I've owned the Behringer Deepmind 12 for about 18 months. In this video I go over some of my top pros and cons. Also plenty of sound exploring and fiddling around!
This is such a great review format - no sound other than the instrument, with the text describing what you are showing us with each patch. It really helps with focusing on the sound of the synth. Great playing too! I was amazed by the Deepmind 12 when I played one in a store - it has been many years since I was actively involved with synths (a young family and working a way forces choices on you) but wandering into a music store and seeing how far we have come since I last kept up to date was incredible. I saw the Behringer name and expected their usual - a decent-ish product at an affordable price, targeted at newcomers (I've never been a basher of Behringer, how many of us were able to dip our toes into this hobby thanks to their products?). I was astonished to find the Deepmind was a 'proper' synth in its own right - not a compromise between price and quality. I feel like we are in a golden age of synths, digital has come of age, and analog has had a resurgence at a sensible price point - I might have to get back in the studio, and your video is one extra source of inspiration. Thanks!
Awesome video, my one complaint is there is a glare right where your patch bank is so I can’t follow exactly what you are up too. Maybe in the next video there are some notes or we could see better. Tons of great sounds dialed in there, good work
Great review. People should do a year after review much more often. Not all architecture is the same. Not all minds are the same. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! and yeah I tried to be as neutral and informative as I could be based off my experience! Glad you enjoy it! I have a new song uploading tonight and more stuff on the way soon! thanks for watching!
When you morphed that patch at 4:03 to the patch at 5:42, I was right there with you bro. Sounds like that are my shit! Exactly why I'm getting a DeepMind. I hope you have more synth review videos like this, because if so, I'm about to watch all of them.
😂 The Funk Bass patch that at 3:29 that the reviewer claims is "weak" actually sounds very good for a polysynth. It's not supposed to sound like a fat two oscillator monosynth like a Sub Phatty or Erebus. It's a 12-voice polysynth.
You are an amazing keyboardist and should be world famous. You are that talented! Loved this demonstration. Keep up the great playing. Much love from Florida!
You wrote about noisy, clacking keys and I noticed that mine also does that with merely light tapping sometimes, however, the DM12 that I now have is a replacement unit. The first one I bought had over a dozen missing presets and audio problems. The first one I bought last July 2018 had very nice keys that did not clack when pressed. So, I think that the replacement keyboard that I received was also a return of one of the first built originals that had keybed problems. Some of the Behringer blogs had discussions about getting the keybeds replaced under warranty but I never took advantage of it. Behringer's warranty program requires that a buyer not delay registration if they want to get the full 2 years warranty. If a buyer waits beyond 90 days to register or doesn't register at all then only the 1 year warranty will apply. However, there is a fix to the keyboard clacking for anybody that needs it. I don't have the contact info, however.
Quick tip for peepz without moneyz There is a vst plugin effect called ambient reverb (free). It is really good for making soft synths get that massive reverb sounds from old synths.
Ironically I'm watching this because I'd like a nice hardware synth to control Omnisphere 2.6 ... DM12 is supposed to be pretty nice for that. Onboard sounds are phat too. 80's synth-head in me likes it!
Some of the best sounds I've heard someone get out of this axe yet, and from the looks of it, you'd be running out of osc's if it were a 6, so a good case for spending the extra $100 for the 12. At the current price, it's a no-brainer. Great sounds / great video, thanks for posting!
hi livi, me again, your manuarly played appegios at 9.05 where brilliant, must synth demontrators would have used an automatic appegiator, great playing mate, cheers. carl.
Great video, I picked a refurbished one up before the price drop for $600. I still think it was worth it at that price. My JX3P and DW-8000 are just sitting in their cases now. Don't get me wrong, those are also fantastic synthesizers, but with the effects section and mod matrix on the DeepMind I can just get lost in it.
that patch at 10:00 sounded interesting , i really enjoyed this review as well just playing no boring comentary , been thinking of getting a deepmind 12 . i think im ready to buy one
Great video... thanks! I just ordered one yesterday and am more anxious than ever. I see you use a Roland VR-09 as well. I have one I use for gigging and a third board, a Kronos for jamming and recording. Keep up the great work and thanks again.
The synth is great, but the FX processor is unbelievable and very powerful. Combined with a tablet editor this thing is a beast for the money. I will be acquiring the deepmind 12 D , no need for another keyboard .
@@LeviHeld Yes that was amazing from 6:54 actually all the way to 9:42 !! as for the sound, is it a filter envelope driven by lfo? + reverb and other fx?
In the US the 12 is now about $600 dollars US, not sure what the current Euro exchange rate is but it's STUPID cheap for what you're getting. Future classic.
