Teenage Engineering is a frustrating company. On the one hand, they set out to create some of the most fun music equipment you can own: their Pocket Operator line is awesome for beginners of the hardware world, and they've consistently innovated with their grooveboxes. The problem? They have absolutely no respect for their pricing model. The OP-1 used to cost $800, which was already a big ask for a microprocessor, OLED screen and plastic enclosure. A great machine, but a hard to swallow price to be sure. Once YouTubers started picking up on them, they chose to increase the price (blaming it on a supply shortage, since we all know how hard it is to find ARM cores and OLEDs /s), leaving the OP-1 at a bewildering $1100 total.
If you, the reader, has $1100, pick up an Octatrack. Elektron is one of the few companies that pushes the envelope of digital sequencing and hardware production, and the Octatrack is the pinnacle of their work. At $900-1000, you'll definitely get more mileage out of it than an OP-1, and you don't have to support Teenage Engineering's shitty pricing schema. Even at $600, you can buy an Elektron Digitakt/Digitone, which will probably serve you better in the long run.
>The OP-1 used to cost $800, which was already a big ask for a microprocessor, OLED screen and plastic enclosure
I'm not sure it makes sense to price a hardware product on it's BOM. This kind of thinking is what leads to most hardware being absolutely crappy. Good product designers need to be paid, and design choices don't show up in the BOM. The same goes to hardware.
When I see an ARM chip and an OLED screen going for $$$, the calculus in my mind is I'm actually paying for engineering and design labor, not a BOM.
This is top down pricing. Multiple engineers clocked a considerable amount of time on this project. The number of OP-1s sold probably numbers only in the low tens of thousands. It's priced appropriately considering how many they're going to sell and the value the device provides (and not just the raw material cost).
We do a lot of computer programming using free or cheap (and billed monthly) tools on this site, so it's really easy to forget that professionals in other fields will pay a premium for something that works with minimal fiddling. Watching electrical engineering managers dump tens of thousands into single pieces of test equipment to not have to fuck around with patchwork solutions is enlightening, and I think software developers would do that a lot more if the FOSS route wasn't the only thing they knew.
I bought my OP-1 at a steal for $600 two years back. I'd pay $1200 for it today, maybe $1600.
There's a lot of more technically capable stand-alone gear that can be had for less of course. My MPC Live is what my finished (not good compared to others, I'm just an amateur making video game soundtracks for kids I teach game dev to) songs ultimately come out of, and the Octatrack is something I've really enjoyed playing with. None of these are going to be something that lives in my backpack and comes out in the park on a sunny day when I've got that perfect boss battle intro sequence drop popping into my head though. Size considerations aside, I can slam down a decent prototype of a song that's actually listenable in just a couple of minutes on the OP-1 before the idea fades away, and have a blast doing it.
I think their pricing is sensible. The thing fills a niche no other piece of gear I've found can. That seems worth paying for.
Yeah, I absolutely love my OP-1. Drum machines, synths, everything I need for sketching out ideas anywhere I might happen to have some free time. Before the Lost Year, it was great to bring on trips: You can do some great stuff on an airplane.
I believe George Harrison said the ukulele is the best instrument for songwriting - it's portable, self-contained, and incredibly easy to work with. The OP-1 hits a similar spot for me: It's a bicycle for songwriting.
I bought a used one a little while back - because I wanted to try it out and I found one at a price where I knew I could re-sell it easily. I fiddled around with it periodically, and it was fun, and with my limited skills I could do something that sounded reasonably musical with it. But - a. No proper MIDI implementation and b. I found the synth engines very frustrating.
On the other hand, using it as a way to add backing to my sax playing, and record my sax onto the device was fun.
But I got rid of it, and bought a used organellem and plenty of change left over (with which I might buy a proper sequencer at some point, but maybe not).
I've currently got a Novation Circuit which I bought on the same idea. Because I play a lot of acoustic music the circuit seems definitely not for me, but again it's kind of fun and has a nice shallow learning curve.
I agree; I tried standalone boxes like the Electribe 2 and Circuit, and the iPad with Korg Gadget is just way more flexible and quicker. The soft synths available are truly equal to desktop apps now. DAWs like Cubasis and Aria are way more powerful than the OP-1s abilities, although I still feel like the workflow could be improved.
Sorry for the meta-discussion (which I know is against the guidelines), but I'm finding it really hard to respond kindly to your comment, given the overarching tone ("no respect", "hard to swallow", sarcasm about parts, "shitty pricing"). I'd love to engage with you on the merits of pricing for what the market will bear, CoGS including software and craftsmanship, etc, but I am not able. Perhaps that's my failing, but I'd like to encourage you to be less acerbic in the future.
If my tone comes off as "acerbic", I guess I'm a little surprised. I love Teenage Engineering (and own a few Pocket Operators too), but I gotta call them out on the pricing issue here. When the price of the OP-1 did start to skyrocket in 2012, Teenage Engineering said absolutely nothing, and then discontinued it in 2013, sending the secondhand market soaring again. Of course, their response is to put it back into production at a higher cost, for more customers. You can slice this any way you want, but there's not really an excuse for an all-digital synth to increase in price like that. I have no doubts that a simple redesign could bring the BOM down to sub-$200, even in 2015. Failing that, they could have taken the re-release as an opportunity to fix some of the issues in the original model: give it a sensible charging port, improve the microphone quality, or even improving the sample transfer software. None of these issues were ever addressed. The insult added to injury is the OP-Z, a "successor" that was designed to be inferior to it's predecessor, as not to cannibalize it's market.
