Behringer has long made a career out of taking classic pieces of gear and making more affordable versions of ’em. One of the company’s recent ventures was a reissue of Musitronics’ classic 1972 envelope pedal Mu-Tron III, which the company brought back themselves in an altered version in 2014.
Musitronics is clearly pissed about that, as they’ve issued the below statement slamming Behringer (without naming them) for the product and even using their history in the marketing materials. Which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising, considering Behringer seems to come under fire several times per year for doing exactly this.
“So a $2 Billion German company has decided to copy a 3rd Mu-Tron product. It is being distributed, sight unseen, 6 month pre-order through a $31 billion Investment firm which owns the largest online music store in the world. The pedal is most-likely entirely made in China and will sell for less than the cost of what it takes us to produce here in the USA.
“And even admits ‘tariff 1.0’, ‘chip shortages’, Covid, and rising labor costs, we have not raised the price of our products in 8 years. Instead, we have continued to innovate new products and do our best to deliver awesome products to last a lifetime. This company has not only copied the trade-dress (color schemes, fonts, labels and verbiage), they have even assimilated the history of Musitronics into their videos as if was their own. Any suggestions?”
Behringer has not responded to these accusations.
