Behringer Intros Clone Of Moog 3-Tier Rack Kit

Behringer today introduced their 3-tier Eurorack stand, designed to hold three of their Eurorack chassis or semi-modular synths.

The design is essentially a clone or off-brand take on Moog’s 3-tier Euro stand, below, which was introduced in 2015, along with the Mother-32:

While Behringer has copied many of the features that make Moog’s rack an attractive solution, they also appear to have duplicated some of the downsides of Moog’s solution: limited scalability and awkward power.

With the original Moog version, you can buy two sets of the rack ends and overlap them to extend your modular up to four tiers, but the lack of a straight extension for the sides means that the solution doesn’t easily scale to taller systems. At this point, powering a 3-tier system also typically requires 3 power cords and possibly losing substantial rack space for power switches.

Check it out and share your thoughts in the comments!

83 thoughts on “Behringer Intros Clone Of Moog 3-Tier Rack Kit”

    1. I have the two tier for my two Mother-32’s – someday I’ll get the third, but I honestly feel I haven’t explored all of the interoperability possibilities of two of them…

  2. Ok , this is getting ridiculous , if you support this company your part of the problem .
    All they do is bite and copy cat ,no real musician would respect this.

        1. If you re-read his comment, it’s clear he’s not shaming anyonefor being poor, he’s shaming people that buy design ripoffs, instead of other alternatives.

          1. What is worst?
            1. Rip-off end-users with using brand name?
            2. Rip-of brands and give end-users reasonable priced items, which should not be expensive at all?

            1. Everyone is so clueless on this topic – it’s not about PRICE! When you obsess over price, you lose sight of what is really going on. Moog does proper R&D, and develops new products. Behringer goes around stealing that R&D, stealing the designs, and repackaging them as their own for a lower price.

              The lower price is partly because you don’t need to pay an R&D team to steal things from other companies (you instead just need a nice legal team). And also, the lower price comes from the city of Behringer in China producing these items at slave labor wages, vs Moog’s products developed in-house in America (at proper wages, in an employee-owned business).

              If you only see:

              $1,000 – Moog Synthesizer Thing
              $200 – Behringer (Same Synthesizer Thing)

              Yeah… of course you will deduct that Moog is ripping people off, and Behringer are righteously providing us a fairer price.

              We assume that a product = parts & labor.

              But a product = much more than that… parts & labor are the least of it. But if we keep promoting Behringer and trashing companies like Moog/Sequential/etc., we will end up losing all those vibrant new synthesizer ideas, in favor of a thief company that will run out of vibrant ideas to steal from.

              Everyone loses when we support these kinds of businesses.

    4. There’s no problem. It’s not even a clone, just another stand. Not even the same design. And not compatible with the moog stand. So absolutely no one has disadvantages.

    5. Please. Look around the eurorack case and skiff market. The same designs are being used over and over again by countless different companies. And power supplies… I can think of at least ten euro companies that all use exactly the same skiff power solution. The thin module with the floating cables. The moog stand (I have the two tier) is nothing special. No better than a small IKEA shelf. It’s grossly overpriced for what it is. Until recently all Euro cases have been grossly overpriced. Thankfully there is enough competition, that we are seeing some cheaper cases. And while this behringer may be copied off the moog, moog didn’t come up with this rack solution. We’ve seen it before from other Euro manufacturers. And you can’t patent and copyright a shitty few pieces of metal

      1. Can you share an example of anybody else in the Euro world making anything that similar to the Moog design? (Individual wood synth cases with 3 tier metal rack ears?)

        The Moog design seems closest to Buchla, because of the way it curves, but the Buchla is very different.

        1. Skiffs, suitcases, lunchboxes, racks, what’s the difference? All the same thing. I’ll go for the cheapest option possible because most is just ripoff prices. As it happens the behringer is not an exact copy. It’s not cross compatible with the moog stand and it has an adjustable width back support bar. Already that makes it more valuable than the moog. And it’s cheaper

          1. So, you can’t share a single example of anybody else ripping off Moog’s rack design like Behringer is doing?

            “But but but they’re all the same anyway….” is like saying it would be OK for big music companies to rip off all your music and sell it as their own, because it’s all the same anyway.

