Behringer Toro: Bringing Taurus to the desktop – Update!
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Behringer updates us on Toro, a desktop take on the classic foot-powered Moog Taurus bass synth, with a feature video and price hike.
Update 25/03/2023: The Behringer Toro has arrived on the Thomann store website for the price of £214, which is somewhere between the two prices that were previously suggested. Availability is stated as “On request” which means that the current situation is unclear and they don’t have an expected delivery date. Consumer confidence is high!
Update 04/03/2023: One year after this original announcement Behringer has released a video showcasing the features of the Toro. The price is now estimated to be $349 which is a lot more than the $199 they originally punted. There’s still no commitment to a shipping date.
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Toro
Behringer says this is an authentic recreation of the legendary Moog Taurus Revision 1. Although, if I may be so bold as to point out the lack of an organ-style pedalboard that gave the Taurus its reason for existence?
What’s important here is the sound, and Behringer has gone for a full analogue signal path with 2 VCOs, a classic low-pass ladder filter and a pair of simple envelopes. As this is modelled on version 1 then it should have a distorted sawtooth waveform output and no LFO. It has the 4 presets on foot-friendly buttons on the front giving you Toro, Tube, Bass and Variable Glide and the two controls over loudness and filter are now knobs rather than foot-sized sliders.
Moog Taurus Pedal Synthesizer brochure from the Synthmuseum.com
Behringer has added comprehensive MIDI and USB support. You’ll also find some CV control, Poly Chain ability and it can be dropped into Eurorack.
Authentic?
It’s all there except for the fact that it’s no longer a foot-controlled pedal synth. Moog understood that the Taurus had value to people who didn’t want to play it with their feet which is why it released the Minitaur. Maybe that would have been a better choice if you were going to ignore all the foot-related stuff? According to the discussion on Facebook Behringer has no plans to release a foot controller for it. Although, I guess you could get a MIDI pedal controller if using your feet is important. Does it matter? Probably not because ultimately it’s the sound that attracts a buyer to a synthesizer although I would argue that the form of the electronic instrument contributes to how a sound is used and I’m sure many Taurus owners never played it with their feet.
This one is a bit more seriously priced at $199 and is just waiting for the chips. We’re starting to get the impression that Behringer has whole production lines of synths ready to go. Just as soon as someone can pour chips into the pick-and-place machine.
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10 responses to “Behringer Toro: Bringing Taurus to the desktop – Update!”
Hasn’t the Minitaur already done that ?
Not at Behringer’s price point
It’s a pitty they’re not considering the foot pedals. The foot pedals themselves are easily (and unreasonably) 4 times the price of the Toro, and maybe that’s why.
Still, it should be cool to pair it with the keystep/swing.
you can get a 1 octave Crumar for $499. so 2 1/2 the price. in a combined product, you would want most of the cost in the pedal mechanics anyway. would be worth it for a alt-purist. like me.
Of course you’d wanna play it with your feet.
At $199 I was pretty interested, even though I have a Minitaur, but now it’s $349 I’m not so sure…
It must be difficult for all manufacturers out there at the moment with the chip shortages/prices if even Behringer are needing to almost double the price of a product like this. Maybe once the chip shortage is better some of these prices will start to drop again (hopefully!!).
Looking forward to seeing the future releases of Behringer, especially the OB
$199 would be tempting, but $349 is too close to the real thing, new or used.
Pretty limited market, I’d have thought? Certainly not on my wish list (unlike plenty of other Behringer goodies).
They’ll make a bunch of them, no one will buy them, and they’ll end up at $129 in clearance!
$199, I was thinking Get me 3 of them, 😁
Hopefully this is indicative of the Behringer Solina price point; similarly simple exterior, although I’d have thought there’s more going on underneath with the Solina so it might be closer to 300 quid.
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