Echos a the other review I saw of it with regard to the display. A shame really, but I am no longer in the market for it with all the stuff I have going on ATM. I am sure people will program some great sounds with this synth though.You get what you pay for
https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/c ... ubxa_as_a/
Today is day two of owning the UBXa. These are my initial impressions of the unit. I also posted near identical text to GS, if anyone suddenly recognises it.
TL;DR
Keybed: Disappointment
Interface: Mixed bag
Build quality: Mixed bag
Sound: Presets are dreadful. Erase everything and program your own instead. It's much better that way.
Interface
Probably the best knobs Behringer have ever used. They're all smooth and consistent in feel.
The select encoder is the only exception. It's sooooo cheap feeling. I hate using it.
Any knob which corresponds to a digital value on the display is frustrating to use.
Switches are a disappointment. They look like the mechanical switches on my Prophet 5. They're not, they're all tact switches. Unfortunately, they're not like the tact switches on the RD8 which pivot; they're straight up-and-down action and they feel very light and cheap.
Without any exaggeration the WORST display panel I have ever seen in my life. It is truly, truly awful. You need direct line of sight directly above it. Any deviation from straight ahead and the display is illegible.
The pitch bender, paddle, thing, feels excellent! It's such a shame that this level of build quality has been put on terrible Oberheim style paddles.
Keys
"Semi-weighted" is a joke. This isn't weighted at all. It's as light as a damn feather.
Sadly suffers from the same issue (design flaw?) as the Deepmind 12 I used to own. When aftertouch is engaged on the white keys the pivot point moves forward, and it just feels tacky.
After touch is so f*cking sensitive, holy crap. The most gentle of presses and it's going full blast. I went into the globals and turned it off. I'd rather have no aftertouch than bad aftertouch.
Black keys feel a little off, weight wise, compared to the white keys.
At least it's quiet and very well dampened. That's about the only good thing I can say.
Build Quality
Metal chassis is like a TANK. It's just as good as their Odyssey. Really thick steel.
Wood trim is a joke. Looks cheap, feels cheap and hollow. Ruins the aesthetic. If I was a gig musician I'd replace it with something more hearty for better bump and knock protection, too (as that's what it's for, remember).
All the TRS jacks wobble... substantially. It's clear there's not a lot of structural support. Everything else I own, be it the RD8, D50 or Linndrum, has SOLID jacks. Someone posted an interior shot of the output board on GS and the only thing holding the jacks to the board are the positive and negative terminals! I'm keeping my soldering iron handy.
The fan is off by default and is supposed to trigger when the temperature gets high. I noticed the metal case around the LCD and between the Noise and Filter Attack dials was getting noticeably warm! If the case is warm it means the internals must be very warm if not hot to the touch! I set the fan to be permanently on. It's not intrusive than the Deepmind 12 so it's fine to leave on in a quiet room.
Sound
By the presets alone it sounds pretty bad. My Deepmind 12 was the same; the presets were awful and did the synthesizer a huge disservice, but on initial impression Behringer REALLY need better sound designers, or give their existing sound designers more time, or only populate the first 16 to 32 sounds with something special and leave the entire rest of memory completely empty.
I programmed a couple sounds from scratch and it can sound excellent, but it's thinner than you expect. This synth needs a little tickle of external effects, but once those effects are applied it has a great tone that pairs well with my Prophet 5 and can compliment all my digital synths.
Anything else?
Documentation in the box might as well not exist. Utterly useless.
The best packaging Behringer has used to date. Good amount of foam support and very sturdy.
User Interface isn't great. Behringer has never been good at this. For EG: I press shift, press Aftertouch, change the Aftertouch Filter to 0 using the rotary encoder. I back out of the shift menu and the aftertouch setting stays on screen, even as a I twiddle other controls. There's also no Yes/No or Confirm/Deny.
Noise floor is very, very low! No hissing, humming or other artifacts from the main outputs.
The operating system is buggy as all hell.
The best sequencer Behringer have ever produced. It's so simple to program I didn't need to reference the manual even once.
Verdict
It's not a show stopper of a synthesizer. It's a GOOD synthesizer, but it's flawed. If the keys were better I'd have been tempted to replace my Roland D-50 as my primary controller, but as it stands the D-50 has significantly better weighting and action. Behringer need to hire more experienced firmware designers and software testers because they are TERRIBLE at software; it's the Tesla of synthesizers where they'll "fix" it later, whenever that may be.
I like the overall tone and high voice count for the money, and so I'll be keeping it. I am warming to it quite nicely as I explore it's sound engine, but if you're not completely excited by the sound when you pull it out the box I would entirely understand if you packed it up and either returned it for a refund or flipped it given the case the synth is wrapped in is such a wild mixed bag.
Statistics: Posted by Constructed Identity — Fri Mar 01, 2024 5:56 pm