      2. Actually, you can patent a few shitty pieces of metal as long as they’re uniquely shaped with a design patent. But, they’re basically useless except for exact copies, since you only have to change one thing about an existing design patent to differentiate it over prior art – cut an extra hole, add a wooden side panel shave an mIllimeter off one side and then it’s completely different according to design patents.

        I agree with you concerning the unimportance of a ubiquitous commodity component In the world of IP. Very few people anywhere have any idea what IP game is all about. Patents are to protect real competitive products with serious revenue at risk. This? It’s not worth anything more than a design patent. Now a utility patent, that’s worth looking at for a serious product.

      1. No, it’s just that Behringer is the only company that seems to think that they can’t sell a Eurorack case rack without copying Moog’s design.

        Everybody else does something unique.

    7. Real musicians get the best and most appropriate equipment for their style/skills that are within their budget. period. Technophiles, fan boys, elitists, and nostalgia whores complain about who makes what and why.

    8. I support them 100 percent and yes I’m part of the problem. Thank you very much and have a blessed day sir? Am I allowed to say sir anymore or is it not PC?

    10. Part of the problem? Really? Behringer is making this industry/hobby more accessible. Think about that kid in the basement who’s trying to get started in electronic music. If he/she can afford a few pieces of equipment, isn’t that a win for us all? Most of us who like Moog (and can afford it) will still buy Moog. At the same time, there are those who can afford Moog, but simply choose not to buy it.

      Count me as “part of the problem”. I support Moog and Behringer! Guess what? They BOTH make electronic music gear!

      1. Sorry, unfortunately Behringer just copy electronic gear made by someone else.
        It is true they do it for cheap, but it is easy they just copy the job and ideas done by someone else for years. And we are not talking about a big company who do billion dollars, Moog is a small company while Behringer is a big one… and if you support this kind of way of acting yes it’s a problem for everyone.

    11. Cool, I don’t need anyone’s respect, nor want it. I could go around saying the same about non vegans, but I am more civilized than that.

      1. Yeah, what a great suggestion and addition to this, only artists who wears brand clothes?

        Lets kill the poor musicians and only support those rich artists, who gets paid from multimedia-tax, which was stolen from you and the poor in the first place.

        What a beautiful artificial world we could make together!

    13. For many of the classic 80’s synths that it is copying (Model D, CAT, Wasp, etc.), Behringer is manufacturing the original Curtis chips (the patents have expired). Those chips were not being manufactured for many years and hard to find, which made repairs of classic synths difficult and expensive. So they are copying some designs, but they are making the chip used by those synths – chips that were not being manufactured. They are doing us all a big favor by manufacturing these chips and recreating these classic synths and very affordable prices. In regards to your specific comment about copying a tiered rack, there is no patent (e.g., no ingenuity) in designing such a rack. It would be like accusing someone of copying a chair. Anyway, you are free to buy the more expensive Moog tier. The market will decide.

    14. Using that reasoning I guess we can safely assume no real musician would use an Octave The Cat Synthesizer, a Jomax or any vst emulation of famous synthesizers right? That would also likely put emulations of vintage tape recording machines and desks off limits for real musicians also am I right? This has been happening for the last 20+ years, Behringer tapped a market left wide open because most companies were focused on VSTs or producing affordable but mediocre digital versions of their vintage analog gear (Roland). Most of us never would have gotten our hands on an authentic MiniMoog or 808, Pro One, prices these fetch on the 2nd hand market are just outrageous! Real musicians having these tools available now at a decent price is going to lead to a wave of incredible music in the coming years.

