INTRO

I waited some time before getting the UB-Xa for two reasons. Both reasons have one & the same cause – namely freshness. From my experience buying Behringer synths when they’re fresh out of the production line carries a high risk of experiencing frustration. Firstly, they come with underdeveloped firmware. Secondly, they drop their value unexpectedly quick and discounts are not rare. Who in their right mind is going to purchase a buggy synth if they can wait a couple of months and get it for less money and running smoother? Only the most agitated folks. If, after reading this, you think I’m not enthusiastic about this synth, you’re wrong – but more on that later.

The fact that the original firmware did not store atrophy settings per preset was a deal-breaker by itself. It seemed odd because the atrophy feature was a huge selling point. Or at least it was the thing everybody seemed to get most excited about. If I can’t save my custom atrophy profile, it means I can’t have it. If I can’t have it, what is there to get excited about?;)

USER INTERFACE

The UB-Xa D (desktop) that I removed from the box made a much better impression in terms of build quality than the flimsy PRO-800 I had bought the previous year. I quickly turned it on to have some fun but the cryptic “shift” labels on the front panel and enigmatic symbols on the display made me uneasy. Things got even more confusing as I discovered that some buttons led to hidden menus, and those buttons were not labeled in any way that would suggest their double function (unlike the “Page 2” button in the original Oberheim). In short: there were many things about the UB-Xa that were not obvious. It defeated my “instant gratification” expectation for a while.

However, the synth comes with nice & classic Oberheim-style knobs and my favorite type of “no-force-necessary” buttons, so I felt invited to just go the self-educational trial & error route. With some help from the manual I’ve mastered the UI in a matter of 8 to 16 hours. Speaking of manuals, obviously there is nobody at Berhginer to read & approve the manual before it gets released. One of the first sections comes with the headline “Recalling a preset or saved patch, Creating a new patch, Storing your patches”, and… fails to explain how to create a new patch. Bad memories from my time with PRO-800 instantly come to mind. Writing manuals is not Behringer’s forte.

The interface, despite its smart ergonomics, has its quirks. The main encoder is finicky and you have to learn how to handle it. It’s a game of gentle rotation (for selecting) and pushing (for approving / entering data). If you’re not careful and you press the encoder at an angle, your value may change at the last moment, just before you exit your menu. If the synth was a bit larger, a separate button for “Enter” would do the job. There’s no “Exit” button either, so instead of performing one click, sometimes as much as 3 clicks are needed to get out of a view into the general view. Again – a dedicated “Exit” button would be great, as there’s some amount of clicking to be done in order to navigate across the menus (if you want to change atrophy / mod matrix / other settings). Unfortunately there is no more physical space on the desktop version.

In any case, interacting with the UI feels okay despite its shortcomings. It’s hard to explain for me but some synths just have it (an imperfect UI that works fine). The other example is Korg Prologue. It demands some clicking for some more creative results & textures, but for whatever reason it’s not as frustrating as clicking in other synths (Minifreak, Modals, etc). I think it’s a combination of quality of the buttons / switches, display, their location, and the way menus are organized. Of course the UB-Xa is not as easy to edit as the Sequential REV-2 or the Oberheim TEO-5, but I still think Behringer did a good job on this. Just remember that I’m writing this review for the desktop version of the synth (UB-Xa D) as opposed to the keyboard version (UB-Xa). Things to consider, which are not mentioned here, are the quality of the UB-Xa keyboard and the problematic display which becomes illegible when looked at from an angle. When I’m working on my desktop, the display is right in front of my eyes, so I’m not experiencing any problems with visibility.

THE SOUND(S)

This is the the moment where most of the aforementioned shortcomings fade away in a haze of irrelevance, as the UB-Xa sounds so cool that my tolerance for imperfections jumps into 11 on a scale of 10. I haven’t been that inspired in a long time. The synth sounds strikingly raw and instantly fills the air with gritty analogue vibe. Once in a blue moon there comes a low-budget movie with screenplay and acting so fresh, relevant and pleasing to the soul that suddenly all the official, expert-approved blockbusters seem pitifully humdrum, awkward and self-complacent. I have this feeling right now, but with synths. However, I do have a couple of reservations / doubts.