Maybe I am hateful, but Teenage Engineering has definitely had a fall from grace. Even their recent modular kits left a bad taste in my mouth...
There are schools of (microeconomic) thought that would encourage them to raise prices even further in order to reduce demand to match their supply capability. If the second-hand market prices a good higher than the original seller, that's a very clear signal to increase the price. At least that way the profits end up in the manufacturer's pocket (which they can use to increase volume) instead of a speculator's. That is all to say, their raising prices is ethical, legal, and moral.
You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. Even absent the above, it makes perfect sense that they could be losing money on a product, and then re-introduce it at a higher price so they stop losing money.
Now, should they have been losing money at the lower price point? You talk a lot about CoGS, but that completely neglects things like design and development time. The OP-1 is, by all accounts, extremely well-designed and built. Economies of scale let companies like Apple pick lower margins because that R&D time is amortized over a huge number of devices manufactured. Boutique operations can't do that.
All that still ignores squishier questions like choosing to keep a price point in order to fund other projects (that may never be built) with increasing margins over time, or hell, I dunno, paying bigger bonuses to employees. Clearly people are willing to pay it, and they're under no obligation to price their goods according to any objective thing at all. Maybe the CEO is a mystic and likes the numerology of the new price better.
> You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price.
This is typical behavior of a certain large class of musicians, particularly electronic ones.
The message boards are full of people complaining that these companies charge "too much." They will also then complain that Behringer sucks for "stealing" ideas and pricing them affordably.
Meanwhile, it has never been cheaper to buy music equipment and software. And there are tons of high quality free software out there.
I would hesitate to enter into the business of selling music software or hardware. It seems pretty thankless.
If it were truly possible to create and sell the OP-1 or an equivalent device for under $1000, some company would have done it already. I'd gladly buy a Behringer copy of the OP-1 for $500, and I bet loads of other people would as well.
It could even be twice the volume and be ugly AF.
I don't know why it's so difficult or unattractive to put a sequencer, a sampler and a synthesizer in one box with a keyboard on it, but the OP-1 seems to be the only successful implementation of that idea.
The Behringer thing is really confusing to me. I know there are other personal/ethical reasons to dislike them, but cloning out of patent devices is not one of them. That's what patents are for and why they're only valid for a defined period of time. It makes even less sense to criticize them when the originals they are cloning aren't even made anymore.
I don't think Behringer only creates clones of "out of patent" hardware but also current gear that is still being sold. I guess the latest example is the Behringer Swing that is obviously a clone of the Arturia Keystep.
There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
This is like two mobile phone companies putting their volume buttons in the same place.
This is another weird aspect of the (often amateur, electronic) music production world - making something simple and obvious seem like a mysterious and unique breakthrough.
This is a community that likes to use the terms “aleatoric” and “euclidian” instead of “random” and “evenly distributed”. Yes, I know the origins of those two terms but I don’t care - I eyeroll every time I hear them.
> There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
You're joking right? There are thousands of combinations of where to put things to make a clone less obvious, but obviously they didn't care to do anything of that.
> There are thousands of combinations of where to put things to make a clone less obvious
Disagree. This is like saying there are thousands of combinations of where to put doors on a car or volume controls on a phone. There are really only like one or two, and I doubt any of them are like, copyrightable.
These are simple devices with simple features, not a single one which was invented by Arturia.
If I slap an arpeggiator on a midi keyboard, do I have to put the knobs on the right hand side to not infringe on the Keystep? And at that point, can no one else put an arpeggiator in a 25-key midi keyboard because all layout combinations in that form factor are "used up?"
I just don't get the outrage over this other than I think it comes from people who already hate Behringer.
> I just don't get the outrage over this other than I think it comes from people who already hate Behringer.
Then you have your first counter-point here, because I don't have Behringer, I simply think some of their practices are shady. But no hate, and I have nothing against people who chose to buy their gear. I don't want to, because of their shady practices, but that doesn't mean I hate Behringer in total.
And no, if you have an arpeggiator on a midi keyboard, you don't have to place them in a different place than the Keystep. But if you have exactly the same features, and you put them in the same place, with a so similar design that consumer could be confused which one you have in front of you, then it starts getting into a territory that me myself, is not comfortable with.
If you remove the Arturia and and Behringer logo together with the text on the Swing, you think most people would accurately be able to separate which one is which? I think not, and that's when you're infringing on someones copyright.
>There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
>This is like two mobile phone companies putting their volume buttons in the same place.
In this case I think Behringer directly copied the look and feel of the keystep because of its amazing success in the low budget controller space. I don't expect much innovation in the budget controller space, but this one seems to be a clear case of trademark/copyright infringement if "rounded corners" can be protected.
