I owned and sold an OP-1. It is a beautiful piece of hardware and its analog controls and mashable buttons provide a more tactile experience than an iPad does.
That said, the sounds it ships with really leave something to be desired. My subjective opinion is that anyone who's played with a best in class software synth (i.e., equator2) is going to find themselves feeling pretty limited by the blippy tones that you get out of the box.
Sure, you can load up the sampler with tons of cool tones and op1.fun is a wonderful resource, but it's a lot of work to go curate a bunch of sounds to compensate for a lackluster palette.
I can already hear people saying that I'm missing the point and that the constraints are designed to inspire creativity, etc. I respect that point of view, but at the end of the day, my creative time is at a premium, and I'd like to use that time to create stuff that I'm proud to show friends and family.
Most of the stuff I produced with the OP-1 sounded like video game music or music for a kid's cartoon (i.e., Adventure Time). If that's your thing, then awesome! If not, I'd consider the core tonal possibilities before you make a big investment.
As someone who produces electronic music I kind of dig the limitations of the op-1. At a 2k price point though with those limitations in mind I can't justify the price. Even at ~1300 or whatever the old model is going for I can't justify the price. For cheaper you can get both a digitakt and a digitone, which I own the latter, and they sound 1000 times better than the op-1 although each respectively do quite a lot less. I was actually pretty excited to see this until I saw the price. I have spent a lot of money on electronic music gear, way more than 2000, and I'm a bit baffled about who this is for exactly.
And for the $2000 MSRP of the OP-1 Field you could buy a brand new 13" MacBook Pro, an Ableton Live Standard 11 license, a Scarlett Solo audio interface, an M-Audio Keystation 49 USB MIDI controller, and still have some money left over.
That's like telling someone that for the price of a new BMW S1000RR motorcycle, they can instead buy a really good Honda Civic, because a Honda Civic can carry more passengers, you can sleep in it, it is more reliable, safer, cheaper to service, holds resale value better, more versatile when it comes to different weather conditions, etc. You are missing the point that those in the market for BMW S1000RR are often aware of all those factual advantages that a Honda Civic has, they just prioritize different factors in their choices than you might. Someone who is looking to buy a motorcycle isn't gonna suddenly be swayed by looking into all the factual advantages a Honda Civic can provide over a motorcycle.
Despite both items serving fundamentally the same base purpose (getting from point A to point B for cars/motorcycles; making music for OP-1/your list), and one of them is cheaper overall and on paper has a lot of factual advantages, they might simply prioritize different things and both be extremely good at different things they prioritize. I, personally, love the workflow of the original OP-1 way more than almost the exact list you produced (because it used to be pretty much my setup, except I used a different midi controller).
Correct. In this case the laptop+audio interface is a lot closer to the BMW S1000RR if we're using this analogy for music production.
The OP-1 if we're using motorcycle analogies is like a Zero. Really cool, new tech, quirky, doesn't use gas (a traditional DAW) but also comes with a bunch of limitations (can't load any of your normal synths into it, have to work around sampling) kind of like the limited range of electric motorcycles.
Totally fine if what you want is an electric bike for city commuting or short trips, until you want to go on a weekend trip or a track day. Now you're waiting on charging, and limited in power.
I think we've stretched this analogy far enough. I wouldn't call a laptop with an audio interface and Ableton a Honda Civic. OP-1 fills a niche, but it certainly isn't high end performance in terms of audio quality or malleability. They're really cool, creative, unique ways of making music if you like the interface, but ultimately a quirky niche in terms of actual production.
(Which is totally valid if that what you want from your musical instruments)
People buy gear because they like a workflow and the UX/UI tactile choices a particular designer/ brand decided to highlight.
I love Elektron devices and I enjoy patching away on Eurorack. I'm pretty sure there's VSTS out there that will do 99.9% of the sound design I do with that gear, but then i'd be using an iPad or a laptop to do that... and that just completely kills the mood :/
People should (with in their means) obtain they musical instruments that allow them to create music :)
Yeah I agree, it's not really a great choice as your 'main synth'. I think it's really meant to be a self-contained portable 'music sketchpad'. I owned 2 at one point thinking maybe that was the issue, I like to double up my gear (for example I like to use two TB-303 layered); when that didn't work out the way I hoped on the OP1s I sold them and both were bought separately by traveling musicians that wanted something to noodle with/ sketch with while on tour buses, or killing time at the hotel.
So I think it's a funny product that has a lot of 'nerd appeal' but at its heart it's a pretty powerful devices, maybe often miss-used.
Also - having played with both 'hardware' and VST's I do prefer VSTs because of the ease of use; aka you can reload a track in seconds in Live versus spending 30+ repatching your gear, swooping out gear, etc (and then it's still not quite the same, but that's part of the magic of 'real hardware' I suppose).
But at the end of the day the music I created with VST's versus real hardware wasn't different at all sonically so I am 100% in the camp of VSTs are awesome.
That said, you need to be careful selecting a VST.They go 'stale' and become a liability, so for example if I open up projects from 5+ years back, almost none of them work now. So going forward, I'm going to be more careful, and probably buy VST's only from companies I expect to be around for the long haul.
You're making a good point about VST compatibility over time. One way to at least ensure a track remains playable is to bounce your midi tracks to separate audio tracks (waveform). Clearly, you lose the flexibility that comes with manipulating the original score, but you're guaranteed to be able to playback, eq, and mix the original performance. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
True, I've done that too, but you're right it's obviously a limited way to go about it.
It's funny, I kinda feel like this is what the OP1 was trying to be, or maybe what I wanted it to be, but this actually delivers on that promise. I want one:
https://polyend.com/play/
Korg Module is the best noodler out there and it’s 20 bucks. I’ve tried a few portable hardware sequencers, but module on my phone fits the bill so much better.
