Behringer Micro and Mini synths: cupboard studio?
Behringer’s Mini and Micro synths offer retro recreations in a small package – for an even smaller budget. The ProVS Mini shows their potential
From £40 – Thomann or Andertons are likely to get these first for UK and Europe.
In the US, Amazon.com stocks a good range of Behringer synths
We’ve seen tiny cheap synths pop up fairly often, from Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators, to the Modal Electronics CRAFTsynth 2.0 and SKULPT – and perhaps the true artists of the format, Korg, with the exceptional Volca series. While the ’90s saw the dawn of the bedroom studio thanks to DAWs and hard-disc recorders, these tiny 21st-century marvels could fit a museum’s worth of legendary sound hardware into a cupboard or backpack.
You’d think that there was no room at the bottom for Behringer’s ‘make ’em cheap and powerful, undercut rivals, sell loads’ philosophy with these affordable miniature synths, and yet here we are. The Mini and Micro series – first dubbed ‘Spirit’ and ‘Soul’ – already offers two very distinctive small synths that can fit in your pocket.
They go further than any of the established brands in terms of the sounds and editing potential, so let’s take a look at hows Behringer manages to pack a studio-quality analogue synth into this form factor.
Behringer Mini, vs Micro – what’s the distinction?
Both of Behringer’s template designs look similar to Modal Electronics’ CRAFTsynth 2.0 form factor, with a capacitive keyboard/menu control surface and a plastic, rounded box. Unlike Modal’s design, the Behringer units don’t run on battery power, and only the Mini features a proper MIDI port – the Micro is really, really cut down.
Unlike the Micro, the Behringer Mini format is large enough for reasonably comprehensive editing options, with room for knobs, controllers and buttons. It’s not much different to a Volca in terms of footprint. The Micro is somewhat compromised by comparison, with just a couple of controls and no MIDI port (well, at least until October 2024 when the JT-4000M was revealed), only USB and headphones.
Addressing the MIDI port point, Behringer’s JT-4000M adds a 3.5mm jack MIDI input and comes with an adaptor. It’s available to pre-order from Thomann at €60, so there’s a small price premium to pay for the new feature.
The Micro format is very much a sound module on a string sort of affair compared with the more conventionally-scaled Mini, yet they both feature OLED displays for preset browsing and sound feedback – something rare at this sort of price. Then again, the Mini range is targeting a price point around £70-80 and it has a full-size MIDI in port, 3.5mm sync jack, and room for proper controls. I can’t help but think that for the cost of tooling, developing and shipping the Mini range is the mini-mum anyone needs, and it’s already cheap enough that anyone can afford it.
Micro appears to be more of a ‘look what we can do’ diversion, to grab the odd headline or two. For an analogy, the inspiration is already there; the blend of ability and usability, cost and size in the Mini is comparable to the 1959 Austin Mini. That’s a car that survived over 40 years of popularity and production. The Behringer Micro is more like those bubblecars and micro-cars that vied for the cheapest spot, yet made too many compromises to be pleasant or competitive on the market, and faded out over a decade.
So far there are just two synths (three, if you count the JT-4000M as a new model) in the series that you can buy, but more have been announced. I’ve gathered some info and images from Behringer’s social media announcements at the end of this page.
To find out what the Behringer Mini range is like, I bought a ProVS Mini (keep reading for a review), which is a four-voice polyphonic scaled-down Prophet VS, complete with vector joystick and jazzy ’80s waveform-driven digital oscillators.
Hardware synth for the price of a plugin?
The Mini series should cost around £70-80, the Micro almost half the price – around £40-49. When you think about ‘hardware for plug-in money’ this is exactly the kind of thing you would hope for (well, unless you’re used to free plugin software synths, many of which are excellent).
Don’t get too excited at the thought of throwing away your Arturia V-Collection in exchange for a pile of tiny plastic electronic noisemakers though; remember that you still need to deal with the signals and cables.
Do you really get better value than a plug-in emulation? We can compare the ProVS Mini with a virtual instrument, Arturia’s Prophet VS V for example. On paper the hardware is rather limited. It has four-voice polyphony from 16 oscillators, whereas the original is eight-voice (32 oscillators) and the software can go up to 16 voices. The wavetables in software are higher resolution and shimmer, purr and burn in ways that the original synth probably couldn’t, but on the other hand the Behringer (or at least, my setup with it) can be switched to the ‘Vintage’ wave model and make grungy, quiet low-fi sounds at low velocity with noise and brittle aliasing audible on some sounds.