Whatever justifies it for you. For every extra dollar they eke out of bougie hipster, they ostracize people like me who would definitely buy one if it was $500 or $600
Companies are under no obligation to not ostracize potential customers. Do you also think that luxury car companies are shitty and ridiculous because they charge more than cars that "do the same thing"?
I do, but I am admittedly a small sample. A case can certainly be made that luxury cars, in general, are not very "good" cars in most metrics as by which the industry measures what a "good" car should be. I think OP has a valid point, if the synth Teenage is selling is inferior and more expensive but sells because "status" and signaling.
But they do sell, and Lamborghini or Porsche are not under any obligation to make a cheap car so that everyone who wants one can afford one, nor should they.
I didn't get a sense of entitlement. I see someone frustrated with features for price, then calling it out as non-sensical. I like when people do that frankly. Is it judgey? You bet, and its ok to have an opinion on the matter!
I would have agreed with you, but sourcing OLED displays is a pain in the ass. I've been personally bitten by this.
So, if they bought a 1000 obsolete displays and burned through them, it may actually take an act of God to get more. And you'll probably have to redesign your circuits.
Sure, but TE talked about the OP-1 as a 20 year project. The idea they paid the tooling costs for the body and then just slapped some remaindered displays on them stretches credulity.
I haven't heard about this. Were they busted lying about supply chain issues as an excuse to raise prices? Their stuff is pricey but cool, but if it's documented that they lied about that, that would be hard to get past.
They have talked about it some, seemed reasonable.
Also understand why it would not be a popular decision though. Think running a business, and understanding success can be very temporary if you are not careful helps.
"We have had to face other costs than the actual components’ costs of course. The currency conversion, inflation, sourcing of the new component, re-coding the display, re-designing the mounting, new tools etc. are just a few of the “why”. When Teenage Engineering faced the reality of the OP-1’s future, there were only 2 choices: kill or save. We decided to save it. I understand that the new price is a disappointment to many of our fans. But I do hope some are happy that we did not kill it."
That seems unfortunate but reasonable. I don’t begrudge anyone making that choice, and I don’t begrudge anyone thinking their prices are too high (and I don’t begrudge anyone buying their stuff anyway because they think something’s cool). I was way more concerned about the claim that they lied about it and were scamming their customers somehow, but so far there’s no evidence of that.
> The OP-1 used to cost $800, which was already a big ask for a microprocessor, OLED screen and plastic enclosure. A great machine, but a hard to swallow price to be sure. Once YouTubers started picking up on them, they chose to increase the price (blaming it on a supply shortage, since we all know how hard it is to find ARM cores and OLEDs /s), leaving the OP-1 at a bewildering $1100 total.
I gotta point out that the price increase was because the original OLED screen went out of production and they had to use a different one which required major changes to the hardware and probably software (at least that's what they say). Also the enclosure is actually a solid block of CNC machined aluminium which is quite nice and robust.
You can't determine a synth's value based on it's components, or it's sounds. A PC with completely free plugins and VST will be always be much more customisable and "powerful" than any hardware device, and have better sound, too. That's not what you're paying for.
You're paying for UX that creates the pit of success for your music-making process.
You pay for the fact that you use knobs, not mouse — although you would be able to draw an infinitely detailed automation with it. You pay for the limited choices you have, and where these limitations lead you. You pay for the touch & feel. You pay for purely subjective, aesthetic factors, like look and smell — because music-making is a completely subjective, intuitive process and your psychological state is more important for it having a Turing-complete LFO system.
I like OP-1 and I like Octatrack, but there's just no way you could have any objective "measurement" for which one is better of has better value — because any value that these devices have is subjective. If you want to decide which one to buy, forget everything about specs, and just spend an hour or two playing with them, feeling them with your hands while you make music.
I've owned an OP-1, Octatrack, and Digitone at various points.
They aren't comparable to the OP-1, which is more of a quirky, fun, expensive toy, and there's nothing else like it really. I wasn't getting anything done with it, so I sold it. But, I can definitely see how someone could have a lot of fun making songs with it.
Is it worth a thousand bucks? Nowadays you're probably better off spending half that on a Roland MC-101 or Novation Circuit Tracks.
But I always kind of wish I never got rid of my OP-1 - it was definitely the most fun I've had on a self-contained hardware device - the tape interface for recording was just awesome.
But as for the price increases, I never understood why people complain about this. They can charge whatever they want. This not a necessary item.
> Elektron is one of the few companies that pushes the envelope of digital sequencing
I think the Elektron sequencer workflow is overrated. Software is better. I understand thinking the restrictions encourage creativity (I don't personally subscribe to this idea), but the sequencer isn't "pushing the envelope" compared to what you can whip up in software.
So I guess I kind of think some of the Elektron machines are also quirky, expensive toys.
I design and build modules for the eurorack modular synthesizer system. And I can vividly remember that in the beginning, still being a student my one thought was: Why is this stuff so expensive.
Five years later, I find myself arguing the opposite in many cases. Most modular synth stuff is not too expensive, but has just the price you'd expect it to have given the number of units sold and the BOM.
Yet when I was starting out my comparison were e.g. guitar pedals, which is a much much bigger market. Electronics scale like that. Whether you sell a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand units really makes a difference in terms of pricing. And quite frankly, if you worked 2 years on development it is a bit bold to expect from you that you did this for free.
