Behringer WASP // REVIEW & DEMO 

Coming to the party late, but just picked one of these up for a steal. I'm surprised in your review that you didn't mention the obvious use for the minijack output, which is to feed it back into the external input via the ext. level control. When doing this the filter can easily be cranked into self oscillation, and can result in some interesting mayhem, particularly with the filter in 'notch' mode. Loving this little beast so far... it's like the SH101's ADHD little brother.

This is going right back in the day of early “affordable” synths, for back then. I remember, when I was a teenager in the early 70s seeing at the local University a four “box” MOOG that cost as much as a house. The Professor was really interested that it made various noises, white, pink, blue. As a piano student, I couldn’t believe that such a piece of non-musical instrument s**t cost twenty times that of a decent acoustic home piano. So this Wasp clone looks somewhat limited relative to the modern synths of today but it did make some good sounds that were musically usable back in the day and probably didn’t cost as much as the MOOG. Younger people I don’t think realise what a fantastic inexpensive synth world exists today relative to the high expense, highly limited function synth world of forty + years ago.

I suspect they put the USB on the front so it wouldn't lose that function if you place this in a eurorack. I certainly wouldn't have minded that on my Neutron.

It’s unbelievable how many reviews, comparisons, Tipps an some great input in so short time you make! Appreciate this so much „dear Sir“,you are also the reason that I bought the stylophone and the crave ;- ) ( time to wait for delivery, but think it’s worth for it) Wish you a merry Christmas 🎄🎁

Excellent review!!! been waiting to see some unboxing and first look, thanks a lot!

Haven’t had any interest in the other monosynths Behringer have made... until this one😍 Im stoked they’ve followed through on the rumours so I can now go to a shop buy a modern, reliable clone of this unobtainable and unique synth. Thanks for giving us a look at this👍

After hearing the WASP on Thomas Leer and Robert Rental records I've always wanted one.

Great demo, I think you do the best on RU-vid. Nice looking thumbnail as well! Also, you have a nice accent!

"Proper size knobs"

It just looks so good. I might not have that much use for it in a mix but, damn it if I don’t want it on my shelf.

My wasp story.... found an original deluxe ( Proper keyboard version) in a dump and paid £3.75 for it ( every bit of change in my pocket ) about 12 years ago. Had to re-solder a couple of wires back on to the output and re-tack the base on. Kept it for about two years and then sold it to an American for £700 ( Biggest mistake I ever made lol ) . It did make some proper dirty sounds 😝

Looks like the one I was using to send signals to space aliens with back in '79.

just had mine delivered, great demo thanks

Wow this sounds so yummie ❤️

Behringer is coming out with some really cool stuff here lately.

Much Respect from New Orleans Louisiana ◇ StephopalOpal aka Big Mama..Thank you for sharing!!

Loved your review. Just bought one on that basis. 🙂

Hi ya mate. Love the review. I had the original of this and had to sell it years ago to pay the mortgage. Have to get another one. Thanks

super helpful! just got one and envelope delay was throwing me off until now. thanks!!

It is a great synth it has become a mainstay for bass sounds at our studio. Not fancy, but what it does it does very well.

This is awesome. I've got an original WASP that I bought back in 1980. It's in need of a few replacement pots, unfortunately.

Kudos to Behringer for recognizing the need for rack ears for their many rack synths. This is definitely not a Eurorack instrument, but it does fit the 80hp-compatible rack ears they just released, to fit the Wasp right into a standard 19" studio rack.

Some really recognisable tones in there. Nice.

Always get happy listening to your reviews. Nice hands-on approach 👍 For the sockets, maybe you should get a couple of Eu-connector-splitters and turn your studio into a local Europe-socket-norm 😅

It looks so cool. I might buy me one.

My Behringer wasp does same "double triggering" of Control ENV when VCA decay is used. It's either Control ENV Decay or VCA Decay you can use. It's like control Env release portion raises filter open again.

Really good job

Excellent 👍

Mate all EU plugs plug straight into uk plugs. I grew up in belgium before moving back to UK so have done this for years. Just use a screw driver or something that u can poke into the earth, this frees up the latch covering the bottom two inlets, , then u can plug in the eu plug into the english one (into the two bottom prongs/inlets) . Then take out the screw driver from the earth (or use somthing similar but plastic if scared). I have used this technique for years and it works fine.

A very,nice sound ❤️

Feeling some old school Dr. Who. Love it.

