I need to start taking it with me where I go. At home I’m too wrapped up in my elektrons currently to even branch out.
Quick question. When recording a radio sample, how do I delete it? When I first started jamming on it, it seemed to be saving that stuff and causing a latency.
Where did you record the radio? On the tape,keyboard or drums?
Drums
You can just record over ir or if you want to clear all your user samples then plug it in the computer and go in disk mode by pressing shift and the com button. And clear out your user sample folders. You can also import samples this way.
Wow! Awesome! I’ll have to get to that!
Thanks!
You need to figure out why you are experiencing latency though. I never had that issue. Maybe you should do a factory reset and start from scratch.
Can someone explain the appeal of OP-1? Looking at the videos, it sure seems like a fun instrument to toy around with but what is it that makes it so innovative, interesting, whatever (and justifies the price)? Do you incorporate it into your setup or use as a standalone device for ideas, sketches?
I’m not being bitchy, just genuinely interested 
It’s quite nice for sound design. The synth engines are very unorthodox but quite powerful.
I don’t use mine very often though. I’ve taken it out to gigs a few times but only to run some loops and samples. I’ve somewhat lost interest in the loop based way of making music using the 4-track tape function and instead just like to play around with the synth engines and sampler. I really need to get a USB MIDI host going so I can pair it with the monomachine…
One of the main reasons I purchased it was because it’s one of the few samplers on the market at the moment that can actually pitch samples chromatically. Having said that, for the price I paid for the OP-1, I could have bought a volca sample+the midi cable that enables chromatic sampling, volca fm, and still had money left over to buy other things…
I like the portability of it and the fact that you can go from scratch to finished song within the same little box.
It’s interesting to be able to use some of the sequencers as arpeggiators.
And it’s good for linear composition as well, not only loops.
Synths are good, some FX as well…
And the limitations somehow push you to finish your track instead of adjusting endlessly some parameters…
I can understand that coming from Elektron it might be hard to break habits and follow a new workflow…
But considering it as a toy is underestimating this little beast.
I got it because it’s a very powerful portable workstation for when I go out of town and can’t take the elektrons with me. Also, I can easily write a song in a park. Which seems fun to me
What I love about the OP-1 is way it lends itself to experimentation. I feel like I can push it to places I won’t normally go with conventional gear. Just the whole way I put everything together on the OP-1 feels organic. I’ll record straight off the radio the keyboard and wave ride the sample for some insane granular effects. Or beat chop random recordings for rythems that I would of never thought off otherwise. Working with the tape kinda makes your commit and move on. I also have to mention the bass on this “toy” will shake your house! This is a very sophisticated instrument that can be confused as a toy but it’s not, it will challenge you to aproach composition different. That’s a great thing in my opinion. I’ve linked velocity sensitive pads to this and was in audio heaven.
My favorite time is when I’m about to go to sleep. Or just wake up. The OP is a good bed side companion.
Agree on all counts, 100%.
Anyone calling it a toy hasn’t held it in their hands. It’s “playful” looks are deceptive.
It’s a solid piece of aluminum, and is a testament to futuristic design (futuristic in terms of anticipating future technologies required to manufacture it, long long ago, not aesthetically futuristic).
The stuff I wrote with OP-1 pulled things out of my imagination that I had no idea were hiding. And it completely changed the direction I have taken musically.
It is a wonderful tool for taking you out of a rut and putting you into a place of productivity and exploration. I owe so much to it, like a friend that helps you through a difficult time.
I let mine go to help fund my 
re-purchase. Which is funny, because I sold my old to fund a Push 2, which was sold to buy an OP-1. Full circle, they all have a lot in common.
Using it in the studio, after I completed my last album with it, required a lot of mental prep to be ready to immerse myself in the OP-1 ethos.
And it was just hard to keep it without any travel plans, as it mostly sat idle. It’s difficult to watch an OP-1 go unused.
Another OP-1 will come to me some day, certainly.
Yeah, it’s hard to describe how amazing the OP1 is. While I’m not using it as much lately, it’s invaluable due to its power and range of uses in a compact form. If I had to get rid of every piece of gear, it’d be the last thing I’d get rid of. Consider that my complete endorsement.
Op-1 reminds me so much of Octatrack. Not many shared features/functions between the two but the creative benefit of using it is very similar to me. Tons of unforseen happy accidents on both. And the sequencers on OP-1 kind of remind me of using Scenes/Fader on OT. Again they’re two totally different things but in terms of inspiration/random changes to a song’s direction or vibe. Anyone with busy family or work life (with a commute) owes it to themselves to grab one. Easily my most used hardware since my 3rd daughter arrived. Being able to pick it up anywhere in the house at any time of day is a godsend. Sketch out ideas then later import the separate OP tape tracks to daw to flesh out in to songs. Though a lot of people make nice stuff totally inside the OP. Seems like some new stuff coming in updates still too. Recent beta had nice additions and some hacker dudes uncovered some other hidden stuff in the OS which hopefully TE will put in a public OS soon… Amazing little box of tricks tho. Super fun/fast. I held off for a long time cos of the price/memory limitations etc but I should have picked one up a long time ago…
Agreed with a lot of the comments here. My latest thing with OP-1 is getting stuff to Tape then doing musique concrete shit with it - endless fun!
