In pointing out Behringer’s clone of Apple’s homepage, I may have left some things unclear. I was honestly surprised to find a number of people rushing to Behringer’s defense. I wasn’t trying to score cheap and easy points against the brand, but while venting frustration, I may have underestimated the response of people who own Behringer gear. If you do, and it’s working for you, as always – that’s a good thing.

The conversation got me excited, and I stepped into the comment fray. I shouldn’t have in this case, and unless asked to, I’ll stay out of this conversation. I enjoy being involved in those threads, but there are times when I should keep my writing to this space and let you have at it in the space below – the one labeled “comments.”

I think the reason Behringer inflames some people boils down to two things. Those people may have been burned by gear that proved not to be a bargain, or offended by a history of gear designs copied from recognizable models, or both. The former, of course, can happen with any vendor, but it does illustrate that saving money doesn’t always save time or money. Caveat Emptor is therefore true with any vendor. The latter is really the sticking point. Here’s a loose timeline of the cases in question:

Look out: Behringer, already a notorious rip-off artist, is taking the “first step in [the] company’s reinvention of online presence.” I shudder to think what the coming steps will look like. But yes, the new site looks a wee bit familiar. It actually gets worse as you dig into the layout.

In fairness, for over a decade now, Apple’s site has perhaps the most ripped-off Website design on the Internet. But then, Behringer is special.

Back when the blog Music Thing was publishing, it was able to do an annual series on cloned Mackie and Roland/BOSS gear, some down to colors, typography, and control layouts. (Check out the MT archives for some of this hall of shame, or lack thereof.)

And Behringer doesn’t just copy the Apple layout like other sites. They actually send out a breathless press release that brags about their pixel-perfect, color-perfect clone.

Update: Apparently, you can thank readers of the Behringer Website for the choice. Mr. Tunes notes via Twitter that this design was chosen in a survey among other mock-ups, for which you could win a blatant rip-off of the Line 6 Pod. I could comment on that, but the things I might say would not make me a team player for “Team Behringer.”

Following the tragic loss of its creator, software developer/publisher Image Line is dedicating Deckadance to its creator, Juan Antonio Arguelles (”Argu”). Deckadance, a DJ application with the ability host plug-ins and operate in a host mode, as well as support a variety of vinyl timecode systems, was the project on which Argu was focused at his untimely death; he had also worked on projects like FL Studio 7 and plug-ins by discoDSP.

Image-Line has also announced a new developer is taking on Deckadance in Argu’s absence:

Image-Line is pleased to hand the baton for Deckadance development to the capable hands of Luis Serrano Cavero. Luis is an experienced developer of DJ tools, including his own DJ midi controller, and brings further inspiration and enthusiasm to the Deckadance project. “We are very proud, and fortunate, to have Luis on the team” said [Jean-Marie Cannie, Managing Director of Image Line Software].

The announcement comes with the release of 1.13, with various bugfixes and improvements, deck sync and monitoring enhancements, and Behringer BCD3000 console support.

As we again offer our condolences, it’s nice to see this developer’s work memorialized and recognized; I hope we get to know more of the faces behind the tools we care about.

Deckadance homepage

As Apple revealed in a description for a session at WWDC, OS X 10.5 includes enhanced USB and FireWire audio support. Some of that functionality is already arriving in the 10.4.10 update, which incorporates the FireWire SDK 24 and FireWire 2.1. (The SDK also includes “most” of the source for Leopard’s upcoming FireWire stack.)

You probably don’t care about that unless you’re a developer.

You probably do care that the 10.4.10 update can cause some FireWire audio devices to cease normal function, including the Behringer FCA-202 and Mackie Onyx Satellite. MacFixIt has the full details, and a workaround from Mackie:

Mac OS X 10.4.10 Special Report: FireWire audio interface issues — fixes

Basically, you can roll back the FireWire driver itself while leaving 10.4.10 in place. Of course, if you haven’t yet installed 10.4.10 and you own an affected interface, you might just leave well enough alone for now.

The “glass half full” way of looking at this would be to presume the full 10.5 update may not cause any earth-shaking driver issues, beyond a few fixes here and there. And we may have jumped over some of those issues before the full 10.5 issue hits. My Focusrite Saffire, for instance, is performing just fine under 10.4.10 on two machines. For anyone complaining about Vista, this is further proof that OS updates will generally cause issues with audio hardware, simply because, aside from class-compliant devices, most pro audio gear interacts with the operating system at a pretty low level. Low-level functionality just tends to break first. The question is, can you fix it, and how fast? (In this case, “pretty durn” fast seems to apply.)

Apple still releases more incremental updates compared to Microsoft’s fewer, larger updates, and Microsoft’s changes in Vista were more sweeping changes to the underlying driver model, compared to Apple’s incremental improvements to audio-specific features. The jury is still out on which is better; it’s still unclear to me, for instance, how much benefit the Vista driver model switch will have in the longer haul.