Really well done. Nice to read your comments after longer term use. I enjoyed the generative patch you did. Good idea to try on my DM12. It would probably take an entire second panel of faders and buttons to access all the controls available- especially with the FX adjustments. Do you use categories to organize your live patch lists? I put everything I want to get to quickly in User 1 and then scroll through just that. Keep diving, this synth is very deep.
Thank you very much! It's such a nice instrument with such a large group of haters that I felt it needed an honest review. Yeah that is how I usually approach organizing the patches also. A very fitting name it has because it really is a very deep instrument!
It sounds great, but I would like to find something which can make more complex sounds. I built a monophonic synth in the 80s and I miss the level of control it had. The modulation and waveforms of the Deepmind seem a bit limiting but the FX really help.
Fabulous - I note you have a Midi-in(?) cable connected, what part did this play if at all. You've certainly given me some inspiration to delve further into sound making instead if relying on presets
Every patch dialled up was swimming in 85% reverb. Pro tip: Turn off the reverb, pan effects and echo to cut through the mix. Every musician suffers from isolation tweaking and feature creep. A solo voice sounds great with 50% reverb. But put that same voice and reverb into a mix and it will sound distant. Subtlety and layering are the keys to a great mix.
@@LeviHeld Even after 40 years on the road and in the studio, it still seems like an exciting undiscovered country. We all learn from each others styles and you are an inspirational player. Still listening, still finding magic.
I'm a newbie on synths and would like to buy one. I'm into post punk like 80s The Cure (Faith, The Top, seventeen seconds), Siouxsie, She Past Away etc. Is it a good synth for this kind of sound? Does it have the same sound as the Cure's A Forest? Thanks!
no compressor but the 2 reverbs in that patch really give it life. If i could remember exactly which pad that was I could run it down for you but it would take a bit to find the exact one
How did the paint on your wheels end up coming off in those spots? I've had mine for 17 months and they still look like new. Interestingly I just bought another Deepmind 12 this past week (Oct 2018) thinking the wheels would be clear like I heard they now are .. but the wheels are black too like my old one of which I'm kinda glad (don't much care for the clear wheels from the pics I've seen) Anyway thanks for uploading your vid.
I don't know if it's just from the oils from my hands but right in the middle it's worn off all the way. I don't have long fingernails so I didn't scratch it off. But I do play a lot of funk music and I tend to over use the mod wheel while doing synth bass stuff lol
Valdis Krebs I am really not sure. My guess is that because when Behringer said they would be doing synthesizers they said they would keep things competitively priced. So maybe other companies releases might reflect the changes in price for behringer products. I just hope behringer continues to improve because they are keeping it affordable!
It's on sale now through the holidays (desktop version) for $599 - unbelievable!! Even for the hardest cynic/skeptic that's one hell of a deal for what you get. I placed my order today, after selling my VR-09. I loved it for gigging, but I'm not playing out right now and it just made sense to sell it since I have many other synths that can do what it did (except for the organ drawbars, those were awesome!) My analog arsenal is growing - I now have a Moog Mother 32, a Moog Sub Phatty, a KARP Odyssey, and now the Deepmind 12. I think they are going to have one incredible analog playdate this weekend! Thank you for posting this - nice work!!
Yeah the deepmind has some noise. Internal fx add to that and ive noticed the oscillators bleed even with volume st minimum there is an unfortunate droning
hello Levi, nice work on sound design. Of course very interested for analyse some of your first patches of the video. For answer your question i can get you this link www.on-air.org/studio/divers_178.htm Very nice and easy to use (i'm sure it was easy for you). With this app you can save and organize the presets of the deepmind. Thank you for the video
Hi, thanks for the video. I am really thinking of getting one of these, sort of unsure if I want the keyboard version or desktop. I don't have a lot of dexterity in my fingers, so I typically use my DAW to sequence. I do have a Moog Sub Phatty, and a Novation SL37 - 3 octave controller, but sometimes I do find myself wanting an extra octave. How is the keybed on this synth? And thanks for the video, very helpful :)
Thanks! I'm glad I can help! The Keybed is not top of the line. It sounds like you might be better off just getting the desk top but that is just my opinion! you can get a decent midi controller that will feel better and be more versatile in the long run!
Thanks for the reply, and that does sound like the better plan, space is also a bit of a factor, so yeah I will take your advice :) I used to own a Juno 106 many years ago, but I don't have the money to keep old synths in a restored condition, serviced etc. So I passed it over to my best friend for a very reasonable price, less than the Deepmind will cost me, but that was 4 years ago before this was released.
