Behringer rips off Boss and Electro-Harmonix!

[puretube]

I`m quite sure, the customers will love the smoothe tactile feel of the knobs of the majority of the new pedals...

those who choose for the "vintage" series, will appreciate the fact of having actually screwed-to-the-chassis in-/out- & PS-jacks...

[El Caballo]

I wonder what DSPs the Behringer pedals use?

The Vamp2 uses a Motorola 56364FU100, which is a 56K series DSP.

The impressive thing is they use a Crystal CS4220, which is a good quality 24bit analog codec, and probably costs more than the CPU!

[A.S.P.]

Doesn`t the 4th pic here (gutshot):
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1114333
show,
that they could have put "their vintage thingy" into a small sized box (of their own...),
rather than run after the look of the E-H role model?

(they have changed the final appearance of their phaser now,
but as of not to forget how they tried starting a hype,
have a look back 8 months) :


and almost a year ago:

[lovric]

he he he,  i'm really sorry for anyone pissed at behringer et al, but if you are so into boss try their dual pedals, and roland is close by, try guitar synthesizer than.
is bigmufpie really the only thing EH made?

i love this rant. orthodoxists are hoot.

while on mind trip to far east, have you tried a tokai love rock or springy sound? afraid of lawyers? you shlould be afraid of P.T Barnum.

[lovric]

there is more here:   

http://kronoson.station185.com/kronosonic/site/articles.htm

anyone who thinks that behringer and like wronged should not read the above articles.

[A.S.P.]

 

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

there is more here: 
http://kronoson.station185.com/kronosonic/site/articles.htm
anyone who thinks that behringer and like wronged should not read the above articles.

indeed! but, the "history is horseshit" is a good read!

[petemoore]

  The Hendrix file there is a great read also, I've known this...MG is so 'self explanatory' if you get it...there's Reams of flowing info in that song...
  Great link Lovric !!!
  Amazing article on the Fordism Guitars !!!

[theundeadelvis]

They are all over Ebay now. I personally am interested in the upcoming pedal tuner and I'd like to check out the a/b boxes. I've worked in retail for the past ten years and my experience with "knock-off" companies is that the people who buy them usually want the percieved "nicer" more expensive brand, but can't justify the cost. Many of which later buy the more expensive brand once they can afford to upgrade. I personally just like to buy one of everything !

P.s. They are selling for $19.95!

[Mark Hammer]

After seeing a bunch of these last week (and buying one) my sense is that Behringer has done what a number of boutique pedal makers have done, and what Danelectro has done, except on a somewhat larger and slightly more recent scale.  In other words, they are producing more or less (undeclared) clones of products from Boss and E-H whose patent protection has likely run out.  The chassis used may be cheaper, and the parts are SMT rather than normal components, but the design may well be identical.

Of course, where Danelectro produced a copy of the Dynacomp, Phase 90, and Foxx Tone Machine without giving any hints as to them being that (it wasn't until some folks reverse engineered them that the forum members found this out), Behringer went a little too far by adopting chassis design (and sometimes colours) that deliberately tried to look like the pedals they were cloning.  "Discussion" amongst the various legal teams from Boss and others resulted in some changes to the details of the Behringer chassis (more rounded instead of the more Boss-like squarish boxes now), but I still think the rather deliberate copying of the aesthetics of the Boss and E-H pedals is a little bit of dirty pool, as they say.  Better to let the sonic quality of the pedals speak for itself, than to make the packaging do most of the talking.

[H S]

Looking at that display pic, Behringer is clearly trying to pass off their goods as Boss and EH goods.  That's exactly why we have trademark law, to stop theives like that.  Boss and EH could and should take them apart.

[Ge_Whiz]

Long history. Behringer changed their box design just as soon as they had stirred up the industry and generated enough hype to attract attention to their products. Nice piece of marketing.

UK 'Guitarist' magazine has a review of some of these pedals this month. They slam the chorus and phase pedals, as I recall, but quite liked the 'whacky' settings from the Flanger.

