2022

I own several B. products but I am not at all a disciple of Uli's religion: when the Behringer pricetag is no longer extra-cheap, when it becomes the same as the competition, I no longer understand what is the reason for focusing on that gear.
Take the Deepmind: the build quality is more or less acceptable for a $ 800 product, but would be no longer acceptable for $ 1500 and I suspect that keybed of UBXA is the same as Deepmind (plasticky feel)
At this point they really have to shock me with the sound to convince me to spend such a large amount of money for a B-clone (and so far it hasn't happened)

 

Not sure what you mean by "plasticky feel". I'm not really picky about keys on an analog synth TBH. On a piano or highly dynamic digital synth, that's where I think it matters most but to each their own.

Also, the Deepmind 12 was one penny shy of $1000 when it came out so it doesn't surprise me that a more complicated synth with 16 voices, poly aftertouch and full MPE would cost more. I can't speak to the quality obviously, I'm sure people will eventually. Furthermore, based off the simple video demo using the early preproduction unit above imo it sound miles better than the Deepmind. The Deepmind sounds terrible imo. What saves it is the crap load of effects/processors you get. I can make a fart sound like heaven with that. I'm not kidding. The only reason I'd take a Deepmind for free would be to sell it.

I'm with you on needing to be impressed to buy this though. For me that would mean a successful side by side comparison with an OB-Xa. No processing.

 

This is how companies get burned by selling cheap models, if they ever want to move into higher ticket products. will I risk 300$ on a Behringer? Sure, but I am expecting none of these products to actually last. That's not a lot of money, but you can buy an awful lot of synth for 1000$. That's not disposable toy money, that's real gear. I think the comment about build quality is exactly the thing to be concerned with.

 

Last edited: May 21, 2022

Do not expect 1:1 clone, just not possible. This goes for any clone. It sounds very good for what it is and close to the original.

 

Oh I'm not. If Oberheim didn't pull it off with the OB-X8 I'm not expecting Behringer to. Don't get me wrong the OB-X8 sound very very good imo but so far I haven't heard an exact OB-X, OB-Xa, nor OB-8 coming out of it. Just different tech I suppose.

Close enough is good.

 

If you wait a few months after it's release, you will be able to find the MK3 or MK4 versions too.

 

Imo it will hit the stores at 1499$ and then the price will fall down to 1299$.

 

"This little piece of music showcases the superb keybed of the UB-Xa. It provides velocity sensivity and polyphonic aftertouch enabling you to play your music with extraordinary expressivity. In this split performance filter frequency, volume, LFO speed and intensity of the upper preset (in unison mode employing only one voice) is controlled by poly aftertouch. Moreover volume, VCF and VCA attack is also controlled by velocity. The lower pad sound uses OB-8 “second page” functions such as LFO rate delay here controlling panorama position. Furthermore LFO rate is influenced by poly aftertouch as well. This music genre beggs for delay and reverb. I´ve used two Lexicon PCM 70 connected to my main mixing desk as send effects . Everything is played life and recorded in one take without any edits or further audio processing. Enjoy the music!" - Bernd​