WHAT IN Behringer I S GOING ON??

So a month ago, I wrote my rambling piece about perceived value of musical/guitar equipment, and how people can have negative feelings towards equipment purely because of the brand or the look of the equipment. I highlighted Behringer to be the epitome of this ( Sorry to beat a dead horse, but funny story, I told a sound engineer friend that TC electronic is owned by Behringer and now he won’t touch ANY TC ELC equipment again ) and that despite their perceived worth, there are some interesting gems in there. Behringer has a touch of being a magpie and tend to hoover up anything that’s not nailed down with patents. This means you can get clones of pedals that, were you to buy the original, you need to start selling organs, but god praise Bellringer, you can get the same tone/effect and keep your kidneys.

But something odd is happening and I am not sure why.

It started for me with the SO400 Super Octaver, a copy paste of the Boss OC-3 Super Octave, My guitarist in Oskar Vilcrow had got one from CEX for £50 ( TOP TIP : Always check CEX for Pedals, the only second hand shop with 2 year warranty) and I was very jealous, so I went on a hunt and came across the SO400 as an alternative as OC-3 which at the time were £70+, abit out of my price range.

But a problem, NO stock……… er ok……..another shop anddddd NO STOCK, huh odd.

Turns out Behringer discontinued that pedal and I haven’t found one for the past 2 years, which is deeply irritating when I would be willing to bet there is one in some teenagers cupboard getting dust, Nevermind.

WHY BEHRINGER WHY?

But this brings me on to a new problem….. why ? why did Behringer discontinue the SO400 ? I don’t know, completely confuses me as to why they would completely discontinue the pedal, especially when they still make the UO300 which is a copy paste of the Boss OC-2 and in my opinion a worse pedal.

I have a few theories, either

• They weren’t selling enough ( But why still have the UO300)
• They got a cease and desist from BOSS ( possible as the OC-2 is fair game now in terms of coping it but not the OC-3)
• They have stopped making digital chips.

This last theory to me seems like the most likely when you do some digging and realise Behringer have cut a LOT of pedals. Below is a list complied on Tone start in 2017, saying which pedal is a clone of which.

As you start to check through, something of a pattern appears. It’s mostly all the digital effects that are cut, I think only their multi effect pedal and the digital reverb are the only digital pedals still standing that haven’t been cut.

Now if I had to guess I would say that since 2016 Behringer have been building synths and drum machines like crazy and maybe something had to give in terms of manufacturing power, Maybe the factory that made the chips is being used to produce chips for their synths? who knows? If you do know, feel free to hit us up cause I am geeky like that and it would be fun to find out.

So no digital pedals, and no new pedals either. Last November, there were rumblings of Behringer releasing guitar pedals as rack mountable units, which would be cool and be interesting from a builder perspective as to rehouse these would be very easy, hopefully the effects would be cheaper, fingers crossed.

WAIT, BEHRINGER IS A WHAT NOW??

But what about in the meantime?

Ah, well I am happy you asked and brings to me why I wrote this pile of ramble.

BEHRINGER IS NOW COLLECTABLE ….. I know it, hurt my brain too.

Something really odd has happened, and more odd then you can imagine. So let’s start with the obvious, my hunt for the SO400, if one comes up (hint if you have one I will bite your hand off) I am willing to spend £20-£30 purely because I am curious, but no more then that, the OC-5 has come out and now the OC-3 has drifted more in to the £40-£50 so I will take the BOSS over the Behringer. But what happens when the copy isn’t available ? well then you get the Vintage Time machine which is now at BEST £140 USED!! as the original, the EHX Deluxe memory man goes for £500+. The thing is there are other clones, Supro 1313 Pedale Delay Analogico got released last year and that retails £200 new, it was designed by Howard Davis ( the guy who made the EHXDMM) so I do not understand why you would stump £140 for a second hand copy that doesn’t sound as good as the original.

But it gets weirder.

HIGH PITCH FOR HIGH PRICES

The Behringer US600 – Pitch Shifter / Harmonist Effects Pedal.

This pedal I would be willing to bet made Behringer a mint, thanks to people buying them like fairy cakes to get a Royal blood’s sound on a budget, or just to get a makeshift EHX POG ( which it’s nowhere near), so I am really perplexed why it got cut, especially when it is going for £140 USED ???!? Why? (It is available for less, the lowest i found was £65 but even then it is still silly.

For those that don’t know a US600, is a copy of a Boss PS-6, a not a great copy at that, but the PS-6 goes for £120 brand new, yes the used plastic clone goes for £20 more than the original, wrap your head around that one, and gets worse when you look second hand and find the PS-6 going for £65 , under half the cost of a US600.

I have no idea why this is happening, considering I was looking at a US600 for £20 2 years ago. There is nothing I can see that has changed, no song that uses a US600 as a vital effect has been released. I would bet and say that there are more US600’s out there then PS-6’s.

The only thing I can think is the market is being artificially inflated by people pushing the prices up because the pedal has been discontinued rather then it being good, which is a shame because these effects should be people’s first steps into said effects, instead the prices are raising high purely because people are getting greedy.

So in part, Don’t get ripped off, do your research and don’t buy into hype to buy a cheap pedal for silly money.

Lastly, keep an eye out for a SO400.

What is your opinions on behringer & price rising and what’s your favorite Behringer effect ? Leave a comment below and if you want to stay up to date consider following HELA on social media.