It’s also proved to be a great backup audio file player. I was supposed to play some prepared audio on the Octatrack using static/flex machines, but then it broke on me. I copied the audio onto the OP-1 and used that for our gigs. Worked great.
Toy/not a toy stopped being a relevant question for me years ago. Anything is fair game for making music/sound art - be it toys, water fountains, metal sheets, etc.
I there,
Been looking for a synth companion to my beloved Octatrack these days, to replace and enhance the capabilities I got from my little monotron setup (monotron+duo+delay)…
I feel a bit tired with all the subtractive side of synths, be it analog or VA’s (I have used quite a number of hardware and software stuff since years),
And these days I got interest for FM synths and digital synths.
I need a portable device, with hands-on control like a keyboard or pads to be able to lively improvise things to be looped and overdubbed in the octatrack.
The new Roland boutiques got me interested, but I decided it’s too classical for me (my VSTs and hardware synths could do that) and not enough sturdy built. The new Yamaha refaces got also me interested, the FM one the most, but still a format I don’t think really original and idea generating…
I had also interest into the Waldorf streichfett and pulse2… But not “operation-able” devices, I mean no pads or keys…
Then I thought of the Monomachine, but so far I didn’t like the sounds I heard when browsing thousands of videos… Too lo-fi and colorless to my ears (my monotron setup is too noisey for me, I want clean sounds!)
Then I looked about the op1 further more (I had a little interest to it some years ago but the price was wayyy to high for me so I didn’t really looked into it)
I passed quite some time yesterday night watching videos about the op-1, and I think I love how it sounds. The synth engines attract me a lot, and the FXs seem tweakable to hell!
I don’t mind (for now) the tape-rec stuff on it as I’m using the octatrack… But I love the synths and the drums seem also interesting. And the ability to use my own samples in it is refreshing too… (Lacking tracks on the OT, ah ah!)
So guys do you think it would be too much for simple duty as playing synths live and triggering samples with FXing live?
How many samples can it store? I would only use little vocal and field samples I guess, not long stuff, to pass thru its FXs…
I seem to can’t find any alternative…
Any advice?
Lots here say OT+OP1 is a beast of a duo, could you please elaborate a bit on how you use this combo?
Thanks in advance
Monomachine is a bottomless source of weirdness. Chip tune is only a tiny bit of what it can do !
Look for drum arpegiator, fun trick amongst others…
OP-1 is nice as a standalone unit or as an OT companion. A bit pricey, but a world of fun. Get you to finish a track, I love it !
As dangerous as it could be, a 0-coast would be veeery fun 
And FM synths ?
Volca FM ?
PreenFM2 ?
Those are great with the OT, especially the PreenFM that can play 4 different instruments at the same time… Just grab an XKey37 and you’re set !
All these can let you something else than substractive synthesis…
Yes. And Yes. I’ve used it standalone, I’ve used it in my setup. I’ve used it as a MIDI keyboard for other sound modules (Evolver, Monomachine, etc). I’ve had fun stacking it with little monosynths like the Meeblip Anode to get a bass sound and shimmering digital cloud sound together. I grew up fascinated with tape music and used to do a lot of crappy tape manipulation and 4 track trickery and the OP-1 has a tape-like 4 track recorder built in with all of the speed and direction tricks I want. Someone once described it as a “portable radiophonic workshop”. Oh, and it’s insanely portable and gets great battery life so it’s fun to pack along when traveling if one has the room.
It’s like a Monomachine in that it’s proudly digital, and it sports a number of different synth engines. They’re not always the greatest sounding engines, but they’re easy to use and the number of different engines provide great starting points for sound design - it’s not another “here’s a couple hundred amazing presets you can never re-create and an init patch of a plain triangle wave” synth.
The OP-1 pairs well with the Monomachine, in fact. It supports exactly 4 MIDI CC values (1-4), so that’s easy to program in to the MM and take advantage of P-Locking. It’s pretty easy then to re-route the CC destinations on the fly for some dynamic sounds.
I’ve done whole compositions on it while on cross-country train trips, taking advantage of sampling FM radio or sampling the room while jamming with friends to make sounds that are unique to that trip.
One of my favorite things is the accelerometer LFO. Here is a track I made with three OP-1 synth tracks and a simple beat from the Machinedrum. I used the element LFO to sweep the filters and give it some shakes for weirdness.