How To Use The Behringer Model D Paraphonically

The latest loopop video takes a look at using the Behringer Model D synth to create a paraphonic patch.

Video Description:

The Behringer Model D is a great analog synth – and by design it’s monophonic. However, if you’ve seen my channel before, you know I’m not going to let that stop me from trying to play more than one note at a time with it, something that has a unique characteristic in synthesizers that are intended to be monophonic.

You can’t control any of its 3 oscillators separately, but there’s a fourth oscillator that can be controlled independently, and that’s the filter – via a dedicated CV input – and when you crank up emphasis all the way, it resonates and creates its own tone. The nice thing about the D, is that there’s resonance both in high pass and in low pass modes, which opens up a lot of sonic possibilities.

This does require a little configuration trick. When playing duo-phonically, the keyboard sends two notes – so we need a way to tell the D’s oscillators to play one, and the filter to play the other.

In the particular case of the Arturia Keystep, which is what I use in this clip, that’s achieved by setting note priority on the D to LOW, and CV out priority on the Keystep to HIGH. CV then controls the high note, and MIDI the low one. This trick lets you play two notes at once on the D.

The final piece in the puzzle is that the Behringer Model D’s CV tracking on the filter doesn’t quite track at 1 volt per octave, but it’s close enough. If you’re playing the filter notes in a one octave range, depending on your sensitivity, that might not be noticeable, but it does become apparent across a few octaves. The way to solve this is to interject a module like Befaco’s A*B+C, which, with a bit of fiddling back and forth, can produce a result which tunes quite nicely. Since I don’t have the module, I used the techniques shown in my “hybrid modular” video to use a virtual version of that module in VCV Rack.

8 thoughts on “How To Use The Behringer Model D Paraphonically

  1. Ya, its like Behringer is the new Black. They need a nickname cause thats a lot of letter to type:) Glad to see people getting their shipments for the model D. More vids to evaluate.

    1. What is there to evaluate? This is basically an inexpensive Minimoog module with USB + MIDI. If you like the bassline from early 80s Madonna singles, get it. If you hate that sound, steer clear.

      1. Well, its not really a 300 dollar bass machine, it does other things like playing paraphonically. Thats something to evaluate before making the purchase, extensive capabilities. Some folks like to see videos of the machine being awesome or a button falling off before making an impluse buy for 300 bucks since the only spectacular thing about it is the price.

  2. Old trick and not “paraphonic”. But hey, how to get views by a click bait title……

    Better get any old synth module and send it’s raw osc output thru the filters of the D ….

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