Behringer Swing

[oscilloscope]

What is disingenuous is insisting that something which is nearly an exact copy of another existing product is comparable to toasters that have the same functionality.

This argument of yours imo reflects naivety or an anti B. agenda (a trendy state of mind) ... What's the difference if B. had used a round push-button instead of a square one, or if they had used grey housing instead of black, or placed the power switch 2 inches elsewhere ?

Does it bother you that they used white keys for tones and black keys for half tones too ? The nerve of B. !!!!!!

Do you really think B. used the exact same look because they are just conniving, fiendish or lazy or they lack the resources to find differently shaped controls, but just want to take over the whole world under their domination ?

Wouldn't it be more hypocritical to change a few design details so to hide a motive of pure imitation (an industry standard practice) ?

In any case, it's a sad thing for me to see these type of infantile fixations. Can anybody imagine LaMonte Young sobbing and lamenting that his Bosendorfer piano not only use endangered wood species, or air-polluting lacquer but also looks a lot like a Steinway ?

[musicman3000]

I think the discussion is missing a part of the argument. I agree that too much moral outrage is unwarranted because (a) all companies want to make money (so none of them is genuinely 'good' or 'bad') and (b) we have a whole system (law) to decide what is over the limit (especially for companies). That being said, i think there is reason to be unhappy with Behringers approach. Behringer is a big company in a market with many smaller companies. If you copy the Keystep once it's an established product, you save:

• Cost for RnD
• Risk of market acceptance
• Potentially the cost for industrial machinery to produce required parts

Two of those raise your potential profit margin, one lowers the risk of investment. I read somewhere Behringer owns infrastructure in China that is building parts for many synth companys. I'm not sure that is true and it doesn't matter too much. If they have access to the same factories that produce for Arturia, they can likely get a better manufacturing deal than Arturia got, solely on the fact that they can reuse the machinery that needed to be invested in, to produce the original Keystep. This might also be tied to why they use a micro usb port (a hilarious decision in isolation). Add to this, that a company of the size of Behringer will often have the advantages of "economies of scale", in that they can expect higher margins due to pushing products to a wider audience (retail channels etc.).

Now think about it in terms of the synth economy: (this is oversimplification for the sake of argument) If you have a company that swoops in every time you make a successful product and creates the same product for a lower price, how attractive is it to even try to create something for a new company? The problem for people who like to buy music gear is not only the feeling of unjustness you get, when you see someone's work copied (imho an understandable moral reaction) but also the possible practical consequence that Behringer's business practices might drive smaller companys out of the synth space and lead to less variety in products and innovation over the years. As such I think the Swing is a pretty scary proposition.

[revtor]

I’ll add my piece of disgust to this pile of shit.

Musicman3000, EXACTLY.

Behringer are being lazy, cheap, unethical, and 100% uninspiring. You can support that all you want, but it sucks and goes against much of what this community was based on.

And then, by sucking sales away from smaller companies like Arturia, 100% discourages innovation. What really is discouraging is that despite having all these engineers and companies under their wing, MusicTribe or whatever doesn’t have the balls to see beyond their shareholders immediate q4 concerns and actually design something new and exciting. So gross and really typical for large companies today. Sad above all.

I don’t care about toasters or guitars. Or pianos. Too simplistic to make a real comparison. And by making those diversions you’re ok’ing Behringer’s act. And those diversions are missing the point as has been said time and time again.

If you really want a cheaper Keystep just ask someone to sell you theirs. Or save up for a month. But fondling the nuts of this giant monstrosity to keep sweetwaters profit margins up just keeps the rich getting richer.

“Leveling the playingfield for musicians” is total BS too.. there have been plenty of keyboard controllers out there for years for even cheaper than Keystep. And free synths and free sequencers. So you can keep that pos argument.


Aaaaand my coffee cup is empty.
-Steve

[Zymos]

Do you really think B. used the exact same look because they are just conniving, fiendish or lazy or they lack the resources to find differently shaped controls, but just want to take over the whole world under their domination ?

Wouldn't it be more hypocritical to change a few design details so to hide a motive of pure imitation (an industry standard practice) ?

Oh, now I see. Behringer should be applauded for their honesty in exactly copying someone else’s design. If they made changes to it, THEN they’d be nefarious.

