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Yep. Ostensibly there's nothing wrong with making pricy hipster audio equipment, but the rampant success of their marketing just makes me facepalm. People out t

Yep. Ostensibly there's nothing wrong with making pricy hipster audio equipment, but the rampant success of their marketing just makes me facepalm. People out there genuinely think the OP-1 is a $1000 product in 2023, which should inspire riots in the street. The OP-1 Field raising the price instead of lowering it is the last nail in the coffin for me. $800 is a pricy toy - $1500+ puts you in brand-new Octatrack territory. Hell, that puts you in brand-new-Macbook-and-DAW territory. But, people pay for it. They want the whittled down, inspiring experience without any of the effort or trouble. I sympathize with those people, but Teenage Engineering's products are like the Disney Star Wars hotel of audio equipment. It's a one-of-a-kind, pretty-looking, dumbed-down, expensive scam. Some people will defend it, and particularly affluent guests might even say it's worth the money. Undeniably though, much like every Disney park, TE's product line is built to fleece the customer. I've got half a mind to chew Moog out for the same thing, but they have legitimate excuses for why their instruments can't be mass-produced. Teenage Engineering doesn't.

kubb 4y ago
shouldn't there be a normally priced equivalent product on the market? it's not like we're talking about cutting edge silicon here
- smoldesu 4y ago
  There are. Much like the Disney analogy, there are other cheaper theme parks on the market. The OP-1 is "unique" though, in the sense that (thankfully) nobody else is making a 4-track digital tape recorder anymore. There are hundreds of products like it, but much like the Star Wars hotel, nobody is dumb/rich enough to build a replica of Disney's attraction. I could name a dozen grooveboxes that can be had for under $300 today, but it's all sorta besides the point. People want the OP-1 because it's what they see on YouTube, not because it makes music. Considering how long the product has stagnated, I see no reason that it should cost as much as it does today.
  - bondarchuk 4y ago
    What are the options with similar portability, sampling, synthesis, fx, and multitrack recording, that you can buy new, and is not just an ipad or something, for under 300 dollars?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      You've sorta missed my analogy. You can get a Novation Circuit, Electribe or even a brand-new Model: Samples for less than $300, but none of them are the "Star Wars Hotel" that the OP-1 is. I could show you a product that is exactly the same and cost's half as much, but people will balk at it complaining that it doesn't have a cow animation like the OP-1 does. They've "productized" an instrument that shouldn't cost more than $200 to manufacture at their scale. I'm mostly mad at how consistently stupid their target audience is, not the fact that they exist.
      - bondarchuk 4y ago
        >I could show you a product that is exactly the same and cost's half as much Show it, then. (and btw "half as much" is significantly more than "under 300 dollars") >but people will balk at it complaining that it doesn't have a cow animation like the OP-1 does. Probably I will complain that it lacks synthesis, a multitrack recorder capable of making long tracks, an input for sampling, or something. (I agree the animations in TE stuff are silly though).
        smoldesu 4y ago
        The OP-1's synthesis engine is so stiff that I'd argue it doesn't have one either. It's subtractive synth may as well be sample-based, the FM model is fine but incredibly simple, the Karpluss-Strong engine is fun but one-note and the sampler doesn't really fill in the rest of the cracks. It's a fine machine, but arguing that it's both a synth and a multitrack recorder ignores the fact that both of those features are pretty compromised. I posted some examples of cheap, shitty grooveboxes I would prefer to the OP-1 in another comment below. Understandably not all of them will be to everyone's liking, but all of them are cheaper than the OP-1 and easier for me to recommend to learning musicians.
xdfgh1112 4y ago
Most people are happy with it even though it's overpriced. Suggesting it's a scam insults peoples' intelligence. The same applies to the Star Wars hotel. It's not for you, nobody is holding a gun to your head making you stay there. For the people paying, it's worth it to them.
avip 4y ago
It's not normally called "scam" when you just take a simple product, wrap it with lots of marketing and branding, and overprice it. Or maybe it is, in which case the entire modern economy is a scam. Ok I see where this thread is going from here.
criddell 4y ago
What you call fleecing the customer, I call charging the market rate. If your employer offered you a raise, would you turn it down because you don't want to fleece the customer?
prpl 4y ago
A nice guitar costs just as much, despite being functionally equivalent to one 1/3 its price. There’s not a ton of rationality in music gear, people like what they like.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Why you are comparing guitar to a synth ? Nice guitar (aside brand tax) has actual cost to make it, plastic toy like OP-1 is very cheap in comparison. Hell, it's probably cheaper to make than random ass $500 behringer synth, even at unit count
- Supernaut 4y ago
  With respect, that comparison fails, because a $1,500 guitar will be noticeably more playable and have a substantially better sound than a $500 guitar. (Source: have played guitar for 35 years.) The point people are making here is that everything the OP-1 does can be achieved or surpassed with a couple of $10 apps and a low-end general purpose computing device.
jxf 4y ago
> But, people pay for it. They want the whittled down, inspiring experience without any of the effort or trouble. I don't know if this is the right analogy. Some people want to pay for features _not_ to be included in stuff because they enjoy the simplicity. There are phones that don't have a browser or let you download apps, for example. That's not a "scam", that's just marketing to people who want simplicity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- psychomugs 4y ago
  Leica charges hundreds more for monochrome-only and screenless models of their cameras. The fact that there have been several generations of their suggests it's working and helps keep them afloat.

