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Ten years of OP-1
- tenaciousDaniel 6y agoI 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.
- okprod 6y agoSame, I haven't touched playing music in maybe 20 years but the OP-1 and their pocket operators are really fun just to mess around with.
- capableweb 6y agoTwo or three connected Volcas are a great start into making music with hardware as well, so much fun.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoI went with an Uno Synth, it's a bit larger but in the same price range and target audience as the Volca line and it has a lot more functionality.
- TheMagicHorsey 6y agoRoland MV-1 is 100 times better.
- tenaciousDaniel 6y agoThis 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!
- jeffdubin 6y agoThe 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?
- agallant 6y agoThey recently updated it to allow you to use an iOS or Android device as an external display: https://www.roland.com/us/support/knowledge_base/360058664831/ https://www.roland.com/us/support/knowledge_base/36005866483... Clunkier than a device with a proper screen, but the same approach the OP-Z uses (though I think it can use bluetooth to connect instead of a cable).
- JoeyJoJoJr 6y agoWhoah 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.
- tomtheelder 6y agoI 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.
- smoldesu 6y agoTeenage 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.
- Doxin 6y agoThe PO-33 is clearly nowhere near as powerful as the OP-1. That said: they are great fun to mess around with. My current favorite is the PO-20.
- LegitShady 6y agoOnly mono, limited sync options etc. 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
- Toutouxc 6y agoI 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).
- _joel 6y agoThis, it's overpriced imho. I'm sure it was a lot cheaper at launch.
- avhon1 6y agoAt $875 in 2013, it was somewhat cheaper, but not much. https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00CXSJUZS https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00CXSJUZS
- capableweb 6y agoIndeed, 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.
- kazen44 6y agodo you know any good hardware for hobbyists to get started?
- TheMagicHorsey 6y agoRoland MC101, Roland MV1, Elektron Model Samples, Elektron Digitakt, Novation Circuit, Ableton Push 2 + Ableton Live, Roland SP404 series, Fruity Loops software, Ableton Live software.
- capableweb 6y ago
- sneak 6y agoI would pay another thousand to retrofit USB-C or even microUSB onto my OP-1. The choice of mini-USB, the RAZR charging port, in 2011, was a bit baffling to me. I have to buy another cable each time I want to charge and use it.
- dylan604 6y ago>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.
- balls187 6y agoProbably hyperbole, but I assume OP is implying they lose the cable between charges due to infrequent use.
- dylan604 6y agoAre 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
- ashtonbaker 6y agoIn fact, the battery life really is good enough to cause this issue. Similar problem with Garmin watches and their proprietary cables.
- balls187 6y agoI assumed OP implied they device was used very rarely.
- dilyevsky 6y agoOp-1 is known for ridiculously long battery life
- leereeves 6y agoSlightly off-topic, but: why doesn't this site support zoom?
- post_break 6y agoI 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.
- dcarew 6y agoThey discontinued it before... when they reintroduced it, it was way more expensive.
- dilyevsky 6y agoOriginally it went for $700 i think, when they stopped selling it people put theirs up for thousands
- smoldesu 6y agoBuy 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!
- scottious 6y agoI'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. Maybe it'll click one day
- daniel_reetz 6y agoI 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.
- alfiedotwtf 6y agoIt’s a portable workstation, with quick workflow.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt'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.
- ExcavateGrandMa 6y agoYour website is pretty broken using HTML without JS :/
- diimdeep 6y ago5.54 MB, 1920 × 1080, .gif - :( `ffmpeg -i 6069b7c2057597000422abc7_original.gif -c:v libx264 -crf 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4` 791 KB - :)
- honkycat 6y agoI 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
- smoldesu 6y agoTeenage 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.
- thenewwazoo 6y agoSorry 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.
- smoldesu 6y agoIf 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...
- gorgoiler 6y agoThe 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 :)
- ljm 6y agoI 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.
- wallwarp 6y agoWasn’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!
- solarkraft 6y agoIn case you're wondering what it sounds like: I quite like this album completely created using it: https://professorkliq.bandcamp.com/album/28-days-with-the-op-1 https://professorkliq.bandcamp.com/album/28-days-with-the-op...
- agloeregrets 6y agoThis page is nuts: https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1/anniversary/made-on-op-1 https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1/anniversary/made-o... 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=NPRMusic 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.
- sdenton4 6y agoA couple other sightings of my own: Nine Inch Nails live rig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXEvNUjgCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXEvNUjgCg Zola Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6hFRW3Lyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6hFRW3Lyg Dan Deacon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEwpOKhLT7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEwpOKhLT7E (The Teenage Engineering page includes, amongst many others, Depeche Mode, Ariane Grande, Timbaland, Animal Collective, Deadmau5, Usher, Bon Iver, Childish Gambino...)
- bsder 6y agoI 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.
- bzzzt 6y agoThere'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.
- cush 6y agoI 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. Cant believe it's 10 years old already.
- squarefoot 6y agoBeautiful, 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. https://electrotechnique.cc/ https://electrotechnique.cc/ Demos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCA2L7CeWSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCA2L7CeWSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jk79WchWcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jk79WchWcQ
- singingfish 6y agoThere is a tonne of potential in the rPi / Teensy space. Check out the organelle https://www.critterandguitari.com/organelle https://www.critterandguitari.com/organelle
- Lucasoato 6y agoIts presence in Swedish House Mafia - One video was a game changer :)
- mobilio 6y agoI TOTALLY AGREE! This was like OP-1 advertisement!
- throwaway606 6y agoTeenage 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. Don’t buy into their bullshit.
- psychomugs 6y agoRebought 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.
- baby 6y agoI’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.
- eggy 6y agoI 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: Keyboard-module (with display-glass): $45 / €45 Connector PCB (for replacing mic / broken jacks): $35 / €35 Speaker: $20 / €20 Display: $35 / €35 UI PCB: $70 / €70 DSP PCB: $120 / €120 Flex Cable: $24 / €24 Battery: $20 / €20 Encoder Knobs: $19 / €19 Volume Knob: $6 / €6 Spare key: $10 / €10 Rubber feet: $5 / €5 Paper Foam Case: $8 / €8 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.
- eggy 6y agoEDIT:More parts available here: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Parts/Teenage-Engineering-OP-1 https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Parts/Teenage-Engineering-OP-1 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.