Modal Announces $699 Argon8 Polyphonic Synthesizer (Baby Modal 002?)

[Hermetech Mastering]

Looks amazing, for the price, should be called "The Waldorf Killer". I shall definitely demo one, might trade a Moog GM in for one, if I love it.

[mrdoghead]

Behringer is leading the way making quality (analog) synths as cheap as plug ins (with a nod also to IK for the UNO).

No, Behringer does not lead in anything (they trade on the work of other companies and they are followers even in the broad trends) and it makes quality nothing.

There is a lot of good hardware. None of it comes from that particular source. It is easy to have low prices when you appropriate old circuits, steal marketing/copyright, pay poorly in a country where that is the norm, and use cheap, below-original-specification parts on the circuits they took and sold based on someone else's sales and reputation.

They have low prices, period.

Modal does its own work (and IK, as a hardware concern - among other companies). There is no comparison.

[kvotchin]

Awkward timing, with Hydrasynth ahead of it.

Wouldn’t want to be them right now.


edit: Behringer are making analog synths for the masses. I see this as a great thing. f**k snobbery.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Nothing to do with snobbery, I made a moral decision in the 90's never to support B for various reasons, and have seen nothing to change my mind in the intervening decades.

The Argon8 and the Hydrasynth are in totally different price brackets, so I don't see them competing at all.

[SLiC]

I could not disagree more about Behringer (music tribe) I have had their x32 desk since it came out, it’s the heart of my studio and was and still is great deal and amazing value, it has had superb free updates over the years. The Neutron synth wasn’t based on anything and is a steal, as was odyssey which I just got am delighted with. I even have one of there all valve 5 watt amps which I have been blown away by. It’s ok to have a moral stance and businesses, but that would stop you using products by most large corporations unfortunately.

In the soft synth world people have been cloning synths they did not design (at component level with spice etc) and copying the look of the synth in the GUI, basically stealing it digitally. I see no difference morally between the ‘legend’ VST and the Behringer Model D in hardware (which already existed as a clone in Eurorack modules for a grand , but no one seemed to care until it was cheap!)

[AdvancedFollower]

Behringer are hardly the first ones to clone coveted synths and sell them for a lower price. It's not stealing when the patents have expired, part of the reasons patents expire in the first place is to encourage competition. Besides, the Neutron and DeepMind are not direct clones of anything.

Behringer synths are designed by Midas in the UK, but like almost all synths (and the vast majority of electronics in use today), they're manufactured in China. As for lower-grade components, some proof is needed. From what I've seen of tear-downs of Behringer synths, they mainly cut costs by using many generic IC's rather than custom designs. They probably also operate with lower profit margins, relying on a high quantity of sales instead.

[BONES]

In the soft synth world people have been cloning synths they did not design (at component level with spice etc) and copying the look of the synth in the GUI, basically stealing it digitally. I see no difference morally between the ‘legend’ VST and the Behringer Model D in hardware (which already existed as a clone in Eurorack modules for a grand , but no one seemed to care until it was cheap!)

I agree completely with your observation but not with your conclusion. You are right in saying Behringer and those software developers are equally culpable but that's reason to support neither. I'd really love to know how they get away with it, why Moog and Korg and Roland don't sue their arses off. If I wanted to buy an Odyssey, I'd buy one from Korg, who worked closely with former Arp engineers on recreating the original.

It's not stealing when the patents have expired

Just because something may be legal doesn't mean it is the right thing to do. People and corporations do things every day that are legal but utterly contemptible. Behringer are exploiting the hard work of others to turn a profit for themselves. They are no better than companies who use off-shore tax havens or 3rd world sweatshops to maximise their profits. I've owned a lot of Behringer gear over the years and I hold their products in pretty high regard but zI would never buy something like their copy of an Odyssey from them.

[BONES]

Awkward timing, with Hydrasynth ahead of it. Wouldn’t want to be them right now.

I think this will make it harder for ASM, not the other way around. Modal are an established name in the industry with a new product that is half the price of Hydrasynth but seems to offer a lot of the same stuff. What have ASM ever done?

[kvotchin]

nvm . . .

[EvilDragon]

What have ASM ever done?

A proper poly AT keybed in decades, at the very least. Better filters and FX than whatever I heard coming from Argon, too.

Also consider that ASM is a subsidiary of Medeli, which has a 35 year track record already.

[lfm]

Behringer is leading the way making quality (analog) synths as cheap as plug ins (with a nod also to IK for the UNO).

No, Behringer does not lead in anything (they trade on the work of other companies and they are followers even in the broad trends) and it makes quality nothing.

There is a lot of good hardware. None of it comes from that particular source. It is easy to have low prices when you appropriate old circuits, steal marketing/copyright, pay poorly in a country where that is the norm, and use cheap, below-original-specification parts on the circuits they took and sold based on someone else's sales and reputation.

They have low prices, period.

Modal does its own work (and IK, as a hardware concern - among other companies). There is no comparison.

