Behringer guitar effects in Eurorack format?

[40Hz]

If anyone here bought a copy of Craig Anderton’s classic Electronic Projects for Musicians back in the early 80s, you might recall how, towards the back of the book, Craig had a whole section on doing up your effects as rack mountable modules rather than house them in individual enclosures.

His idea used a fairly expensive techy rack case. But some of his readers got creative and implemented the idea less expensively:

Well…it’s back.

Behringer has floated the idea of bringing out popular guitar style effects as Eurorack modules. And at an eye-opening $29 (not a typo!) per module.

Regardless of your opinion of Behringer and Music Tribe, it’s an idea whose time is long overdue.

As it stands, it’s still just a proposal. But if Behringer does go ahead with it, it’ll be interesting to see how many other pedal makers follow suit. I could easily see some of the majors like BOSS and EHX paying close attention to how this plays out.

From Behringer’s FB post:

“We want your opinion. What about we transformed some of the coolest guitar effects pedals into the Eurorack format so you could combine them with your Eurorack synths?

Or guitar players could now build a super compact and portable effects rack - perhaps even get connected to the world of synths? We think we could achieve US$ 29 per effect.

Do you think it’s a crazy idea? Shoot..."​

Here’s their engineering mockup:

 

[knumbskull]

Interesting. So would these work at both instrument line level and Eurorack level?

At that price, i’m guessing no CV control of parameters, which is what synth folks will want...

 

[40Hz]

Interesting. So would these work at both instrument line level and Eurorack level?

At that price, i’m guessing no CV control of parameters, which is what synth folks will want...

Unknown. If you’re a FB user (I’m not) they’re soliciting public input. So now would be the time to put your tuppence in if you’re at all interested.

FWIW I don’t see where lack of CV input would be a showstopper for most guitar effects. They tend to be set & forget type devices. The modulation category could benefit from expression control. But delays, ODs, distortion, fuzzes, and most delay and reverb effects are just set for a specific sound. If mod synth players want to get fancy they have far more sophisticated tools at their disposal for that than guitar effects. I’m guessing they’d be more interested in guitar gear for colorization than anything else. So dirt in various forms, maybe preamps with unique voicings, and that sort of thing would be their main areas of interest. But who knows? I’ve cruised on the fringes of the modular world for many years. And when it comes to sound design, that crowd wrote the book and will always surprise you with what they can come up with.

 

[Adamixoye]

If anyone here bought a copy of Craig Anderton’s classic Electronic Projects for Musicians back in the early 80s, you might recall how, towards the back of the book, Craig had a whole section on doing up your effects as rack mountable modules rather than house them in individual enclosures.

His idea used a fairly expensive techy rack case. But some of his readers got creative and implemented the idea less expensively:

View attachment 4152453

Well…it’s back.

Behringer has floated the idea of bringing out popular guitar style effects as Eurorack modules. And at an eye-opening $29 (not a typo!) per module.

Regardless of your opinion of Behringer and Music Tribe, it’s an idea whose time is long overdue.

As it stands, it’s still just a proposal. But if Behringer does go ahead with it, it’ll be interesting to see how many other pedal makers follow suit. I could easily see some of the majors like BOSS and EHX paying close attention to how this plays out.

From Behringer’s FB post:

“We want your opinion. What about we transformed some of the coolest guitar effects pedals into the Eurorack format so you could combine them with your Eurorack synths?

Or guitar players could now build a super compact and portable effects rack - perhaps even get connected to the world of synths? We think we could achieve US$ 29 per effect.

Do you think it’s a crazy idea? Shoot..."​

Here’s their engineering mockup:

View attachment 4152452

I am wrong that this is a joke?

 

[equill]

I love the idea!
And if they make it an open spec/standard so everybody can pitch in, so much the better.

I've never been one for pedalboards before, but this could change my mind quickly.

As for CV control, my guess would be no - to begin with. But if sales take off well enough, enough people ask, and enough people are seen adding it in as an aftermarket mod, CV-equipped models will start appearing.

 

[40Hz]

I am wrong that this is a joke?

It’s not a joke if that answers your question.

 

[Adamixoye]

It’s not a joke if that answers your question.

Saying that Behringer is doing something and then posting Boss pedals in the engineering mockup is a classic Behringer joke, so I'm not sure what I'm missing.

 

[40Hz]

And if they make it an open spec/standard so everybody can pitch in, so much the better.

Eurorack already is an open standard. Anybody can play. Check out ModularGrid.net to see the huge number of modules already available that use this spec.

 

[equill]

Saying that Behringer is doing something and then posting Boss pedals in the engineering mockup is a classic Behringer joke, so I'm not sure what I'm missing.

I think I see what's going on here: many of Behringer's pedals are Boss clones, with very slight changes.
If you look a little closer, you'll see the Behringer logo at the bottom of each faceplate, and the model names are not quite the same as the Boss ones: HM-20, GE-70 and so on.

Fooled me at first, too - I'm really not sure how they've avoided a lawsuit over this.

 

[Adamixoye]

I think I see what's going on here: many of Behringer's pedals are Boss clones, with very slight changes.
If you look a little closer, you'll see the Behringer logo at the bottom of each faceplate, and the model names are not quite the same as the Boss ones: HM-20, GE-70 and so on.

