Behringer DeepMind 12 Reviews

Decent sound, good feel, good features

The good:

The keybed is great, same keybed as the OB-6. Good feel even though I prefer the stiffer yamaha keybeds. Aftertouch has a controllable range.

Voice calibration is dead easy. VCF tuning may need occasional calibration if you use self-resonance for bell sounds, but this is a quick process.

There's very little menu diving. The most common controls are on the panel, and the most common options are on the first page of the menu. Lots of thought has gone into this and the result is easy to use.

Modulation is easy to set up. Hit mod button, pick mod slot, hold down mod button, nudge the source, nudge the destionation, adjust depth and done.

Envelopes have retrig. No note sequencer, but the arpeggiator is flexible and the control sequencer is useful. Control sequences can't be saved and shared across patches AFAIK, but arpeggio patterns can.

Preset management via the app is okay. Not the best, but far more convenient than faffing about with sysex.

The bad:

The second oscillator doesn't do a saw wave. In practice you can deal with this by using two voices in unison. This means the DM12 is definitely the one to get over the DM6, so you can still have six voice polyphony.

The volume of the patches is a bit all over the place, and you can't store main volume per patch, only VCA volume, which in turn changes the character of the sound. Volume can range 15dB or more between patches. Luckily the front panel volume knob is conveniently placed on the left hand control section.

The sound:

The bass sounds aren't the beefiest, you need to find a sweet spot to get truly nasty bass sounds. However, pads, arps and plucks are easy to make and sound great. Creating patches is a ton of fun and the sounds are inspiring. Most of the built-in patches are a bit naff, but if you know anything about subtractive synthesis it's dead easy to dive in and start building your own library.

A Juno-alike with FX. Awesome.

Amazing synth. Love the filter particularly, some really classic sounds. But the FX and Mod sections ultimately what sell this synth - incredibly deep and flexible, and not difficult to use either.

Best synth i own

Awesome sounds and very user friendly

press record and seek the sweetspots....spectral overlaping

Very good polyphonic analogue synth!

This is a great synth with that glossy 1980s analogue DCO sound. Easy to program, even though not all parameters have physical controls. Having 12 voices means there'll be very little voice stealing, even with long decays. Or - stack them for some monster-fat 4, 6 or 12 voice sounds, giving up to 24 oscillators per key press!

The modulation matrix is very powerful, and can also control the digital effects, of which there are 4 separate slots. EQ, chorus, delay, reverb, pitch shifter and and cool synth-style filters makes this analogue synth almost a hybrid-style instrument.

For the price, there's nothing even close on the market and the build quality is top notch (apart from the fader caps that can be a little loose and might need to be pushed on a bit).

Highly recommended!

Nostalgic and groundbreaking synth for the money!

I did a great deal of research before buying this synth. It needed to be robust enough to use in live gigs and also provide the range of sounds I needed. Having bought a Roland Juno 6 back in 1984 (still working!) the similarity of front panel layout appealed but the Deepmind 12 is SO much more. I will probably no more than scratch the surface of its functionality but having built it into my keyboard rig over the last couple of days I am already able to see huge possibilities.

The sounds are great, the editing is straightforward if you have a modicum of trad synth skills and the manual (downloadable from Behringer - you only get the Quick Start guide in the box) is remarkably user friendly.

The presets are impressive but for my uses are 'of interest only' but the modular section is amazing - being able to modulate everything with everything else is suprisingly flexible. You can almost have two patches either end of the Modulation wheel, which can be very useful in the Live situation.

Patch changing is pretty good although I use a Roland digital piano as the controller - normally just to send patch change info - its display has less to do and is therefore that bit clearer (and closer to my failing eyes!)

The unison modes are great if you love big synth leads - detuning 12 oscillators for a solo will ensure your guitarist is inaudible for the rest of his/her days!

For the price, it's a winner. You're getting at least twice as much bang for your buck than any competitor. It's been designed and built with care, precision and insight. I love this beast and I've only had it four days!

Wow!

Great build, very well thought out UI (+ editor), superb FX, and a sound to die for.

Can't recommend it enough at this price.