Behringer DeepMind 12 5-stars Reviews

Getting back into synths

After much research, decided this to be my first analogue synth. In my teens I had a DX7mk2, and in 2018 I received a Yamaha MX61 for my birthday. Loved the MX61 it but wanted way more. Now having my deepmind over 3 years, absolutely love it! Lots of capability and the effects take it even further.

A great synth, not just a great budget synth

The DeepMind has quite an ingenious design. Each voice is quite simple, but it is capable of surprising results. This synth's unique character is shown with the unison modes, which, with "uni voice" as a mod source, go well beyond the usual "thicken the sound" function of most other synths. For example, go to unison-2 or unison-3, set a mid-resonance 2-pole filter and map uni voice to filter frequency for formant-like "dual filter" sounds. For this reason I would definitely recommend against the DeepMind 6: you really want all 12 voices, especially since you need unison-2 just to get two sawtooths.

The osc section is limited. Osc 2's tone mod is quirky but combined with sync can make some interesting sounds. It would be great to have more waveforms on both oscillators but at this price the engineers obviously had to make some careful decisions and I think they've made a very unique, characterful instrument.

The filters sound fantastic at all resonance settings and are very versatile. At high resonance the low end largely disappears and it behaves more like a band-pass filter, which is actually very useful despite any comments of the DeepMind sounding "thin" (if all your synth sounds are "fat" then your mix will be pure mud anyway).

Admittedly, this synth sounds a bit dry with no FX, moreso than other synths. This is where the excellent FX section comes in. It lets you stack four effects with various routing options, some with feedback. You can do four reverbs in series, four band pass filters in parallel, whatever. The reverbs don't reach Strymon territory but sound great. There's no shimmer reverb but you can make one by putting a pitch shifter in the reverb feedback path. The two multi-band distortion/drive effects are also very versatile. Most FX parameters are mappable in the mod matrix, so you can e.g. dump the reverb buffer when playing a new note. In this way, the FX section becomes part of the instrument and not just an extra, and contributes to the synth's unique character and sound.

The DeepMind has lots of little features that leave you wondering why synths three times the price lack. Sostenuto mode. Favourites list. There's a "MIDI soft-thru" mode that relays MIDI messages from MIDI in to MIDI out (in addition to the usual MIDI thru port). This is a great feature not found on many keyboards. It means you can connect a sequencer to MIDI in, and MIDI out to another synth, so the sequencer can sequence both synths and you can play the other synth with the DeepMind's keyboard.

The arp is comprehensive with custom patterns (sadly no ratchet or chance).

The envelopes have fully adjustable curves - even the sustain portion has a "curve" parameter that acts like a second decay or attack after the main attack/decay. The envelopes are loopable, syncable, slewable, delayable and can be phase-distributed across voices. Almost everything is a mod destination, including env shape and curves, pan, porta time, drift, arp gate, FX params and other mod slots. Hold mod and wiggle a slider/press a button to set mod source/dest. It really feels like a lot of attention to detail was put into this synth. Some of these options require you to open a menu to get to them, but it's really not bad at all. Most sound shaping and adjustment can be done with the main sliders on the panel.

Build quality seems great: the case is all metal. I think the whole thing looks fantastic and a bit retro. The screen is packed with useful info and visual representations of envelopes etc. The screen could be a bit faster to update - it looks blurry when scrolling quickly through favourites.

I think my biggest complaint has got to be the keybed. While it's workable, the black keys are much less sensitive to velocity and aftertouch making playing uneven. Seems like there's quite a bit of randomness in the velocity response, even on the same key. Also, the keys sometimes feel a little sticky: sometimes they won't start moving until given enough force, then it unsticks. It's not a lot of force that's needed, but adds to the uneven playing experience. It's definitely usable but if you're all set in the keyboards department, definitely consider the desktop version (DeepMind 12D). Also another octave would be appreciated.

Other criticisms: there are only 8 mod matrix slots (odd, because it's all in software). You'll never have enough. Although do note that many basic mods don't need the mod matrix: LFOs or envs can be routed to PWM, pitch mod or filters, with mod wheel or aftertouch control, without the mod matrix.

Oscillator 2 level, noise and HPF mod destinations are global and not per voice (this is clearly a design trade-off as per-voice control of these would need more circuitry).

There's a high pitched whine in the audio path. This is normally not noticeable on the line out unless you introduce gain (either in the FX section or externally) but you might want to use a noise gate when recording. (Interestingly there's a noise gate in the FX section. I wonder why that's there...) The whining is much more noticeable on the headphone port, however, and can be a bit irritating.

Another minor annoyance: osc 2's tone mod parameter gets modified by the "param drift" option (separate from "osc drift"), which introduces bell-like tones into osc 2 even if you want to just use it as a square sub-oscillator. This limits the usefulness of "param drift".

Overall, great unique synth with lots of details. Definitely a keeper, but not without a few warts. Definitely worth considering the desktop version if you have enough keys.

Class 1 keyboard

I never thought that I, a bassman with my home studio, should end up with this keyboard, but I did. I shall never regrett it. Really, I was looking for a motherkeyboard to control my Cubase software, and then this turned up. So now I have both a motherkeyboard with really nice keys and a f..... well sounding and clean sounding synthesizer. What's not to like?