Pretty sure the term “mental gymnastics” has come up in these threads before, but that’s a gold medal performance right there.

[kons]

But we can all agree the brostep isn't a counterfeit right? They haven't put the Behringiner name on it...

Did Uli actually break in to Arturia HQ and steal the CAD drawings for the Keystep? Did the Chinese factory that made the Arturia keystep retain copies of the CAD files and then pass them on to Uli?

The legal arguments around copying are also hard to pin down, because surprisingly, US law (as defined by US tv court dramas ) does not dictate law around the world.

[revtor]

But we can all agree the brostep isn't a counterfeit right? They haven't put the Behringiner name on it...

Did Uli actually break in to Arturia HQ and steal the CAD drawings for the Keystep? Did the Chinese factory that made the Arturia keystep retain copies of the CAD files and then pass them on to Uli?

The legal arguments around copying are also hard to pin down, because surprisingly, US law (as defined by US tv court dramas ) does not dictate law around the world.

Why, does that give reason to think it’s a fine practice?
Legally, with enough cash, he can fight his way out of almost anything.. Sure.
Ethically, morally, design wise.. it’s still total bullshit.
And that’s all we can really do. Call him on bullshit and refuse to buy Behringer garbage. Unfortunately won’t make much of a difference because Uli obv doesn’t care about us, but instead is a slave to his giant conglomerate crap pile.

[sparood]

Now think about it in terms of the synth economy: (this is oversimplification for the sake of argument) If you have a company that swoops in every time you make a successful product and creates the same product for a lower price, how attractive is it to even try to create something for a new company? The problem for people who like to buy music gear is not only the feeling of unjustness you get, when you see someone's work copied (imho an understandable moral reaction) but also the possible practical consequence that Behringer's business practices might drive smaller companys out of the synth space and lead to less variety in products and innovation over the years. As such I think the Swing is a pretty scary proposition.

Yes his is probably the biggest problem, not only the copying of other ideas and and designs, but undercutting the rest and ultimately cannibalizing a big part of the synth market.

It's not that much different from what Amazon is doing with its marketplace, only on a different scale. In case of Amazon, when an third-party sellers product gets popular, Amazon will copy & produce the same item often for much lower costs and thus is able to sell it for less in the marketplace, undercutting the third-party end eventually leading to failing small-to-midsize businesses, and Amazon only growing larger and larger.

[Voltcontrol]

Now think about it in terms of the synth economy: (this is oversimplification for the sake of argument) If you have a company that swoops in every time you make a successful product and creates the same product for a lower price, how attractive is it to even try to create something for a new company? The problem for people who like to buy music gear is not only the feeling of unjustness you get, when you see someone's work copied (imho an understandable moral reaction) but also the possible practical consequence that Behringer's business practices might drive smaller companys out of the synth space and lead to less variety in products and innovation over the years. As such I think the Swing is a pretty scary proposition.

Yes his is probably the biggest problem, not only the copying of other ideas and and designs, but undercutting the rest and ultimately cannibalizing a big part of the synth market.

It's not that much different from what Amazon is doing with its marketplace, only on a different scale. In case of Amazon, when an third-party sellers product gets popular, Amazon will copy & produce the same item often for much lower costs and thus is able to sell it for less in the marketplace, undercutting the third-party end eventually leading to failing small-to-midsize businesses, and Amazon only growing larger and larger.

What they did with AWS, initially on the back of their own business need, is their even bigger Herculanean achievement.

[kons]

On the other hand. Maybe.
Beh. pressing the price of the utility products down means that people on a limited budget can get the necessary (a midi kbrd w CV etc.soundcard) gear and then have more to spend on really innovative boutique items. There are many operating with a fixed inelastic gear budget.

[CursedFrogurt]

So I'm legitimately curious, if we remove all discussion of whether this is an unethical hack, is there literally ANYTHING to say about this product?

[Kattefjaes]

So I'm legitimately curious, if we remove all discussion of whether this is an unethical hack, is there literally ANYTHING to say about this product?

"Big knobs, hur hur" and "microUSB? really?", more or less. By definition, it's not big on bringing anything new to the table, being a clone of a current production device.

[musicman3000]

So I'm legitimately curious, if we remove all discussion of whether this is an unethical hack, is there literally ANYTHING to say about this product?

Yeah im pretty sure thats part of their marketing plan and it works. Everyone going berhinGAAA .