Wonderful

You missed the most unique sample and hold that the wasp had. I was dying for you to turn the modulation depth of the LFO to Filter cutoff to max with Sample and Hold on. The original Wasps had a lovely rhythmic pulse and syncopated style to the Random (Sample and Hold) modulation that would could be heard when modulating the filter with a little resonance. It was particularly funky. Probably the funkiest S&H filter modulation on the planet. Please try it and see... I could hear evidence that they may have replicated this. Notes: there was no centre dead switch on the filter modulation knobs of the original. The knobs appeared to mimic the functionality of the original wasp. There was no PWM on the original (no ENH either). The original Wasp had only a semitone of Bend on the pitch bend. A unique feature of the wasp was the way Glide was implemented. The two oscillators would not glide in identical sync. One oscillator would be delayed. This created a unique effect when moving from one note to another. To hear the effect in full, tune the two oscillators so they are very close in phase (in fact they sound great when almost in phase and zippering in and out of phase) hit a low note. Then glide up about two octaves with a relatively long glide setting -if it is identically modeled, you will notice the oscillator tuning will thicken during the glide transition. This delay was mentioned in the original Wasp Manual. I used to own two wasps. They were my first synths.

Top tip. I was driven mad by the wall wart thing too (Im in Ireland so same socket as UK)... next time your on Thomann... buy a German plugboard with 4 or 6 sockets! chop off the EU plug at the end and fit a UK/Ireland one. Now you just have to plug in one plug to the wall and you can use all your Thomann gear without those bloody shaver adapters!

What A Synth Party! :)

What a pretty sound.

Beautiful!!!

Novation provides all plugs interchangeable for the power supply. Behringer should as well.

thanks !

Sounds like it needs to be in my house...

Ooh deadmau5-ey kind of sound on 18-ish minutes ... nice!

Got a nice sound to it, with the filter backed off, the tone has an undercurrent of menace, like any minute now it's going to kick your head in.

Yes!!!!!

THANKS

Awesome thanks

i didn't even know Behringer made a WASP. Madness.

Let the final battle begin.

USB on the front makes some amount of sense... if you’ve got a table full of Behringer synths and need to plug in easily.

Thank you for the thorough overview. We would appreciate if you performed some music with it, but great review all in all.

I used to have one of these a long time ago

2:10 orthogonal plug might come in handy. Disadvantage of in-/outputs on the back is it takes a lot of limited deskspace.

Hey Starsky, what lead is that- USB 2.0 type B to B? does the lead go straight from the keyboard to the Wasp? If so, would that work with the Behringer model D?

My Crave last week came with a UK adaptor, but as a separate shipment as the Crave wasnt in stock when I ordered. That was from Thomann also. EDIT: I should add that its an extra adaptor for the existing power plug, which makes it into a big, ugly hulking thing. It was free tho...

I’m sure others have told you but the front mounted midi is for people who install this in a eurorack cabinet where it’s difficult or impossible to access the back.

This version is way cleaner than the two originals I had back in 1979. They were fruity and chaotic. I never had the chance to scope them, but this Behringer version is waaaay too polite!

138 quid from Thomann right now, it's a no brainer again... thank you, great demo

Did u get one from Behringer or one on Pre-Order? Im still waitin for mine to show up from Sweetwater but their still being listed as not available yet...

Wasp sound ❤🌠 Thank you! Kind regards Alieu Stian Samateh

Thanks for the demo vid. Love the sound of the Wasp Just a pity that Behringer did not put in some CV patch points. Will get mine for my birthday in January, cant wait....

can you link the midi patch bay program the mentioned? It's not popping up on my audio midi setup at all, It is in logic but nothing is happening, also I'm plugging it into my amp and its cranked but the sound is almost impossible to hear, I think i got a wonky one

Hi. Thanks for all you great vids. I have a Neutron and PRO-1. Is there anything special about the WASP that would make buy one instead of another PRO-1 (or other) please?

Hi Starsky. Just wondering what software/plugin you used to get the waveforms and frequency spectrum for your demos? Cheers

Are you plugging the keyboard directly into the synth with USB, or are you connecting them both to the computer??

The double trigger is a well known problem. There's an easy fix with a 100k resistor apparently. I haven't suffered with the problem so far, but it's early serial numbers. Mine actually falls in that range of serial numbers so will look up the fix

is he controlling that with a usb rather than midi 5 pin? I've been wondering if I could do that and where the heck do you get a cable like that

The ports are on the front because this can be mounted in a euro rack case.

