
Teenage Engineering has won over kids and professionals with a synthesizer - mitchbob
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/magazine/electronic-music-synthesizers.html
======
jdietrich
This reads like a promo piece for Teenage Engineering. The credit for the
mini-synth revolution really belongs to Tatsuya Takahashi, the designer of
Korg's groundbreaking Volca instruments. His Monotron synth was launched
nearly five years before Teenage Engineering launched the Pocket Operator
series. The Monotron is pocket-sized, fully analog, is musically useful and is
supplied with a complete schematic; this last feature sparked a renaissance of
circuit-bending and modding.

[https://www.korg-volca.com/en/](https://www.korg-volca.com/en/)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/12/22/569092364/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/12/22/569092364/analog-
for-the-people-synth-master-tatsuya-takahashi-on-engineering-fun)

~~~
jacobolus
Can anyone recommend a good synth that will be fun to play with but not too
confusing for 3–5 year old kids? (With adult helpers who have some basic piano
experience but don’t know much about synths.)

~~~
jdietrich
The Playtime Audio Blipblox might fit the bill. It's a proper synth, but it's
built like a Fisher Price toy.

[https://blipblox.com/](https://blipblox.com/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s98te0b4bo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s98te0b4bo)

From a more music-oriented perspective, I might suggest the Casio SA-77 - it's
a whole bunch of fun for $50.

[https://www.amazon.com/Casio-SA76-mini-Sized-
Tones/dp/B00Q83...](https://www.amazon.com/Casio-SA76-mini-Sized-
Tones/dp/B00Q836ST0/)

~~~
tb303
Blipblox is such a disappointment (we have one). Worth $80 not $179. Totally
agree sa77 is the way to go.

~~~
jacobolus
What was disappointing about it? Can’t make enough sounds? Hard for experts to
control? Too confusing for kids? Too fragile? ...

Does it get any more interesting if you hook it up to an external midi input
like a keyboard or sequencer?

The Casio SA77 doesn’t seem to have any Midi out, so it couldn’t e.g. be
combined with the blipblox.

------
blhack
Haha, “changing electronic music” is a BIT of a stretch here, NYT. These are
definitely fun toys, but if anything these are just entry points into analog
synthesis.

Eurorack modules, and the massive DIY community around them are changing
music. Ableton live is changing music. Behringer making super cheap, high
quality synth modules is changing music.

Teenage engineering does make some really cool stuff though. Now get on making
more OP-1s please!!

~~~
jasode
_> , but if anything these are just entry points into analog synthesis._

I just saw several demos of this Pocket Operator on Youtube and what I saw was
more of a _sampler_ than an analog synthesizer.

Samplers are more about _sound clips_ manipulation. Analog synths would be
more about waveform generators, sine/sawtooth/square, oscillators, envelopes,
etc.

E.g. Pocket Operators makes it easy to record some percussive sounds. It auto-
analyzes the input for transients and chops them up at boundaries. It
instantly maps multiple pitch-shifted versions of those sounds to the buttons.
Users then have a quick DIY drum machine that triggers custom sounds.

If these devices can also do traditional analog synthesis, none the Youtubers
I browsed demonstrated that capability.

EDIT based on replies: Yes, I now see that searching youtube for specific
devices such as _" PO-14 Sub"_ or _" PO-16 factory"_ will show the demos that
manipulate synth sounds. Searching only for generic _" pocket operator"_ gets
you the sampler demos.

~~~
blhack
"Pocket operator" is just the size of the device they're making. There are
lots of them from samplers (like you're seeing) to little synthesizers:
[https://teenage.engineering/products/po#features](https://teenage.engineering/products/po#features)

Regardless, these are driving the concept of small, packagable audio devices,
which eventually leads to modular synthesizers.

~~~
ralfd
Stupid question, but what is the advantage of having this as a hardware device
instead of an iPad/Phone App?

~~~
praptak
I'm not sure if a generic phone's DA converter can match the signal quality of
a specialized circuit.

~~~
jack12
The Pocket Operators _are_ just a generic DAC+amp chip, the Cirrus CS42L52.
The DAC is driven by a 48MHz MCU with just 32K of RAM. If it were purely a
question of technical / hardware capabilities it would all fit into an app ten
times over.

[http://hackingthepo.weebly.com/](http://hackingthepo.weebly.com/) has a
terrifically detailed teardown of a PO-16. Or SiLabs (the MCU's manufacturer)
did a marketing video / interview with one of the Pocket Operator's designers
about the hardware design:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjrOnlMkJHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjrOnlMkJHU)

------
jscheel
Gonna take this opportunity to plug an open source project I've been following
for a bit:
[https://github.com/topisani/OTTO](https://github.com/topisani/OTTO).
Essentially, they are trying to create an open version of Teenage
Engineering's OP-1.