This is an authentic aspect of early digital-analogue synths if you want that particular aesthetic, but at the same time time Arturia’s Prophet VS sounds like 4K Ultra HD, the ProVS Mini is VHS in vintage mode, and possibly Laserdisc if you switch to ‘Modern’ or ‘Modern Bright’ oscillators.
A lot of the proposed range is analogue, however, and it’s hard to argue that the size of the package is going to make them sound less good – so, in theory, they should be more satisfying than software for the people who have the necessary golden ears to catch the subtle differences.
The Behringer ProVS Mini quick review: miniature miracle?
Behringer ProVS Mini – around £77. Buy from Thomann or Andertons
In the US? Buy a Behringer ProVS Mini from Amazon.com
For a tiny synthesizer, the ProVS Mini really needs a serious in-depth guide because the pocket-sized box contains almost the same degree of complexity as the original Prophet VS. For many users the paltry guide that Behringer provides will be next to useless, yet the original Prophet VS reference manual is enlightening and surprisingly, very applicable to programming the Behringer miniature.
Starting with the voice architecture, the lines between digital, sample and synthesis began to blur in the mid-’80s for Sequential in much the same way as they do with Roland’s LA-series synths. As such, Behringer’s model doesn’t really give away much mojo if it doesn’t contain 1980s RAM and CPUs.
Yes, unlike the analogue recreations (that adhere closely to the original circuits and components, for the most part) inside the ProVS Mini you’ll find a a single analogue filter (Coolaudio’s V3320 modern replacement for the CEM original Sequential used), and a lot of the digital hardware, processors and control systems appear to be emulated on an ARM processor.
So this isn’t a Prophet VS clone. It’s more of a Prophet VS-inspired, small wavetable-mixing synth, that makes use of the VS joystick and mix envelope for some unusual sounds. Most of the voice parameters are handled in the same way, but a couple of quirks – such as assigning the sustain pedal to a different MIDI controller – mean the Behringer can appear more limited than it really is. Some limitations are very real, though. Behringer’s four-voice design does not employ a filter per voice, unlike the original, so all notes are affected by one filter (though its envelope can be retriggered during hold by a new key being pressed).
In that regard, the ProVS Mini is more like a Korg Poly800. Imagine if the Poly800 had inherited the DW-series oscillators and ProVS oscillator mixer, and that joystick on the front of it suddenly makes sense. Except Korg didn’t put 12 knobs on the front of the Poly800 to shape sounds – it had menu diving parameters instead.
Programming the ProVS Mini is astonishingly easy, with a matrix button+knob layout that only uses shift parameters for a couple of controls. It’s better than the original Prophet VS in this regard, and a credit to Behringer’s industrial designers working on the Mini synths.
It’s the sound engine that shines, and keeping the Poly800 poly-voices, one analogue filter paradigm in mind I keep imagining a Behringer MS-VS. An MS-1 chassis and keyboard (and strap lugs) with the ProVS Mini sound engine for a full-size, strap on keytar-style keyboard (the Poly800 featured strap lugs too – ’80s fashionistas aren’t complete unless they’re wearing a synth).
As well as a full-size joystick, I’d put the mini-joystick on the end of the mod-grip, so it could be played with a fingertip in live performances (and I’d hook up the button as a hold/sustain function)…
(If you’d like to experience the Poly800 sound and feel – with a few upgrades – the donationware ‘free VST‘ Fury800 from Full Bucket Music is pretty good, at least based on my memory of the Poly800, II and EX I had).
Enough fantasy, back to the real world. That capacitive keyboard is the worst aspect of the ProVS Mini, so hook up a MIDI keyboard and you start to find its strengths as a synthesizer rather than its annoyances as a device. Behringer’s ‘homage to the Keystep’, the Swing, is almost essential if you don’t have an existing controller, as the ProVS Mini’s capacitive keyboard is so unpleasant. I’d almost rather it didn’t have it at all.
Once the synth is receiving full velocity you hear the power of the at least partially recreated, rather than emulated, synth as it could have sounded in 1986 music shop – aliasing warts and all. The joystick does affect sound during live playing, and it provides figures for programming the mix stages within a patch – but it doesn’t send sysex, and it has a clicky button like a Playstation controller with the self-centre springs removed.
That’s because it is. Except, the button isn’t connected to anything. This is where firms like PWM go the extra mile to make something better – the Malevolent uses a similar joystick for bend and modulation, but it has a click-hold function as well that’s really intuitive. You can’t click to hold a note or sequence on the ProVS Mini and it’s unlikely to ever be a feature or firmware update because, according to this redditor’s post dismantling a ProVS Mini, there’s no electrical connection to the button.