kubb 4y ago

shouldn't there be a normally priced equivalent product on the market? it's not like we're talking about cutting edge silicon here

smoldesu 4y ago
There are. Much like the Disney analogy, there are other cheaper theme parks on the market. The OP-1 is "unique" though, in the sense that (thankfully) nobody else is making a 4-track digital tape recorder anymore. There are hundreds of products like it, but much like the Star Wars hotel, nobody is dumb/rich enough to build a replica of Disney's attraction. I could name a dozen grooveboxes that can be had for under $300 today, but it's all sorta besides the point. People want the OP-1 because it's what they see on YouTube, not because it makes music. Considering how long the product has stagnated, I see no reason that it should cost as much as it does today.
- bondarchuk 4y ago
  What are the options with similar portability, sampling, synthesis, fx, and multitrack recording, that you can buy new, and is not just an ipad or something, for under 300 dollars?
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    You've sorta missed my analogy. You can get a Novation Circuit, Electribe or even a brand-new Model: Samples for less than $300, but none of them are the "Star Wars Hotel" that the OP-1 is. I could show you a product that is exactly the same and cost's half as much, but people will balk at it complaining that it doesn't have a cow animation like the OP-1 does. They've "productized" an instrument that shouldn't cost more than $200 to manufacture at their scale. I'm mostly mad at how consistently stupid their target audience is, not the fact that they exist.
    - bondarchuk 4y ago
      >I could show you a product that is exactly the same and cost's half as much Show it, then. (and btw "half as much" is significantly more than "under 300 dollars") >but people will balk at it complaining that it doesn't have a cow animation like the OP-1 does. Probably I will complain that it lacks synthesis, a multitrack recorder capable of making long tracks, an input for sampling, or something. (I agree the animations in TE stuff are silly though).
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        The OP-1's synthesis engine is so stiff that I'd argue it doesn't have one either. It's subtractive synth may as well be sample-based, the FM model is fine but incredibly simple, the Karpluss-Strong engine is fun but one-note and the sampler doesn't really fill in the rest of the cracks. It's a fine machine, but arguing that it's both a synth and a multitrack recorder ignores the fact that both of those features are pretty compromised. I posted some examples of cheap, shitty grooveboxes I would prefer to the OP-1 in another comment below. Understandably not all of them will be to everyone's liking, but all of them are cheaper than the OP-1 and easier for me to recommend to learning musicians.

xdfgh1112 4y ago

Most people are happy with it even though it's overpriced. Suggesting it's a scam insults peoples' intelligence. The same applies to the Star Wars hotel. It's not for you, nobody is holding a gun to your head making you stay there. For the people paying, it's worth it to them.

avip 4y ago

It's not normally called "scam" when you just take a simple product, wrap it with lots of marketing and branding, and overprice it. Or maybe it is, in which case the entire modern economy is a scam. Ok I see where this thread is going from here.

criddell 4y ago

What you call fleecing the customer, I call charging the market rate. If your employer offered you a raise, would you turn it down because you don't want to fleece the customer?

prpl 4y ago

A nice guitar costs just as much, despite being functionally equivalent to one 1/3 its price. There’s not a ton of rationality in music gear, people like what they like.

ilyt 4y ago
Why you are comparing guitar to a synth ? Nice guitar (aside brand tax) has actual cost to make it, plastic toy like OP-1 is very cheap in comparison. Hell, it's probably cheaper to make than random ass $500 behringer synth, even at unit count
Supernaut 4y ago
With respect, that comparison fails, because a $1,500 guitar will be noticeably more playable and have a substantially better sound than a $500 guitar. (Source: have played guitar for 35 years.) The point people are making here is that everything the OP-1 does can be achieved or surpassed with a couple of $10 apps and a low-end general purpose computing device.

jxf 4y ago

> But, people pay for it. They want the whittled down, inspiring experience without any of the effort or trouble. I don't know if this is the right analogy. Some people want to pay for features _not_ to be included in stuff because they enjoy the simplicity. There are phones that don't have a browser or let you download apps, for example. That's not a "scam", that's just marketing to people who want simplicity.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
psychomugs 4y ago
Leica charges hundreds more for monochrome-only and screenless models of their cameras. The fact that there have been several generations of their suggests it's working and helps keep them afloat.