Just finished a verse and got halfway through a chorus on a 30 minute ferry ride and I didn’t even have to remember to bring anything but my phone.
Have you tried the Korg Kaossilator? It's 20 bucks upfront and so far I didn't want to spend that without being able to try it. The description sounds cool though.
It has 4 dedicated sequencers. They're locked to whatever tempo the metronome is configured for. You can mix durations pretty fluidly with the endless sequencer (8th, 16th notes/rests), but you definitely cannot change tempo in a given beat--at least not without jumping through a bunch of hoops bouncing and re-recording tracks, etc. There's a basic grid type sequencer as well, but that doesn't meet your criteria.
This was like five years ago that I had one, but as far as I remember, OP-1 isn't grid-based (though maybe some of the instruments are?). It's basically like a four track tape mixer. You can loop bar-by-bar, and then copy from bar to bar. And you can stretch time in the same way that you would with a reel-to-reel tape deck. But as far as I remember it won't transpose / warp the sounds along with the change in BPM.
I have absolutely no use for the products made by teenage engineering, as I don't have a clue about audio production. But scolling thought their store, I still want to own these beatiful devices.
Same. I have two of their Pocket Operators[1] which I love, and an OB-4 radio[2], but I'm mostly an enthusiast of their work from afar. If you're casually interested in messing around with music, the POs are a lot of fun and relatively inexpensive!
TE also does general industrial design work for external clients. Their mechanical engineering capabilities seemed less fully developed.
I like their ID work, but at some level it seems more like well-proportioned, carefully considered graphic design - rectilinear forms with radii and cylindrical knobs. I can't count the number of ID projects I've worked on where an OP-1 was used as inspiration.
[source: A company I worked for worked on a project which started with TE doing ID and ME. We took their prototype level ME further, but not sure where the project ended up.]
Great design and designers exist everywhere. There's nothing extrinsic to the companies in the US, Europe or Asia that makes any of them better at design. It's all about the internals of the companies themselves.
I would say, however, that Teenage Engineering is "small" enough to take the kinds of risks that bigger companies just aren't able to do (even with much more money). Here's a fast company article (https://www.fastcompany.com/3016739/more-than-an-office-teen...) from 2015. They claim wide variety of backgrounds and keep their facilities modest. At the time they released the first incarnation of the OP-1, they had 30 employees.
Contrast that with KORG, who a few years ago created a "lab" in Berlin staffed with superstars with intention of creating ground-breaking music tech (https://youtu.be/Y0NY6iUqbEM). They clearly poured A LOT of money into that venture. Similar kind of hipster vibe, but what became of it? I don't know but it seems like Teenage Engineering is doing just fine.
> Contrast that with KORG, who a few years ago created a "lab" in Berlin staffed with superstars with intention of creating ground-breaking music tech (https://youtu.be/Y0NY6iUqbEM). They clearly poured A LOT of money into that venture. Similar kind of hipster vibe, but what became of it? I don't know but it seems like Teenage Engineering is doing just fine.
That seems to have been kicked off just short of two years ago. Building hardware, especially this kind of hardware, takes a long long time to even reach the prototype stage, even longer to get it out of production. I'm sure the OP-1 Field we saw launched today has been in development since (or even before) the first OP-1 was launched, 10 years ago.
It's a little more than 2 years, and there should have been projects underway before even moving to Berlin.
I am sure they're doing good work and it's probably awesome to work there, but looking at the website, it's the kind of thing corporate bean-counters have nightmares about: https://korg.berlin/ No glimmer of product teases, just cool people bios, insta/facebook links, and oh yeah, they have a cookbook of recipes you can download!
Sort of makes me think of Brett Victor's DynamicLand project-- has a really awesome vibe, but where's the stuff?
I mean there is no secret that Teenage Engineering is very inspired by the European early and mid 1900s design movement. I remember hearing an interview with Jesper Kouthoofd the lead Designer about how they approach product design in the same way as graphic design, just with more surfaces then a paper. Everything is based on a grid (Josef Muller-Brockmann and the International design movement), with focus on simple shapes and a few primary colors (Bauhaus). And just comparing the OB-4 speaker with the Braun T520 radio I think it's safe to say that Dieter Rams has also been a great inspiration.
So for sure there is a lot of European design heritage going in to these products. But personally I think the main reason we don't see this kind of design coming from the US right now simply comes down to the fact that minimalism as a concept goes against typical North-American culture.
I don't think the Apple "Snow White design language" products like the IIgs look like generic beige boxes (those were the uninspired IBM products which cared little about looks that were beige), but it is interesting how white has fallen out of favor as a computer color to be replaced by unpainted aluminum or black. The black craze was probably inspired by the NeXT cube which was the epitome of cool in the late 80s-early 90s.
For something to be a blatant copy I'd expect when shown both samples of work, one could imagine how multiple people would have come up with the same end result based on the same inspiration, no innovation or invention of their own put into the process. When I look at the Casio products, sure, the general inspiration definitely could have come from those, but it's hard to see how one could honestly claim TE have not invested any innovation or invention of their own when coming up with their products even if inspired by Casio. "Blatant copy" is an incredible stretch.
> For something to be a blatant copy I'd expect when shown both samples of work, one could imagine how multiple people would have come up with the same end result based on the same inspiration, no innovation or invention of their own put into the process. When I look at the Casio products, sure, the general inspiration definitely could have come from those, but it's hard to see how one could honestly claim TE have not invested any innovation or invention of their own when coming up with their products even if inspired by Casio. "Blatant copy" is an incredible stretch.
