This should NOT exist!

But it can...

Notice: this thing contains numerous modules that, back in the day, would NOT talk to each other or play nicely in the same cab. Voicing is on the upper two rows, control on the lower two. But you'd never have put Moog or ARP modules in the same build with the Buchla modules. And adding the Roland clones opens things up even more, along with a few modules from other manufacturers. In actuality, this turned out to be a pretty potent build, and I'm going to file this one for future reference. Plus, by the time I get around to building this, I'll probably have to change it, as Tiptop's stated that there WILL be further Buchla/Tiptop modules on the way.

And yes, a cassette deck is another source in this system...albeit a twisted sort of cassette deck with a chopper circuit and CV over speed.

EDITED Sep 30th 2021, 01:04

That looks great Lugia. I'll definitely be buying those Buchla clones, they look awesome.

I have the Behringer filters from Roland in my main rack which are awesome and the dual ADSR is great too with the inverted envelope, which comes in very handy for side chain. Just a note on the adsr's though, the travel on each slider is a bit strange in that if you want to make a pluck you have to set them really low. I'm not sure if the original Roland ones had the same behaviour.

EDITED Feb 27th 2023, 07:10

If I can ask a couple dumb questions:

-- what are the Behringer units clones of? Moog, ARP, others?
-- are the Behringer units good enough quality to merit purchase?

While I follow a lot of music tech, I've basically ignored the Behringer stuff because my sales guy at a US retailer you'd know has said the Behringer hardware has quality issues and he won't sell it to me (given my normal preferences for enduring quality). Is this off base? Is the Behringer Eurorack stuff solid or even great?

Yes it would be a lot of fun to have an "impossible in the olden days meeting of classics" rack like Lugia's above. Sigh, more $s...

HI Nick,

The grey ones are clones of the Roland system 100

The black one are clones of the Moog system 55

The silver ones are clones of the arp 2500

I have a few of the Roland and Moog ones. The build quality is fantastic and having used them, my experience is not on par with the anti - Behringer backlash you tend to hear from I guess I'll call those peeople purists. Each to there own though, the prices are fantastic so there are no complaints from me on that front. I pair my Behringer filter with the Intellijel rubicon 2 as there are 3 inputs on each filter and 3 modulation sources per filter as well as two outs per filter. The only thing I'd say is the hpf settings are a bit severe for my taste and really thin out the sound so I tend to not use those but as I understand they are advertised as 'faithful to the original' remakes.

regards

EDITED Sep 30th 2021, 03:48

Thanks @greenfly, that makes a lot of sense!

but you're still consciously giving Uli your money... which is up to you - I try not to - although it can't really be helped as they make a huge number of ICs that are in a wide variety of modules anyway...

but you're still consciously giving Uli your money... which is up to you - I try not to - although it can't really be helped as they make a huge number of ICs that are in a wide variety of modules anyway...
-- JimHowell1970

The frequency shifter... Uli gets it right once in a while.

but only in terms of 'his company made a module at a decent price that is comparatively rare, but incredibly useful'

I'd still rather give my money to people I at least perceive to be 'good people', either Dieter Doepfer or Dave Dixon (Dr Etch n Sketch - designer of quite a few Intellijel modules) who have both released frequency shifters - at about double the price of the b-company one - unlike Uli or Steve (?) from Synthrotek/Rat King for example

Would somebody give me (and others not in the know on this) the short-ish polite-ish version of why Uli / Behringer has some negative market perception? Is it just all the clone-gear, or is it more than that?

historically (and continuing) poor quality - since the start of the company - way, way before they started on synthesizers/modular - currently this goes down to using poor quality glue on card inserts on knobs that fall off etc etc

cloning everything that he can get his hands on - mostly 'authentic' clones - so not a great deal of thought put into it - ie to make them more eurorack compatible

cloning modules that are still currently in production...

anti-semetic etc etc

suing people for giving poor reviews

etc etc

if you want more there's a fantastic thread on modwiggler - it's well over a hundred pages iirc - started to stop people commenting on these sorts of things in the main behringer module threads - which I think is poor judgement on modwiggler moderators part - anyone wanting to find information on b-company modules should have a lesson in the ethics of the company before deciding to buy - it's fine buying whatever you want - but you should at least be informed enough to make a decision!

