A leak on Behringer’s website has revealed 14 unreleased products, many of which have yet to be officially announced or even teased by the German manufacturer.
The ever-observant gearheads on the Behringer subreddit spotted the leak last week while the company’s website was undergoing a redesign, when listings for forthcoming products briefly appeared before being taken down.
Screenshots were swiftly taken, of course, and from these we’ve learned that several previously unannounced products are in the pipeline, and some upcoming instruments we already knew about may be closer to an official release than many of us expected.
Behringer’s leak revealed that the company is preparing to release a drum machine and sampler inspired by the E-mu SP-1200, a much-loved 1987 instrument that heavily influenced the sound of early hip-hop. Listed under the product name SP-1200, the listing featured no image and only a short description that confirmed the instrument will offer both modern 24-bit and classic 12-bit sampling – the latter imitating the original SP-1200’s famously gritty lo-fi character – and feature an analogue filter.
Considering that Behringer has released instruments based on the LinnDrum and Oberheim DMX in recent years, it’s no surprise that an SP-1200 remake is in the works, adding to a stable of clones that’s getting close to encompassing almost every notable classic drum machine in music tech history.
Another unreleased drum machine that surfaced in Behringer’s leak is the RD-765, but details are even scarcer on this one: described as a “classic hybrid sampling drum machine” with a 64-step sequencer and sample recording capabilities, the description details “XX drum sounds”, suggesting that product copy had yet to be finalised before the listing was unintentionally published.
One imaginative Redditor speculated that the RD-765 could be a hybrid of a trio of Roland instruments that Behringer has yet to imitate (the TR-707, TR-626 and TR-505) but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess.
The leak included three more as-yet-unannounced products. AQ64 is described as a USB/MIDI controller and clip launcher that looks like it could be based on a similar concept to Akai’s Ableton-focused APC40. QT32 is a 32-key, eight-pad MIDI controller keyboard with shades of the Akai MPK Mini, and JAM is another MIDI keyboard that drops the pads and adds 64-step polyphonic sequencing capabilities.
The JAM looks like it could be a successor to the Swing, a controversial controller Behringer released in 2021 that shared an uncanny resemblance with the Arturia KeyStep, before backlash prompted a cosmetic rework.
That’s all the gear we hadn’t yet heard about, but the leak also featured several products that have already been teased by Behringer, stoking flames of anticipation among fans eager to get their hands on the company’s affordable clones of iconic instruments like the Roland Jupiter-8 and Yamaha CS-80.
It’s Behringer’s take on the latter that’s likely to have stirred up the most excitement, but the screenshots taken provide frustratingly little detail – with no image or description visible, all we have is a product name: VS-80. What this does suggest, though, is that Behringer’s long-awaited CS-80 clone (which was originally named DS-80) could be much closer to an official release than previously expected.
Another noteworthy instrument spied in the leak is the VCX 3, Behringer's clone of the EMS VCS 3, a product first teased in 2019 before entering beta testing in 2023, then seeming to vanish completely. (We even speculated that development of the sought-after remake had been discontinued completely after several customers reported that preorders made via gear retailer Sweetwater were cancelled in October last year.)
Well, it seems that Behringer’s clone of the historic synth is close to an official release: leaked screenshots show a product listing detailing a “legendary analogue synthesizer with 3 VCOs, VCF, routing matrix, ring modulator” and more.
There are many more notable mentions in the Behringer leak, including the BCR32, a MIDI controller and desktop sequencer that’s a redesign of the popular BCR2000, an original Behringer design released 20 years prior.
Also visible in the screenshots is the Mini Pops 7, a modernized take on Korg’s ‘60s analogue drum machine favoured by artists like Aphex Twin and Jean-Michel Jarre, and Polykeys PK61, a 61-key MIDI keyboard controller with polyphonic aftertouch and a ribbon controller.
While Behringer’s JT-16 – a souped-up 16-voice clone of the Roland Jupiter-8 that’s become one of the most keenly-awaited products in its ever-expanding list of upcoming releases – didn’t appear in the leak, Behringer has since published a product page for JT-16 VST, a plugin version of that synth.
The company promises that JT-16 VST authentically captures the Jupiter-8’s sound via the “meticulous recreation of all the original oscillators, filters, and envelopes” and features all the original factory patches and presets.
Was Behringer’s leak truly accidental or simply a shrewd marketing stunt? We’ll never know, but whether or not the big reveal was an honest mistake – and whether or not these products will actually make it to shelves in the near future – it’s certainly given music-makers plenty to talk about. All we can do now is wait, and as ever with Behringer, that may be for quite some time.
