TX-6 – Teenage Engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#231

Post by LegitShady » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

pmags wrote: post #36

Small, portable mixers with lots of stereo inputs are relatively rare. That plus the Teenage Engineering "tax" (think Apple tax but for synth-heads) is driving the price. A cheaper, but slightly less tactile alternative is the 1010 Music Bluebox: https://1010music.com/product/bluebox

Most synth heads I know don't like teenage engineering and see them as overpriced underengineered nerd tech.

I own an op-z and used to own some pocket operators. They will be the last teenage engineering products I own. Everything they release seems more ridiculous all the time. Just the ob-4 is enough for me to say "these are not products for synth people but tech nerds who want synths"

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#232

Post by WickyNilliams » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

rileyphone wrote: post #4

Love Teenage Engineering, though I've never been able to justify buying something from them (especially not this!). Though I am looking forward to the Playdate [0], which they designed. [0] https://play.date/

Pocket operators are (relatively) cheap and a whole lot of fun! I have the po-33 which is a sampler. It's amazing how much you can do with it. One of those devices where the limitations force you to be creative.

Can thoroughly recommend if you're in any way inclined. Their other pocket operators are more synthy, but I'm a hip hop head so naturally gravitated towards the sampler.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#233

Post by defterGoose » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

Interestingly, for my usual use case, they made this product almost obsolete several months ago when they unlocked the USB audio functionality for the OP-1. Now that I have full stereo in/out at what I assume is 96k, and the ability to edit and playback from a DAW, the addition of a "real-world" audio interface like a duet or something for doing mics makes more sense than this.

I still want one.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#234

Post by twobitshifter » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

I didn’t have the why is it so expensive reaction at all. Mine was “looks really expensive but maybe it’s not”, and then disappointment in the cost. However I totally expected it to cost around $1000. I don’t qualify as anything other than a noodler so I wouldn’t spend that money on it, but as you say professionals would.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#235

Post by WickyNilliams » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

vvvzxd wrote: post #120

can someone explain to me why their gear is so expensive? i have a lot of synths and have been collecting them for a long time, and I have no idea why the OP1 should cost 1000 dollars. it really just seems like a toy, do professionals actually use them?

Take a look at Red Means Recording on YouTube for what the OP-1 is capable of. Very cool piece of hardware

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#236

Post by nkozyra » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

> Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer.

Seems like it's competing against the Tascam model line. I have a model 12 that I'll bet blows it out of the water in the reliability department at almost half the price.

It's not as small but it's pretty and rock solid, Tascam has a great track record (no pun intended)

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#237

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #144

slightly off-topic but I often listen to podcasts while playing video games and I've long wanted a simple device—ideally battery-powered and portable but I'll take what I can get—that takes two audio inputs and produces one audio output, allowing me to crossfade between the two as needed, so I can mix between two audio sources on the fly. does something like this exist, and if so, how expensive is it? I haven't been…

The Gnome 202 is surprisingly decent, very low noise. Its portable if attached to a power bank.

https://www.steinigke.de/de/mpn10006880-omnitronic-gnome-202...

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#238

Post by makz » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #103

Hoo boy, Teenage Engineering is starting to get on my nerves. This is a neat piece of kit, but the specs on it pretty much relegate it to the "toy" category of their lineup. You're telling me people are going to use this 48kHz dongle as a portable DAC? You probably have a better output on your laptop. Pretty absurd. This thing is pretty much a physical iPhone app... that costs more than an iPhone. What really pisses…

My thoughts almost exactly. The thing is beautiful but useless.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#239

Post by hpvic03 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

IAmPym wrote: post #185

hpvic03 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! While you’re here, could you share why the Tempest doesn’t allow you to use your own samples? Could you guys open source some parts of Tempest so people could keep working on it? Asking as a Tempest owner and huge Sequential fan.

Chip/hardware complexity. We actually put some serious resources into trying to get this to work, wish we could have made it a reality And no, open sourcing would be incredibly difficult to do with hardware that has multiple chips and requires people to have expensive programming tools. If it was an ARM you could just plug a USB cable into that'd be one thing, this just wouldn't work without a ton of support And glad…

Interesting.

There are those pre-installed samples there already, they couldn't just be swapped out with an imported file – there's something special about those files?

Anyway I think it's hugely underrated, hopefully you guys can do a v2 sometime. I'm blown away whenever I use it, it feels like a huge technical achievement.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#240

Post by alias_neo » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

eej71 wrote: post #196

alias_neo wrote: post #23

I absolutely love their design language. I'll never have a need to own any of their products but I wish I could buy the gadgets I do need/want with this kind of design/style.

If the people who design the atrocious touch screen interfaces inside of cars could get educated by the nice people at teenage engineering, that would be swell.

I was just watching some reviews of electric cars and noticed a tendency to remove all tactility.

Some of the models have "touch" buttons for drive mode, and things like environmental controls being touch or on screens is horrid.

It's bad enough having to look away from the road for a fraction of a second to find the AC switch in my Nissan, these newer "solutions" just feel plain unsafe.