Thanks Jim, make sense!

EDITED Feb 27th 2023, 07:10

agreed - but don't think that you can avoid the b-company completely...
they make a lot of re-issue ICs etc - which are in a large number of modules, from a large number of manufacturers

Oh, believe me, I'm well aware of Uli's...uhm..."mindset". And he's still apparently on that cavalier attitude of his toward intellectual property. But when you're talking about the synth gear, you find some of the same names here on MG assisting B. in their module and synth designs. For example, you had AM Synths' head assisting with the B. 2600, double-checking the circuitry, functionality, etc to make sure it was dead-on to the original. And yeah...they did that. Aside of form factor, it's the real thing.

My hope is that there might be some changes to this. After the "Kirn fiasco", Uli's been a lot less noisy and/or visible, of which I approve. If Tribe's board of directors would step in to shut him up and curtail his nonsense, I think they'd find that their brands would have a lot more market viability.

Also, don't forget...there's a bunch of REAL modules in there, too...notably the upcoming Tiptop/Buchla collabs. Frankly, what I'd REALLY like would be a full-on 100/200 hybrid, especially since now they can make the 100 series circuitry comply with the de facto "standard" of +5V gate/trig, 1V/8va tracking, and the higher amplitude across the board (ie: no more split paths). Maybe if the docs turn up, we could get some of these to jam in with the 200s; yes, docs ARE the problem...some of the more interesting 200 series modules don't have engineering docs, and Buchla USA has no idea where in Don's archives they might be found. To say that he was a slob as far as records and documentation goes might be an understatement! Hopefully Todd Barton et al can get some of that sorted.

Hey @Lugia - I know you know - but others such as @nickgreenberg & @Vow3ll didn't and neither do a lot of the newbies who are buying into the b-company products simply because they are so cheap - a lot of whom would probably not buy their products if they knew about who they were giving their money to - and there are other manufacturers who are making modules at similar price points, and of often better quality, but don't have the marketing budget that Music Tribe has , nor to a large extent do a lot of modular companies want

as I said they are making, in terms of circuitry, decent clones - they are just not going that one step further and actually making them fully eurorack compatible, which if they'd actually listened to eurorack users they could have done, as well as making the front panel furniture of comparable quality with other eurorack manufacturers and still make modules that were (almost as) incredibly cheap as they are doing because of the economies of scale that they can achieve - including getting components at lower price points due to manufacturing a lot of the components they are using themselves

yes he does seem to have shut up recently - I suspect the board of Music Tribe may have had a hand in this and good for them

but Uli shutting up after saying those things does not alter the fact that he said those things...

don't quite a few of the 100 series already exist in eurorack? - Tokyo Tape Music Center and Catalyst/Red Panel for example, ok they are much more expensive than either the b-company or the tiptop/buchla modules, but they are tiny companies in comparison, who can't afford to make huge runs of modules

don't get me wrong I think the availability of, especially, long out of production musical instruments at a low price is a good thing - I just think it's a shame that a company with such a poor reputation has done it... as you've repeatedly said korg deserve to suffer over the 2600... but so do the b-company over their practices...

I still love my Behringer filters. :P I think I've handed over money to worse causes during my life to be honest.

I was thinking about just how successful their eurorack clones are though as only the SYSTEM 100 140 DUAL ENVELOPE/LFO features on the page of popular modules on modular grid so despite them lauding the stats on Thomann as they do from time to time I'd be surprised if this database doesn't hold the lion's share of people planning their eurorack cases worldwide from experts to newbies alike.

Let's say they do a Maths inspired module, would it really drastically eat into the market share of Make Noise. I'm not so sure it would.

I still love my Behringer filters. :P I think I've handed over money to worse causes during my life to be honest.