Also good point by @kons

[flashheart]

I think the discussion is missing a part of the argument. I agree that too much moral outrage is unwarranted because (a) all companies want to make money (so none of them is genuinely 'good' or 'bad') and (b) we have a whole system (law) to decide what is over the limit (especially for companies). That being said, i think there is reason to be unhappy with Behringers approach. Behringer is a big company in a market with many smaller companies. If you copy the Keystep once it's an established product, you save:

• Cost for RnD
• Risk of market acceptance
• Potentially the cost for industrial machinery to produce required parts

Two of those raise your potential profit margin, one lowers the risk of investment. I read somewhere Behringer owns infrastructure in China that is building parts for many synth companys. I'm not sure that is true and it doesn't matter too much. If they have access to the same factories that produce for Arturia, they can likely get a better manufacturing deal than Arturia got, solely on the fact that they can reuse the machinery that needed to be invested in, to produce the original Keystep. This might also be tied to why they use a micro usb port (a hilarious decision in isolation). Add to this, that a company of the size of Behringer will often have the advantages of "economies of scale", in that they can expect higher margins due to pushing products to a wider audience (retail channels etc.).

Now think about it in terms of the synth economy: (this is oversimplification for the sake of argument) If you have a company that swoops in every time you make a successful product and creates the same product for a lower price, how attractive is it to even try to create something for a new company? The problem for people who like to buy music gear is not only the feeling of unjustness you get, when you see someone's work copied (imho an understandable moral reaction) but also the possible practical consequence that Behringer's business practices might drive smaller companys out of the synth space and lead to less variety in products and innovation over the years. As such I think the Swing is a pretty scary proposition.

Excellent post.

...MusicTribe or whatever doesn’t have the balls to see beyond their shareholders immediate q4 concerns...

Just to reiterate, Music Tribe has no shareholders - they are a privately held company, it is Uli's Fiefdom. They did announce that they were looking to go public, but no movement on that AFAIK.

[22tape]

No one gives a real shit about breakfast cereal or has breakfast cereal communities with enough people to freak out of fruity nuggets vs pebbles as far as I know yet.

Good point.

On that topic, if we're talking about clones of cereal vs clones of synths, I've never had a cloned cereal that tasted like the real thing. And if the taste of the cereal is the equivalent to the sound of a synth, and the sound of the cloned synth is exactly like the real synth, where's the distinction between the clone and the original synth, especially if the physical design is dead on? I mean, what's it all mean??? Am I a good person if I dump Oreos into a bowl and drown them shits in milk? Because Oreos are meant to be dipped into milk, not drenched in a bowl. Oreos aren't cereal. But they can be, it seems! I'm gonna start cloning cookies.

[NeolithicElectrophones]

No one gives a real shit about breakfast cereal or has breakfast cereal communities with enough people to freak out of fruity nuggets vs pebbles as far as I know yet.

Good point.

On that topic, if we're talking about clones of cereal vs clones of synths, I've never had a cloned cereal that tasted like the real thing. And if the taste of the cereal is the equivalent to the sound of a synth, and the sound of the cloned synth is exactly like the real synth, where's the distinction between the clone and the original synth, especially if the physical design is dead on? I mean, what's it all mean??? Am I a good person if I dump Oreos into a bowl and drown them shits in milk? Because Oreos are meant to be dipped into milk, not drenched in a bowl. Oreos aren't cereal. But they can be, it seems! I'm gonna start cloning cookies.

I could never comment on the ethical intricacies or creative validity behind cloning cereal or abusing cookies. But it's funny you chose Oreos as an example since they themselves are a clone of hydrox. But they're better tasting. So if B went the way of Oreo by improving the taste of his clones, I think a lot of people wouldn't get so wound up. Also, we need a smilie where the guinness is replaced with milk for times like this.

4ok1ys.jpg

[Bitnik]

Copying is not unusual and has always been with us, You can drop that point as it's never really been argued here. The remaining point is controversy over the copying, which is one of the subjects of this thread.

And I believe if one honestly investigates that aspect, they will find that it is indeed almost always initially controversial.

Which copiers know and depend upon. As has been pointed out in this thread, bad publicity is still publicity.

