Think teenage engineering op-xy but doesn’t make electronic/dance music.
I think a loudspeaker makes sense, provided it sounds good enough. You might not want to clutter your livingroom with additional speakers and cables. Or you might want to take the keyboard with you, to play in another room. Or bring it to play with friends. There are many situations when it might come in handy. You might use the metronome in the Svensson when you play another (acoustic) instrument, for instance. Or make a loop on it for backing.
6 Likes
The Svensson speaker is neither of these.
From the video, and the speaker maker’s reputation, i already know it will sound good, and has volume.
For me the mono speaker makes total sense, i am much more interested in this product with it than without it, and have been looking at another keyboard product with one speaker.
Which brings up a separate thing, i definitely could see adding ( auxiliary ) battery power to this. This other product i mentioned quite sensibly has a battery and speaker.
I think a high quality speaker totally fits with the vision of this product.
3 Likes
Note that the Svensson is from the land of Lagom. The word Lagom is the most loved word in Sweden, according to a recent survey. It means that something is enough and totally satisfactory. More would be of little use or even distracting. I get the impression they designed the Svensson 49 to be a lagom home keyboard.
6 Likes
Pretty sure I read that it can be powered with a power bank or laptop
Using a powerbank is mentioned in the FAQ on their homepage.
‘Lagom’ as a design objective. That’s an interesting idea given that one musician’s ‘lagom’ is another’s ‘underfeatured’.
Most of what I’m hearing about with this device are descriptions of what it can’t or won’t do. Oddly, these are being presented as selling points.
And those who think they need more, should look elsewhere…
“What I really want is something that costs as much as a Syntakt but doesn’t do most of the things a Syntakt can do…”
I finally watched the video and I really like the design philosophy and appreciate what they’re trying to do even though it’s not for me. The multiple different length loops on a single layer is interesting. Ultimately though it’s really really hard not to compare this (unfavorably) to the ableton move. I guess it really is meant to be a stylish piece of living room furniture?
Obsession with features and specs rarely correlates with what instruments truly inspire me imho.
Even Elektron boxes, while they do a lot, are fairly limited devices specs wise. Yet the underlying design invites music making in a certain way that might resonate.
9 Likes
Ultimately though it’s really really hard not to compare this (unfavorably) to the ableton move
Excuse me, but the Ableton Move doesn’t even have a keybed. How could it compare?
4 Likes
4 tracks, “capture” midi looping, curated selection of presets in categories, designed to be simple and playful and quickly layer up simple ideas.
This also seems somewhat inspired by astrolab, but who knows how long it was in development, it could be a coincidence.
1 Like
I was thinking something similar. There’s so much complaining in online electronic music world about menu diving, and so much complaining about DAWs being uninspiring or overwhelming. This is not a particularly flexible or “”“deep”“” device, but does it need to be?
One of my favorite bands ever was three weirdos playing sad songs on thrift store casiotone keyboards, using the factory drum parterns. I’ve had great conversations with one of the people from that band about the idea of positive limits. The idea has been really important to me as a musician. It’s why im kind of aggro about not needing to have “”“all my bases covered”“” with a ton of different instruments, and why I kinda feel like even my setup with two digis, a synth with a keyboard and a synth without one are overkill. It just leads to option paralysis.
This instrument isnt in my budget, but if I was making tv writer money or something? I’d love to have an instrument like this. I kinda feel like power and features are overrated. (That’s just my two cents btw, not trying to tell anybody what they should think or anything.)
9 Likes
But without a piano-style keyboard, it’s in a totally different category.
Does the looper sync to midi clock? More interestingly, does it output midi clock derived from the loop length? Does it song mode?
It says this in their FAQ: “We’re also evaluating the best options for sending and receiving sync.”
2 Likes
I mean I’m sure we all have keyboards we could plug into a move. The main standout features here are a 4 track midi looper that runs a continuous buffer that allows you to capture your playing at any time, and 4 tracks that are categorized into drums, bass, and two keyboard sounds, and both of those ideas are lifted directly from move. Take those away and you have a very basic preset keyboard.
This does have the advantage of multiple layers of loops per track which is interesting but two big limitations that I can see, just to the basic capture functionality is that I don’t see any way to clear the capture buffer. Maybe there’s a way and he just didn’t demo it but it’s a pretty important part of the workflow imo. And no real control over quantization, just on/off, which seems very limiting.
It’s still in another category. I very much doubt that many of the prospective buyers will chose the Svensson because of the looper. I’m sure most of them are looking for a nice, high quality, good sounding instrument to play on the keyboard and that the looper is at most the icing on the cake.