Behringer Poly D Reviews

A beast!

I’m very happy with the synth and it is capable of some great sounds. The keybed is lovely to play and not flimsy. Much better feel than the Odyssey keybed.

My only issue is with the pitch bend wheel, which has a lot of dead space before the pitch down kicks in. I hope it is something that can be fixed with a firmware update, but it seems like such a basic requirement, that shouldn’t need tweaking.

Brilliant!

What an amazing synth to own at this price! It sounds absolutely legit. I've had it a couple of weeks and it's already getting used on all my tracks. Super inspiring and fun to play. Obviously it doesn't have the craftsmanship of the real deal, the switches feel a bit cheap, but the pots feel fine, and considering the price the synth is really well built. The chorus really makes this thing sound huge, and the distortion also has a vibe, that may not be the only one you'll use, but it's definitely useful. No regrets here!

Really great instrument!

I love this synthesizer! I know it gets a lot of hate from people for being a "clone" but this is a really great instrument and makes a few useful updates on a classic design. I own and have worked on several M**g products (Model 15 all the way down to the Werkstatt) and this "Boog" is a great solution for the touring/working musician who doesn't want to risk taking their more expensive gear to the gig. Also it's really great for any young musicians that want to get into analog synthesis via a more traditional upfront interface. Would certainly recommend, make sure to get some patch cables and a case with it too!

Very good and warm sound

Sound is rich and warm and gives lots of depth in performances, tone quality is beyond my expectations and love it as a musical instrument. All knobs fee nice and handling is excelent.

The build quality in general is good, but I feel the keyboard a little fragile and response of black keys do not exactly match the response of white keys. But I guess in general keys are ok provided you don't play with a heavy piano technique :-)

Output is a kind of low, if connected with usual line-level inputs gives something like -18db to -12db with volume at the full setting. With an active DI I get some good level, but you need double DI's to keep the stereo output (a very good stereo output from the integrated Chorus Unit). I also connected Poly-D to microphone inputs with very good results, output impedance of PolyD is about 1kΩ, so I guess it matches most microphone inputs.

Arpeggiator is very basic, but integrated sequencer has a lot of features and it is very handy, however is not well documented, but luckly there are a lot of tutorials in youtube.

Best purchase of my life

You must have such an iconic analogue synth in your digital studio. Super inspiring.

Very authentic sounding

A great take on the moog and the controversial 'paraphonic' feature is an interesting quirk!

Great synth for the money

It was exactly what I was looking for and a little bit more. It did have some features that I found out when noodling around that were a little bit of let down, but since I wasn't looking for these from this synth, I am still very satisfied.

Excellent value

For the price I don't think there's much to complain about. It looks and sounds amazing, and feels very solidly built, except for the actual keyboard that has a cheap feel to it. Even the MS-101 feels more springy.

The only concern with this synth is the filter envelope seems a bit unstable when Multi Trigger is on. It's slow to react and very dependant on velocity.

I just resorted to having that always off (I believe it's the default) and problem solved. Super fast attack on every note.

Great synthesizer at a great price.

Great quality instrument with great sound. However, some of the knobs and buttons could have been better quality. I'd much rather have this unit without the fancy wood panels and with proper bakelite knobs instead. Wood is nice and all but it's mostly for show. Better knobs and buttons, bakelite or metal!

Great Machine

I was reluctant as this is my first synthesizer ever, but it really rocked my world. I spend hours designing sounds and exploring and there is no limits, and the options gives you thousands of possibilities to have a sound that embraces your feelings. This is my first but definitely not my last .

Worth the extra

If you cant decide whether the poly d is worth the extra cash relative to the d then i can assure you it is. Assuming you can afford the extra and have the space to accommodate it then go for this every time. This looks, feels and plays like a real instrument in comparison. Behringer really pushed the boat out on this one. I bought it because it was a good price and the extra oscillator, the sequencer, the bigger/better knobs, the keybed and the chorus were all appealing. I now have both but the d will be offloaded soon - this is way better - it is way more responsive than the earlier desktop unit. It is a quality piece of kit.

good vibe with good price

Before get a real Moog,this is dope shit need to have

Un sintetizador fantástico con un sonido cálido y personal.

Después de leer y ver decenas de reviews me decanté por el Poly D porque buscaba un sonido analógico gomoso para hacer bajos tipo Moog.