The first own brand item, the first copy of the wheel, who cares? If you're honestly looking for controversy you'll find it. But copying is an essential part of human commerce. To say that copiers rely on publicity is to beg the question. Don't all producers want to publicise their products? The real reason copying works is because it exploits an existing market. It scratches an itch. It reproduces a good design trick.

As a fan of baroque music, I was surprised not so long ago to hear, in a very unexpected place, a rendition of the refrain from the Paul Simon song An American Tune. It turns up in the St Matthew Passion. Oh you devil, Paul Simon, I said to myself, stealing Bach's lovely hymn for your elegaic song about the American dreams of social justice and building a fair society. Then I discovered that Bach himself copied the same tune from a secular love song that was popular some decades before he wrote the Passion.

Copying good ideas is how we have a culture. It's only controversial when people act as if copying good ideas is a bad thing.

It truly is a lovely tune. How wonderful that it found its way through copying from an obscure German folk song through a celebrated baroque chorale, right down to Rhymin' Simon.

[Zymos]

You love the false equivalencies, don’t you?

Did Paul Simon release an exact copy of an old German hymn, add nothing to it, and claim it as his own? Simon even credits the original composer.

Musical quoting, or as you say “copying good ideas”, has nothing to do with this thread. Behringer didn’t copy an idea of a thing, they copied the thing itself.

[Bitnik]

On that topic, if we're talking about clones of cereal vs clones of synths, I've never had a cloned cereal that tasted like the real thing. And if the taste of the cereal is the equivalent to the sound of a synth, and the sound of the cloned synth is exactly like the real synth, where's the distinction between the clone and the original synth, especially if the physical design is dead on?

Accurate cloning is not absolutely necessary, but it can smooth the path to market. If your copy of company A's widget works perfectly as a replacement, you'll make a lot of money. Company A will probably cry foul but in many jurisdictions the availability of such copies is recognised as, on balance, a public good.

[Bitnik]

You love the false equivalencies, don’t you?

It's perfectly equivalent. Bach and Simon both heard a great tune and copied it. They didn't "quote" it, they just took it and used it for their own purposes.

[KSS]

@Bitnik
I see you -still- didn't read even the first line you quoted. Or couldn't abide in its premise. Keep fighting for that point everybody already agrees with!
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meanwhile, kons made a reasonable point about seeing the low price of B gear having a positive effect on boutique if the rest of that gear budget is spent there. That's a pretty big if.

And before that, kons touched on an area we don't pay much attention to, with a -IMO- misguided attempt to require Uli use nefarious means to re-use Arturia molds and such.

Here's the reality. He wouldn't need to. We should all know by now that if you're not paying for something of good value, YOU are the product. Data has become gold in this age and we all trade -knowingly or not- an incredible and valuable amount of it for our 'free' email and internet resources of various type. What nobody seems to notice is that the now essentially 'free' PCBs we've all been buying are part of this too. And it's well known fact for more than PCBs. There are many countries who do not protect IP the way we in the USA -or other countries of similar take on the matter- expect them to.

When you send your product files 'offshore' you are also giving them away to -possibly- be cloned. Period.

Extreme low cost always has a downside. Always. Often hidden to the greatest degree possible, but still there. Ignore it at your -ultimate- peril.

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@Neolithic Electrophones
Great meme

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@CurseFrogurt
What is there to say about something -still unshipped and without even demos- which is presented as identical in every visible way to something already existing and well known? Added to by B's admission that this is their true and intended result? Along with their statement -which I already brought up in this thread- that any new features -when compared to Arturia's product- would only become apparent when their DAW ships and only for those DAW users. Not much to talk about. Grab a keystep owners manual and wait to look for Swings new B-DAW features when they both finally appear.

[Zymos]

Dude, when you keep insisting that completely different situations are “perfectly equivalent”, it just shows you are either stupid, or pretending to be stupid because it makes it seem like you’re proving your point.

Still waiting for you to post those exact copies of those toasters that you swear exist. It’s been since yesterday, seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to find....

[22tape]

But it's funny you chose Oreos as an example since they themselves are a clone of hydro

My whole life is a lie.

Also, we need a smilie where the guinness is replaced with milk for times like this.4ok1ys.jpg

[Voltcontrol]

Never mind toasters, we’re arrived at milk.

[Zymos]

I thought we passed that over and quickly went to Guinness?

[Voltcontrol]

Don’t ruin the record being set straight. Drink your milk.