3 ms·
For all the folks who immediately react to any mention of TE with, “it’s expensive garbage only idiots would buy!” Have you seen a full tear down and did a comp
by agentultra 4y ago
For all the folks who immediately react to any mention of TE with, “it’s expensive garbage only idiots would buy!” Have you seen a full tear down and did a component cost analysis to get a rough idea of the unit cost?
I’ve seen some breakdowns of the PCBs in the OP-1 and it doesn’t look like they’re skimping on parts/design to me. I’m not huge into hardware nor an EE so maybe I’m wrong here.
However I would think that given the volumes they sell and the component cost with all of the custom bits that go into an OP-1 Field, it’s probably fairly reasonable.
Most businesses want to make products they can sell. I’m only suggesting that maybe the engineering that goes on at TE isn’t pure marketing fuzz and that they’re not selling underwhelming products at inflated prices to suckers who love a brand more than decent gear.
Having read the article I think it’s interesting how they’re running the business. It seems that they value creativity and skill rather than time to market or feature lists.
It’s pretty easy to make a pure software synth with high-end DACs that is basically a laptop trapped in a custom box with an opaque interface of some sort. Almost everyone does it in some way. Features! Deep menus, tonnes of buttons, endless tweaking. Probably easier to do on a laptop.
It’s a neat feat of engineering to put limits on where you allow yourself to go. Different things happen when you have to get creative to avoid the limits. The Pocket Operator series is dope as hell. What a neat idea that almost effortlessly pulls in the Game & Watch aesthetic. Few places are doing stuff like that.
I’m curious what other oddball stuff they will work on next. It’s not necessarily my cup of tea but I really think they do good work.
It’d be interesting to get a deep dive into specific products in their line. He talks about influences in general. I wonder how that ends up playing out.