That doesn't mean there are overprized things in synth bussiness. The OP-1 definitly seems pricier than one would expect, but I don't know enough about it to say thia with confidence.
I don’t feel that an Octatrack/Digitakt/Digitone is quite a replacement for an OP-1. They may be better sequencers (I don’t have the relevant knowledge to claim whether or not they are), but I’ve always gotten the impression from professional musicians and composers that the appeal of the OP-1 is a combination of form factor and portability. It has keys in a piano layout which makes it easy to play on and it is in a small enough size that you can throw it in your backpack when traveling.
Indeed. A closer comparison would be something like the Korg Electribe, which while quite fun in it's own right, is nowhere near as capable as the OP-1. Though it is quite a bit cheaper (about $600 AUD or so)
Honestly the octatrack is just as old and overpriced. Elektron has left it behind in terms of features like “overbridge” and after learning the ins and outs of my I much prefer separate sampler, sequencer and looper.
Don’t get me wrong, the OT is an amazing box. I just think that for the money a person can make much more interesting jams on a digitakt or midel:samples and an rc505, for instance.
Comparing the Octatrack which just had it's 10 year anniversary with newer devices seems a bit unfair. I think it was a nice machine for it's time (and at second hand going rate around 500-600 euro still a good deal).
There's an advantage to not having to connect and configure multiple boxes if you just want to make some music.
Depending on your musical tastes and tolerance for UI complexity, you may be better served by other Elektron devices as your first purchase. The Octatrack is very powerful but pretty complex to wrap your head around.
Personally I’d go for the Analog Rytm mk2, especially if you like drum-based electronic music... it sounds fantastic, is a great analog drum machine but each track can also be used as a synth or sampler track, which makes it much more than just a drum machine, you can really quickly make great sounding full tracks on it. It also has a really fun interface with far fewer button combos to remember etc. than the Octatrack.
Of course, it doesn’t matter too much because once you buy one you’ll eventually end up buying them all ;) I agree that Elektron are making some of the most fun and exciting music gear out there, I love all their stuff. Quite a strong tracker influence to their sequencer which I like too!
I think the complexity of the Octatrack is a bit overstated and probably scares people more than necessary. Only confusing part is the whole track/machine/part/pattern/banks thing, but other Elektron machines have similar complexity. Or maybe it's the sequencer people are scared of? But it's a easy one with just a lot of depth.
But I'd agree with you, as a owner of both a Rytm and Octatrack, to go for the Rytm before the Octatrack as it's simply a nicer standalone machine, the Octatrack really needs companions to be fully useful.
> I agree that Elektron are making some of the most fun and exciting music gear out there, I love all their stuff
Yeah it is probably overstated, but it is definitely a slightly confusing machine compared to other modern Elektrons (I have the Machinedrum, which you can clearly see how it inspired the Octatrack).
I don't use my OT that often and whenever I pull it out it takes me a while to reorient myself with how I load a sample, why is that track muted, etc. etc. Of course out of this architecture comes great flexibility too, unmatched by anything else hardware based really, and when I listen to the patterns I've made, they do sound unlike anything I make with other gear (in a cool way). I am going to try to integrate it as a live looper for "live" performances (to an audience of one, myself, in the bedroom, but everyone has to start somewhere!).
And yeah, I'm hooked too. Got most of the boxes now, just missing Monomachine (never really grabbed me and definitely not at the second hand prices!) and Analog Heat (which I bet I'd love but it feels expensive for "just an effect"). Don't regret it all though, I love how each one is a self-contained groovebox that I can make a full track on on the sofa, but also they integrate really well for a more advanced setup. And they're just super fun!
Funny that you mention the Heat as I just got that one a few days ago as a complement to my Rytm and Octatrack. It is so much more than "just an effect" and currently sitting on my master output, making everything sound just better. Thinking of getting a second one to put between the Octatrack and my other instruments too, but have to let the GAS build up a bit first I think.
At that price I expected some actual analog hardware under that pretty case, not just an ARM chip and some OLEDs
But then again, back in the day I paid out the ass for a Virus TI, which is largely the same setup. Though for virtual analog it did sound fantastic. I miss that thing...
I like high profit margins. It makes possible (but doesn’t guarantee) better design, better working conditions, smaller volumes, healthy second hand market etc. I love OP-1 but in the end it’s going to be waste. We are in huge trouble optimizing for ever cheaper everything on this planet. If we would be talking about healthcare, food, housing, education I would be more on consumers side, but teenage engineering makes toys for people who have maslows lower levels covered.
People have been making the same argument about Apple for years. Execution matters. I'll pay a premium for a product that works and has a high quality product design.
Obviously TE is a company for profit. I don't feel it's a bad thing for them to do so. This proves there is a market for such product, and the competitors should see the opportunities and try to make some great design products that would catch everyone's eye. As a result, it should benefit the consumers.
Sure, you have to wait for a while if you don't want to throw cash to TE, but such cool-kids-toys are not expected to be cheap anyway.
You don't understand their pricing because you don't understand what they are actually selling. They don't sell musical devices, they sell status symbols.