    15. Some synth pioneers from the 60s and 70s (who popularized Moog, et al), also use Behringer gear because of the quality and price. Those who are engineers (in addition to being composers, musicians) make clear in interviews that they use (and modify) the best available product at the lowest price, and cobble together what they need, too. They don’t see these instruments as precious, rather tools to get a job done. People (including musicians) sometimes impute special qualities to these products, but that often comes from lacking an understanding of how they are constructed and function. There is no magic, you can build them yourself. Additionally, it is this sort of iterative improvement based upon the study of existing work that spurs creation of the new. Notice how Moog does not release eurorack versions of the old systems, rather it allows others to fill that space (at a price it could never match, being all hand-made in America) while it continues to innovate.

  3. Unfortunately, Behringer positioned their case screw holes slightly different, so you can’t combine Behringer and Moog Eurorack synths without recasing them.

    WTF? It’s like if the people that made Megablocks didn’t make them fit with Legos.

    It would have been a lot cooler if they used the same size, but actually offered a useful difference, like color options or something.

      1. If you put any Moog Euro next to a Behringer Euro, you’ll see where they changed the design.

        I read that some people drill new holes in the wood panels to correct the problem, but that seems pretty kludgy to me.

  4. It’s not mentioned in the article for some reason, but this differs from the Moog one by having an adjustable support bar that lets you use it with 70hp, 80hp, and 104hp euroboats. The Moog stand (which I have, it’s great) only works with their 60hp boats.

    1. You can get the larger cross bar if you need to for the Moog stand.

      The cost would be trivial next to the cost of dumping three cases for three larger cases.

  5. The Moog stand was already affordably priced: $59 2-tier, $79 3-tier!

    It’s one thing to make an affordable clone of an expensive reissue synth, (which I don’t support, but understand); it’s another to undercut a recent, affordable offering. It’s almost like a personal attack at a certain point.

    1. An attack on whom, exactly??

      I can’t mount moog synths on this Beringher stand, no one is going to by this to put actual MOOG synths on it, so who exactly is this particular stand attacking? Who’s going to buy this stand over the official moog stand if then need to tier up 3 moog synths?

  6. Behringer is starting to make question if synths are actually even cool at all. It’s starting to feel like the lamest fetishist/ materialist thing/ hobby to be into.

    1. It has been for decades! See the fetishisation of particular synth designs (MiniMoog, 303, MS-20, 2600 et al.) The MiniMoog fetish is particularly annoying. Sure it sounds great, but didn’t anyone in the intervening years think of adding proper four stage envelopes? But then I guess it wouldn’t be “authentic” any more…

  8. The Behringer stand looks built stronger and is more flexible for sizing than the Moog… so what’s wrong with them doing something similar but iterating and improving?

    1. It’s just sad to see them so blatantly ripping off Moog (among others) when it would be so easy to create their own design. Every other case maker comes up with something original.

      It’s lazy and tacky for Behringer to just copy everybody else’s work. Does Behringer think people will only by their synths if they are knockoffs of another company’s successful designs?

      1. It’s also true that form follows function. There are only so many ways to arrange a 3-tier rack and some of them are just better than others. There would be no point in them making a design that curved outward rather than inward, for example. That would be original, but also bad.

    2. Sorry if you don’t understand it, but if you buy this sort of copycat garbage, you’re broadcasting your disrespect for the companies that actually experiment and create new designs and move the industry forward.

      All Behringer needed to do was to come up with a way to stack their cases that wasn’t an obvious copy of Moog’s design. Any competent designer would enjoy that task and could come up with something original. Instead, they were clearly told to knockoff Moog’s design.

      1. Have you seen the Sequential Circuits Pro3? Now tell me how that is not a blatant ripoff of the Minimoog design. Take it easy, there is enough innovation in the industry as a whole. No need for everybody to be at the cutting edge. And in fact, Behringer is at the cutting edge. Just not the edge you’re interested in.