Very good analog synthesizer

This synthesizer is fantastic value for the price. Lots of sounds to change as you like and sounds is good.

Recommended!

Quality vs. Price - Unbeatable!

Older tech but more than capable

The Deepmind 12 is a powerful analog synth.

The keybed doesnt feel premium but this machine can deliver. I would suggest you check out a Youtuber named Jorb who has released tons of patches for this that recreate the JX3P and Juno.

I play this everytime I sit in my studio. Well worth the price. Delivers on what products in the 1,000 range do.

love it

excellent piece of hardwשרק

Amazing synth for the price.

This synth is excellent. For it's price you get a lot. You can do lead, bass pads but I think it excels in creating rich atmospheric/ambient soundscapes, pads and arps. You have all effect you can imagine built in. Only downside is a bit of menu-diving. But you can use app and do it on PC. With mod-matrix, the possibilities are endless.

The sound is so good

Both the price and the sound are very good. The shipping was fast, too. Nice!

A fine and underrated analogue synth

Before buying this synth I saw many videos on Youtube, especially the ones comparing the sound to other analogue synths, like the videos of Starsky Carr.

Overall I could hear the possibilites and the quality of the oscilators, I was amazed by the quality of the sound and the effects.

The fact that the effects come from TC Electronic and Klark Teknik which I've known for years boosts the already good sound of this synth.

Right out of the box you get excellent delays, compressors, reverbs, phasers and other effects but with the added power of intricate routing.

This synth can be as complex or as simple as you want, the controls are mostly sliders instead of knobs, which is OK, you can quickly edit sounds, ADSR, filter, resonance, the LFOs are at the tip of your fingers which adds to the expressiveness.

The build quality is good for its price, you get metal and wood, it's got a small footprint and is quite portable.

It's incredible how many features Behringer have packed on this original synth (as you know the other synths are clones of older models).

It's a very unique proposal in the synth world, there is no synth quite like it, I dare to say that it's in its own league.

I've read comments on how thin sounding it is, I strongly disagree, this has not been my experience with it, all the contrary it can sound as fat as you set it to be.

The best synthesiser for this price range

In my opinion the Behringer DeepMind 12 is the best analog synth in this price range. The features are incredible and the effect module is very complete and analog controllable.

A very very good an powerful synth

For a very good price , you will recive a very very good an powerful synth , Sound Excellent , very good features ,12 voices , easy to use , fine and nice look , etc , so i give 5 stars!

Not just bang for the buck but a great synth

A lot of people are focussed on the Behringer price point. After living with this keyboard for 3 months now it has become my go to poly synth. Intuitive, easy to program and sounds great. At this price it's a steal, but that overlooks the point that it's a well designed, great sounding synth regardless of price.

Behringer DeepMind 12

Great instrument and easy to use, fantastic sounds

Most affordable polyphonic synth

This synth can do everything you want it to.

I think my only con is that it can be a little complicated to work the mod matrix at first if you are used to synths that are purely analog knobs e.g. ms20 but once you get your head around it, its amazing !

Behringer has come a long way !

just from preset surfing you can have great fun with this synth I use mine in a home studio and since been on lockdown I’ve explored its capabilities a lot more, don’t forget you can still Initialise the deepmind if you want to build your own presets or sample the analogue waveforms it produces which is what I do, I don’t play live but my only bugbear is the fan noise ! However it can be reduced in internal settings, listening back to arpeggiated loops I’ve made it just sounds ‘real’ compared to soft synths and fat my favourite plus to this synth is internal clock so you can set bpm without syncing midi so I can just hit record in ableton or logic with the metronome and play directly in, adjusting parameters on the fly, software is great but going back to hardware just makes it exciting and fun again !

Amazing

This synth is amazing and at a very fair price.

It is just too complex if this is your first synth.

Very "geeky" but has some amazing sounds.

The emulation

This synth is very, very good if you wanted vintage sounds. the effects are real good, the mod and routing capabilities are beyond other known synths. but the only downside is that this synth is not a "utilitarian/surgical" kind of synth.

A Beast of a Synth

I use this analogue gueen in almost every project I do. They range from EDM to prog. And there is very little so far that could be better. The sound is great, the menu diving is minimal and it hasn't been acting up yet.

I did the firmware update because with some sounds I have one (or couple) of the oscillators pitch an octave higher. for me it is not a huge problem, because I mostly use it in unison mode (12 osc stacked with some detune is BEEEFY), but it can happen and that is a hardware problem. The automatic calibration didn't seem to fix it :(. Since I noticed it a month or so since reaciving mine, the warranty would have taken care of that. Also bit more hardware controls wouldn't go unappriciated by many including me, I believe.

Over all I am really pleased with it. The sonic possibilities are colossal (I'm barely scraching the surface), the build quality is good enaugh (besides the osc octave tune no issues). There is not too much menu diving. Also it looks quite nice... Not that important for me, but is well... nice.

Unbeatable value

Lovely synth and very good value considering it has 12 analog voices. The keybed is also surprisingly good. Highly recommended.