[gez]

UK 'Guitarist' magazine has a review of some of these pedals this month. They slam the chorus and phase pedals, as I recall, but quite liked the 'whacky' settings from the Flanger.

Any mention of the verb or delay?  Just curious...

[remmelt]

Not to mention the fact that you play so much better when your pedal says VINTAGE in large letters on the top.

[SeanCostello]

UK 'Guitarist' magazine has a review of some of these pedals this month. They slam the chorus and phase pedals, as I recall, but quite liked the 'whacky' settings from the Flanger.

Any mention of the verb or delay?  Just curious...

I will be interested in A/B testing the Boss RV-5 and the Behringer reverb, as well as seeing what DSP is used in the Behringer. I doubt that they would actually copy the Boss code, but I wonder if they will reverse engineer the Boss algorithms, or come up with their own.

Sean Costello

[SeanCostello]

Interesting job posting on the Behringer web site (for the Philippines):

Hardware Electronics Engineer (Jr. / Sr.) (f/m)

Responsibilities:

- Analysis of competing concepts
- Research and review of patents
- Creation of schematics and PCB layouts
- BOM cost, design-to-cost optimization
- Final product implementation support

Note that the top 2 priorities for the position are reverse-engineering related. The patent analysis is useful for understanding concepts, but it is also useful to know what products are patented, have legal protection, and should therefore be avoided.

Here's a posting for a job in Germany:

Hardware Engineer RF/Wireless (f/m)

Responsibilities:

- Development of RF devices for audio signal transmission in analog (900MHz ISM band) as well as digital modulation technologies (2.4GHz spreadband), including technical conception of the target product after analyzing common implementation techniques
- Development of RF transmitters and receivers in the low-power range (<50mW)
-Analysis of competing concepts
- Research and review of patents
- Implementation of analog and digital modulation
- Support of EMC staff


This seems like there may be some actual R&D going on, but notice the high emphasis placed on analyzing the competition, and reviewing patents. I haven't seen this sort of emphasis in other audio job postings.

Sean Costello

[nelson]

Interesting job posting on the Behringer web site (for the Philippines):

Hardware Electronics Engineer (Jr. / Sr.) (f/m)

Responsibilities:

- Analysis of competing concepts
- Research and review of patents
- Creation of schematics and PCB layouts
- BOM cost, design-to-cost optimization
- Final product implementation support

Note that the top 2 priorities for the position are reverse-engineering related. The patent analysis is useful for understanding concepts, but it is also useful to know what products are patented, have legal protection, and should therefore be avoided.

Seems to me anyone who has cloned a pedal on this board could fill that position.
Could save on R+D costs too, we would only need pictures of the pedals...not to actually buy it...

[Plectrum]

I'm not a Behringer fan, but they must be keeping the other manufactureres on their toes.
They are really just using the same old basics of capitalism, the same ones which have made some companies household names (and some of those having very dubious ethical approaches).
Anythings fair in love and war, and hard line capitalist business is war. Some schmuck execs even quote Sun Tzu any chance they can.
If we take  this approach, we must expect as much from everyone else, and boundaries will get crossed.


Grant.

[H S]

I'm not a Behringer fan, but they must be keeping the other manufactureres on their toes.
They are really just using the same old basics of capitalism, the same ones which have made some companies household names (and some of those having very dubious ethical approaches).
Anythings fair in love and war, and hard line capitalist business is war. Some schmuck execs even quote Sun Tzu any chance they can.
If we take  this approach, we must expect as much from everyone else, and boundaries will get crossed.

The difference between competing hard and stealing is the difference between creating value and destroying it.  It's the difference between a hydropower plant and a flood.  Behringer has been doing some of both.

[A.S.P.]

They are really just using the same old basics of capitalism

so: Bearinger has to bear (stand) the laws and consequences (ordeals) of capitalizm...

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1114427