Teenage Engineering OP-Z

Unifono · February 3, 2022, 9:22am

Wonderful

dhunterrr · February 3, 2022, 9:58am

Classy stuff.

I’d love to know how much of the sounds are stock and how much are your own samples?

rephazer · February 3, 2022, 9:58am

Thanks guys!

It’s zero stock and 100% custom samples

TN_Virgo · February 3, 2022, 10:04am

Amazing stuff. Did you make the… disturbing cartoon yourself too?

dhunterrr · February 3, 2022, 10:04am

Thought as much. I really need to get used to sampling into the op-z.

rephazer · February 3, 2022, 10:08am

Thanks a lot! No the disturbing cartoon was only for inspiration of the track. The video is taken from the internet archive

rephazer · February 3, 2022, 10:12am

I find it actually quite a fun process (for the 4 melodic tracks at least) using a direct usb connection from computer or other class compliant devices and to sample stuff on the OP-Z directly.

For the 4 drum tracks I recommend using Steve Duda’s OP-1 Drum Utility

dhunterrr · February 3, 2022, 10:29am

Yeah synth tracks are fine and drum tracks ok, but not for the sample track. I don’t want to pre-define all 24 sounds for that but I want to be able to individually add hits or fx shots as I make a track or tracks.

It is a bugbear of mine, and I know highly unlikely to be changed.

My other issue is managing samples/synth engines. I just want more storage or need to be better at backing up and swapping them in/out. But in fairness I’m not doing 2hr sets so I don’t need to stress about it too much

muzka · February 3, 2022, 10:30am

Thats pretty excellent

rephazer · February 3, 2022, 10:49am

I understand what you mean, but I guess it’s just not the ‘Teenage Engineering’ way of thinking which I got used to on the OP-1

I think it’s best to take it as rompler which you have to fill with your samples before you start and work/modify the sounds from there on the OP-Z. You can make fx shots and what have you out of existing samples with customising it using LFO/Tape track/FX.

It’s a laborious task, but once done you have a lot of things you can do with it. I also use the drum-tracks for 24-layer multi samples of melodic instruments like piano’s for example.

Mistercharlie · February 3, 2022, 10:53am

I have a default rack in Ableton that lets me use the OP-Z to sequence a sliced sample:

It’s pretty simple. The Pitch effect lines it up so that the slices match the keys on the OP-Z. The CC Param Control Bank is a Max device that lets you map hardware to parameters in the current channel.

The best thing about this is that if you map it like I have, then the OP-Z’s step components all work as expected. You can even use the filter/P1/pan sweep, and it works. The only thing I can’t get to work it the OP-Z’s LFO, via MIDI, but that’s not important as Ableton has plenty of LFOs.

This way I can sample into Ableton, drag it to this Simpler, and start sequencing. All automation is recorded in MIDI.

I have another template which matches the different tracks of the OP-Z. One with kicks, one with hats… Piano, bass, etc. For that one, I duplicated the drum samples to the OP-Z so I can work away from the computer, but have it identical when I reconnect.

rephazer · February 4, 2022, 7:27am

Thanks a lot and I am glad you guys like it so much
Made another little something on the OP-Z yesterday

Thanks for watching/listening folks. Much appreciated

dhunterrr · February 4, 2022, 1:54pm

Really nice again.

When it comes to sampling other synths, I find the pitch change with samples messes with envelopes and modulation. Any tips for avoiding that? I’m thinking when it comes to sampling you need to take off any envelope, or deep rhythmic modulation, open up filters, and hope that op-z can recreate them?

rephazer · February 4, 2022, 7:03pm

Thanks! For the melodic part samples it’s best to remove heavy modulation, filters and envelopes from the source if possible. You can recreate those on the OP-Z.

If you really need/want the rhythmic modulation of the source file you can try using the drum parts instead. 24 x max 0,5 seconds per key so some sample management/manual pitch shifting is needed beforehand.
If you pitch up your 24 samples +12 semitones beforehand you get 1 sec per key (after importing you can pitch it down 12 semitones again on the OP-Z)
If you pitch up +24 semitones you get 2 sec per key and so on, but it will get more lo-fi every time you multiply that

dhunterrr · February 4, 2022, 3:51pm

Clever. Thanks for the tips!

echo_opera · February 7, 2022, 7:43pm

Really cool VST Editor for the OP-Z:

Artsutanav · February 7, 2022, 9:24pm

This is lovely. Is it just Op-Z? Any multitracking, etc.

Thanks

rephazer · February 8, 2022, 7:06am

Thanks a lot. No multitracking, just some normalizing and a bit of compression on the recorded wav file.

Artsutanav · February 8, 2022, 7:23am

You’re welcome and thanks for the info.

rephazer · February 10, 2022, 8:26pm

For the ones interested I just released The Z-Files album fully composed and written on the OP-Z.

Thanks for listening!