Published
Tue, Mar 21, 2017, 18:05
- The company's business practices are causing outcry from original rights holders.
Mary Curtis, widow of synthesiser component builder Doug Curtis, has spoken out against Behringer cloning her husband's designs.
The budget music equipment company has started building recreations of the Curtis CEM3340 and 3320 chips, which constitute the voice and filter found in synths from Korg, Moog, Oberheim, Roland, Dave Smith Instruments and others. Behringer plans to use the chips as part of a complete line of synthesiser clones, including the ARP 2600 and Minimoog Model D. Curtis's integrated circuits were an important part of the evolution of synthesiser design and are still used in many products today.
Curtis died in 2007 and now the chips are officially built by a company called OnChip Systems, who released a new batch of official Curtis chips as recently as last year. However, due to the designs entering the public domain, Behringer can legally copy and sell copies without infringing patent laws. Company owner Uli Behringer stated that his clones are a "100% exact replica of the Curtis CEM3340." Now Synthtopia reports that Curtis's widow, Mary, has raised concerns about Behringer's business practice in a Facebook post, especially regarding "unsubstantiated claims of equivalency to his original inventions."