I'm not suggesting not to buy them I'm saying think about it...
I'm sure I've given money to worse people in the past too, but not knowingly...

& I'm definitely not saying sell any you have - unless you want to...

just like with cars - it's much more environmentally friendly to run your car into the ground than it is to sell it and buy a brand new 'eco friendly' electric one

I was thinking about just how successful their eurorack clones are though as only the SYSTEM 100 140 DUAL ENVELOPE/LFO features on the page of popular modules on modular grid so despite them lauding the stats on Thomann as they do from time to time I'd be surprised if this database doesn't hold the lion's share of people planning their eurorack cases worldwide from experts to newbies alike.

It's hard to tell - I've no idea of the % of modular users who use modulargrid - I bet it's less than 50% - also remember a lot of user have multiple racks on modulargrid - so the most popular isn't necessarily that accurate (see Why We Bleep with Tony Ranaldo)

Let's say they do a Maths inspired module, would it really drastically eat into the market share of Make Noise. I'm not so sure it would.
-- greenfly

not particularly... Maths has already paid for it's R&D costs many times over and it already has a lot of competition from Befaco Rampage and Random*Source DUSG etc etc...

Coming back to the rack of Lugia... ;-)

A fantastic rack design Lugia!

May I ask why you choose the 960 Sequential Controler? From the "half million" ;-) sequencers/controllers, why this one, was there for you a particular reason to choose this module? I am usually not so much concerned about HP usage however this one is huge.

Do you know perhaps when the TipAudio Buchla modules start to become available?

Beautiful designed rack that, I agree indeed, should not exist, it should not be allowed, far too great ;-) You make me think of selling my house and replicate that rack! :-) Thank you very much for sharing this rack with us and kind regards, Garfield.

May I ask why you choose the 960 Sequential Controler? From the "half million" ;-) sequencers/controllers, why this one, was there for you a particular reason to choose this module? I am usually not so much concerned about HP usage however this one is huge.

Simple: I know it already. Since B. replicated all of the Moog spec (including the ultra-annoying S-Trig busses), I have no reason to suspect that it would work any differently from ones I've used. Also, the 100M and Buchla sequencers can either alter the behavior of the 960, or vice-versa.

Do you know perhaps when the TipAudio Buchla modules start to become available?

The last thing I was told (by Tiptop) is that we can expect the first ones around Xmas this year.

Beautiful designed rack that, I agree indeed, should not exist, it should not be allowed, far too great ;-) You make me think of selling my house and replicate that rack! :-)
-- GarfieldModular

Actually...all of that, with the B. cabs, just cracks the $4k barrier. Mind you, there's some module prices missing at present on a few of these, but not so many that I would think the build is improbable.

Oh, and Jim...yes, I still think Uli's a prime example of "appalling". But now, his actions are so transparent and evident that everyone knows the story...which is part of why Sweetwater trolled B. when they came out with the "Swing" (aka the Arturia Keystep) and at present, their Four Play VCA (ie: the Intellijel Quad VCA or Mutable's Veils) and the Brains (a blatant Mutable Plaits rip). Back then, they were rerouting search inquiries to the REAL modules, but these days searches for these just drop you into the midst of ALL Behringer listings, which is pretty much like getting tossed into the deep end of the proverbial pool.

Also, consider: now that Uli's making instruments, his visibility has increased, and continues to increase as Tribe keeps putting out more visible gear (as opposed to mixers, rack processors, etc). Might be great for sales, but if Uli goes off in some weird direction again (the Kirn debacle instantly comes to mind), that public coverage will potentially be his downfall. I'd be good with that, and I think lots of others would be as well.

Surely the four play is under some sort of legal injunction as I haven't seen it in stock anywhere since they announced it?

I understand the replies above and I have a lot of time on this forum for Jim, Lugia and Farkas as I've previously said if it wasn't for your previous postings and help, I wouldn't have invested as much into the Eurorack idea. That being said, it was also the purchase of a couple of Behringer Neutrons and playing around with the patch bay that something clicked about idea of rerouting signal flows and changing the behaviour and sound of these synths that I decided to explore the concept of eurorack further. I remember at that time just randomly patching inputs to outputs and not knowing why the sound was changing but a key factor around that time was affordability.