I bought this recently and have loved the noises it can make. Within two days I was recording it into Logic in a piece I was writing. Thats where I tripped up. I needed the Control Oscillator to be in time with the beat and it was nigh impossible to achieve this with the knob. Looking at the manual/website it says 'Comprehensive USB/MIDI implementation...' but it looks like the only thing controllable is the note on/off (haven't tried pitch bend or mod wheel yet). I would not say that's comprehensive. That's basic. Anyone know the details around the midi implementation? I cannot find a chart on the web.

why are there only three octaves on my midi keyboard with this synth, and why does this synth not responding to pitch bend on my midi keyboard? any help is highly appreciated.

9:19 I have the same knob position to be in tune with osc2... so I presume it's "normal"

You don't need adaptors to put euro plugs into UK sockets, if you are using multi way adaptors. Put a regular UK plug into a multi-way socket upside down, just the earth pin, to open the shields, then insert the euro plug and pull out the earth pin UK plug.

I'm new to this stuff. And a guitar player. But I'm watching this stuff. How does it work with external audio, like a frozen guitar sound? I'm gonna check out your CAT video next. It's got my curiosity working. What can I do with the midi connections and an expression pedal?

Price dropped to $199 now... but still feel very whelmed with this. Guess it's kind of for nostalgia or enthusiast's sake, but feels like I should just spend a few more bucks and get one of their other offers like the Model D.

Great review as usual! I wondered if my unit was defect. But as mentioned @19"01 "double triggers" - upon releasing a key the note randomly triggers again. I find it highly annoying! But at least now I know I'm not alone.

hello! Q. with the Wasp now being just £20 more than the Crave... which would you go for?

@18.25 - what song is that, it is so familiar?

what's the oscilloscope plugin ?

I'm quite partial to a nice notch myself.

9:18 That’s like mine original WASP :-)

Great video thanks - out of interest between the CAT and wasp which would you say is best for the really phat gritty baselines? - both sound great but I don't really want to purchase both. Cheers

The manual says that the off button is an unaltered sine wave, can u do sine wave osc on it? xD

Hi mate how do I set this up? Can I just plug it straight into my laptop using the USB cable, write notes in on the piano roll through my PC and manipulate the sounds on the synth or do I need an external MIDI keyboard to run it through?

It has a wonderfully evil sound. Nice job!

Mr. Carr, I hope you are doing well. An important question for you. Have you seen any "double triggering" issues with the Wasp that you received?

I agree with you on the power cord plugs. Is there an adapter anyone sells that you can use to daisy chain 2-3 of these Behringer synths?

18:00 dat bass..

have to many synths that do what this does . grate beginner synth . so basic ...i did say basic . Anyways another Homerun for Behringer!!

It would be interesting to know why the digital oscillators aren't A=440 at 12 o'clock. The official Behri and Moot Booxle vids have the 2nd oscillator tuned at 2 o'clock as well. Edit: Looking at videos of the OG and the Jasper clone, it looks like the 2nd oscillator is in unison at 2-3 o'clock on those as well. Weird.

Hi, thanks for the good review. Got mine today and i love the sound of this Wasp. The only thing that bothers me is the loud clicking sounds when in random mode for filter modulation. Did you notice this as well? Is this normal? Do you maybe know a way around it..? Thanks.

this thing has character, love it! Do you know what those osc outputs are for?

Reminds me of Black Moth Super Rainbow.

1:30 - a lot less patch points than the others, I must say :))

What kind of cable are you using between the controller and the synth mate ??

"After wasps ruinin' so many pikniks, who wooda thought I'd ak-tchu-lee find a wasp I like? I do like it." - Starsky Carr --> favorite quote of the day for me!

They don't send the US adapter when shipping to the US either. Third party one can be found but they void the warranty.

the stuff is on the front so you can use it in a eurorack

If anyone's wondering why there are visual glitches, it's the video not your monitor.

sounds great similar to the oscar, fyi adams if you register your speakers get a copy of imposcar2

I used to own one way back when. So I just had to order one of these. £300 still burning a hole, do I go for the Pro 1 or the K2? Had a MS20 but never a Pro 1.

Your video reviews are simply fantastic, congrats, but if you intent to improve I strongly recommend you to use a real oscilloscope to show the waveforms. Best!

MIDI & USB on the front makes sense if you put this into a case ;) otherwise nearly same archtitecture than the rest of the bynths .... instead of the wasp filter ...