You buy an OP-1 to look cool, not to actually make music with it. It's a bit like with the iPhone, but on a whole different level.
Some buy fancy sneakers, others buy fancy pens and Moleskine, others buy an OP-1.
And you can't have a cheap status symbol.
This is also why they look so clean and minimalistic, like a MacBook, to the point of sacrificing ergonomy, since the aesthetic is what they are selling, so they can't look gnarly, black and full of ports and cables like an actual musical device.
This is simply not true. I own a lot of synths, and the OP-1 is a very capable (and extremely portable) 4 track studio. I sketch a lot of music on it, and it sees regular use in the studio.
There will always be a collector class with any category of designer product. Established manufacturers (Nike, Monte Blanc, Omega) are aware of this and directly cater to those customers. I don't think this was TE's intent when they launched their synthesizer.
The OP-1 is an incredibly well designed product that stands on its own as an instrument. The device has taken on the life of a status symbol somewhat in 10 years, but is that due to TE or due to the quality of the product? Synthesizers have their own collector class after all, but I don't think you can accuse TE of intentionally catering to those folks when they made the OP-1. People like good design for many reasons. The OP-1 has an undeniable aesthetic quality but it's a versatile and flexible (and portable) instrument under all that.
That's a very bad hole to dig with "most people buy it because" nonsense. Why do YOU care what others buy or don't buy? Were you ever going to get one? Even at $400-$600? It smacks of "I don't want this, therefore NO one should want this...and if they do they are only getting it because blah blah blah".
Let people like/use/play what they want and stop judging others for their choices just because they're not YOUR choices. I, btw, don't own anything by Teenage Engineering, but it absolutely doesn't affect my world one iota if someone else does.
Do me a favor and go on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook and look up the million videos of people making music with it. You don’t know what you’re talking about here. I don’t know a single person who flashes their OP-1. By your argument, owning a guitar and only knowing a couple chords is “status symbol” purchase.
You know what I see in 20% of instagram pictures tagged OP-1? Cassettes. Are you telling me there is no hipster aesthetic that a lot of these posters aspire too?
If you don’t like some particular piece of music, just say so, but you’re pigeonholing a lot of people, and it makes you look like you’re saying “they’re wearing bellbottoms! This isn’t art!”
The first time I saw an OP-1 was the MoMa design store. It took me a few minutes to realize that expensive synthesizers are the new unplayed, high-end electric guitars that boomers like to buy.
Modulars and multifunctional devices like the OP-1 or Octatrack seem to be what "the kids" are interested in, if they buy new hardware - there is just more "bang for the buck" when you go with those options. Vintage synths are fun curiosities, but with prices skyrocketing, most everyone turns to the very accurate software reproductions to actually use the sounds.
It's a very rapid divergence between collectors and users.
There are plenty of musicians using classic hardware, not just collectors. Same with guitars.
OP-1 and Octatrack provide a different workflow but the classic stuff provides a truly special sound. While the software reproductions of vintage analog synths get you 90% of the way there, musicians want 100% of the sound. If that weren’t the case then you would see prices of classic instruments go down.
I am not a pro musician however, I just want to noodle every so often for fun.
In my experience the collectors and 'gear junkie' crowd are the people buying the vintage stuff now (and obsessing which of the dozens of 303 clones sounds most like the original) while the pro's just make music with whatever equipment they have and like...
I didn't say they have to be, just that the vast majority are, maybe because they get a lot of usage and black is a good color for hiding dirt, maybe because they stand out less.
> "they look so clean...sacrificing ergonomy, since the aesthetic is what they are selling, so they can't look gnarly, black...like an actual musical device."
You're arguing that because they are a status symbol and have to look "clean and minimalist" they can't look black like an actual music device looks like. Of which I think your main point in that statement is that OP-1 != "actual music device".
The crazy part about it is that they only really mention the bits that show the OP1 in a primary means, you can find every case of a modern musical team making something and find an OP-1 somewhere. Taylor Swift? Easy.
Despite the clear flaws and price, the OP-1 just does something for creativity.
Also: This is not seen in the list as they picked the cover they did instead, but you get to see the OP-1 used in force here by Chvrches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haunJARHPm4&ab_channel=NPRMu...
After seeing what's going on in that you begin to hear where the OP-1 is used by them in creation of the album.
I never put any stock in what gear musicians use unless I see them before they became even slightly famous.
Musicians get paid to use gear. I don't know of any moderately famous musician for whom that isn't true.
My favorite examples of this are bands that have that cool Rickenbacker sound and shoot a couple of videos with them. And then suddenly once they get some traction, they're playing Telecasters in public all the time.
Fender paid them. And that's totally fine--musicians get paid garbage so any source of cash is good. I just wish the musicians were more straightforward about it.
There's a national pop festival here which is broadcast on TV; for years I've noticed there's always a high-end Moog synthesizer on the main stage, even when the act only plays guitars... it's just product placement.
To be fair, many bands will use automation through midi or otherwise to "play" synthesizers without actually physically playing them. Normally you'd just see them playing the raw audio as part of the backing track but i could see big money arena bands with fuck-you money doing it with real synths live.