        1. Not sure why Behringer apologists always fall back to irrelevant ‘whataboutery’.

          The Pro 3 is a great new synth, with many innovative features, created by someone with 50 years of hugely important contributions to the world of synthesizers. It has a hinged panel, like a Minimoog, and it has knobs, like a Minimoog, and it’s a synth, like a minimoog. But no intelligent person would confuse it for a Minimoog clone, knockoff, ripoff or whatever.

          With this stand, on the other hand, it’s obvious that Behringer started with Moog’s design and changed as little as they could to call it their own. It’s a blatant ripoff to any impartial observer.

  10. it’s the lack of creativity that really annoys me.. Just try to move things forward, come with new designs. This is just preying on other people’s creativity. And we (from the creative industry) should be the first to see this and be aware of it.. We should know how important intellectual property is. I’m not against Behringer making things cheaper, this has been done for ages. But do know, that in the end, we as consumers pay the price.. -rant over-

  11. i don’t get the hate. isn’t this normal? isn’t only like 1% in music about creativity? why is everybody so calm about that? why not being mad about people who use dominant chords before the tonic? why not getting upset about a new piano or guitar manufacturer? why not shitstorming a new synth that has a sine wave in it? why not calling the second person using a modular a copycat? come on, guys. behringer is just doing what 99% of the world is made of. what’s the problem? there is still space for being creative if you need to – go ahead! 🙂

  13. Very entertaining watching Behringer clone every synth, and the fall out from people who either own the original or think they understand international copyright law.
    The gift that keeps on giving !

  16. It’s a stand, which holds modules, and it’s less expensive than the competition. What’s to be angry at? It’s like someone shouting at a cheaper chair. Get over it.

  18. From blues,skiffle, rock’n’roll to futuristic techno from Detroit etc.It was not fetched to us by posh kids , but by broke people using what they could get their hands on. Democratising music via affordable gear is good for music.Brand prestige sucks .

    1. Innovation in music has never come from people being poor, it’s come from people being ORIGINAL, whether they’re poor, middle class or whatever.

      Using classist bs to support sleezy business practices is incomprehensible.

  19. They could have made a similar concept of multi tiers without making it look aesthetically identical to the Moog. But they didn’t, and it does, which is pretty funny. I approve of anything that triggers people with Behringer Derangement Syndrome.

  20. Cover the Behringer logo with an anime decal and I’m in. Problem solved! Double points if its a tentacle anime piece that horrifies 50% of the viewers.

  21. …to be honest…just copy cat ???
    …No. This is a stand like so many others with an total other design…
    …and for the synths Behringer is selling in the future and now…
    …these synths are classic ones which are no longer build since more than 20 – 40 years with really nearby characteristics…these are just options to the overhelming prices you have to pay for a good original ProOne for an example…some companies even does´nt exist anymore…this is far away from the “copy cat” procedure to clone an actual product.

  22. …to be honest…just copy cat ???
    …No. This is a stand like so many others which a total other design…
    …and for the synths behringer is selling in the future and now…
    …these synths are classic ones which are no longer build since more than 20 – 40 years with really nearby characteristics…these are just options to the overhelming prices you have to pay for a good original ProOne for an example…some companies even does´nt exist anymore…this is far away from the “copy cat” procedure to clone an actual product.

  25. What if I simply build my own stand to better, personal specs and circumvent the raging mob of people who have their panties in a knot? Its just going to sit in the studio. I’m not going to carry it in a backpack while I try to take a dump on the hood of the Batmobile or anything. Problem solved.

  26. Eurorack is a specification introduced by Doepfer. A low cost german synthesizer company. Nowadays anybody with a 3d-printer or a table saw is making Eurorack-stuff. How on earth could this be related to Behringer-cloning-Moog?!?

  27. enough with your Bheringer opinions everyone! There are far more sophisticated companies makes revolutionizing the synth and music world. Open the front door of your bubble house and explore.

  28. The only really thing I care about Behringer is there live mixers. They really proved that they stepped up their game by focusing on higher quality standards with their gear, except for their synths.

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