In my mind, Behringer didn't revolutionized anything, but rather iterated their way to fame. None of the stuff they release is really "innovative" except when you consider the price, as your comment allude to.
Not to say that isn't an achievement in itself, to build same quality gear for cheap, but I'm not sure "revolutionized" is a word I'd use to describe them.
Making something cheaper can be innovative, depending on how you achieved that. But if you launched a product that is the same as a competitor only because it's cheaper, because your company is funded by VCs who can continuously inject cash to bleed your competitor, I wouldn't call that "innovative" at all.
But if you instead had figured out a way to actually create the same hardware but in a cheaper way, so that's why the price is cheaper, then you did innovative in the creation process, but I still wouldn't call the finished product innovative, I'd be more focused on the process itself.
The other is talking about market revolution, where market dynamics change, typically by lowering the price.
Cannot afford a real Jupiter-8? Now you can! And finally you will have success!
(Narrator: They did not succeed)
You don’t need these expensive synths.
But md point is that you wouldn’t even need the clones of Behringer.
Not only that, many synths are expensive at launch because of R&D and production costs (considering the small amount they produce), and impossible they're already part of "musical culture" as they just launched. TE and Elektron stuff is expensive at launch as just one counter-example.
This is essentially what I was after. Behringer (and others) are selling you the dream of reaching the echelons of those genre-defining originators.
But you won't. Having a Jupiter-8 clone or even an original will not make you another Giorgio Moroder or Nick Rhodes and having a Linn clone won't make you another Prince. Those synths and drum machines became famous because they existed at the right time in the right place (and under the fingers of the right people).
Behringer is selling nostalgia. Sure, you don't have to shell out the equivalent of a small car, but looking at what people are producing with these devices, for 99% of the customers, it will not bring them any nearer to their dreams.
you need something to work with and despite great musicians sounding good on junk quality does sometimes sound better in ways you cannot compensate for. Also even if you can make cheap sound good it may be ergonomically harmful, or otherwise be a struggle. Thus it is sometimes justified to spend money on better.
So this aspect should not necessarily be viewed as dis-innovative.
Where they ‘revolutionized’ the ‘evolutionary iteration’ of product development, is they made affordable copies of other products that had already been through a few classic iterations.
>Cheap/Price/etc.
There’s the rub. First, it has to be affordable to the target audience. Second, it has to be available: i.e. can I just walk out of the shop with it right now?
Cheap Behringer gear fits many a budding rock stars’ meager budget. Behringer has capitalized on their reach by developing that market at a clip which far out-paces the bigger/prestigious brands.
What’s great is how much Behringer is agitating the Superbooth universe. It is so fun to see folks of all ages learning the old synth classic architectures, even if it is on re-implementations rather than the old planks, themselves.
Synthesizers, thanks to Behringer and other players in the market, are now not so esoteric and inaccessible as they once were, but rather well established as a 21st century musical instrument standard.
There is much mirth to be gained from observing a 9 year old kid figure out how to make the JUNO/SH101/etc. architecture do extraordinary things, without worrying about the drink-spill factor, or other antiquated notions.
Your comment reads like "IBM didn't revolutionize anything. None of the stuff they release is really "innovative" except when you consider the price (...)"
As far as I know, IBM did have impressive technical innovations at first, like the Vacuum Tube Multiplier, but then at one point they stopped innovating and instead focused on basically business optimizations.
So yeah, I guess a bit similar to IBM, but that isn't the full story.