Some of these devices are popular and more than 30 year old. And these are not Teenage Engineering's...
Of course TE copied Casiotone series and of course TE designers knows very well they exist.
Old Casiotone synth designs are absolutely unique in the history of synth industry.
As a non-designer, I don't have the skills or the vocabulary to say whether this is true or not, but at first glance Apple and Teenage Engineering seem to share little in common. Can anyone who knows better enlighten me?
Whenever TE is mentioned here I always struggle with the parallel to apple. As a non-designer too Apple always embodies form over function minimalism and these TE products seem to be almost entirely function over form.
> I have absolutely no use for the products made by teenage engineering, as I don't have a clue about audio production. But scolling thought their store, I still want to own these beatiful devices.
Because you are the target, people who like nice looking hip things and can afford it. That device doesn't do much, doesn't sound particularly good, and certainly is sold to you at a premium. No wonder these products are sold at the MOMA...
I beg to differ. I mean sure, the OP-1 isn't as versatile as a laptop with a good daw and a few plugins but hardware still has its' place in some producers' gear bag. For a standalone device it's extremely versatile and it does sound good.
> I beg to differ. I mean sure, the OP-1 isn't as versatile as a laptop with a good daw and a few plugins but hardware still has its' place in some producers' gear bag. For a standalone device it's extremely versatile and it does sound good.
First, we're not talking about hardware in general but that TE device precisely and second "it sounds good" is really a matter of taste here, the synth engine is very limited and the first version didn't sound really good given its price. This is absolutely a hipster device, just like all TE products.
HN is usually fine when it comes to the technical details about music making and new instruments. But if you want to read opinions from people who make music but not all of them are technical, here are some other threads to follow:
Finally. After more than two years of development the OP-1 is now ready for production.
Due to initial limited supply we now accept reservations.
Manufacturing, assembly and shipping will be eight weeks.
As a studio enthusiast and electronic musician, I always felt this was a reasonable price for the OP-1. I have a _lot_ of synths here, ranging from the high end Moog Voyager to various Pocket Operators by Teenage Engineering.
$2000 however is just too much for this. The Polyend Tracker sells for $500 used in comparison, and while its drastically different - is vaguely competitive to the OP-1.
Polyend also just announced another groovebox that is vaguely competitive to the op-1 for $800. Looks a bit like a slimmed down deluge, which for half the price of the new OP-1, I would highly recommend to anyone who wants a portable music station or groovebox in general. I've had it for about 5 years now and they are still actively working on it which is a nice bonus.
Wasn't it originally manufactured in Europe to boot? Seem to remember a major price rise coming when they had moved production to Asia. There were many people selling their used European models for more than they had paid because it was still cheaper than the new RRP.
I guess TE took advantage of demand for an established product and use it to subsidise their other lines and new development, which I can't see them selling much volume on for the most part (maybe Pocket Operators?).
I know a number of electronic musicians, and none of them has an OP-1, or anything from TE. The only person I know with an OP-1 is a designer at a startup I worked for, and he "didn't get around using it much yet".
So yeah, the $2000 price point will work great for them, given their customer demographics :)
Well there’s this guy on YouTube who demos all kinds of synths and got a huge following from his OP-1 videos: https://youtu.be/7z4hoazra_g
The video shows me that OP-1 is a pretty cool all-in-one package, but it probably needs honing a special skill to work with it as smoothly as that guy does.
Yeah what he doesn't show is the difficulty of learning all the quirks and features of the OP-1.
Professional musicians or even hobbyists prefer to buy several specialized devices that do one thing very well instead of having a very expensive device that can do a little bit of everything but with some limitations.
Even with RMR though, he's pretty much moved away from the OP-1 videos, I can't recall the video where he explained why 100%, but I think he found it a bit creatively constraining.
He got upset a while ago because someone else started making a similar style of OP-1 videos (Top down, subtitles, wooden desk) which he felt was theft of his creative property.
I know a few professional musicians who have them and you can look up a host of famous musicians who are known to use them: Diplo, Bon Iver, Deadmau5, Yasutaka Nakata, even Ariana Grande has one. It seems to occupy a similar space to the Elektron products —- high end with a steep learning curve
TE always was a lifestyle company. All their products, including their gaming device, are about looking cool. Which is why device thinness is extremely important and the first thing they talk about. Just like Apple.
You don't buy a TE device to actually make music, you buy it to impress people about how creative you are, how you are not a pleb consumerist.
I feel like looking cool is definitely a factor, but the OP-1 is also about being portable and fitting into your lifestyle. Photographers will tell you that "the best camera is the one you have with you", and the OP-1 is like the phone camera of music. It's like a step up from singing into a voice memo. You can use it to capture ideas reasonably accurately whenever you feel inspired, and refine them later at an actual workstation.
Obviously not everyone will think this is worth $2000, and there's definitely an element of status symbol there, but I've genuinely enjoyed owning one.
The fact that there are some cyclists which actually need a $20k bike doesn't mean that the majority of $20k bike buyers are not doing it just for status (the famed dentist cyclists).
The original OP-1 was kind of expensive, but it was a unique product that a middle-class person might buy if they're really into creative music making. Sort of like how a middle-class person might buy a high-quality guitar -- because they feel it's worth it and there isn't n less expensive option that they'd be satisfied with.
I feel like at a $1999 price point, though, they've crossed into territory where their products are going to increasingly be seen as being only for rich people, and I think it's starting to hurt their credibility. The coverage of their new mixer on /r/synthesizers was overwhelmingly negative. It's like if Apple suddenly decided that going forward all their products would be gold plated and cost twice as much. If you make it too obvious that the point of the product is to flaunt wealth, then that detracts from it being just a product that's interesting, pleasant to use, and useful in some context.