Fooled me at first, too - I'm really not sure how they've avoided a lawsuit over this.

But the fonts, colors, etc. are based EXACTLY on the original Boss ones. Again, with minor changes and the addition of the Behringer logo. Whether you think it's okay or not, Behringer has always been in the cloning / imitation game, if this isn't a joke this is further than they usually go to the point of being self-parody.

 

[equill]

Eurorack already is an open standard. Anybody can play. Check out ModularGrid.net to see the huge number of modules already available that use this spec.

Of course it is. Apparently I was still thinking in terms of a custom board.

In that case, there's nothing stopping boutique makers from getting into this already. Behringer might just provide critical mass for dragging other big manufacturers in.

'Scuse me, I'll just go look for makers who're selling these now, because an excuse to buy yet more hardware is just what I need right now...

 

[Adamixoye]

Does someone have the original FB link?

 

[40Hz]

Saying that Behringer is doing something and then posting Boss pedals in the engineering mockup is a classic Behringer joke, so I'm not sure what I'm missing.

Must have missed that classic joke then.

But who knows? Maybe at some point Behringer will start doing Eurorack packaging for other manufacturers as well as for their own modules. There’s already one modular amp company that has contracted with some high end boutique amps to do swappable modules of their preamps using the exact same electronics as the originals.

Behringer’s move is disruptive. How the rest of the industry responds remains to be seen. So I don’t rule anything out at this point.

 

[equill]

So I go searching, and find this article - from September.
You never know, they may be gearing up for production already.

 

[40Hz]

Of course it is. Apparently I was still thinking in terms of a custom board.

In that case, there's nothing stopping boutique makers from getting into this already. Behringer might just provide critical mass for dragging other big manufacturers in.

'Scuse me, I'll just go look for makers who're selling these now, because an excuse to buy yet more hardware is just what I need right now...

Behringer has already made waves in the synth world. They developed a scalable core synth platform that allows them to rapidly create new synths. They just did the Arp 2600 recently for $600 street. And they now have Eurorack modules that go for less than half of what their competitors go for. Ditto the racks to mount things in. So this will enable a lot more musicians who are curious about synthesis and modular gear to get into it since there’s now a good bang for the buck alternative. Who knows? These may be the breakout products that finally get modular gear out of the big studios and more broadly into home and project studios. Why should only the people who can afford $300 and up per module get to play?

 

[Killing Floor]

I'm really not sure how they've avoided a lawsuit

Maybe they haven’t. Maybe they are paying into a licensing agreement. Lawyers get stuff done.

 

[40Hz]

But the fonts, colors, etc. are based EXACTLY on the original Boss ones. Again, with minor changes and the addition of the Behringer logo. Whether you think it's okay or not, Behringer has always been in the cloning / imitation game, if this isn't a joke this is further than they usually go to the point of being self-parody.

Electronic design is largely incremental rather than innovative when it comes to guitar gear. Many if not the majority of the circuits we praise so highly either came out of mid 20th century circuit encyclopedias or manufacturer application notes. Swapping a few capacitor and resistor values around doesn’t constitute electronic design. If anything it’s tweaking at best. And apparently the US Patent Office agrees since it’s virtually impossible to get a patent on guitar electronics purely because there’s a vast body of prior art.

As far as copy/cloning goes - who doesn’t? How many Klon riffs are there out there? How many Muff, Rat, Rangemaster, Phase 90, and EQs and preamps based off Fender, Ampeg, Marshall, Dumble, and Vox amps? (None of whose circuitry was completely original either.) Virtually everybody in the music industry copies and clones. So Behringer is hardly unique for doing that.

Not to defend Behringer. But I think if someone feels the need to pass some sort of judgement for whatever their reasons, they should at least do it on a level playing field.

 

[40Hz]

Does someone have the original FB link?

facebook.com/behringer/posts/10158818278848914

 

[Adamixoye]

I'm pretty amazed that Behringer actually posted that, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I don't want to have a full debate about the general ethics of cloning, I have mixed feelings about it myself. But, that Behringer would post this in particular is pretty ridiculous. Seriously, no one sees that those pedals designs are exactly the same as Boss pedals except they have added a "0" to the end of most of the pedal numbers and a Behringer logo hastily slapped on it? Even the existing Behringer pedals that are considered to be clones of Boss pedals have a slight aesthetic facelift - different fonts, slightly different names, maybe a mild color change. This is just a whole other level. Like I said, crazy levels of self-parody.

 

[40Hz]

Fooled me at first, too - I'm really not sure how they've avoided a lawsuit over this.

I think in BOSS’s case they know it’d be a prolonged legal battle that would likely open up a big can of worms would hardly be worthwhile for BOSS to pursue it. Because once the discovery process in a lawsuit starts all sorts of laundry - clean or otherwise - soon becomes public. So I mean seriously, what would it get them? At best an order to Behringer to change their font and color choices…maybe?

BOSS has far more important matters to attend to. And their reputation and brand recognition is strong enough that I don’t think Behringer calling their pedal an UltraVibe rather than a VB-2 or using a similar font registers as a potential threat to the BOSS brand. Or at least not yet.