Behringer JT-4000 Micro Hybrid Modeling Synthesizer

I bought the Behringer JT-4000 because of how it was used on some YouTube videos to make Ambient Music. Behringer recreated the sound engine from Roland JP-8080 series from the 1990s and packed it into a very small case. When I got the unit, I was amazed at how small it was. The unit is a 4 note paraphonic unit. The demo video that Behringer made showcased how the unit could do 1990s style trance and pop music well. All in all, the little delivers very good sound, and it also has some limitations that are worth mentioning. (1) The keyboard is a pressure pad and is one octave. You can move up and down the settings to get about 5 octaves, one octave at a time, so you can play a up to 4 notes. But you will have to be very nimble with the dials to reach them. You can use an outside keyboard, but there is no MIDI link, except a USB midi that needs an adapter to mediate the unit and the adapter costs about $50. You can link the USB midi to a DAW and run it this way and solve all these problems. (2) You have a lot of settings you can manipulate, but you will need to "menu dive" to reach them. The 3 dials below the volume dial control the layers of the 6 menu buttons. There are sometimes as many as 6 layers that the left dial can be used to reach. Once more you have to be nimble to dial around the ADSR for Amp and Env, and they are both split in half, showing 2 out of 4 at any one time. (3) The factory version of the firmwave does not include the "hold" function. But after the firmware update, it is available and is tremendously helpful. A problem with the firmware update is that there is no manual or notes, meaning that the manual you get with the unit is then obsolete. Fortunately, there are YouTube videos to cover this weakness. (4) The unit does not have a sequencer, but it does have an ARP which can be set to up, down, or up/down. Because of only 4 note paraphonic, you are limited to only 4 note ARPs, or you can use a DAW with a sequencer to drive this unit or use the adapter (sold separately, and a YT video shows you how to use it and where to get it) to have a synth with a sequencer to drive it. (5) The unit does not have a sine wave nor an LFO that can simulate a sine wave, only triangle, sawtooth, square, or PWM (very adjustable). It has two oscillators that are really more like one and a half. The extra oscillator can drive VCF and the other oscillator with something like a hidden patch chord with two choices. The presets use these functions and are very necessary starting points for crafting some sounds. (6) The volume can be a little low for mixing with other instruments, especially the bass octaves and when you put the ADSR to work with ambient pad settings. (7) It has no battery, so, inspite of its small size, it might not be as good as a portable music sketch pad as many small units with batteries are. However, it can be powered by USB to a computer and this may make it work for people who have a laptop as part of their portable music workstation. On the positive side, one can store one's compositions in a small amount of onboard memory that is about the same size as all the presets have. You can create some chords and play a root note to trigger the whole chord and control the BPM of the ARP down to 20 BPM. All in all, the synth is probably worth it for its very low price. Because of its odd and unique features, though, I would not recommend it automatically to anyone. It would probably not be a good stand alone synth. It may be too complex to work as an entry level synth too. I would recommend that one see the YT videos that use it and demo it to get an idea if it would work for you. It does have a very powerful sound engine for its size.

The main reason I got this was after testing it out, it had some amazing bit sounds! Almost exactly like old ds, snes, n64 type sounds! It also has some pretty nasty bass sounds in it as well! You can send midi through the usb, so although you only have so many notes on the physical synth, plug it in with usb, and it works perfectly within your setup!