What are you talking about? Analog synths and analog hardware as a whole are having a renaissance. There's more brand new analog synths on the market today than there have ever been. There's even a new Oberheim.
I feel like I have also seen this in the espresso community. Companies sprung up that are address a boutique audience that ultimately seems to be best-in-class but also charge some astronomical prices.
TE is following the Apple playbook to a T: fanatical obsession with appearance/image/brand positioning PLUS absolutely excellent engineering PLUS extreme price markups. The result is a product that has a bananas price tag but also has no real substitutes.
I'm not sure that really holds true for Apple. Almost every one of their products has huge competition where Apple usually still holds the title for best value product.
They have a few products like the Studio Display which don't have many direct replacements but all of Apples mainstream products are just good value.
$2000 - Teenage engineering worked hard to become an identy product and now can charge for it. If you sell identity, no price is too high. Do I want one? Yes. Do I buy one? No the identity tax is too high for me.
(though I like my Teenage Engineering PO-20, but a Novation Circuit works for my dabbling with sequencing).
> the thing I’m working with the most is the OP-1. It’s a sampler-based synthesizer, and I honestly think it’s the most important instrument that’s come into my life since I first picked up a guitar when I was 12 years old. I’m not exaggerating at all. I never leave the house without it. I don’t travel with the guitar anymore. I travel with just my OP-1. It’s been a big deal living with this thing. I love making music with it. I love traveling with it. I like using it as a writing extension. It’s a really special technology, essentially what a guitar is to me.
>> the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song.
Apart from...
* Laptop with your favourite DAW
* iPad with GarageBand or Android Tablet with Caustic
* I would put Novation Circuit in similar category though depends on your definition of whole song
* Synthstorm Deluge
* Digitakt Elektron?
* Some of the Roland grooveboxes and systems
* Some of the Akai APC/MPC or Native Instruments Machine? Not fully familiar with either but I thought e.g. Akai Live lets you do a full production
* Bunch of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting
I feel we are actually in a bonanza and cornucopia of portable music creation devices! And that's a good thing :). Heck even the Yamaha Reface is super portable, battery powered, real keyboard, lots of sounds, and you can hook it up to phone or a simple recorder/looper to make good stuff on the go. OP1 might be the smallest by some metrics, that may or may not be seen as a good thing.
Let's add the Nintendo Switch. I can get the KORG Gadget for 30£ and make some sweet tunes. Sure, to get the tunes out into something I can export sound from I'd need to get the KORG Gadget for iOS or Android, and from there to Ableton Live. But I've tried out the KORG Gadget on Switch and it's really fun to use.
The Deluge does have a built-in rechargable battery and basic sample slicing. The new 4.0 firmware added wavetable synthesis, euclidean sequencing, MPE/polyphonic aftertouch, and tons of other stuff. Their venn diagrams overlap a lot but each one has _many_ features the other doesn't. Honestly it's a pretty insane device for half the price and would be my pick too.
The latest OS update added a new synthesis method (wavetable) too, which is really fun and exciting for those of us with a huge wavetable archive to harvest.
It is literally not the only piece of music gear you can bring on a airplane and write a whole song...
Just a recent example, the Syntakt is very capable for writing full songs. So is other gear in the Elektron lineup, namely Digitakt.
Otherwise you also have (cheaper) gear like the Novation Circuit Tracks that can also do the same.
I mean, a cursory search for "portable grooveboxes" should have revealed a ton of results for you, that are able to do the same job as the OP-1 but for even as low as 1/4 of the price (the Circuit Tracks)
The Syntakt is not battery powered. I guess one could buy a beefy battery pack and adapter cable, but… what’s the point?
The Tracks is nice, but the synth engines are not fully accessible in the hw interface. At least the params are labeled now, trying to change sounds on my original was quite frustrating.
True that the Syntakt is not battery powered, when needed I run it on a battery bank (allowed to bring on the airplane) + PD cable. The point is being able to use the same gear I use in the studio but for jams where electricity available is not great, or being able to bring it wherever I go, as I consider the device itself portable, especially considering its larger cousins (like the A4, AR or even Octatrack).
Yeah, not being able to 100% customize the synths on the Tracks is bothering me as well. Luckily, my workflow is usually two parts that I do separate. One for sound design (with the Tracks hooked up to the computer) and one for everything else. For that, it does just fine, although the UX could be better for editing the synths.
> But the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song.
Apart from the several other great options mentioned in other replies, there’s also the Dirtywave M8. It, and the other tracker-style devices like the Polyend, actually make it much easier to write proper songs than the OP-1’s finnicky and unforgiving tape-based recording interface. (I own all these devices and have used them extensively.)
But if you are really serious about writing music on a plane just use a laptop and a modern DAW.
>But the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song. Show me another way to write a song in an airplane, and you can have my money.
Assuming you mean without using a phone, computer, or a tablet:
Yamaha Reface DX ($400) + Korg SOS Recorder ($100) + TE PO-12 Rhythm ($60), and you not only have a portable studio, but a performer's rig.
I'm powering mine from a powerbank via a USB-to-12V adapter, it lasts forever on a charge.
I can busk with Reface DX alone (it's built-in speakers are loud enough for a quiet street). Throw in a mini-amp, and it's a band.
And it comes with an optional keytar strap too, so I cann sling it around my shoulder.
And it's the best FM synthesizer ever made. Worth it for the E-Piano patch and Final Countdown-like leads alone, but the real magic comes in realtime manipulation of sound (something you couldn't do with the clunky controls of DX-7).