As with the original, the 16 oscillators, which are assigned to the four points of the vector joystick as A, B, C and D, can use one of 128 short sampled waveforms. On the original, slots 0-31 were allocated to RAM and could have user samples loaded, whereas Behringer has filled these slots with preset waveforms and at least for now, does not offer a way for owners to modify them. The waveforms aren’t ‘the ProVS originals’ lifted from the ROMs, they’re recreated apparently.
There are three ADSR envelope generators, with fixed destinations. Filter and Amp are obvious, Mix uses the four stages to modulate four movements of the joystick within the patch that can then be looped, bounced or single trigger set up with the mix parameters. The Mix envelope and associated ‘vector’ joystick are what sets the Prophet VS apart from other dual-oscillator per voice wavetable and digital synths, because the gentle merging of two sources with a balanced level is quite the art form.
One weakness of the ProVS Mini is that it seems to be designed without much thought given to its use as a module. Modulation controls include two LFOs, the hardware joystick, and support for mod wheel; the original ProVS also responds to velocity and channel aftertouch, but I haven’t found a means of programming that response in Behringer’s implementation.
It also appears to lack support for standard sustain pedal CCs, and there’s no hold function on the capacitive keyboard. If pattern sequencing were better this might not be a problem but anything that involves playing the touch keyboard, as opposed to using it for the editor buttons, is offputting.
Behringer ProVS Mini – ownership envelope
- Attack – a bit flimsy feeling to play, but well-made case and knobs – it needs a proper keyboard anyway
- Decay – the vector joystick doesn’t do as much as it could, headphone output is cable-sensitive
- Sustain – play it with keyboard, sort out the gain, try more patches… you forget it’s a toy synth
- Release – if this were in a bigger, more performance-friendly case it would be amazing…
Extra sounds and editing for the Behringer ProVS Mini
As supplied, the 32-patch memory is filled with essentially half of a factory library. You can upload sounds using Synthtribe (as banks or individual patches, and patterns) but there’s no editor functionality and it’s very opaque, with no patch library management or names visible when organising sounds.
In this regard, particularly as the family of small synths grows, Behringer could (and should) do better.
Third party editors for the ProVS Mini are available – currently, there are two to choose from. A Max based, very functional editor from Stage Engine, and Momo Müller’s ProVS Editor package which costs a small amount, but presents a very visually appealing interface and can be used a a VST/AU plug-in. It’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly capable when you dig into it. Neither seem to have opened up any hidden modulation routings or abilities in the ProVS Mini yet.
How does the ProVS Mini stack up against modern synths?
So here’s the thing. The Prophet VS was a solution to a technical limitation that was relatively short lived; a small amount of space for waveforms. It existed in the mid-’80s when computer memory was expensive, processing power limited, and technology was constantly evolving (the VS itself evolved into the Wavestation, which used longer samples and wavetables for each voice and vector synthesis as a metaphor for mixing layered sounds).
As with any synthesizer, the goal is to shape a waveform that sounds a certain way, and ideally, change it during a note to add detail and character. The more complex and controllable the waveform you generate, the more realistic, pleasing or unusual the sound can be. In the ’70s the limits of waveform shape, and how much hardware was needed to modify it in a programmed or performance context, can be illustrated by looking at the size of a typical modular synth.
Microelectronics and computer control meant the desktop synthesizer could match and exceed the abilities of a room-sized modular by the early ’80s – and at a low cost – but there’s only so far you can go with basic waveshapes. Digital oscillators could be fed with a waveform to reproduce, however – and put enough waveforms together and you can create any sound as they evolve over time.
Right from the start the ProVS alternative was the wavetable, as used by PPG and Waldorf. This is a three-dimensional array of waveforms that could have subtle changes or sharp transitions for the oscillator, scanned through once, looped or reversed. At the crudest level, you could simulate what a wavetable synth does automatically by rapidly switching a basic analogue synth through square, sine, saw basic waveforms while playing – but the wavetables were short samples of real instruments as well as basic waveforms.
Rather than scanning through a single wavetable digitally for each oscillator and mixing the results, the ProVS mixed digital oscillator sampled waves as audio – a simpler computational task with lower demands on RAM, but a tougher analogue electronics challenge.
It also offered a little more creativity over a simple wavetable model that couldn’t be changed while playing, but as storage got cheaper, samples got higher resolution, and the number of oscillators could be increased, the advantage was short-lived.