The UI design on the OP-1 has to be up there with any number of great moments in industrial design.
The decision to remove the Rhodes piano sample pack from the default firmware, including for anyone who upgraded, has to be up there with one of the worst decisions in product management of all time.
Also, the disparity between models with clickable control knobs and unclickable knobs to this day makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.
May we find it in our hearts to forgive. If it weren’t for their genius we wouldn’t even have noticed these minuscule flaws. Happy Birthday :)
I splashed out for an OP-1 but I bought it from Amazon rather than straight from Teenage Engineering. It was still sold under their store name, it seemed.
The best £1000 I've ever wasted, and kept the box for, just in case. It's a beautiful bit of kit (and it has the clicky controls) but I've still not become proficient enough to do anything but treat it as a toy. One day... one day... I'll make something practical using it.
Suffice to say, this is not the next Marc Rebillet speaking.
Wasn’t expecting a mention of Marc on HN, but I was pleasantly surprised. Things that bring true joy are easily worth £1000 :). Happy playing/composing!
I'm a musician but I honestly don't really understand this thing. I even tried playing around with one for a while. It just didn't click at all. You could have convinced me that it was a children's toy and I probably would have believed you.
Obviously I'm missing something. I've seen some YouTube tutorials but they all seem to produce the same kind of music and honestly I don't find it super impressive.
I have one and feel exactly the same way. It was a kind of playful gamification of music, but that felt like a layer between me and the music, instead of a source of inspiration.
Plenty of other gear has clicked for me. I should really sell it to someone who will enjoy it.
It's (functionally, not cost-wise) an entry level device for people with some money to splurge to fiddle with; your comment already starts with "I'm a musician", so this one is probably not for you.
I use a Mac. I have a PlayStation AND a Switch, I can come up with reasons to buy almost every gadget imaginable, but no matter how lovely and enchanting the OP-1 is, €1121 is just too much for something that wouldn't make me more money (as my job is not in music production).
They retain value. You could buy one used and sell it for more, if not the same price you purchased it at. I think the worst case is you'll essentially be renting it for $100-200 if you really don't like it. This was my experience, anyway.
It's a great device even if your job isn't music production. Easy to use, lots of fun, though I didn't enjoy the form factor.
They only retain value if they sit unused. Units that see regular use almost always have some break in the first year or 2, and replacement parts are not cheap.
Yeah I can see that. The one I had saw regular use when in my possession, but I had it for less than 6 months iirc. It was still in excellent condition.
Works similarly for Apple laptops (but maybe stick to 2-3 years in that case). Even if you only get half price for it, it's still owning an Apple laptop... for half price. (And keep the box, they can be worth hundreds in terms of total resale price difference boxed/unboxed.)
I don't know anything about OP-1, but if it's been for sale for 10 years then I would expect it to have high resale value. In which case you can sell it at some point and get some of the €1121 back.
Seems closer to a musical instrument than a gadget.
PlayStation and Switch and almost every other gadget imaginable will drop in value much more quickly than OP-1.
Indeed, usually hobbyists don't buy professional gear since they are not professionals. Same goes for many other industries too (TV production cameras too expensive for hobbyists and so on).
OP-1 is a tad expensive even for professional gear, but it is also a neat little machine. Elektron gear is maybe more powerful, but it also costs more. Cheaper gear exists as well. Up to each musician to decide what is too expensive for them in the end.
The novation launchpad is in pretty much every studio and it's only $400 or so. Teenage Engineering makes some really cool stuff and they charge boutique prices for it.
> The novation launchpad is in pretty much every studio
> it's only $400 or so
Sounds like you answered your own question :)
TE sure make some expensive gear, but they also make cheap gear, checkout the Pocket Operators. They are deceivingly good for the price (and aesthetics).
The OP-1 does have it's use case though, and it can definitely been seen in the wild, although cheaper gear can of course be even more popular.
Do professionals use the OP-1? I can imagine a person doing music production for a living not willing to do any significant part of their job on a device the size of a chocolate bar.
Of course, you can find lots of "boutique" instruments being used by a range of creators. I don't think there are a lot of them only using a OP-1 for full tracks though, although I have seen some live performances made with it together with other instruments at the same time.
They (TE) make musical instruments and gear, they are not a technology web 2.0 startup so of course they won't build the greatest websites. For something truly insane, see how Moog built their website, lots of fun and confusion, even though their equipment is ace: https://www.moogmusic.com/
Andrew Huang is probably the worst example of a OP-1 user when it comes to music production and not music production teaching. AFAIK, Huang is more of a Youtube-educator than musician.
I don't know, he puts out really good music and videos at an equally astonishing rate for both. They have lots and lots of albums and while few of them are alike, I thoroughly enjoy most of them.
Korg Mini/Monologue and Volcas, any Behringer analog stuff, Arturia Mini/Micro Brute/Freak, Roland Boutique, Yamaha Reface CS/DX, Modal Electronics Skulpt, Waldorf Rocket....
And Teenage Engineering has a more affordable OP-Z, and not to mention their Pocket Operators that are wonderful machines for $60 or so (I use PO-12 as a drum sequencer for jamming).