Yeah, I don't know if it fits your "all-in-one" defitinion, but surely OP-1 doesn't fit mine: it's missing a proper keyboard (my main rig is Yamaha MX-88, and I still say that Reface DX's keyboard is great).
And with some creative application of electrical tape, the drum machine / field recorder just become upgrades for the Reface DX, giving yout the ultimate unit.
There are a ton of replies with counter-examples, but all of those are not exactly like the OP-1: a fun, easy to use, ultraportable, immediate music creation sketchpad.
Many other grooveboxes are quite painful to use. Here I’d include the Korg Electribe which is terrible at inputting musical notes. Or the several trackers which look more like scientific calculators than musical instruments.
My MPC live can run circles around most grooveboxes, the OP-1 included, but that’s because it’s a computer: quite a bit heavier, takes time to boot, requires you to manage projects and adjust many parameters.
The Model Cycles doesn’t have a battery. Can be powered by a portable one, but that makes it just a little bit awkward. Elektron did launch a handle battery but it tended to catch fire in rare circumstances :-) Elektron boxes are in general considered difficult to use, even if the results can be impressive.
The Novation Circuit doesn’t allow full editing of the synth parameters. The synth parts are more like preset editors. Expect having to manage them from a computer.
The Deluge has a cumbersome buying process, where one has to basically buy from the manufacturer (NZ I think). I actually can’t but it from my/any local store. In reviews I’ve read that the interface is not that user-friendly/immediate.
Then there’a the multi-device set-ups consisting of Volcas, Rolands, etc. These can be nice, but it requires wiring them up every time! If I had to wire together 3 devices before I could make music, I’d rather do something else personally.
And so on and so forth. The new OP-1 is overpriced though. Maybe at 1500€ this would make some sense, but at this price point most people would rather deal with the disadvantages of other devices or device combos.
> but all of those are not exactly like the OP-1: a fun, easy to use, ultraportable, immediate music creation sketchpad.
BULLSHIT. There are tons of things the OP-1 DOES NOT DO that other devices listed here actually do. And frankly the OP-1 synth sound like crap, so it's not really inspiring for some of us musicians... when it comes to fun, that $2000 thing with a crappy sequencer is not fun to me.
There are many other options available - the groovebox market is booming right now. Even if you don't consider traditional grooveboxes like the Digitakt suitable for creating an actual "song", options like the Polyend Tracker are available and the modern MPC devices are basically a DAW-in-a-box now, complete with software synths.
The OP-1 is cool as hell, but realistically it's a £500 musical toy marked up to £2,000 simply because hipsters latched onto the design and marketing of it.
Not everyone who likes Teenage Engineering / OP-1 is a hipster, that's true. But I think Teenage Engineering / OP-1 is the only music making company/music equipment I frequently see designer friends post on Instagram/Twitter about even if those same friends never made music of their own.
Depends on how you define "a whole song", but I'd say theres plenty of other options. In fact I'd go so far as to say the polyend tracker is even better than the op-1 for that purpose. Even better than that, a standard laptop with a standard DAW. Or even an ipad for that matter, which has a great selection of its own software.
There are many things the OP-1 does that nothing else can do quite the same, but I wouldnt say thats one of them.
> But the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song.
This is just false, the Korg Electribe 2/ Sampler, the AKAI MPC 500, the Roland SP404, the Roland MC101, the Novation Circuit and many other devices allow the creation of whole songs and can easily be brought into a plane because they run on internal battery.
> Why has no one else figured that out? With all these groove boxes etc, why has no other music gear taken the step of being portable and all-in-one.
These devices I listed might not do everything the OP-1 does, but the OP-1 doesn't do everything these devices do either. The OP-1 is hardly an all-in-one music device and certainly not the first portable groovebox that runs off battery power.
A Electribe 2/Sampler costs $300, not $2000.
> Show me another way to write a song in an airplane, and you can have my money.
Answer my comment and I'll share with you my email for payment details. Put your money where your mouth is.
Yes. There are channels recreating popular songs in garageband on iphone (with no additional paid plugins).
Physical knobs and buttons feel good, OP-1 also forces you to commit to specific audio and puts some limitations on yuu which may help with creativity.
You can create something amazing using just your phone. But to get skill to be able to do that, you likely need toys that keep you inspired and make you want to play all day.
The iPad will work alone, and if you're just starting out it's fine. But it's best to add a tiny MIDI keyboard to the iPad. For extreme compactness, the Korg Nanokey 2 works well for me. It has nontraditional "button" keys, but so does the OP-1.
The iPad's touch screen is usable, but its velocity sensitivity isn't nearly as good as a hardware keyboard.
> But the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song
I could take a pen and some paper and write a whole song. Or take my laptop and write, record & mix a whole song. Or an iPad. Or the MPC as others have said, the Synthstrom Deluge... It's a fun toy, but not unique in that regard.
What’s lovely about this post is that it follows the rule of bold claims producing interesting counters. Here’s my hat in the ring: I have had a really good time with the Elektron Model: Samples. It’s among the cheapest grooveboxes and comes with all the effects, parameter locks, and preloaded samples you need to do some great things.
I like others think I want an OP-1 even though I don't know exactly what it does. Reminds me of a great ad for an electronic measurement bench product with the headline "I want it. What does it do?"
I have been looking at the Roland TR-6S or T-8 to go with a portable DJ kit like the Reloop Ready.
I'm having a hard time imagining boarding an airplane for a 6hr flight, whipping out the TE and headphones and then spending the entire flight composing a quality song. Really, who does that? There is just too much noise from the plane and I'd feel like seeking attention.
> OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song.
