Behringer Model D - 5 Year Review // Tuning, Issues & Comparison

#synthesizer #akai #musicproduction

I've used the #Behringer Model D a lot in the past 5 years. It's my goto bass synth currently. It's not all perfect and I recently had an issue popup for me. I'm also comparing it directly to the AIR Mini D plugin that you can load directly in your modern MPC.

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00:00 Talking Boog
02:25 Comparing the AIR Mini D
03:00 Remaking the patch in the MPC
09:35 Got pretty close
12:06 Bonus tips for processing in Ableton
17:08 Problems... Tuning and Corrosion?

[BigBadWolf..............]

I was an audio electronics technician for 3 years.
A cold solder joint can cause corrosion.
Sometimes factories have cold solders especially when they are just starting large-scale production and they need to find tune their machines. If you have an early version of the model d this could be the case.
It's a very easy problem to fix.
First first get some rubbing alcohol and a paper towel and qtips. Clean the jacks as best you can.
The second part is a little bit harder but not that hard. Get a soldering iron and solder and just add solder to the jacks. You don't need to remove solder just add some. This will heat up the cold solder joints and add a little bit better solder than was probably used in the beginning. If you do those two things you probably won't have this problem in the future.

[NZ]

Wow this is a perfect timing for me, I was considering getting one. Thanks for a thorough review as always!

[IllusionK]

I have the Behringer Model D, Neutron and Pro One clone. The Model D is the only one with corroded output jacks, same as your Model D. I've had mine for 3 years, in a Temperature / Humidity controlled environment, and live inland in NJ, so no salty sea air to corrode things. I read the comments below, and it has nothing to do with atmospheric corrosion or incompatible metals or anything else of that kind. What I found was that one jack was corroded and the other wasn't. When I touched the jack with a Chrome plated screw driver, the chrome was etched away from the screw driver almost immediately. Plugging in a chrome plated jack into the corroded socket and pulling it out, within a minute had basically corroded away the chrome from the jack. Having done some 100 level chemistry, this is not ordinary corrosion, it's basically contamination of the jacks with some sort of highly corrosive substance, like an etchant, similar to nitric acid or ferric chloride, but I have no means of testing this. I'm guessing that during the manufacturing process, some of this corrosive substance got onto the jacks, but only on the model D jacks, not Behringers other synths.

I removed both jacks, cleaned the corrosive substance from the small PCB they were mounted to (which had also partly destroyed some of the copper tracks on the PCB) and remounted some neutrik sockets. Problem solved, no more corrosion or issues.

[juicythedj]

There has been one major hardware change not too long after the initial release where the single-turn trimmers for the oscillator tuning have been replaced by much more precise (and stable) multi-turn parts.

I originally had one of the earlier units, but I got kind of lucky because I wasn't able to perform a firmware update at some point because of a bug. Behringer recognized this issue and affected units could be sent in for repair directly to a tech center. Upon receiving back my unit, it turned out that the entire synthesizer board had been replaced so I basically received a brand new Model D - which now came with these multi-turn trimmers. It was not perfectly calibrated though so I went through the calibration procedure myself and it's been great ever since.

[JustAnotherYoutubeHandle]

My model D is 3 years old and still works and sounds great.

[boblove]

Model D sounds much better than the Mini D. Took for ever to get the Mini D to sound good but then you swap to Model D and its like woah. Plugin synths suck.

[bassplayerify]

Forgive me but, the Model D sounds like hardware. And the plug in sounds like software.

[gatosoul]

Loving Model D, thank you for sharing

[brianschiller]

Mine is several years old, been used as a desktop synth, also was mounted in a Eurorack rig. It is also a backup for my other monosynths ( voyager, matriarch, etc). Never had a problem with it, and it sounds great. I see new ones on sale less than $300 sometimes. At that price, well worth it in my opinion.

[muppetpaster]

6:35 I can tell you for a fact, that these differences also occur among two original MiniMoogs...That is just the whole analog thing going....Two Air Mibi D plugins WON"T have this difference, since they're both digital.

[pyko]

I was so impressed with the sound of the Behringer Model D that I ended up selling it and getting a Minimoog reissue instead.

[michaos]

Life your videos a lot for sharing your OWN experience with gear! I myself own this synth, it was my first synth and it'll go last if I sell all my hardware stuff.

[alexander-ns]

Mine works perfectly still calibrated it twice now its stable.

[JayKaufman]

After five years, I would expect it would need a tuning. Get those firmware updates done on it first though. Once you use the Behringer Synthribe app and hook it up via USB, it will explain how to tune the unit.

As an aside, the older Moog Model D's were notoriously hard to keep in tune. I think they've fixed it to a point in the re-releases.

[TheIndustrialRetrospective]

Been thinking about getting one for bass duties also, but ive had a Grandmother for years now and it fills the role nicely.

[obshaky]

Humidity where I live is around 80 all the time and my 3 year old Neutron works as expected. It has a significant amount of cat hair and I think the cat has knocked it off the table once or twice so it is a bit busted on the side but the thing just works as expected. Updated the firmware the other day from factory to whatever is the latest version using my company laptop and it wasnt bricked or anything. Just check the connections with a multimeter and if it just needs a cleaning use alcohol or contact cleaner or white vinegar or baking soda and some old toothbrush and itll be fine.

[ho]

I've had mine for about 2 years. I bought it used. I am not sure what circa it is, but I have had absolutely no issues with the tuning. I have actually been surprised at how solid the tuning has been on mine. Now, that said, I probably totally jinxed myself. I actually really like the model D. All that said the first one I got was defective and I had to get a new one.

[ferenclucas]

so I just got mine a few days ago. it's totally awesome so glad I got it. one thing to point out is that the quick start manual on page 17 says that the main out and the HIGH LOW outs in the back are all TRS. A new user is going to waste a whole lot of time trouble shooting everything if they go by this. in the full manual under specifications the outputs are indicated correctly as TS but the Main out is not mentioned in the specs either. cheers!

[opticalman]

soon as you played that bass patch boards of Candia springs to mind

[DaveShipp]

Got to be one of the best, easiest to hear, demonstrations of the difference between analog gear and plugins. Especially when you’re talking about the give between notes. Very well done.