And that's not even going into the old/used gear market. I got a Soviet analog polysynth for under $500 off Reverb last week. However, I feel like getting started, the newer stuff is both cheaper and better. We are living in the synthesizer renaissance era.
If I were to pick just ONE synth to recommend, it would be Korg Monologue. It's a masterpiece with a lot of depth, but simple to get started on, and super hands-on. For other recommendations, see articles like [1].
I love my Korg Minis, both the monotribes and the kaoss pads. They don't have a lot of features, but I see them kind of like musical Lego. You just plug them into each other in different ways and then just play around all day. And I think buying all of them, plus enough cables to connect them all, would only set you back about $800 total.
Novation Circuit is a great starting point for electronic music. Just released a new version too. Step up from that would maybe be a Digitakt (from before mentioned Elektron), basically Circuit but even more powerful in probably every way. If you have the money to spend, go for a Octatrack.
Roland MC101,
Roland MV1,
Elektron Model Samples,
Elektron Digitakt,
Novation Circuit,
Ableton Push 2 + Ableton Live,
Roland SP404 series,
Fruity Loops software,
Ableton Live software.
Stock up on Behringer gear. Haters will call you everything from cheap to anti-semetic, but their synths hold up just as good as some of the biggest contenders on the market.
Just because Uri Behringer happens to be antisemitic[1] doesn't mean that people buying Behringer gear are also antisemitic, so I don't think people would call you that if you buy it. Although I personally stay clear from their gear for lots of reasons.
Might be worth getting a PO-12 or PO-32 Pocket Operator (the drum machine models). Beyond one of those and the PO-33 I wouldn't go too deep into that range as they're way more toys than full fledged synths but that could be all you want (it was all I wanted tbh) and they're a lot of fun and will retain their value if bought used.
I keep a PO-32 beside my desk to mess with when I get frustrated coding.
Modal's CRAFTsynth and a cheap USB MIDI keyboard. Together with an OTG adapter for your phone/tablet, Modal's app and a USB hub, it's a really fun and cheap setup to play with. It is more finicky to control than more expensive synths, but the range of sounds possible and the quality of those sounds is downright astonishing.
The size is arguably the OP-1's "killer feature." It's closest competitors in terms of capability (meaning music-specific devices, not like an iPad or something) are all _way_ bigger and less portable. It's also one of the most solidly built pieces of tech I've handled.
I randomly came across the OP-1 on Youtube a few months ago and was blown away. Keep in mind that I know next to nothing about music, so I don't know how the OP-1 compares against other tools of its kind. But still, it seemed like an incredibly cool gadget and made me want to experiment with making digital music.
Teenage Engineering also makes a little device called the PO-33, which gives you the sampling capability of the OP-1 in a much smaller (and much cheaper) form factor. Check it out if this stuff interests you.
I had a bunch of pocket operators so don't get me wrong they're neat devices and an interesting start into music and sequencing but overall I don't think it provides the same abilities
I do like my op-z although I wish it was built a little better and that the iPad app (or another function key) let you zoom in on The sequencer so you could do longer sequences in something other than live record.
Still an amazing device. I can sit down and have a sketch down in a few minutes which is something I could never say about my desktop daw
I wouldn't even say they are particularly comparable.
I have an OP-1 and the killer features for me are _extreme_ portability, like even more than my laptop, and the best battery life of any device I have ever owned. I have it with me at almost all times, and I can bust it out and start playing basically whenever. I use it at the beach, on hikes, in cafes, wherever. There's no way I'd be lugging an MV-1 around with me in those circumstances.
I also do like that the OP-1 forces a "keep moving" workflow with it's stripped down synth engines and 4 track recorder. People criticize that, but if I wanted a device with tons of tracks and unlimited sounds I would just use my laptop.
The Roland MV-1 could be an intuitive, creative, flexible device, but a 16x2 LCD? How does that compare against the OP-1's beautiful, animated OLED display?
Whoah this looks awesome. The sequence arrangement looks especially cool. I love the OP-Z, but it’s sound engine is limiting and it’s tricky to create full arrangements. I might have to take a closer look at the MV-1.
This is the kind of info I'm interested in. It's hard to know how it compares from my POV because the whole digital music world seems overwhelming and I wouldn't even know where to begin. Thanks!
Rebought an OP-1 recently after selling it, trying to fill the hole it left with MIDI controllers and software and loopers, and realizing that I really don’t like mingling work and play on my computer. I see it as the musical equivalent of my beloved Fujifilm cameras, especially the X100: behind the retro chic aesthetic is a very capable machine that’s a joy to use. Are other devices cheaper, faster, and less likely to be branded a hipster fashion accessory? Yeah, but they’re not as fun.