El sintetizador es una maravilla aunque, a veces, puede resultar imprevisible. Se necesita conocerlo en profundidad para sacarle todo el partido que puede ofrecer. A veces hacer dos acordes seguidos es una lotería.

Si lo están pensando comprar, te recomiendo para novatos como yo, enterarse bien de lo que supone ser un sinte parafónico. De cualquier forma lo recomiendo 100%. Su funcionamiento te abre la mente y te anima a buscar sonidos fantásticos. Como única nota negativa diría que la diferencia de volumen de la distorsión es un poco bajona para introducirla en directo.

Para terminarlo, el sinte es muy bonito y de construcción robusta. Sé que es una tontería pero tener un cacharro agradable a la vista creo que ayuda a la creatividad de alguna forma.

poor man's moog... it has practically everything you could need. I'm sorry it can't be saved, but it's negligible. I strongly recommend it

good bang for the buck

good sound quality, heavy build. only downside is that the power supply cable is quite short and flimsy.

The most PHATT synth ever

The enormous sound of a 70s synth with an 80s chorus

Poly D is mostly a very good mono

The Poly D looks and feels very high qualiy. Control panel is well laid out, with the added bonus of being able to tilt it towards you. Good, firm keys. A bit heavy. Think about that before you put it on top of your stack. Velocity and aftertouch work well, but aftertouch is a bit hard for my taste. The power supply very looks silly on a keyboard of this size, weight and build quality. A proper power cable and internal power supply would have suited the unit better - but i guess it's a matter of cost. What you get for the price is really astounding. This synth will likely outlive me, allthough the power supply likely will be lost more than once along the way.

The synth is polyfonic in a way. I use it mostly in mono-mode, but if you can adapt your playing style to the way the notes trigger, i guess you could use it to play simple pads for instance. Mind you, each note will be single oscillator, and it's a bit of a pain to tune.

Excellent chorus. Would gladly replace the overdrive-section for a delay, for instance - but then again: you could buy practically all delays made up through human history and still not come close to the price of a minimoog.

For all intents and purposes, this IS a minimoog. No doubt about it. Anything you can do with a Minimoog, you can do with the Poly D, and a few more things. As such it is likely to become a classic in its own right. Well done, Behringer!

Great Introduction to Analogue Synths

Simple and easy to use, appears to be well made, nice looking synth and sounds awesome. I find myself making a sequence and just listening and loving the noise it makes. These synths are a bit of a one trick pony but that's the kind of synth it is. What it does, it does in a lovely warm, thuddy, fuzzy way. My only complaint is the audio output level is measly and needs boosting .

From bass to lead

This overall a great synth , out of the 3 behringers I bougth(td3 and k-2) this is by far my favourite out of them all!. Great low response and it really growls

A great sounding instrument but with a few build quality issues

A great sounding instrument with a few quality issues.

Pros:

- The classic MiniMoog sound is all there.

- Solid metal and wood case.

- Nice sounding Juno chorus addition.

- Feels like an actual instrument. The whole structure and the tilting panel make it very accessible to the user.

- Paraphony.

- No patch memory (yes I consider that a feature).

Cons:

- The Oscillator waveform and octave switch caps rotate for quite a few millimeters before the switch actually starts moving beneath that. Feels quite off and unreliable.

- The black keys require a noticeable amount of extra pressure to act the same way the white keys are. Too noticeable when using velocity.

- Velocity response seems to always affect the cutoff frequency in a way that sounds like an extra envelope making playing notes with filter resonance impossible. I managed to deactivate through the app but was still there when played from a daw and had to bring velocity response to 0.

- The power button on the front panel is a really bad move and can easily switch the instrument off accidentally.

- Absence of a 440Hz tone switch for tunning. Thankfully I have my model d to tune poly d too however it'd be so much better to replace the power switch with the A440 and place the power switch somewhere in the back panel.

- The overdrive circuit feels rather useless as it doesn't suit the rest of the instrument sound.

- All in all, it feels like Behringer has little idea about how to design a functional front panel layout from an actual musician's perspective.

Overall I would recommend this to any musician looking for a classic analog instrument feel. I'm quite troubled by the build quality though. It makes it feel quite unreliable. I'm quite uncertain about whether I should return my copy or just relax and enjoy using it.