I’m worried about Behringer. They’re using this time machine a lot, without thinking about the dangers of the temporal paradox.
There’s reason to be concerned.
One, we’ve seen they already have entered some alternate reality where they’re in Banaheim, in the previous video.
Two, I really don’t want to have to write about Moog modules. But here we go. Yes, another video:
The 22 modules come from the System 55, the System 35, and the Model 15, from 1973.
Moog Music has already recreated these as ultra-limited, handmade editions; no word yet on what’s actually inside the Behringer remakes.
https://www.moogmusic.com/products/moog-modular-systems
These Behringer of course are actually affordable to mere mortals, which the Moog remakes most definitely were not. And this will unquestionably be the most inexpensive way to approximate the feeling of owning an original Moog system.
So would you want to do that? It’s a tricky one – maybe you want one or two Moog-ish modules in a system, but I would actually question if you want a 1973 modular in 2020. There are too many interesting, more modern modules to use now – and unlike the System-100m I wrote about yesterday, the Moog line doesn’t come with any particularly useful utility module or something fun like a phase shifter. I learned synthesis on a Moog, so I could see this showing up in classrooms. But there’s a lot on the module market to consider first. (Already I see folks on comments disagreeing, but – of course there’s a market for this, given its place in history.)
I’m not going to go through these and screen grab them again, but it seems Behringer’s plan is to dump a bunch of remakes onto the market. We’ll see what impact that has on the market for other hardware, which has tended to have a significantly higher price point. It seems it will inevitably hit other vintage-inspired modules, but it could impact the market for other modules, too.
See you at Superbooth, I guess? I expect Behringer will be exhibiting again. They may need … a bigger…
There is one big gotcha to all this.
Even at $49 – $99, a full modular system made of these modules will still cost well into four-figure sums.
I love the Moog modular. I learned synthesis on one that lived in the basement of my college – alongside a Buchla. I’ll also admit, that learning process wasn’t easy.
There’s a reason the Minimoog is the Moog that everyone remembers. A lot of the capabilities of this monophonic modular setup are encapsulated in a synth version of the same – keep in mind that the Minimoog’s first prototype of sorts was a demo patch made on the Moog modular.
It’s easy to knock the modern Moog Music for their high prices, comparing against their ultra-boutique, made-for-rockstars modular remake. But try configuring a Eurorack modular piece by piece even from this Behringer range for the price of the $899 Subsequent 25 from Moog this week – and that’s at the high end of that market.
That’s not to knock the unique open-ended spirit of modular. But the test for Behringer is the test for the larger modular community – is there a point where modular synths are too complicated to purchase and use in order to sustain a growing market?
And there’s another question for all of us – musicians and makers alike. Is the 1970s or even 1980s sound of the synthesizer where we want the road to end? Or what should a 2020 synthesizer even sound like?
Should I actually stop asking rhetorical que– ah, okay. I’ll shut up now.