45 thoughts on “Behringer DeepMind 12D Synthesizer Review & Demo

    1. Knowing Moog: If they did put out an analog 12-voice synth, it would cost as much as a house.
      Oh, and it would likely take more than 5-years for them to engineer, LOL.

      1. Introducing the Moog SubSandwich-12, the new flagship polysynth that fuses the contemporary desirability of the Sub series with the perilous ambition of the MemoryMoog. Please call for a price quote.

      2. I think the quality Moog produces outclasses Behringer in every way possible. So yeah, it’d be more expensive and would take longer to produce but it would undoubtedly sound much better than anything Mr. Behringer could produce. In my opinion.

        1. You do know he didn’t design it himself? A very skilled team in Manchester did. The trouble with pr is that it sticks- behringer have been the cheap copies for so long, people assume the next thing will be too. Fair enough a assumption a lot of the time, but this can be thought of more are a new synth by a new team, manufactured in the behringer factories.

          1. Read the DM12 user reviews. See how many people had to send their’s back for replacement because they arrived broken or non functional. Behringer is just spreading their disease to a new market.

    1. @henrisizaret – Those look like yamaha NS-10s, which are designed to lay flat, with the tweeters on the side. Agree about the height being problematic but sometimes you just run out of space.

    2. I am not a native english speaker. Can you please explain how the word “trust” applies to a demonstration and personal opinion? You mean he might be lying or he might be deceiving people by beign wrong? Thank you.

      1. Trust: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing.

        I believe henrisizaret was basically saying that “If the reviewer doesn’t even know where to place his monitors (speakers), or what orientation they should be (his observation: sideways), then how can we have confidence in his opinion?”

        Similar to not “trusting” the opinion of an automotive mechanic who doesn’t actually know how to drive a car.

        1. Ok I understand. Thank you.
          I don’t see a direct relation between knowing how to properly place a set of speakers with the ability to demonstrate a synth but, I see what you mean.

    3. I don’t trust the comment of someone who doesn’t know how Yamaha NS-10s are designed and also cannot clearly see that there are monitors higher just above the Yamahas. 😉

    4. A) There are two sets of monitors. One set at ear height in a perfect triangle with his head.
      B) Tweeters are probably most often laid on the outside but it’s just a matter of preference. Outside = wider image, Inside = tighter image.

    5. I would bet a million gazillion dollars that in a blind test if someone placed your monitors behind a curtain you would never ever and i mean never ever ever , know if they are laying sideways, standing “correctly” or even standing upside down. As long as the tweeter is on the same height. You remind me of people from when i was at a speaker building exhibition and they did blind test`s and most people could not even recognise their own speakers. And we are talking 50.000 euros+ equipment. A good producer or mastering engineer can mix on a Ns 10 which is a miracle by itself with the shitty audio quality an Ns10 actually offers. Apart from all that as others have pointed out this is not even his main monitor setup. He probably only cross checks mixes with the yamahas. And again someone made me angry in the morning. Internet i hate you. i go for a coffee

      1. I’ve had to switch my monitors to their sides for space consideration. Mine are not designed to operate in this orientation and I can definitely hear the difference, however, I know better than to try to do serious mixes from home, so it’s kind of moot.

      2. Normally I would not ever mix on NS-10s … not enough volume or definition

        I do reference on the NS-10s to verify which details off my mains are completely lost (so I can adjust for those individuals who will listen on NS-10s).

    1. Unless you already have a keyboard instrument. I have 4, and limited space, so I would prefer a module version if buying a new synth.

  1. How come all of these things don’t have OLED displays? Its freakin’ 2017! I think any of us would gladly pay an extra 5 bucks to not have to feel like its 1987.

    1. Much of the reason is probably display longevity. TFT LCD displays can have a lifetime of 50,000 hours, some as much as 100,000. OLED is still a pretty new technology and was initially rated somewhere around 30,000 hours for TVs. For perspective: at 6 hours of use a day, 50,000 hours works out to 23 years of use. 30,000 hours would be 13 years.