Laptops exist too. And also who is writing whole songs on the OP-1? A song needs to be bounced, mastered and uploaded which is gonna require another device.
Even for a Teenage Engineering product, I have sticker shock over this and their field mixer. They're nice products, but the premium is so high. I mean, I kind of get it. Their original OP-1 remains the top selling synth after 10 years. And the product is much loved and used (at least on Youtube). But, for the price of an OP-1 Field you can get a couple of Elektron digi-boxes, with a bit of money left over. This is certainly more portable... but wow $2,000 is a bit steep. I mean, I still want it, of course.
In a creative context/process I think it is a good thing if you can toy around with a device/instrument in a playful way. I'd definitely love if they would make their devices hackable though, that would unlock so much potential and the community is there.
As someone who has written a lot of music using Pocket Operators I disagree. They have been part of my songwriting tool chain for years and have pretty much worked their way into every recording I've made since I bought them. They are the perfect accompaniment when sitting down with a guitar to write music either acting as a metronome, a groove to jam over, or a complete drum/bass/synth backup with an arrangement (16 patterns and 128 measures is enough to write a good song). Also, Pocket Operators are cheap as hell, most under $100.
What's your favorite PO? (or even a couple favorites)
I loved playing with the one I have (I can't remember which it is off the top of my head). But it never became a major part of my music noodling workflow and now is collecting dust somewhere.
I do remember at some point that a friend got a different one and I was struck with jealousy over all the cool stuff it could do that mine didn't. Maybe it's time to check out a different one. Any recommendations?
I wouldn't go so far as to call the OP-1 a toy. The interface is definitely limiting but it's also whimsical. I use mine as a kind of stress relief tool. It's small, self-contained design means I can put my laptop away and focus on playing around and creating music.
This is an absolutely magical device that nevertheless makes me sad.
When I was a kid I thought I'd be riding around in flying cars by now. The problem ended up surprising me: It's not that flying cars don't exist--they do. The problem is they cost a million dollars because every one is built by hand. So there's no way I'll ever own one.
I'd also like to have a portable synth with great sound, long battery life, a multitude of handy features, and excellent design. But it's the same surprising problem as the flying cars: The technology to build it exists but it costs 10x what I'd be comfortable paying.
I'd be okay paying 2x for the great design, but 10x just makes the thing a piece of wealth-signifying jewelry. Even if somebody gave me one, I'd never want anybody to know I had it.
The OP-1 has a chiclet style keyboard. It isn't velocity sensitive. It is literally doing what Ableton Live et al can do with playing QWERTY keys. Not an Ableton Live exclusive feature either, most DAWs can do it OOBE these days.
Honestly, small MIDI controller and Cubasis on a phone, and you'll do everything the OP-1 can do and much more.
The OP-1 has been the single most inspiring tool I've had in a decade. Every other sampler I've bought has always failed to reliably draw me in.
There is no putting a price on creativity. Sure, the competition can compete on specs and price, but they never seem to get me to want to turn them on like the OP-1.
Just my opinion of course. But it is already a classic at this point and is deserving of respect.
I clicked through to the store thinking "Come on TE, what pricepoint have you set this time", and it's $2,000. Two grand. I chuckled, and closed the tab.
I remember buying the first OP-1 when it came out for something around $700 and even then thought "wow, this is a stretch". Since then they _raised_ the price of the original north of $1k. Don't get me wrong, TE makes incredible stuff and the OP-1 is no exception, but the price point just doesn't make sense unless you have serious money to burn. I had the same reaction to you after seeing the price for the mk2. At least, like a lot of synths, they hold their value?
> At least, like a lot of synths, they hold their value?
Like most synths, it seems so. Obviously not adjusted for the launch of the new "field" OP-1 yet, but locally (EU country) the OP-1 seems to go for about 700-1000 EUR second-hand. New one in stores here seems to still be 1100+ EUR (closest store to me lists it at ~1200 EUR new).
> Meanwhile, the OP-1 was used on like 40% of all modern pop music production process.
I’d love to see a citation for that. Lots of artists use it for demos, and it’s a good live tool, but if you look at modern pop it’s being produced with soft synths or Sequentials, Rolands, Korgs, etc.
> Meanwhile, the OP-1 was used on like 40% of all modern pop music production process.
Citation needed, given how poorly its synthesizer engine sounds, I do not believe that the case one second. It's certainly hip among hobbyists though because praised by a bunch of youtube influencers...
To me your comment sounds like something you just made up entirely.
For the same money it would be possible to buy the full version of a DAW of your choice, Kontakt, Arturia V-Collection and a PC to run them all on. I'm sure the OP-1 is fun, but I doubt it's £2,000 worth of fun.
It's true that if you just compare the costs, it might be cheaper to go the software route. But I mainly make music to go away from the computer, as I spend a lot of my days programming on one already. And the ability of pulling me away from the computer you can't put a price on :)
Plus, fiddling with real knobs that affect the sound in real-time, having a keyboard with a heavy feel, being able to turn on the hardware and instantly be able to use it (no fucking around with forced updates) and the ability to mod your own hardware with just a solder-iron is just like really really fun.
Sorry, didn't want to give the impression that the OP-1 (original or this one) is good money spent, because that I don't think. The price of this (+ the rest of their products) are wildly over-priced. I was more talking about the whole software VS hardware side of things.
If I had $2000 to throw around, I'd buy a Syntakt + Digitone/Digitakt instead and get a setup that could do whatever I want + more.
No, I was just pointing out that its functionality doesn't really justify the price tag when you compare it with what's also available elsewhere. £2,000 would also buy you a Korg Minilogue XD, a Korg Opsix, a Korg Wavestate AND some form of groovebox or hardware sequencer to tie them all together, if you like small form factor gear.