I recently posted all my racks and they are not heavily inspired by Behringer, if anything Intellijel won as my racks have predominantly Intellijel modules so if anything it was the other manufacturers that have benefited financially from my investment in this field of music creation.

I don't normally talk about this but I was going through a really tough time in my personal life and mentally I think I was shot. I think the idea of being able to patch things in different ways and then thinking about why that worked really helped me mentally as I realised at some deep subconscious level that this was also rewiring my brain and making me realise that other paths in life were also possible and its always possible to start again.

EDITED Oct 2nd 2021, 08:45

Oh, and Jim...yes, I still think Uli's a prime example of "appalling". But now, his actions are so transparent and evident that everyone knows the story...which is part of why Sweetwater trolled B. when they came out with the "Swing" (aka the Arturia Keystep) and at present, their Four Play VCA (ie: the Intellijel Quad VCA or Mutable's Veils) and the Brains (a blatant Mutable Plaits rip). Back then, they were rerouting search inquiries to the REAL modules, but these days searches for these just drop you into the midst of ALL Behringer listings, which is pretty much like getting tossed into the deep end of the proverbial pool.

Also, consider: now that Uli's making instruments, his visibility has increased, and continues to increase as Tribe keeps putting out more visible gear (as opposed to mixers, rack processors, etc). Might be great for sales, but if Uli goes off in some weird direction again (the Kirn debacle instantly comes to mind), that public coverage will potentially be his downfall. I'd be good with that, and I think lots of others would be as well.

-- Lugia

Well I'm all for shutting up about it as I'm a bit sick of it to be honest unless asked - as I was above...

I really didn't mean to derail your thread with 'anti-b-company propganda'

But I really think that the history of the b-company is not well known at all outside a small part of the recording/musical instrument market - and given that a lot of the influx of people into eurorack in the last couple of years has been through their marketing - and often from outside the traditional musical community that not that many people know about it or they wouldn't be selling so many - or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part that a majority of people will do the right thing when choosing who to buy things of, which is most likely the case...

EDITED Oct 2nd 2021, 08:48

I think the customers will do the right thing, but Uli's got to do something else extremely stupid to get that to happen. When the Board of the Music Tribe picks up on the notion that their founder's mouth is losing them money, that'll kick something loose.

And yeah, the synths are the items that'll change this. Beforehand, B.'s gear was mainly used by studios...and not too many, as a lot of their early stuff WAS nicked from other firms, most notably Mackie and dbx. But yr.avg musician doesn't know what those firms are or what they make. Thankfully, it doesn't take much of a scratch on Tribe's surface to find the "ick factor" lurking just under it, and if Uli does another "Kirn", THIS time it'll likely backfire on an epic scale.

And when that happens, to quote Ren Hoek: "I'm gonna stand there...and I'm gonna LAUGH!"

me too!

It's on me for the "B-company" questions above...

Focusing back on this rack, I'd be curious to hear people say:

1. what's the best of this rack, e.g. the coolest aspects of bringing back these various classic designs in Eurorack and into a single case?

2. are there other killer classic adds to consider for (a bigger version of) this rack, maybe some Serge-type modules?

random*source or elby for serge in eurorack... luke teaford on modwiggler is a bit of an expert - searching for his posts can glean a lot of information...

Dual Universal Slope Generator, Smooth and Stepped Generator, Resonant EQ, Variable Slope VCF, Variable Q VCF, Triple Waveshaper, Divide by N Comparator, New Timbral Oscillator and Wave Multiplier - would be the most interesting to add of those available from random*source - some maybe in multiples

maybe some Serge-type modules?

Also the Serge TKB, either from Random Source or Analogue Research. Expensive and a lot of HP but very powerful sequencer. And the NTO (New Timbral Oscillator) from Random Source. Analogue Research also has a few other Serge modules.

EDITED Oct 4th 2021, 17:38