Behringer UB-Xa Synthesizer (OB-Xa clone)

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Taken from Uli Behringer's post on Gearslutz:
Today I officially announce that we have decided that we will develop and produce an authentic OB-Xa clone which we call the UB-Xa. As you can imagine, this is a very complex and time-consuming project and at this stage we won’t be able to tell you when the instrument will be available in the market or what it will cost.

Since this is more a labor of love than a commercially viable project, our engineers can’t work fulltime on this synth and will use some of their free time, hence the project will likely take more than 12 months.
Most importantly, our goal is to make it an absolute authentic sounding instrument and offer it at a truly affordable price - but you know this already. :)

Because of its high complexity, we have assigned this project to our most experienced team which is the Midas team in Manchester, UK. These synth nuts and super-smart engineers - under the leadership of Pete and Rob - were also the ones who developed the successful DeepMind12.

In around one week from now, Pete and Rob will post our first video and share some thoughts with you. Our intention is to not only post videos on a regular basis but also write articles and publish them on our social media pages so you can follow this project.
Now that we have decided on the project, next is the discussion around the basic concept, the feature set and also the building blocks including potential component choices. In the near future we will be able to show you the first “bread boards” of the sound engine and hopefully let you hear some sound samples.
Next will be PCB and mechanical designs, followed by hand- and tool made samples. And then of course we will be sharing the exciting mass production where we will be showing the production setup and testing plus quality control processes. And if you’re not yet bored by then, we can also show you the packaging and shipping process.
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Original topic on Gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... sizer.html

What are your thoughts?
Last edited by Sidom on Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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He should rather release the Behringer D, finally...

But, of course, that's very nice news.

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What's so "very complex" about it? It's not a Fairlight...
Just get an old used one and take it apart 8)

Would be funny if they developed that thing for a year and then lawyers told them they couldn't sell such a clone :hihi:

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there's no display, so I guess that means no patch memory. oh. i see it's the buttons across the bottom.

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Good for Behringer and those who like hardware.
Hoping all their clones have a healthy quality/price ratio.

Opportunistic and unoriginal on there part, maybe, but no doubt they've seen a market and are moving on it.
I applaud :clap:

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fluffy_little_something wrote:What's so "very complex" about it? It's not a Fairlight...
Just get an old used one and take it apart 8)
Am fairly ignorant of OBxa. Never had one, but several friends had em and I played on it, twiddled knobs and such several times.

I tended to learn what was inside a synth by either owning one or repairing one and do not recall ever repairing an OBxa.

My flawed memory recalls fat and dense "synthy" tone. Which is fine but synths I bought back then were for live use and a synth that could sound "pretty close" to horns, strings, bells, e bass, etc, along with the martian chainsaw tones, was a plus. Because the pop music I played to pay the rent and food bills, typical "square" audience of the time didn't necessarily respond well to Georgia On My Mind played on martian chainsaw. :) OBxa was kinda big and expensive at the time just for "rather synthetic" tones regardless how nice the synthetic tone might be for a song and audience who can appreciate it.

Wild ignorant guessing-- Assuming the goal is to make an instrument which nails the original tone and behavior, but maybe nowadays you would have to build it using entirely different parts and circuits-- That might be some work. "Cloning" a sound/behavior with an entirely different circuit might be easier done in a virtual analog DSP instrument rather than in a hybrid digital-controlled analog instrument. As earlier mentioned, my ignorant wild guessing.

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i think lose the stripes.

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:roll:

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Ooh a timely resurrection :phones:

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Behringer is one of the reasons why I'm switching from software to the hardware world. It's going to be expensive but a lot of fun.
<list your stupid gear here>

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Sorry Tom, but i'll be buying the desktop version for sure.
I'll be making my own UI sheet for it though, those Oberheim stripes have always wigged me out for some reason.

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I'd be very interested in the desktop version and only if it's not too big.

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Anyone have a good guess when this will be out? End of year 2019?
<list your stupid gear here>

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Don't think it'll happen this year at all. Maybe next one.

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