Comparing the way different synths sound is always a tricky (if not absurd) thing, none the less we like to do it. To my ears, when pitted against other contemporary models from the “Oberheim” school, the UB-Xa sounds almost primordial, in the “ancient” or “timeworn” sense of the word. It’s not the immersive / “3d” experience of your OB-6 or the smooth & seamless harmony of your TEO-5. And this is where some people could find the UB-Xa lacking and inferior. It’s not a “wow” type of sound / experience.

But to me this is good. I’ve always enjoyed underdog synths. When I get bothered with my OB-6 sounding too “cultured” / “hi-fi” – I turn my UB-Xa on. If I get tired with my TEO-5 sounding too “tight” / “compressed” and cutting off my chords after the 5th note – I play with my 16-voice UB-Xa. Whenever my thoughts go back to the perverse gain-staging and envelope behavior of my PRO-3 / TAKE-5 – my irritation is toned down because I know my UB-Xa has none of these issues. I’ve been on the hunt for that mix of tone & dynamics for years. The unique Oberheim-style filters with the crunchy pulse-width-modulated square oscillators and snappy envelopes are a treat. Sixteen voices on dual filter (4-pole option), two fast LFOs, editable envelope behavior, poly after-touch plus the mod matrix goodies make up a nifty combination. It’s true that I often fiddle with my UB-Xa’s knobs for much longer than on the previously mentioned synths (especially the OB-6), but once I find the sweet spot, the effect is much sweeter (as in “uglier”, more gritty). Just remember that the UB-Xa is a much “darker” sounding Oberheim-type of synth as it only comes with a lowpass filter (no state-variable fun like in OB-6 or TEO-5).

ENGINE

Speaking of mod matrix – this, alongside the atrophy profiles, is another area of the synth that I want to praise. Behringer got really creative with these, although I need to stress they’ve been over-hyped or misrepresented a bit.

Atrophy is talked about as a set of ingredients / bonus additions that make the synth more “vintage” in its behavior. Something in the vein of an “editable vintage knob”. And it is. But many times the atrophy menu hides away some basic features that should have been put in plain view. If you fail to dive into the atrophy menus and rearrange the default values, your synth will sound very different, or simply be unable to achieve certain results / timbres. If there is anybody that bought their UB-Xa, fiddled around with the front panel controls and came to the conclusion the synth is relatively unresponsive or sounding too restrained, it could indicate they did not discover the true nature of the atrophy part. It hides artificial limitations that can (and should) be exceeded.

The mod matrix comes with as many as 32 interesting / meaningful sources (43 in total with sources like “external controller”) and 33 destinations. It has 8 slots. It seems pretty broad, doesn’t it? Well, it depends how you want to look at it. The lack of modifiers or the ability to “mod a mod” takes away some efficiency. In plain words: a modifier can be, for example, the mod wheel which you can use to gradually introduce your modulation effect.

OUTRO

But again – I’m being picky. The mod matrix, as it is, is more than enough for most creative purposes. Besides, all these quirks like unlabelled buttons make the UB-Xa a really alluring & magnetic synth – a synth to be explored. A synth in which one can discover totally unexpected nooks and crannies, like in an obsucre, first-stage prototype found in a closet of a long-forgotten & defunct company. It’s a synth of contrasts – there’s a deep mod matrix & atrophy realm with super nerdy stuff inside, but you cannot control precise levels of oscillators (just like in the original Oberheim OB-Xa).

One can lament the fact that the UB-Xa stays true to the original in places where it could go beyond the initial constraints; that it has not been equipped with things like a highpass / bandpass filter, or ring-mod / cross-mod, and thus has been stripped of a big portion of versatility. “Cheap” or “half-baked” might also become the phrases of choice to describe the UB-Xa when taking into account its occasional going out of tune during random tweaking, inexplicable clicks in some presets, or the sequencer stop button sometimes freezing the synth.

On the other hand, it’s a synth with an user interface that is much better executed than the work of some long-established brands out there. Even if it sounds muddy, coarse or clumsy at times (or “not like a true Oberheim”), the other half of the time is filled with very exciting, gritty, crunchy, visceral textures. I think this kind of editability, behavior & imperfect sound is the direction more companies should go into when they’re designing a “vintage analog” synth, clone or not. Make a synthesizer that sounds characterful, equip it with a flexible engine, give it an adequate interface and half of the synths on the market can be sent off to Mars. The UB-Xa by no means excels in all these categories, but at least it’s trying to holistically get there. This cannot be said about many other contemporary synths.

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