You like original gear - so do I - but looking at Roland as an example can't help thinking they are repeating a lot of what they did 20-30 years ago pretty much. Not even the upcoming Jupiter X/Xm seems innovative - so they are copying themselves you could say. Lovely sounding System-8 and JD-Xa with some interesting options and mix analog digital - but still lean on legendary Jupiter 8, pretty much, taking the name and repeating it.

Behringer did a killer job on both Neutron and Deepmind(those I own). In my view they overtook the lead from a bunch of the legacy synths out there - in how you boost creativity, good manual and overall thinking. And really simple things like preview a patch you are about to overwrite with what you are working on - which I have yet to see on a Roland. Lacking preview mean you have to take notes which patches you are willing to overwrite first and keep track of that. It's like you are not meant to make your own sounds.

Even Japan based synthmakers do their stuff in China today, so cheap labour and stuff is on them too. It would be nice with FairTrade stickers on synths too, kind of. I heard something about Taylor guitars are much into giving fair pay to people delivering the wood and stuff, but not sure if FairTrade in every sense.

Argon8 - this thread - thanks for putting it here on KVR - seems really interesting. But really have to hear some sounds more than this early stage on Sonicstate 1st look. But seems it's offering endless options to explore. If Modal stick to mentioned approx release before christmas I might get one. But so common with delays one never knows. Where did Behringer Crave go shown 6 months ago and still no see.

[telecode]

Behringer are hardly the first ones to clone coveted synths and sell them for a lower price. It's not stealing when the patents have expired, part of the reasons patents expire in the first place is to encourage competition. Besides, the Neutron and DeepMind are not direct clones of anything.

Behringer synths are designed by Midas in the UK, but like almost all synths (and the vast majority of electronics in use today), they're manufactured in China. As for lower-grade components, some proof is needed. From what I've seen of tear-downs of Behringer synths, they mainly cut costs by using many generic IC's rather than custom designs. They probably also operate with lower profit margins, relying on a high quantity of sales instead.

There are/were lots of discussions on other forums in 2017/18 about the Deepmind being unstable. Going strangely out of tune on its own. I chose not to pursue it because of that.

[telecode]

Can someone who is smarter than me about this stuff tell me.. is the Aragon internals similar to Skulpt.. it's just got a fancier keyboard.. or are they completely different synth architectures?

[lfm]

There are/were lots of discussions on other forums in 2017/18 about the Deepmind being unstable. Going strangely out of tune on its own. I chose not to pursue it because of that.

It's DCO's so I doubt they let that stick and not update with firmware or something. Latest firmware 1.1.2 is from feb 2018.

My DM6 was up to date so haven't checked release notes of different updates if that was acknowledged.

There is tip in troubleshooting about if it feels out of tune - there are automatic calibrations checks for all parts of voices and envelopes and such they refer to.

There is also cool parameters to emulate wobble/spread VCO's and parameters as well and a rate setting. So it's possible to create a patch where oscillators appear unstable depending of parameters set for it. It's randomized by parameter you set, how wide and how often.

Patches can have both LFO's (bi/or unipolar) and all envelopes as source for pitch control of oscillators - so again possible to make patches that do real slow pitch modulation.

When I had long session fiddling with DM6 the fans can go off at some point. But there is parameters to set for this as well. Thinking that at certain temperature anything analog can drift, like if your turn fan all off. Just guessing a bit.

But I never noticed anything with chords at least where I spent the most time doing patches. Nor did I notice rendering audio from DM6 did not fit into a mix like you expect it to - but his is 6 months I had it only.

I started a calibration of everything about 15 minutes ago - and it's still working. So thorough going through every voice and parameter.

[BONES]

A proper poly AT keybed in decades, at the very least.

As long as you ignore Roli. As I have a Seaboard, the poly AT in Hydrasynth is of zero value to me.

Better filters and FX than whatever I heard coming from Argon, too.

Given that Argon isn't finished yet, any attempt at comparison is meaningless.

Also consider that ASM is a subsidiary of Medeli, which has a 35 year track record already.

Great if I want a Casio-style experience, hardly relevant to this market. To me that affiliation is likely to make it a harder sell, not an easier one.

You like original gear - so do I - but looking at Roland as an example can't help thinking they are repeating a lot of what they did 20-30 years ago pretty much. Not even the upcoming Jupiter X/Xm seems innovative - so they are copying themselves you could say. Lovely sounding System-8 and JD-Xa with some interesting options and mix analog digital - but still lean on legendary Jupiter 8, pretty much, taking the name and repeating it.

I don't see that as Roland's fault, it is just a reflection of the market. If using the "Jupiter" name over and over again didn't work, they wouldn't do it but they are a business and they need to make products people want to buy. If people wanted new and innovative synths, that's what they'd be selling but they'd be crazy to ignore their heritage on principle when they can leverage it to make money and keep their workers employed.

Lacking preview mean you have to take notes which patches you are willing to overwrite first and keep track of that. It's like you are not meant to make your own sounds.

Whilst I think that's a really cool feature, it's not hard in most synths to find an empty slot to overwrite. Or you can use a librarian app to back-up your sounds so it doesn't matter where you store new patches. e.g. My Pulse 2 has nothing in the last 100 of it's 500 slot patch memory so you just find the first empty one and store it there.