Now we have wavetables and morphing oscillators, as used in Modal Electronics’ CRAFTsynth 2.0 and ARGON8 family, and sequenced parameters for mixing oscillators. Those oscillators can be based on much higher resolution waveforms, and most models include the typical shapes that give realistic strings and woodwinds, or the beloved sounds of classic analogue gear.
So the reason the Prophet VS existed in the first place is almost redundant. Almost. The ability to dive in at any time and easily mix and transform four oscillators as a live performance remains a unique character for vector synthesis, and as a sound creating tool you’ll spend a lot more on a Korg Wavestate to improve on the ProVS Mini’s potential (or resort to software).
What’s coming next from Behringer’s Micro and Mini range?
The original product plans revealed on social media include a Roland Jupiter-inspired Micro called ‘Saturn’, and recently Micro single-voice and Mini four-voice versions of the UB-Xa have been shown. There has also been a mockup of a Casio CZ-style Phase Distortion synth (and a prototype), which would be relatively free of rivals.
Pocket-sized synths we’ve seen teased so far, in order of appearance. The official name changed to Micro and Mini around February 2022.
Behringer Micro synthesizers – Spirit, in the original line up.
JP-4000 Spirit (JT-4000 Micro, JT-4000M), February 2022 – released August 2023, revised October 2024
This Roland JP-8000 inspired four-voice digital synthesizer was one of the first revealed and one of the first to ship. It was updated to the JT-4000M with MIDI input in October 2024, though this post with a ‘USB to MIDI converter’ suggestion may have provided a small clue for the eagle-eyed…
Behringer UB-1 Spirit, March 2022, last seen May 2024
A single voice of the UB-Xa Oberheim OB-X clone, the May 2024 teaser of the UB-1 Micro revealed the 3.5mm MIDI jack that resulted in the JT-4000M update in October 2024
Behringer Mini synthesizers revealed (Soul, when first shown).
Behringer Saturn Soul (Saturn Mini), February 2022
One voice of a Roland Jupiter, perhaps – it claimed to be polyphonic, but 3VCO. Behringer mooned us with this one early on and we’ve yet to see the titan of the music industry ship any in Europa. Or anywhere else.
Behringer Model D Soul (Model D Mini), March 2022
Pretty self-explanatory, the MiniMoog Model D clone becomes a MiniMoog Mini, with 3 VCO and transistor ladder filter, all analogue and with the step sequencer that you don’t get on the desktop. A classic, but as the Model D is patchable and already cheap it seems like a waste if this beats some of the others to the market.
Behringer ProVS Soul (ProVS Mini), February 2022
This one has already reached the market, you just read a short review of it…
Behringer AKS Soul, May 2022
This is the most eagerly-anticipated of the series that became the Mini range. It’s a pocket-sized EMS VCS3, though how you handle the matrix that defines a lot of how that synth sounds is another matter. There’s a full-size VCS3 clone in the works as well.
Behringer CZ-Mini, sketches in March 2022, May 2023
Here’s the synthesis technique you never thought you wanted back – a miniature phase distortion synth, like the Casio CZ-101. Which was itself reasonably miniature and cheap in the first place.
Behringer CS-Mini, March 2022, September 2023
A single voice of the Yamaha CS-80, and yes – Behringer is working on a full CS-80 clone. It’ll be cheaper than a Moog Muse, probably.
Behringer UB-Xa Mini, January 2024
Since the UB-Xa is already on version 2.0 firmware and well into production, the UB-Xa Mini shouldn’t have too long between reveal and ordering. But it’s been nearly a year…
Other formats… Behringer grooveboxes
A couple of portable ‘groovebox’ type machines have been shown that don’t fit either the Micro or Mini format, but share the aesthetic and concept.
Behringer Hirotribe, March 2022
When the creator of the Korg MS-20 and monotribe, Hiroaki Nishijima, joined Behringer to work on analogue synths the opportunity to build a dream machine came up, and in 2022 Behringer revealed the ‘Hirotribe’ – an all analogue synth, sequencer and drum machine that took the affordable concept of the monotribe to the next level.
It’s apparently still a viable project, just waiting for the right time to be manufactured, but the pent-up demand from the original announcement has probably left the building!
Behringer BX700: DX7-esque 6-op FM four-track, October 2023
An interesting one, with a big screen, 6-op FM and synth, bass, and three drum part mixer.
There’s a lot to come from Behringer’s miniature range, even if the wait for announced products is anything but small.
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