I would love a classic polysynth but none of my synths are classics sadly haha. I don't blame you though it is a lot to take on with vintage stuff. It's even more of an investment than a new synth haha
great demo. thanks buddy i realise its not for me and my quest will continue for 'that' synth. any one got any suggestions to a great sounding synth with a sequencer and loads of fx ? thanks. i like you
Hi ! your video is really great! Just one question : i ask myself to buy the Behringer Deepmind 6, but i can not try it.. I play ambient, deep and dub techno and i want a synth comparable to Juno, but also versatile to do some dark stabs, stuff like that. The Roland JU-06A sounds like stuff i like but not enough polyvalent for me i guess.. Do you think the Behringer could be a good synth for all i said? Thank you in advance !! :) :) from FR 🇫🇷
Hey does anyone know if the deepmind 12 can bi bi-timbral or do split keyboard patches like the korg prologue or the DSI rev2? or if there's any other ways to take full advantage of those 12 voices?
Also how does it do with 'woody' or 'wet' sounds. It definitely got a nice astral sounding high end to it but I'm wondering if it's limitations in wave shapes can be circumvented via the high pass filter and it's boost or voice staking. Do the envelope curves fair well with percussive melodic patches like steel drums, bongos and bells or general drum patches? so many questions lol
no it can't but you will absolutely need those 12 voices to build sounds. If you stack 2 octaves together you can only play 6 notes so you will use those voices to their potential!
@Levi Held How do you think this stacks against a Moog One? I will never own a Moog One. Too expensive for my budget. BUt I would love to own an analog polyphinc synth to make beautiful pads.
Yeah quite different in sound than moog but for a quality Polysynth you can't go wrong with the deepmind. People try tocompare it but it really is just its own thing!
Best Deepmind review I’ve seen. I have really mixed feelings about mine, for the reasons you mention ... the basic oscillator sound just isn’t that thick, compared to the older DCO synths I have (AX80, MKS70) or VCO stuff (Prophet 6, Minitaur). * Levi: One question ... can you get the filters to self-oscillate in tune, so that the VCF becomes another osc? My DM12’s filters won’t always tune to the same note, even after calibration, on patches I made that require filters as a voice.
Thank you! Agreed on the dcos. I have played the filter by itself but I will have to test mixing it with the oscillators to see how well it actually stays in tune. I will check it out a bit later and let you know what I find! I just got home from work so it will be a little while
Yeah I checked that out and I can get the filter tuned to fit like a triad chord. But if I play outside of those three notes it's out. This is something I have really experimented with this yet but try not completely self oscillating the filter just go high enough to hear the "sine" wave. But I'm gonna mess around see what I find with some more digging!
@@LeviHeld Thanks for checking. My DM12 might be looser then. Some days certain voices are noticeably off in filter tuning when in self-osc, after using filter cutoff to tune the filters to the dco pitch ...like a half step or more out in some VCFs, with no mods or drift programmed. Other days it's fine. Calibration sometimes helps. Oh well.
There could be something wrong with your unit. I let mine warm up a while and I can use the filter as another oscillator all over they keybed. Mono and poly.
great video, but what I don't get exactly is how analog synths could sound so drastically different one another, for instance when you played the funk bass? don't they all have the same wavetables? i suppose they can differ slightly in shape and therefore tone, and I suspect it has something to do with tune drifting and how the tables stack on one another, as in the phase. I suppose it could also be the sound the filter, but I doubt it is that. Like what are we to assume that a Jupiter 8 or Model D for instance just has a boosted low end? It bugs me because there is just so many hardware synths out there that all apparently sound different from one another yet no one can actually say why. I remember watching a video a while back where someone compared a bass sound made in a Jupiter 8 synth compared to the software emulation, commenting on how they sounded different but god sake why?!? anyway Thanks for the video!
Analog synths don’t “have” wavetables, they make waves. They use different hardware components and different circuits from synth to synth. This makes for a unique process each time that is not as platonic as a wavetables. So yes it is the filter, yes it is the drift, yes it’s all things related to analog synths being different from unit to unit. And just so you know it’s not always a drastic difference. When it come to polysynths like a prophet 5 or a Juno 60 they are going to sound very similar a lot of the time. One thing I saw recently is that these synths have different curves on their envelopes. This is a unchangable part of their character. The best thing you can do is play and hear some analog synths should you be so lucky and they it might be more clear. An ms20 is more aggressive than a minimoog, an obx has that Van Halen synth brass that other polys can’t exactly nail... its subtle, it’s hardware, it’s like a car ya know like two manufacturers can produce sedans and ya they are both sedans but they handle differently, they accelerate differently, it’s big machine with many moving parts that sum to subtle but noticeable differences.
I know nothing about the System 1 but for hands on playability and functionality I would guess the Deepmind is more friendly that way for most applications
I personally don't think it's very deep, not that many parameters, limited on waveforms, no Osc 1 volume, only volume for OSC, what is that all about? Talk about corner cutting. Who signed off the presets, most of them sound too weak because there's too many FX on them, a nightmare to mix. Everything needs to be dialled back. 3rd Party presets are good though. It's not that warm to me, quite harsh sounding for the most part. I'm not convinced with it as yet.
