In terms of pounds-per-voice, I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this – and I think I’ve just talked myself into buying one
A whole bunch of Behringer gear has come down to historic low prices of late. Just yesterday, we reported on the fact that Andertons is offering mk1 editions of its SH-101-inspired MS-1 for an incredibly tempting price of £149.
Even compared to that deal, however, I think the Cyber Monday price for Behringer’s Pro-800 at Thomann is frankly mindblowing. In fact, by some metrics, I think it might be the cheapest analogue polysynth of all time.
The Pro-800 is a desktop analogue synthesizer inspired by Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. Designed by synth icon Dave Smith, the original P600 was released in 1982 and was the first commercially available synthesizer to incorporate MIDI. Sonically, it sits in a similar ballpark to Roland’s Juno-106, albeit with a slightly edgier tone. It also had a button pad that let users save and recall up-to 100 patches.
Behringer’s take is fairly faithful to the design of the P600 albeit in desktop form, so you’ll need to connect a MIDI keyboard or DAW to get sounds out of it. It has two oscillators per voice, each with saw, triangle, and square waves as well as pulse width control. These feed into a resonant 24db low-pass filter. Two ADSR envelopes and an LFO provide modulation.
It’s a fairly simple synth design, but one that works great for rich Juno-style pads or retro synth brass. There’s also an onboard arpeggiator and the ability to save up-to 400 presets. Behringer’s design does upgrade the P600 in one significant way – it ups the voice count from six to eight. And this is where my ‘cheapest analogue poly’ theory comes into play.
“£235? Sure, that’s cheap, but it’s not the cheapest polysynth ever,” I hear you shouting at your screen with rage. And you’re right, of course. Korg’s Volca Keys, for example, is a three-voice analogue poly that’s currently selling for £129.
But for eight fully analogue voices? That’s less than £30 per voice. I’ve been reviewing synths for over a decade, right through the ‘affordable analogue’ boom, and I can’t think of anything that’s ever offered that sort of analogue bang-for-your-buck.
Am I wrong? Possibly, it’s been a long day. Is there some even more budget friendly poly out there I’m forgetting about? (All analogue, remember, don’t come at me with your Circuits or your Airas.) I’m willing to be proved incorrect, but either way you’ve got to admit – it is very cheap.
Now, full disclosure, I’ve not used Behringer’s Pro-800 extensively, unlike some other Behringer synths. I’ve given one a quick demo, and it sounds pretty on the money, but I can’t vouch for its finer details. That being said, at this price I’m currently doing some quick mental arithmetic to see if I can order one and still afford to buy my kids Christmas presents. So I’ll report back in a couple of weeks…