~~~
briankelly
There is also the Organelle from Critter And Guitari which runs PureData on
arch Linux on the raspberry pi. It is also a synth/sampler (though sequencer-
based instead of "tape") with a similar form factor to the OP-1.

~~~
Xyzodiac
There's a really cool project for the Organelle called Orac[1] that turns it
into a super cool modular synthesizer. It's also available for Raspberry Pi
and Bela Salt

[1]
[https://github.com/TheTechnobear/Orac](https://github.com/TheTechnobear/Orac)

------
briankelly
I bought the PO-35 Speak which has two mono tracks for a vocoder-based synth
and a drum synth. The OP-1 originally piqued my interest but I wanted to test
the waters of electronic instruments before jumping (only had guitar and piano
experience before). At first glance it appears very limited and is often
dismissed as such, but as I understood it better I found it had impressive
depth and capability for making tracks. The true power is really the design,
the entire time spent on the learning curve is fun, from out-of-the-box to
building patterns and full tracks is a rewarding experience. There were times
I thought I had hit its limitations and was disappointed to learn I couldn't
do something I wanted to, only later to learn there in fact was - my initial
approach was just wrong. The device almost has a game-like reward for
discovering it's features.

That said the thing died 6 months in and the warranty process took about 3
months. In the mean time the OP-1 had its notorious production/price
shenanigans climbing to $1300 from $800 so I picked up a Deluge instead. The
OP-Z also looked interesting but I don't think I'll give TE any more money and
certainly not for that something that I couldn't part with for months at time.

~~~
tomxor
For what it's worth I have an OP-1, bought it 1-2 years ago when it was £800 -
and I thought it was expensive then!

Anyway, my opinion will not be useful comparatively, since it's my first and
only piece of electronic music hardware, only other stuff I have is guitars,
amps etc. I can tell you it's been very fun, very reliable (only once I froze
it when using a combination of a lot of effects at once with settings I
imagine probably took up too much memory), battery lasts for ever (due to CPU
type etc), it has a lot of depth, I still haven't figured out how to use
absolutely everything, features are very discoverable and learning curve is
pretty linear. Some of it is "programmy" as you describe for the POs, but it's
also plenty intuitive and direct with the built in keyboard, which I
appreciate because my musical background is mostly instrumental.

The main reason I got it is for the very thing that makes it unique, it's
tiny, all in one, it's got almost everything you need and is fun - I know it's
not the best value for money or the best audio or best effects etc etc, but I
don't want to make music on my computer, and I don't want to start out with
loads of independent devices to manage and wire together... I appreciated the
idea of something I could grab and play with to _encourage_ me to play with
electronic music more, and it total achieves that.

The only thing I feel like I miss sometimes (and this is considering I have
never owned any other electronic music hardware), is more keys, for the form
factor I can't argue, but I think the next thing I would buy is a midi
keyboard, I've tried programming longer pieces but it never fits in the
sequencer.

[edit]

My single gripe in out of all the design/quality is key debouncing (it doesn't
have velocity keys), which doesn't seem to catch enough... sometimes I can
exploit it to effect, but most of the time I don't want it - it's occasional,
like maybe 1/50 if i'm not being very careful and just hammering rather than
pressing. I should probably try updating the software though as this may have
been improved. I doens't bother me massively though, like I said it's the only
thing.

~~~
briankelly
Oh yeah don't get me wrong, I think it's a great piece of gear. I probably
would have gone with it over the Deluge if not for the price hike.

I have a pretty similar approach in that I wanted a sort of all-in-one
portable sketchpad mainly so I can detach from the computer painlessly and
avoid the device daisy-chain you described. I think the OP-1 basically nails
this use case and the design reflects that. The Deluge has a more Swiss army
knife approach with its focus on providing a variety of functionality rather
than a streamlined design, but both are great if you don't want the kitchen
sink of specialized devices and can live with the performance sacrifice. They
are coming out with live looping in the next release so it will be a very
powerful companion to my guitar. I'm really looking forward to it.

------
damontal
Korg put out cartridge for the Nintendo DS called the Korg DS-10 that emulated
the MS-10. Pretty amazing what you could do with it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wQgwqwU8U4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wQgwqwU8U4)

~~~
jdnenej
Korg gadget on the switch is a lot nicer to use in my opinion. Such a cool
music toy.

