They’ve both been around a while, and they’re both well loved by owners. They’re both battery powered, and so on.
I thought it would be good to discuss which you prefer, and why. If you have both, do you use them together? If so how, if not why?
Let’s leave the price difference out of it if we can. It’s obviously huge, but I think it’s more interesting to compare two very capable all-in-one music machines, which both take very different approaches.
I love em both.
The immediacy of the Move is off the charts. Insanely great for people that like to play their ideas in (vs programming). Capture is the killer feature and I wish every device had it, XY included. I like how easy it is to deal with longer played-in sequences on the Move. Press the loop button, and just select the range of bars you want to keep. Integration with Live is also amazing, and although I know that a lot of people just get started on Move and then quickly transition to Live, I really like building and jamming with Move.
The XY definitely feels more refined in terms of sound design and arrangement capabilities. And the brain track, tape track, and step components have led to lots of fruitful exploration. Audio/MIDI routing and integration with external gear are also far superior to Move, which is something I appreciate. I really enjoy the ‘scale’ aspect of the XY’s sequencer. You can have a longer sequence represented on one ‘bar’ (single sequencer page), but that scaled down ‘bar’ can still contain smaller events within each step. That helps keep things manageable. Mixing and matching different patterns is also a ton of fun, and I love that each pattern can have its own sounds and mixer settings.
I haven’t touched my move since I got the op-xy. Minus the pads, the OP-XY is almost better in every single way.
I do think the move is still great. But it doesn’t really add anything that the op-xy cant do. Move is def the faster of the 2, but op-xy is also very fast and can take you way further.
For me it’s 2 main things that are important to the way I work:
The Move runs circles around the OPxy when it comes to handling and playing with Samples. Neither unit offer Melodic Sample Slicing in their DrumKits, but there are ways around it on the Move that makes the XY seem like playing and managing Melodic Samples in the Drum Kit was a complete after thought and poorly implemented.
The OPxy has better synths and playback effects than the Move.
If the OPxy can fix its issues with using Melodic Samples in the DrumKit and be on par or better than how the Move handles Melodic Samples, the OPxy is the better instrument for the long haul musician who wants to do everything in one device—but it really should be considering the investment one needs to make with it.
But for now, the OPxy is ‘almost’ there, and sits on my shelf in it’s protective case…so I am hopeful as to what TE will do in upcoming firmware updates to address these missed steps with Melodic Samples on the unit.
As insane as it sounds, Move can only do 4/4. I’m not sure about the OP XY.
Strictly speaking, this is true. However, in practice, I have found this limitation to be much less restrictive thanks to how well capture works. If I have an odd meter idea and I play in a few measures of it and press capture, Move usually guesses the start of each bar correctly. This allows me to start building on the idea while preserving the odd meter.
Clips can be any length so you can do any time signature you want. You just don’t get a metronome that matches, but it’s easy enough to create your own.
You can’t launch a 3/4 clip in time because you can’t predict where the 1st beat of the underlying clock is.
I’d say it does - it can quickly and seamlessly export into Ableton Live, which is a huge deal for me. If the OPXY could do that, I’d be a little more interested in it - personally.
I did say “almost” 
I own both devices. At the moment the OP-XY eats the Move for breakfast.
If Ableton does everything right, the Move could be a serious competitor for the OP-XY. With the current development progress at Ableton, I think that could be the case in 4 or 5 years 
Yeah I should have quoted where you said the Move didn’t add anything the OPXY can’t do. I think how Move works with samples and exports to the DAW is pretty amazing.
Of course sequencing, quality of build, battery life are all amazing Plusses for OPXY.
Yeah I won’t disagree. OPXY sampling has made me look at a digitakt to pair with it. I have been losing sleep trying to decide if I want to do that though, more gear equals more problems sometimes.
True, it’s really not suited for a live situation but for sketching out a loop in another time signature it works fine.
My possibly controversial opinion is that Ableton really did not intend Move to be used as a live performance tool. Yet people are asking for things like punch in effects that really have nothing to do with anything that’s in Live.
The plastic case, only a 1/8" headphone out, the fact that a big set full of multiple maxed out drum racks doesn’t load very smoothly and you might have to press play a couple of times before all of the samples are loaded, but there’s no loading progress bar, the Live integration and the browser-based Move Manager. Nothing about it seems intentionally geared toward live performance, it’s designed for on-the-go writing which then quickly ends up on a one way trip back to Live.
It’s a portable sketchpad for writing, not an Elektron style live performance groovebox imo. In that sense Move and OP-XY couldn’t be more apples and oranges.
For the price of a Digitakt, I’d get an MPC and call it a day. Sampling on the MPC with MPC3 is just a wonderful experience.
Honestly thought, TE just needs to make Sampling on the OPxy as good, or better than it is on the KO-133.
COME ON ALREADY TE!!! Fix It!
I have had many MPC, it’s good for some things, but ultimately it’s just not for me. MPC 3 feels like i’m working on a touch screen DAW/iPad app on a small screen and that might be for some people, but not really for me. It has every feature you could want. But so does my DAW. I am into the more quirky gadgets with unique workflows that disconnect me a bit.
I totally get it. It took me a couple of years to fully embrace the MPC way of doing things, but I’m hooked now!
If you have an iPad, you should definitely check out Drambo. It’s like having a Digitakt and so much more!
Oh, and by the way, the Move is fantastic for sampling. I love using it when I’m on the go…
4 drum kits with 16 slots each is awesome…
I just wish the OPxy had the same melodic sample handling functionality as Move. It’s not there yet, but it should be…once they fix all the issues with Samples, Attack (ADSR per Sample), and Zero Point crossing issues that it has now.
For me, the Move is way faster to use, and way better at sampling. I use samples a lot, and while the XY’s multi-sampling is great, I find it clunky otherwise.
Like, you can’t pitch drum samples, and you can’t chop samples. I know the Move doesn’t slice, but you can chop on the fly and adjust later.
I also find it a pain to get projects out of the XY. Between that and it’s song mode, which I also find clunky, I prefer to use it in conjunction with Ableton to record clips and arrange them on the computer.
But the XY’s sequencer, keyboard, FX, tape, brain, and incredible connectivity are so good. And the battery and speaker are on a different level than the Move’s.
Both work really well with Koala on an iPad, which plugs all the gaps in their sampling functionality. I guess I love both for different reasons.
You can pitch shift drum samples on OPXY and the song mode on OPXY couldn’t be more simple.
Once XY fixes it’s Melodic Sampler playback functionality…it’s game on!