It’s tiring keeping up with all Behringer’s announcements, but the company certainly knows how to hold our attention. Its latest revelation is that the free DAW that it promised in 2020 will come with a selection of free VST plugins, and it looks like some of these will be based on Behringer’s hardware synth clones.
It’s worth noting that not all of the plugins will be free - Behringer will charge “a small amount” for some of them - but the screenshots posted today indicate that the company is working on software versions of its Pro-16, UB-Xa and Wave synths (based on the Prophet-5, OB-Xa and PPG Wave respectively).
We’re assured that these will “seamlessly integrate” with the hardware versions, indicating that patch sharing and MIDI control should be possible.
The plugins are being developed by “some of the world’s best VST developers,” who are working with the Danish TC Electronic team (like Behringer, TC now falls under the Music Tribe ownership umbrella). Other developers are being invited to join the project, too.
Of course, it remains to be seen when you’ll actually be able to get your hands on any of this software; it’s been more than two years since Behringer first announced it was working on a free DAW, after all, and we've yet to see anything of it.
On the plus side, at least it can’t blame the chip shortage for the delay this time…