------
hedgew
I bought the PO-33 thinking it would be a fun musical toy I could occasionally
play with. To be honest, I was disappointed with how much repetitive labor was
needed to do even the simplest things on it. Something about it just did not
entertain my programmer-brain. I could visualize each step needed to make a
fun track, and then decided it would not be worth the time. I mostly spent
time imagining how much easier and more fun it could be.

~~~
core-questions
I hit this wall, but what I've decided is that it makes a fun adjunct
instrument to play in real-time; using the sequencer is basically something to
occupy time on transit or whatever but not a productive music-making idea.
Just use it to collect fun samples over the course of your day and then mix
them into other things in your DAW of choice.

------
bitL
Novation Circuit is way more flexible/fun than TE/Volca, although 5x more
expensive. I'd recommend people to start with that one, it can be easily
plugged into a pro studio later, it's perfect for traveling/commuting and
allows "happy accidents" for finding cool riffs to happen faster.

~~~
jdnenej
I heard that you have to load all your synths on with a computer and can't
built them on the device itself like you can on the op-1

~~~
sowbug
It uses WebMIDI, I think, so you don't have to install anything on your
computer or phone to edit or update patches.

~~~
jdnenej
Yeah but you can't come up with a new sound on the go. One of the benefits of
the op-1 is you can build an entire song on it.

~~~
sowbug
Agreed; the point was simply that needing a second computer in this case isn't
as bad as it sounds.

------
jvagner
dumb question, perhaps someone will take mercy on me:

i've wanted to learn to make electronic music for.. ever. and i've never
really done it.

i have a mac. and an iPad. and an iPhone. and an M-Audio MIDI controller.

what's a good recipe -- hardware and software -- to build the base skills &
knowledge to make decent ambient/chill tracks? i'm hoping someone can send me
in the right direction..

thanks in advance.

~~~
anigbrowl
Propellerheads Reason software if you wanna spend some money. Slightly older
versions of Traktion from Native Instruments are free and open source (up to
v7 I think) if you just want to use the computer for recording & plugins.
Otherwise use your iPad as a MIDI sequencer/tape recorder.

Hardware...Get a Volca DX-7 clone for $150, a Behringer analog synth clone for
$300, and a nice reverb/delay pedal. Protip: older and cheap mixers will give
you some 'secret sauce' in terms of lightly distorting and compressing your
signals. Get Mackie if you like a rough sound, Tascam if you like it a little
tinny, Spirit or Allen & Heath if you want warm.

~~~
romwell
>Get a Volca DX-7 clone for $150

If you want a DX-style synth, I'd highly recommend getting Yamaha Reface DX
for about $250 on Reverb.

It's the most underrated synth of all time. The controls on it make FM
synthesis _fun_ , and you can change the sound in real time. It's compact,
I've brought it with me anywhere from airplanes to deserts. The built-in
speakers are good enough to jam with anyone, anywhere. Everyone who's touched
it _loved_ it. It's worth its money for the e-piano patch alone. And on-board
effects take it to the next level (tell me of another synth at that price
point which allows you to chain two Delay FX!).

FM synthesis can be done purely digitally, and Dexed VST will do a good job
replicating DX-7. Reface DX offers a compelling reason to buy a _hardware_ FM
synth: it's an _instrument_ that in the long-term will help you transition
into live performance, and in the short term will incentivize you to play with
it, and learn FM.

Oh, and it's a great 3-octave mini-keys MIDI controller too.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Yamaha Reface DX_

Cute as it is I'll take the extra knobs and the motion sequencing on the Volca
any day of the week. It's a very interesting contrast to Yamaha's modal UI
approach (where you can easily switch between parameter sets but have only two
soft parameters available at any given time).