      LG just recently announced the latest generation of OLEDs should last 100,000 hours though, so we will probably see more of them in future products. At 6 hours a day that’s 46 years of use, or 11 years if it’s on all the time!

      The other reason is that they already have all of the supporting circuitry and software done from other projects for an LCD display. This let them put the DM12 together faster and for less engineering and tooling costs.

      1. Ah, so what you’re saying is that OLED is no problem whatsoever in this context. 6 hours a day for 13 years is more than sufficient. Anyone who has a problem with that needs to learn to turn it off when they aren’t using it.

        If someone actually used it for 30,000 hours solid, I think they’d probably be so in love with it they should have a few backup units just in case.

        1. Maybe more about using a proven technology vs the new kid. Sometimes hour ratings don’t always work out in the real world. Hard drives are a good example of that, if you have a bunch of the same drive some will fail after 5,000 hours, a couple at 50, and some 10,000 or more. If your goal is reliability you still go for the highest mean time between failures (MTBF) rating and hope for the best.

          At this stage in tech I think the LCD display is a good choice, especially if it keeps them from ending up in landfills. In 30 years a majority of them will still work and people will still be able to use them. Many great synths from the past have suffered from exotic or poorly designed displays that fail 10 years into it.

          At the end of the day it’s a display for a synth. It’s a utility and shouldn’t be the focus, the sound should. The display should just be reliable, easy to read, and work well in dark or well lit spaces.

    2. You don’t want OLED with direct sunlight. A LCD with lightning which you can turn on and off is best for that. Like the old Psion 5 had.

      1. Like the rest of the DeepMind is going to last even 30,000 hours.

        Give me a damn break.

        Product longevity is not something that generally concerns Behringer.

        They probably had a million LCDs sitting around already.

  2. The fan is an interesting thing on the Deepmind. Heat must have been a big concern for the engineering team or they wouldn’t have included it (nobody wants a noisy fan on synth!). But since they include a menu option to turn it off I’m betting many will do that. Depending on what it causes to fail it might make for an exciting second hand market in a few years.

    I’m sure the included fan is cheap computer case model too. I wonder how hard it’d be to replace it with a quieter fan that moves just as much air?

    1. agree
      also they have the vents at the top (when racked) that could potentially be covered if butted against other gear in the rack.
      Suspect … possible over heating issue depending on racking & room environment.

  3. Gear do create heat. Be it digital or analog. I recon the thing would have to be designed bigger to avoid heat issues without adding a fan. Which in turn has a lot to do with price (transport, packaging, production, raw materials etc… ). Of course there are cutbacks on cheaper gear. Behringer is not alone. Tiny keys, tiny knobs – you know the drill.

    Anyways – if an instrument is playable and sounds good. Then it’s good. 🙂

    1. That would be because those sounds are part of the synthgod lexicon and people spend more to have them they do on anything else. A lot of it is about simple familiarity. Its a pretty good synth that hits its marks well. It really is like a Juno-106 buffed to a more modern sheen. If you feel that restless about the matter, I’d recommend finding the $3k for a Waldorf Quantum. Between the specs and the impressive sound demos, I’d say its worth it. You could slot it in between the DeepMind and Bowen’s Solaris and it’d be a loose but fair comparison. If you have the kind of itch that demands a mega-beast synth, you know it. 😉

  4. DSI, this is how you build an analog synth desktop that also fits rack format , and it’s not 600U high (remember that interview with Mr. N. Batt at the superbooth 2016 ?)

  5. Sorry, my mistake, it was 800U , See : Superbooth 16: Dave Smith Instruments Feedback Module – youtube – 5m30. That comment still pulls out all stops. Could the REV2 not be a 1 centimeter deep and make it a centimeter less wide with reack ears, then would be the same size as the 12D.

  6. “Sequencer” can mean a lot of things, even within the synth realm. I have only spent a couple hours with my new DMind 12 D ]module] – but it isn’t what I expected. I have yet to get a sound out of it, so you know I am a goofball with this stuff, but I wanted a SEQUENCER that could “record” MIDI backing tracks.

    The store I bought it from has not replied to my email for 5 days…. perhaps they are frustrated too?

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