2:52 can any sound really be objectively classified as “unusable”?!? Right away, Duran Duran’s ‘Save a Prayer’ came to mind when the sound at 2:52 was played. Seemed to work for Nick Rhodes🤷🏽♂️even if it’s not the exact sound...but then again we can’t all be Nick Rhodes now can we. A hammer is “unusable” as a hammer without a head, but that hammer is at least still useable as a nail remover.
Trance, Dance, hardstyle, Techno etc go for Virus. 80's pop, synthwave, Old school house, chip music, videogame music like Final Fantasy style, Stranger things type of movie themes and so on go for DM12.
@Solo-man A Yeah of course it can, firechild did a quite dancy/trancy track. So there is no limits like that it's just that this particular synth can do 80's also and that is usually not the case with many other synths. I mean a Virus can do great trance but it will struggle doing 80's analog vibe since it's digital. A Deepmind 12 can do great retro analog and good trance as well. I would rather take the Deepmind 12 because I am a sucker for analog, the Virus is good though especially if you are into the mentioned genres, it's a workhorse and you get a lot for the money. It also depends what you want, do you want the typical Virus sound that is famous on multiple artists over the decades or you want to make music that sound totally different. Because there is nothing wrong in wanting a sound and if you want a certain sound you do best in getting the synth that produce that sound. So the OP should tell us first what music he want to make and then it's easy to pinpoint what he needs. Firechilds DM12 track ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zO53NsjLPys.html Soundbank with trance patches for DM12 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wu5QNdRcDjw.html
Nice review. I would like to know how the mechanical quality of switches, buttons, pots and sliders hold up after a year of real world use. Behringer has a bad track record (to put it mildly) when it comes to general build quality and durability. My last Behringer buy( a xenyx control 1 a copy of the Mackie Big knob) got problems with some of the switches and the main pot within 2 years. Only half the price of the original but also half the quality :-( From a dozen or so Behringer products only one, a 19" feedback killer that is almost 20 years old now, survived for more than one or 2 years without problems. In general stuff from other brands fairs way better.
So far everything is holding up well. The slider caps pop off if you want which could help in transporting but overall its solid. I think behringer is changing things for the better but we will see
OK, bad at bass sounds. That's fine, I got the OSCar and the Nord Modular that rocks at that. Bad at stabby horn sounds. Well, I hate those anyway, alway hated syntbrass. Not awesome at lead sounds. Well, the OSCar's edge is great for that, I can survive. Good at atmospheric pads and shimmering arpeggio thingies, well, that's what I like and what I can't get out easily from my other stuff. Although the M1 is OK for pads. Perfect demo, I'm even more convinced I need one now.
Really enjoyed your very informative & unique video on the DM12, it is one of the best I've seen on the DM12. I'm looking for advice on choosing my first analog synth, as all my other synths are digital and I'm lookling for that 80s sound. A lot of people seem to prefer the Prophet Rev2 over the DM12? However the DM12 is more within my budget but from what I've heard on you tube so far, the Rev2 sounds better and the Dm12 seems quite complex when you go deep into patch editing. I can't decide between them but the DM12 is more affordable.... Help!
Thank you for your comments on the video! It's hard to say. I have never tried the rev2 but with buying gear I suggest buying what you like most even if you have to save and wait a bit longer. I rush bought a lot of gear that has since been traded and sold for the year I should have been patient for. So I guess if you like the deepmind and it fits your needs it is a good synth. But if your earheart is telling you to get the rev2 or something else then don't fight it haha
Many thanks Levi, good advice. My heart leans towards the Rev2 after everything I've read about it and heard on You Tube, but it's double the cost of the DM12. So if you intend to or could do some more vids on the DM12, I would really be interested in finding out more of how it sounds... One point that was made by someone was that the effects on the DM12 are much better than the Rev2 but the initial sound before effects are added is much better on the Rev2... I like the unique way you structure your video...playing while text comes up on the screen explaining things, rather than talking...nice ! I look forward to watching more from you on the DM12 to help me make up my mind....
Hi Levi, I've heard a lot about the fans on the DM12 and they are noisey in a studio. I know they can be turned down but obviously they are there for a reason. Any chance you could do a short video on these fans and show how loud they are? It is a game breaker for some people but not knowing how loud they are makes the decision to get a DM 12 more difficult...cheers :)
Okay so make sure you have 2 unison voices selected in poly menu. Then go to mod and choose uni voice as your source and osc1 pitch as destination. Then just use the depth/value to tune where you want. 12 up or down will be an octave
@@LeviHeld thanks. I'll give that a try. Didn't realize that was possible till I heard you mention it. I thought that was a functionality that was missing.
Your welcome! Yeah I probably wouldn't have bought the dm12 if I couldn't do that since that's the kind of sounds I like! I just wish they threw another day wave on osc 2 on the panel to just do this in a more convenient way
