Behringer Poly D

The old classic or now out of production re-released MiniMoog Model D costs as much as a second hand car, but fear not because Behringer gives you a faithful reproduction for the price of a cheap weekend break, around £500 GBP!

Basically the Model D gives you the whole sound & vibe of the old MiniMoog complete with 37 semi-weighted full sized keys and an all steel construction with wooden side cheeks, but it's polyphonic!!... well, almost. Because at this price it's not a true poly synth with separate filter & amp envelopes for each oscillator voice like the Memorymoog. The Poly D is Para-phonic, having 4 oscillators rather than the three of the original, all delivering 4 voices, but they share the same filter & amp envelope with 3 play Modes of Mono, Unison and 'Polyphonic' mode, which attempts to mitigate the lack of true poly operation... but it's damned close and at this price do you really care?

"Great care has been taken in designing the POLY D including the true to the original “D Type” circuitry with its matched transistors and JFETs, ultra-high precision 0.1% thin film resistors and polyphenylene sulphide capacitors".

The four oscillators deliver the same 6 choices of the original 3 MiniMoog oscillators: Triangle & Sawtooth along with the 3 Square/Pule waves: Pulse-1 Square (contains only odd-numbered harmonics), Pulse-2 Wide Rectangle (even numbered harmonics are introduced), Pulse-3 Narrow Rectangle (lower numbered harmonics, both odd and even, are emphasised), with the final Triangle/Sawtooth being on Oscillators 1-3 (on Oscillators 1 & 2 on the original MiniMoog) & finally the Reverse Sawtooth is only selectable on Oscillator-4 (only on Oscillator 3 on the original 3 Oscillator MiniMoog).

The Poly D also features a 32 step sequencer with 64 save locations, an arpeggiator & a distortion section with amount, level & tone. The Poly D can transmit & receive MIDI via traditional sockets In/Out or via USB & there's 84 possible parameters you can tweak over MIDI with some available via front panel controls. The Poly D also features the addition of a very nice Roland Juno emulated Chorus section.

Ok it's NOT a 100% true poly-synth emulation of the MiniMoog, but it's close enough and at a street price of just under or around £500 quid versus around £6-£8 grand for a secondhand real MiniMoog Model D re-released version (now discontinued) or £10-£12 grand for an original 1970's version, who cares!