In June, Sylvia and I traded-in our "Roland System-1m" ($600) for the "Behringer Neutron" ($300). It finally arrived last week.

• The System-1m is a nice-sounding Synth. It also has several Patch Points. However, most of the time when I wanted to create a certain sound or Patch our Eurorack Modular into it, the System-1m just didn't offer the flexibility we needed.
• The Neutron, on the other hand, has 56 Patch Points, which allow for many combinations of Control Voltage signal flow and audio modification.

The digital Oscillators in the System-1m made them very stable and tracked across the keyboard very well. We were pleasantly surprised to find the Neutron's analog Oscillators are also very stable.

There's a very good Review of the Neutron over at SonicState. Here's the link:
sonicstate.com/news/2018/04/05/sonic-lab-behringer-neutron-analog-desktop-semi-modular-review/

Because I learned Synthesizers the "old school" way, with "Patch Charts", I wanted to be sure there was one available. The User's Manual does have a handy Patch Chart on page 27 but I fine-tuned it just a bit for our purposes. I have included it below for anyone to Download.

• A "Patch Chart" is used with Synthesizers which don't offer a "Save" or "Store" for your sound creations. I realize that some Artists simply want the "journey" to be the "sound". That's fine but there may still be times when you'll want to start with a certain "sound foundation" and, without being able to Save a Patch electronically, a "Patch Chart" will come in very handy.

If you've never used a Patch Chart, there are no real "rules" of how to draw-out and explain a Patch. So, for what it's worth, these are a few things I've learned over the years on how to write-out a Patch so you'll understand it years from now:

• When drawing lines where your Patch Cables are to be connected, be sure to use a contrasting ink color. Since the Blank Patch Chart I made has "black" lines, I always use a "red" pen to draw the Cable lines.
• Explain as much as you can and be clear as to "what goes where". Remember, someone else may need to "interpret" your notes or YOU may be wanting to recreate that Patch in the future. You might know exactly how all the knobs, buttons and cables are set but after working with hundreds of Patches and several other Synths, you're going to want a simple layout and instructions on every Patch Chart.
• Be consistent.  Although you may only be dealing with 1 or 2 Patch Cables in the beginning, your Neutron may later become part of a larger system, maybe a Eurorack Modular. So, even though it's easy to draw a straight line from the "LFO Out" to the "OSC1 In", once you start dealing with 10, 20, 50 or more Patch Cables, you'll end-up with random lines on your Patch Chart if you don't think-through "where" those lines are going to be drawn.
• One way to indicate that 2 Patch Cables cross each other, is to draw a rounded "wow". See my examples below:

Behringer has been making audio equipment and electronic musical instruments for many years. The few pieces of information Sylvia and I had heard about them was mostly from some of their unhappy customers, who let their complaints be known on various Forums.

Around 2015 or so, company Owner, Uli Behringer, commented about Moog's extremely high prices and said he could manufacture and sell similar Synthesizers for around $300.
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• This was at a Time when Moog's "lower-priced" Synthesizers were Retailing for around $1,500. (Of course, these contained "Keyboards".)

Later, Behringer's Synthesizers, which were "copies" of popular Synths decades before, would become known as "Clones". The first "Clone" Behringer made was of Moog's famous "Mini Moog Model D". Granted it didn't have a Keyboard but it IS currently selling for $299! A few months later, Moog decided to release something "new". So they created the "Mini Moog Model D" and placed a Retail price of $3,500 on it!!!
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• The original "Mini Moog" was released in the early 70s. I was still in High School but, after hearing it's awesome sounds on various Rock recordings, I just had to have one. So I saved all my money and bought a brand new Mini Moog from the local music store… for $1,495!!!

The new Mini Moog does have a Keyboard and, although Moog added "MIDI" (digital technology, which the Behringer "Model D" also has), they added a few Patch Points (interconnection Jacks) for Control Voltage and other benefits when working with other Synthesizers. (The Behringer version also has MIDI and several Patch Points.)

• Although Moog recreated the "Model D", they did add a few improvements. So, in order to save everyone a lot of confusion, why didn't the call this new version the "Model D+" or "Model D Plus"?

Since that first Behringer Synth, they have created their very own, not "Cloned", Synthesizer called the "Deepmind 12". This one does have a Keyboard, has MANY more features than Moog's Mini Moog and Retails for just $1,000!!!
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• Behringer has also stated that they have assigned several of their Engineering Teams to Clone many more of music history's popular Synthesizers.

Several years ago, Behringer began building a new Factory in China. The manufacturing building will be about 3-MILLION SQUARE FEET in size!!!

A new, "Behringer original" Synthesizer which has been talked about since it was "leaked" in January 2018, is called: "Neutron". Although it doesn't have a Keyboard, it does have a very flexible set of features, a great sound and will Retail for $299!!! I told Sylvia, the Neutron needs to be on our Music Gear List.

• About 8-months ago, I was working with our "incomplete" Modular Synthesizer and wanted to create a sound that was in my mind. the Function I needed was inside our "Roland System-1m" Synthesizer ($600) but it didn't offer any way to access it from another Synth. So I told Sylvia "The System-1m isn't as flexible as we need it to be. So we should trade it in at our local Guitar Center store and get something else." That "something else" is the "Neutron".

Here's a link to an article on the new Behringer Factory:
www.synthanatomy.com/2018/03/music-tribe-city-get-an-insight-factory-behringer.html

Here's an older article, which provides a few more details:
www.prosoundnetwork.com/business/music-group-city-moves-forward

Here's a link to a very good Review (video) of the Neutron:
www.synthtopia.com/content/2018/04/05/behringer-neutron-analog-semi-modular-synthesizer-review/

• On that web page, I was surprised by some of the Comments. Everyone had something good to say about the Neutron (and Behringer). There were even 2 or 3 people who said, in the past, they would not buy anything from Behringer… but were now considering purchasing this amazing Synth.

The Review (in the link above) of the Neutron was done by Nick Batt of "SonicState". If you're not familiar with "SonicState", here's the direct link to their website:
www.sonicstate.com
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