Behringer Poly D 5-stars 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 .

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!

Super cool !

For that less money , you will get a very fine analog keyborard , look great , souns perfect , so I'll give 5 stars !

good synth on its own

This synth is well built and is capable of making old-school beefy sounds. Despite the looks, it's different to Minimoog, a Behringer's D would be a closer approximation. The synth has a very low output level, so a good preamp with balanced inputs is required. Nevertheless the synth is fun to use and very inspiring.

Slaps like a

This unit packs a lot of punch, especially for the price.

I would love to have an original Model D just a much as you, but I don't have a third kidney to auction off - so to be able to get a sensible modern take on a classic is a fortunate opportunity.

Sonically, it really hits the spot and when driven through the external input it's a meaty experience. Chorus is a nice feature, however on 2 there is an overt warble , maybe a bit too much. For leads and bass it clears the floor, and fits for many different genres and playing styles.

As with any analogue synth it does sound best after warming up for half an hour to a couple of hours . For some real fun, turn the Glide all the way up, and switch to Unison mode; then just as you turn the synth on, just a few chords and riffs will provide instant hilarity and have you saying 'Portamento Gosh!'. Lead lines at such a time sound similar to a Big Room EDM monster slowly being toppled, and who doesn't wanna know what that sounds like?

As has been documented, the Poly mode is not truly polyphonic, and it's a bit dodgy all in all in this department, notes here there and everywhere and I stay away from it altogether.

Generally, the sequencer is a positive extra touch, it's a bit fiddly to get to grips with, but once done it's a fantastic feature.

Behringer's Synth Tool is a must to calibrate the Poly D, some of the default settings will not be to taste for everyone.

As default, the Poly D is set to be the Master Clock of a MIDI chain, and not to receive clock signal from other devices (drum machine/sequencer) via MIDI. However, after plunging it into Synth Tool I was able to change that quickly. I haven't quite worked out how to write sequences using synth tool yet, and although the sequencer could use a little update so one might be able to edit with a bit more intricacy.

Overall, you can't go wrong with this unit.

P.S -- Uli, if you're reading this, please can you make patch sheets/maybe an online thing like 20 Patch (For the MS-20), but for the Poly D? Thx

So glad I bought this! Well done Behringer

Packed with features, great build quality and sounds awesome!

I did tonnes of research before buying the Poly-D and for the price, I don't think there's a better quality synth out there. OK so it's "Paraphonic" which isn't technically polyphonic but I just think it makes the sound more characterful.

Amazing synth for the price.

Essentially the Moog clone but with extra features, such as the Juno style Chorus, sequencer and distortion.

I've played the real thing and honestly unless you are nit picking about the exact shape of the filter or waveshapes (and I have seen youtube videos of people that have) you are going to be happy with this unit.

The first thing I did was change the pitch wheel down to a tone from it's default octave setting, and it was a breeze to interface the unit with the software, I had a quick look at the sequencing side with the software and that all looks great, though I don't really use it for that.

I wasn't expecting the distortion setting to sound that great, but actually it's pretty good for the unit. The chorus is a fairly faithful representation of the Juno 60 chorus (I have one and tested them against each other). It has the same character, but the stereo modulation is way more prominent in the Behringher, I feel like they overdid it a bit, perhaps on purpose I don't know.

The unit's midi in & out are all good, I noticed another user mentioned it not working, but that must be a one off or user error as that's all good.

Build quality feels great, the polyphonic glide is SO COOL.

If you have trouble keeping the oscillators in tune, yeah that happens with the moog as well. I honestly don't know why they didn't go a bit further and add a coarser tuning feature that would have been able to go up to a 5th, but I guess they are trying to keep it as close to the original as possible.

I'm using this thing ALL the time, a VST just doesn't come close to having a real unit like this!