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Ten years of OP-1

teenage.engineering

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Re: Ten years of OP-1

#21

Post by balls187 »

dylan604 wrote: post #16
sneak wrote: post #6

I 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.

>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.

Probably hyperbole, but I assume OP is implying they lose the cable between charges due to infrequent use.

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#22

Post by capableweb »

Toutouxc wrote: post #17
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, 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 expens…

Do professionals use the OP-1? I can imagine a person doing music production for a living not willing to do any significant part of their job on a device the size of a chocolate bar. Who's the thing even for?

> Do professionals use the OP-1?

Of course, you can find lots of "boutique" instruments being used by a range of creators. I don't think there are a lot of them only using a OP-1 for full tracks though, although I have seen some live performances made with it together with other instruments at the same time.

Actually this submission seems to be about a few pages, one of them being "made on OP-1" where you can see just that, artists using the OP-1 in different scenarios: https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1/anniversary/made-o...

Edit: one specific example: Diplo claims the OP-1 is one of the ten "essential" items he owns, has to count for something at least :)

> not willing to do any significant part of their job on a device the size of a chocolate bar

Heh, tons of people fiddle with modular synths and I can imagine that being even worse sizes (or "smaller" rather).

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#23

Post by scottious »

I'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

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#24

Post by romwell »

kazen44 wrote: post #11
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, 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 expens…

do you know any good hardware for hobbyists to get started?

There's just so many!

Korg Mini/Monologue and Volcas, any Behringer analog stuff, Arturia Mini/Micro Brute/Freak, Roland Boutique, Yamaha Reface CS/DX, Modal Electronics Skulpt, Waldorf Rocket....

And Teenage Engineering has a more affordable OP-Z, and not to mention their Pocket Operators that are wonderful machines for $60 or so (I use PO-12 as a drum sequencer for jamming).

And that's not even going into the old/used gear market. I got a Soviet analog polysynth for under $500 off Reverb last week. However, I feel like getting started, the newer stuff is both cheaper and better. We are living in the synthesizer renaissance era.

If I were to pick just ONE synth to recommend, it would be Korg Monologue. It's a masterpiece with a lot of depth, but simple to get started on, and super hands-on. For other recommendations, see articles like [1].

[1] https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-best-cheap-synthesizers

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#25

Post by coldpie »

kazen44 wrote: post #11
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, 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 expens…

do you know any good hardware for hobbyists to get started?

Synthstrom Deluge (or any good DAW on the home computer you already have if you don't actually care about hardware).

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#26

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #13
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #2

I 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.

Roland MV-1 is 100 times better.

This 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!

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#27

Post by 99_00 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #4

I 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).

I don't know anything about OP-1, but if it's been for sale for 10 years then I would expect it to have high resale value. In which case you can sell it at some point and get some of the €1121 back.

Seems closer to a musical instrument than a gadget.

PlayStation and Switch and almost every other gadget imaginable will drop in value much more quickly than OP-1.

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#28

Post by dylan604 »

balls187 wrote: post #21
dylan604 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Probably hyperbole, but I assume OP is implying they lose the cable between charges due to infrequent use.

Are 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

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#29

Post by capableweb »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #20
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, 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 expens…

The novation launchpad is in pretty much every studio and it's only $400 or so. Teenage Engineering makes some really cool stuff and they charge boutique prices for it.

> The novation launchpad is in pretty much every studio

> it's only $400 or so

Sounds like you answered your own question :)

TE sure make some expensive gear, but they also make cheap gear, checkout the Pocket Operators. They are deceivingly good for the price (and aesthetics).

The OP-1 does have it's use case though, and it can definitely been seen in the wild, although cheaper gear can of course be even more popular.

Re: Ten years of OP-1

#30

Post by jeffdubin »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #13
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #2

I 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.

Roland MV-1 is 100 times better.

The 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?
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