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Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operator series goes modular
- ohnope 8y agoLove 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.
- hoaw 8y agoWhat 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.
- ohnope 8y agoI think the practical idea is "flat pack" - smaller package for shipping. Of course, TE doing flat pack without an economy of scale is less about spatial efficiency and more about allowing their customers to build something themselves in order to feel a closer connection to the object (that's perfectly ok)
- robbyt 8y agoI 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 8y agoUnlikely 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.
- coldtea 8y agoIt's also more fun. If someone wants an already assembled modular there are 2000 other options.
- hoaw 8y agoSure, but why not actually have something that you need to assemble for a good reason? Like some eurorack cases go for ~300€ and those are just a PCB, some wood and a metal rail. You make that modular in a flat pack for 30€ instead with the need for assembly and I am not complaining.
- ohnope 8y agoFlat pack / DIY assembly does not magically lead to 10x reduction in the cost of an item. Also, deciding to do DIY assembly changes how you think about / plan the design + manufacturing of the object, because you aren't training a workforce to assemble specialized parts, but now need a system that most people could pick up and assemble without any major mistakes. It's more design and thinnking, not less.
- ris 8y agoInteresting that they decided to stick with the "Pocket Operator" name despite the fact that these can fit in nobody's pockets.
- svantana 8y agoThe individual modules (the "operators") are about the same size as the PO line products.
- ris 8y agoI guess, but they're not exactly useful when carried around individually in a pocket.
- robbyt 8y agoYeah, agreed. When I first read about it, I thought they were going to sell an adapter to plug the existing pocket ops into a Eurorack module.
- coldtea 8y agoDepends on the pockets. Parkas and khaki pants can fit them for sure -- in the full assembly photo they look tiny too.
- jacobush 8y agoMust be a play on Kraftwerk's line "I'm the Operator, with my Pocket Calculator"?
- louismerlin 8y agoI 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 8y agoLove it, thanks for sharing. Also curious as to what I could search to find more music similar to this.
- zach43 8y agoI'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 8y agoIt'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.
- andrepd 8y agoFor anyone into this, you can undoubtedly enjoy playing around with https://vcvrack.com/ https://vcvrack.com/ ;)
- rcarmo 8y agoI 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.