Kind of. In my experience, design gets priority over things like usability and durability. My OP-Z is barely usable after a few years of owning it due to the (admittedly nice) material the chasis is made of. The buttons frequently double trig, the dials have popped out, and it's got a bit of a bend in it.
I also get some mis-trig issues on the pocket operators, though for the price I don't mind them as much. The original OP-1 didnt seem to have these issues at least.
That being said, I've never been able to fully replace my OP-Z with anything else on offer so yeh, they're innovative if nothing else.
Who is this for? Is it for music professionals who can actually record music (or ideas) on the go? Or is it for wealthy enthusiasts who have cash to throw around at a fun piece of kit?
It's a beautiful piece of hardware from a design-first company and from all the reviews of the original it seems to be an excellent and unique music making machine, but at the price I'm just not sure who it's aimed at.
I'm not a musician but I've played the piano for a lot of my life. I'd love to experiment with making music and the original OP-1 looked like a lot of fun. I'd kept my eye on it and was thinking of pulling the trigger. At $1k+ though it was a total stretch for a non-professional. The new OP-1 at $2k+ is just ludicrous.
It’s a great bit of fun that can produce interesting and surprising sounds. For a lot of musicians a fun piece of gear can be a source of inspiration, which can be very valuable. So yeah, it’s a toy, but you can make real music with toys.
It's not ludicrous. It's rational decision on their part. OP-1 is still available, expensive and sells well.
If you want to experiment you have everything you want on your laptop. There are many alternative cheaper solutions. It is somewhat unique and well thought-out. The fact that you were considering it at $1k just proves their point.
The newly announced Polyend Play and Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field are great examples of very different UX and very different workflows to solve a similar problem - making music without a computer, creatively, ideally with a flow state.
It's very interesting just looking at how they do it.
Dunno if I will get either one, or both. Either way, I do appreciate the direction they are going in. :-)
I've always wanted to buy the OP-1 because it's such a cool little device. I'm not very talented when it comes to making music though so the steep price tag has always kept me away. Maybe one day i'll buy one
It's quite obvious to me that it's a keyboard instrument from the first picture alone. The copy gives plenty of information on the synthesis and sampling capabilities.
Yeah I can see it has a keyboard, presumably some kind of synthesiser.
It also appears to have some recording facility, but not clear how to get audio into it - can't tell what ports it has. Is the recording feature just for sequencing internal sample and synth sounds?
Or... they highlight the new version now has a 2.4ghz antenna - do you stream audio in/out over bluetooth?
A little explanation of basically what it can do or how they imagine it being used would go a long way
I think both of your questions are answered on the page. Maybe not in the direct manner in which you have asked, but my understanding is that recording is possible with the mixer accessory mentioned towards the bottom, and the antennas are for the Bluetooth MIDI feature heavily emphasised towards the top.
Maybe they do need a FAQ with a basic Q&A format, though. e.g.
Why does it have antennas?
How do I record?
What do the knobs do?
How many instruments are included?
How do I transfer recordings to my computer or phone?
In terms of wired connectors, it has USB-C, line in and out sockets, and a 4-pole audio jack for headset or mic support. OP-1 also has its own mic built into the body as well.
Unlikely. People hailed the lack of undo (and the tape-recorder) as a feature because it makes you either commit to your mistakes, or having to re-record. Not for me, but that's what I've heard people say about it.
And also, "undo" is mentioned nowhere, and since they add "new packaging" to their list of features, I think undo would be mentioned there if it had it. I've heard an equal amount of people praising the lack of undo, as berating the OP-1 for lacking one, so they surely would have added it if they wanted to.
This is yet another Teenage Engineering bauble that as an interested amateur I love to look at and at 1/4 to 1/3 the price might consider buying. I'm glad their target market can justify their prices because their stuff is really nice. I'm just not part of it.
As someone not in the field of audio engineering, I had no idea what this product is. The website focused on describing all the features without giving a simple 1-2 line description of what the product even is.
it's the kind of thing that if you don't know it's not for you. very hipster product for weird electronic musicians, more of a fashion statement than anything else really.
I have mixed feelings about OP1. It’s like a cave man jam toy but also something capable of creating accidental awesomeness. 2000$ is questionable. I wonder what we will see in the sponsored YouTube videos.
Product development of such calibre is expensive, especially given the volatility of the supply chains today.
$2000 given what you get is a bargain.
Mind you, it's not a product being manufactured at scale like mobile phones.
The cost of development of the enclosure alone must have taken several mortgages ;-)
That's nonsense. It's approaching the price of an arturia polybrute. You don't get a lot for the money - it was overpriced before this new model, now its just obscene.
It would be amazing, and not too unlike TE, if they released some of these features as updates to the original OP-1. I'm particularly interested in the new tape recording styles.
Off topic, but does anyone have stereo OD11s? I’m seriously interested in these as an alternative to spending too much money on a two channel system that beams at a single sweet spot.
$2k? Yikes. I’m sure it’s cool cause I had the original OP-1 and it was lots of fun.
But that’s just too expensive.
You can get a serious analog synth at that price.
Yeah, "new product" indeed, especially considering these "features" from that huge "feature" list:
- NEW COLOR SCHEME
- DUAL VELCRO® BACK FASTENERS
- ERGONOMIC POWER SWITCH
- ULTRA-FIDELITY HEADPHONE OUTPUT
- NEW CUSTOM USB CABLE
- NEW FONT
- NEW METRONOME SOUND
- NEW PACKAGING
- QR CODE GUIDE LINK
I'm not gonna lie, I'm generally a teenage engineering fan (besides the price that is), but some of those features sounds like part of a comedy/sarcastic copy of the actual launch website.
