Another day, another Behringer synth cloning story. But, true to form, it’s not quite that straightforward.
Following the oblique suggestion that his company may be considering a Yamaha CS-80 clone, Uli Behringer has switched from Facebook to Gearslutz to let the world know that a Behringer emulation of the Solina String Ensemble might, but also might not, be in the works.
This Eurorack-friendly instrument promises to authentically recreate the ARP/Eminent Solina SE-11 circuitry and come with ensemble chorus and phase shifter effects (the latter of which is based on EHX’s Small Stone pedal). There are the expected viola, trumpet, horn, cello and contrabass instruments, with octave divide-down technology providing full polyphony from 12 tone generators.
It all seems very official, with a link to a supposedly confidential internal document that includes specs and mock-up photos, and there’s even a projected price and release date ($249.99 and, err, the final quarter of 2018). However, Behringer says to ignore these details as they haven’t decided “if and when” they will build it.
Who knows what Behringer’s marketing department thinks of all this - if there is a strategy behind all of these launches/non-launches, we can’t really see it - so we’ll just wait and see what happens.