I bought an OP-1 end of 2012 and I love(d) it. I've since become big on repair, and right to repair, and the OP-1 is not only expensive, but almost impossible to repair due to lack of parts. One day I could not get it to the boot screen while holding the COM button any longer, and I emailed TE. They told me many years ago that since I didn't buy it from them, I could send it to them for a fee to look at it and then fix it for a fee. OK, not unreasonable, but I figured I'll buy the part on their site from the parts list they sent:
Spare parts:
I figured I'd buy the DSP PCB based on some forum information. TE didn't have it in stock. [Sponge Bob voice] One Year Later...still not in stock. Now iFixit stocks TE parts. Not in stock...so, here I am with an OP-1 that works other than being able to update the OS/firmware or connect it to my PC via USB any longer. I would never buy from TE again. Years is not a reasonable waiting time for a spare part. If I send it to TE for a paid repair, by some miracle is the part then in stock? It's a shame, because I used to root for them, but now I feel like they've not addressed key parts of becoming a huge company with great products.
But sadly still no motherboard/DSP to swap in...anybody else doing OP-1 repairs besides TE? I am going to try and sell it with full disclosure of its limitations caused by this.
Beautiful, although I'd prefer a real keyboard, but the problem is the price. With the same money I could purchase a number of these Open Source and Open Hardware synths.
I want an OP1 so bad. I just can't afford it. I watch videos of people making music with them on youtube for hours and get so hooked. I was really worried this post was about its discontinuation which will make them spike even more in price.
Buy a different groovebox then. The Novation Circuit is a wonderfully capable and easy to use device, and it retails secondhand for less than $200. For $50 you can have a PO-33 sampler, or for $700 you could have a Digitakt. Lots of options for cheap grooveboxes out there!
I own an OP-1 and it is my absolute favourite piece of industrial design. I don't know of a more complete single consumer electronics product. It reminds me of an old digital alarm clock radio - the ones with the fake wood paneling. It does all the things it needs to perfectly and nothing more. Big, clicky, robust buttons melded with the perfect software.
I once wrote a social media website and one optimization we had is we would take gifs, mark them for processing, have a celery task queue run this command, and replace the gif with a mp4.
Worked wonders. A few years later gifycat exploded and we were all kicking ourselves xD
>I have to buy another cable each time I want to charge and use it.
Wouldn't it be easier to just keep the one cable you bought to charge it? It's not like the cable depletes itself during the charge forcing a new cable to be purchased per charge.
I have literally bought mini-usb cables on 3 different occasions to use my OP-1. I lose them all the time, as I have about a thousand (no joke) USB cables and 3-5 mini-USB among them.
I bought 20x mini-USB as my new mobile phone uses it now and I didn't want to keep not finding them when I need them.
I have two mini-USB cables I keep around as the PS3 Dualshock 3 controller is mini-usb.
Otherwise I too would have lost them.
I typically don't keep older generation consoles around, but the original launch PS3 was a marvel for its time (despite being a relative flop compared to the Wii-360)
The original launch PS3 contained the hardware emotion engine, so it had 100% backward compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games. Later revisions removed the PS2 hardware, in favor of software emulation, and iirc, eventually backwards compatibility was removed all together.
It also supported Super Audio CD format as well, and before it was patched out, had the ability to dualboot Linux.
This is why I bought dollar store plastic boxes for my cables and put them in specific categories. I have one box for microUSB, one for USB-C, one for mini, one for HDMI, etc. It's been great in reducing clutter and finding a cable.
Cables create tangled messes in a way that most things do not, and it's been great that my drawers are mostly free of cables now.
I bought the plastic bins a few months ago, now I'm just waiting for having an uninterrupted attention span long enough to sort all of my cables (or the pandemic to be over so I can pay someone else to come over and do it for me).
I understand that sucks, but that doesn't really sound like the fault of the device to me. It really sounds like one of those "you're holding it wrong" type of excuses.
Dual SIM, too. You can even use it solely as a bluetooth headset paired to a normal phone to look like Gordon Gecko while on a call on your yacht if you want.
I bought two for less than the AppleCare+ on my iPhone 12 cost. (One as backup, as I can't imagine these are going to be in production for much longer.)
Are we implying the battery life is so good that one only needs to be charged once every long often? Otherwise, how cluttered are you to lose a cable every time in between charges? Stick it in a drawer with all of the other ones. Just seems like a really weak strawman
I have one and have a similar problem. These things take months to lose battery. I often change around where I put cables and etc between the times needed to charge it.
I would love USB-C (not micro though!), but the mini USB port is still really common in music gear for whatever reason. My audio interface, DAC for my other PC, midi keyboard, etc all use mini USB. It's really weird.
Strange, I've never seen mini USB on any audio gear. (Nor on anything else I've owned since my T-Mobile G1 ten years ago.) I've found "standard" connectors [1] to be much more common (and welcome, due to their better sturdiness over micro).
I’m a tad disappointed by how limited the op-z is in comparison. I thought the pocket operators were amazing, so amazing I bought my friends some, but the op-z was a bit underwhelming honestly.
Teenage engineering is a really evil company filled with so much fake people one suffocates from the coolness. Stealing ideas, designs, concepts and often patenting others hard work.
If you, the reader, has $1100, pick up an Octatrack. Elektron is one of the few companies that pushes the envelope of digital sequencing and hardware production, and the Octatrack is the pinnacle of their work. At $900-1000, you'll definitely get more mileage out of it than an OP-1, and you don't have to support Teenage Engineering's shitty pricing schema. Even at $600, you can buy an Elektron Digitakt/Digitone, which will probably serve you better in the long run.