It looks nice and I may consider buying one for research purpose. But I know the price tag can be quite high for many. Maybe that's partially the reason that I believe free and open-source software is a form or music democratisation. I would like to invite those who are interested in this idea to try my live coding project in the browser:
I have been taking this project to different workshops and there will be more. The most unforgettable experience so far is that in one place the host can only provide old laptops that can hardly run Chrome smoothly. It really makes me think a lot afterwards. There are so many people excluded from music making due to the price tag.
On the one hand, it's exciting to see the exploration aestheticism, design and interaction. But on the other hand, we should really consider the democratisation of music tech.
Talking about making it easier to write music and then linking to a programming language for making music feels a bit weird. Yes, hardware is a barrier for sure, but a even larger barrier would be to put it behind a complicated programming language.
If we really want to "democratize music tech" (whatever that means), then I think things like the Korg Volcas are much closer to achieving that. Cheaper than most computer hardware, very intuitive even for people who never touched a synth before, and hardware that is relatively easy to grok, even the insides of it. Easy to take apart as well.
The only thing missing from the Volcas would be a completely open source design both for the hardware and the firmware. That would get us much closer than a programming language for music could ever.
Good point! Programming language can be harder to learn. I totally agree with it. With a hardware, you can easily make some sound. But on the other hand, languages are free and we can make the docs and videos so that the learning curve can be less steep. I would be amazed if one without any previous experience can master, say Mother-32, even with manuals and tutorials.
Also, the way I design Glicol (graph-oritend live coding language) is actually against normal programming paradigms such as FP or OOP. I always let my students to hear and see how an audio node works. I would call it as an instrument-design perspective. This may also lower the learning bar.
And to compare programming languages with hardware tools, I can also mention the logic loop. For example, you can easily duplicate 100 oscillators in live coding but generally impossible to achieve with hardware synth.
I disagree. I think there is room for both. I own two Volcas, and don't use them much unfortunately.
The problem with hardware is it's extremely difficult, or downright impossible, to save state.
On a physical modular synth, the only way to remember what you did is to write it down or (maybe) take pictures. On a virtual modular synth all you have to do is Save As.
I'm sure OP-1 can save its patches, but that doesn't address the problem of the whole chain, or backups.
Eh, that's not at all true. Being able to recall state is something that has been solved for a long time, but not all synths have that functionality, I'll give you that.
As two examples of synths I own that can do this:
- Moog Sirin supports Program Change MIDI messages, so I save the state of the current settings via MIDI on my Octatrack, and can recall that same state whenever I want without touching the hardware of the Sirin
- Novation Summit allows you to save patches with your own name + putting it in a category. Recalling the same patch is a matter of turning the knob until you arrive there.
Not sure how you arrived to the conclusion that saving state is "extremely difficult, or downright impossible".
> Not sure how you arrived to the conclusion that saving state is "extremely difficult, or downright impossible".
I was thinking about modular synths mostly, and patching cables (also: Volca Modular).
Yes, individual synths can save/export settings, but if you want to save a whole combination with different machines it's a big headache; whereas in a DAW it's so trivial you don't even think about it.
But ok, we are sliding into the "hardware vs software" debate, which won't be solved here or there, or ever.
> I was thinking about modular synths mostly, and patching cables (also: Volca Modular).
Ah yeah, I don't use modular synths myself (and that reason is one of them, patching cables manually seems like a hassle).
> Yes, individual synths can save/export settings, but if you want to save a whole combination with different machines it's a big headache; whereas in a DAW it's so trivial you don't even think about it.
As mentioned earlier, Program Change MIDI messages solve this. I have about 10 hardware devices I use for music making, and all of them responds to Program Change messages. Everything is driven by the Octatrack, so changing the project/pattern on the Octatrack makes every device in my studio load the right patch instantly. Once you've setup the audio/MIDI routing with your hardware, it's actually pretty easy to use.
> But ok, we are sliding into the "hardware vs software" debate, which won't be solved here or there, or ever.
Agree :) For some, hardware is better, for others software is better. Truth is probably somewhere in-between and/or both depending on context.
Why do you need to save state?
If you don't, it helps you finish the project and move onto the next one.
And if you do it every day, then you could likely dial in any settings from your own memory quicker that it would have taken to menu dive and load from disk.
I need to save state because I don't finish projects in one sitting, and I don't have enough room (or money) to have different instances of the same machine lying around forever.
MIDI controllers are great (and I even built a couple myself) to let one interact physically with an instrument. But I'm not sure I get the appeal of physical synths.
To each their own though. I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm just saying the key to more music is not necessarily more physical objects; more software is also great.
No, it uses EGUI in Rust for the GUI, and Glicol synth as the audio engine. The link of that repo is actually a GitHub template so one can easily customise it to any audio effect.
That said, the sounds it ships with really leave something to be desired. My subjective opinion is that anyone who's played with a best in class software synth (i.e., equator2) is going to find themselves feeling pretty limited by the blippy tones that you get out of the box.
Sure, you can load up the sampler with tons of cool tones and op1.fun is a wonderful resource, but it's a lot of work to go curate a bunch of sounds to compensate for a lackluster palette.
I can already hear people saying that I'm missing the point and that the constraints are designed to inspire creativity, etc. I respect that point of view, but at the end of the day, my creative time is at a premium, and I'd like to use that time to create stuff that I'm proud to show friends and family.
Most of the stuff I produced with the OP-1 sounded like video game music or music for a kid's cartoon (i.e., Adventure Time). If that's your thing, then awesome! If not, I'd consider the core tonal possibilities before you make a big investment.