The original Korg Mini Pops 7 was never meant to be an instrument in its own right — it shipped in 1966 as a simple home-organ accompaniment box, a handful of fixed rhythm patterns meant to keep amateur players in time. It ended up somewhere much stranger: one of the “rhythmic ingredients,” per longstanding accounts of the record, on Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène, prized ever since for the specific warmth and imperfection of its analog percussion circuitry. Behringer’s Mini Pops 7, now open for US pre-order at $229 through Sweetwater, is a faithful clone of that circuitry — with one significant upgrade the original never had.
Same analog character, a sequencer the ‘66 box never got
Behringer’s version reproduces the original’s 15 drum sounds using the same kind of analog circuit design rather than samples, plus a distortion section and tone/filter controls for shaping the sound further. The meaningful departure is control: where the 1966 Mini Pops 7 offered only 20 fixed preset rhythm patterns triggered by push-buttons, Behringer’s clone adds a fully programmable step sequencer on top of the same analog sound engine — turning a device originally built to keep organists in time into an instrument that can be programmed like any modern drum machine, while keeping the specific circuit-level character that made the original desirable in the first place. It ships in Behringer’s compact pedal-sized format, the same footprint used by the company’s other recent analog clones like the RD-6 and RD-78.
What’s confirmed and what isn’t
Pricing and pre-order availability are confirmed directly through Sweetwater at $229 in the US; an official release date from Behringer itself hasn’t been announced, though the device is reportedly already integrated into the company’s Syntribe editor software, typically a sign a release is close. European pricing is unconfirmed — estimates circulating among retailers put it somewhere in the €129–€159 range, but that figure hasn’t come from Behringer directly.
Related Reading
- Behringer Mini Pops 7: clone of the Korg analog rhythm box is ready for pre-order (US) — Synth Anatomy
- Behringer Mini Pops 7: the Korg rhythm box behind Jarre’s Oxygène edges closer — Digital Mixing
- Behringer Minipops 7 (& 14 new upcoming releases) — Gearspace discussion
- Oxygène (Jean-Michel Jarre album) — background