
Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operator series goes modular - neom
https://www.factmag.com/2019/01/18/teenage-engineering-pocket-operator-modular-announced/
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ohnope
Love it. Their ongoing IKEA collaboration is definitely rubbing off.
(downside: you pretty much get one shot folding the sheet metal the right
way). Flat packed DIY build is great. Compatible with Eurorack, and the OP-Z
is getting a CV/gate module.

Now that Teenage has 2 products out there that are designed with modular
expansion in mind, it will be exciting to see how they update them over the
years.

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hoaw
What IKEA is good at is continuously decreasing the work involved, error rate,
quality issues etc. I can see no practical purpose to folding the metal
yourself in this case, other than to make it feel more special than it is.

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robbyt
I produce a some what similar Eurorack module. Ours is electrically more
complicated, but mechanically much simpler.

The final assembly is the most labor intensive part of our process. When we
get an order from one of our retailers for 10+ products, it takes us a full
day just to build/test/pack, because of this.

By selling these as "Ikea style" I promise they're able to massively reduce
the cost for consumers by outsourcing their assembly.

~~~
hoaw
Unlikely for a number of reasons. For one Stockholm (and Sweden) is very
expensive and their products already show more advanced manufacturing
techniques. This suggests some sort of contract manufacturing. Their products
are also already expensive themselves so it would really make sense to spend a
lot of resources designing something to save on shipping or manufacturing. For
IKEA it does because they have very large volume and small margins.

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zach43
I've been wanting to buy a new analog synthesizer for a few years now, but i
almost always balk at the price of these things. I can afford these things,
but they never feel like a sound financial choice.

Personally, I blame the Raspberry Pi. Having played with a quad-core, 1GHz
device with a GPU and wifi chip that retails for ~$30, i just can't see myself
dropping $300 - $500 on an underpowered analog synthesizer...i've mostly just
moved to digital synthesis now, which is quite enriching and fun. if anyone's
in the same boat as me, I'd highly recommend nanoloop, which is quite fun to
make music with on your phone: [https://nanoloop.com/](https://nanoloop.com/)

I get that the analog synthesizers have a great musical feel and history to
them, but i just don't think they provide that much more utility or
flexibility than 10-100x cheaper digital instruments.

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hoaw
It's all fake of course. It probably costs <$50 to produce, most likely in
China. It isn't custom by any means. It is modular, but seemingly it wouldn't
make a lot of sense since that isn't what you are paying for. Doesn't matter
much. A lot of hobbies are a status thing. Most people aren't going to
actually make something out of it. An unused computer program doesn't say
much. So you want the "custom" gear to compensate. I guess there is nothing
wrong with that as such. It is still fake though.

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woah
That’s stupid. Boutique musical gear is expensive because somebody spent a lot
of time designing it and needs to make a living. As far as sound quality,
there are a lot of fm sounds that are not possible to produce on a computer
since it lacks the resolution.

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hoaw
If it is so stupid, explain this to me.

1\. Who actually needs boutique gear? I am not saying it isn't fun. I am not
saying that it can't be a hobby in itself nor am I saying some tiny percentage
of the music industry might need it. But in pretty much all the interviews I
have read with successful musician they use something horribly mundane for
most of their career, because it isn't about the gear. So does the weekend
warrior need boutique stuff?

2\. Is teenage engineering actually boutique? I don't know that much about
music gear, but I do know a fair bit about electronics and it certainly
doesn't look in anyway custom to me. You might think that it is because e.g.
they use bare PCBs. But that would be a faulty assumption. So what is
expensive part here?

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woah
1\. What does that have to do with the question at hand? Boutique gear is
expensive because not many people buy it. As you were saying, the cost is not
in the production, but in the development and tooling setup for a given
product. Whether or not someone "really needs" it is a different question. I
will say that most all modular analog fm synthesis gear is expensive, and it
can produce sounds that are not possible in software (or not possible on
current CPUs without setting a really high latency). You may not find examples
of extreme fm synthesis enjoyable but they are a key part of some genres of
music:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q26LR5SJ2jU&t=1793s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q26LR5SJ2jU&t=1793s)

2\. Teenage engineering seems to have moved down the boutique scale a bit by
attempting to make a more affordably priced unit that will be sold more
widely. Good marketing is probably a key component of this strategy since they
will need to hit a certain volume to break even.

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hoaw
1\. I don't really think it is a different question. I am just saying that a
lot of the revere for "boutique" gear isn't in its utility. (which is related
to what the OP was saying). I don't deny there are use cases just that it
doesn't necessarily match its reputation or price. You are the one saying it
has to cost a certain amount, that isn't usually my experience. I would be
interested in that case actually being made though, but I hasn't seen one here
so far.

2\. My intention wasn't really to argue against teenage engineering. I think
they are doing good products in general and that people like them a lot. I
just don't think they should sell it as ~DIY when it really isn't. Teenage
engineering is specifically a sort of "design studio". It isn't that they
suddenly needed marketing, they are founded by at least one marketeer from the
beginning. They do seem to have the right idea in mind overall, but I don't
think this is the correct way to do it.

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louismerlin
I highly recommend to anyone interested in synths and music to go to a local
shop and try out any modular system they have on display.

It really brings a lot of creativity and playfulness to playing music.

Me playing around on my modular system:
[http://youtu.be/jD-2xqTkGUc](http://youtu.be/jD-2xqTkGUc)

~~~
disconcision
Love it, thanks for sharing. Also curious as to what I could search to find
more music similar to this.

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ris
Interesting that they decided to stick with the "Pocket Operator" name despite
the fact that these can fit in _nobody 's_ pockets.

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svantana
The individual modules (the "operators") are about the same size as the PO
line products.

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ris
I guess, but they're not exactly _useful_ when carried around individually in
a pocket.

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andrepd
For anyone into this, you can undoubtedly enjoy playing around with
[https://vcvrack.com/](https://vcvrack.com/) ;)

~~~
rcarmo
The (by now ancient) Caustic synth app also has a modular approach, and free
desktop versions:

[http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic](http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic)

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rcarmo
I love their stuff, and wish they’d issue another batch of OP-1 synths:

[https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1](https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1)

That thing is seriously amazing, and (for me at least) more appealing than the
OP-Z or the pocket operators - but I am intrigued by this modular approach,
since I’ve long wanted to play with something like it.