~~~
romwell
_Four_ soft parameters :)

~~~
Roboprog
Well, either the same parm on all 4 operators for some parms, or envelope rate
xor level settings for a single operator, but not arbitrary parms. But it is
indeed 4 sliders, and not just 2 or 1.

Interestingly Yamaha documents the CC codes for the Reface DX, so you can use
an external controller with knobs such as an Akai to go wild with altering the
patch while you play.

I’ve only done a little bit of this, but here’s a video where the guy is all
over it 12 minutes or so in [https://youtu.be/Xt-
tmIMCxTk](https://youtu.be/Xt-tmIMCxTk)

------
bob1029
Interesting seeing this on HN the day after I ordered their OP-1. TE is doing
some really neat stuff. I am pretty excited to be able to play around with
electronic music composition without being tied to a computer. Doing more with
less might help me to not get distracted by all the shiny tools I could load
onto my workstation. Also, having a portable unit makes it a lot easier to go
out and collect/try new samples.

------
WillPostForFood
Teenage Engineering also was a partner on the Playdate handheld game console
that as recently announced by Panic.

[https://play.date/](https://play.date/)

------
nixpulvis
As an owner of a TE OP-1 and a more professional Korg Prologue, I can say
first hand how awesome these TE devices are. I really want to play with more
kinds. The team over at TE does a great job building good interfaces, and
making it "fun". I feel like Gene from Bob's Burgers.

That said, I love being able to program my own DSP for my Prologue, and it's
16 voice polyphonic analog sound is just hard to compare that to that of my
toy OP-1, even if they are both capable of making music above my pay grade.

------
rcarmo
Even if the piece reads like a Pocket Operator promo, it still captures a bit
of what TE’s products aim for - fun, usable, etc.

That said, I’ve been considering getting an OP-1 for ages but keep hoping
someone will come up with a suitable software alternative for iOS - right now
there is no shortage of iOS audio software (Synth One is free and amazing on
its own right), but I’d love to have an OP-1 style workflow within a single
app.

~~~
jdnenej
It's remarkable that no one has finished a clone of the OP-1 given people are
paying $1300usd for this thing many years after it came out. There is an open
source version in development called OTTO

------
nathanvanfleet
I have had a bunch of synths before, including an Volca. And what TE does is
that they have lowered the barrier to entry in making interesting music. They
are really fun to jam on. You can just pick up a Pocket Operator and iterate
on a song withought much difficulty. They also have depth if you want to tweak
or play around with it.

------
rasz
REVERSE ENGINEERING OP-I
[https://2016.mrmcd.net/fahrplan/system/event_attachments/att...](https://2016.mrmcd.net/fahrplan/system/event_attachments/attachments/000/002/895/original/OP1_reverse_enginering_MRMCD2016.pdf)

------
russellbeattie
"...the style of the company’s products — playful, a little rebellious,
definitely strange — does indeed evoke the slouchy insouciance of teenagers."

_insouciance_: (noun) lighthearted unconcern; nonchalance

This is off topic, but it's always nice to learn a new word while reading up
on tech.

------
poyu
If you like their POs, you'll probably like the OP-Z too. The main difference
between the OP-1 & the OP-Z for me is that the OP-Z is a sequencer, as in the
OP-1 just records whatever you play. Different workflow for different style, I
guess.

------
sizzle
Anyone use any elektron equipment?

------
travbrack
I can't read this due to paywall. Is it the pocket operator by teenage
engineering?

~~~
barking
Yes nothing I do recently is enabling me to see NY Times content and a lot of
NYT stories make the front page.

~~~
tomxor
I wish there was a paywall/geoblocking/whatever-the-next-discriminator-is flag
so I could just filter submissions. Or at least to mark it and save the
disappointment. It seems more necessary as the web becomes more closed.

------
SOLAR_FIELDS
curious as a layman who is exploring music maker hardware: what’s the
difference between this and a monome? I’m interested in input devices that
give you the freedom to both compose and improvise for live shows.

------
stunt
nytimes blocks Firefox Focus.

~~~
rootusrootus
More generally, they block anybody using tools to get around paying for the
content. So, [some] ad blockers, pihole, as well as things like firefox focus.
It's not specific to firefox focus however.

~~~
caymanjim
The next release of Chrome will break the method that NYT and other sites use
to detect incognito mode (file access): [https://www.blog.google/outreach-
initiatives/google-news-ini...](https://www.blog.google/outreach-
initiatives/google-news-initiative/protecting-private-browsing-chrome/)

~~~
skybrian
You can do it now by setting the enable-filesystem-in-incognito flag.

