Teenage Engineering OP-Z

Always read the small print!

Very true. I thought it was a little sly personally - knowing how over priced TE accessories tend to be, the pre order image at that price didnt seem that overpriced, then I caught the small print and guffawed!

Someone should make an assignable midi controller with exactly the same form factor, and no synth or sequencer brain but with built-in

  • wav recorder
  • midi sync track
  • usb-midi host io
  • trs jack midi io x 4
  • micro stereo 4 channel matrix mixer
  • li-ion battery with 5v, 6v 9v and 12v outs
  • cv x 4 io

plug it into your IOS device, OP-1 or elektrons and you’re off to the races

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For everyone saying “what does it do?” I suggest watching this. I’ve been beta testing, and have only very rarely used the screen. It is not a controller for an app!

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I watched this earlier. I changed from “what can it do” to “is that all it can do” pretty quickly.

I don’t mean to rain on folks parade though. I’m sure those who pre-ordered will love it.

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What would you like to see it do that it doesn’t? There’s still time for feature requests (within reason)!

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It’s funny seeing some of the “is that all it can do? it costs how much?” when it’s still cheaper than some individual Eurorack modules.

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Eurorack is some of the most overpriced stuff there is so it’s not a very big achievement to come up with something cheaper than that.

That said, vast majority of Eurorack modules are cheaper than OP-Z… and for the price of OP-Z, you could get iPad, controller and plenty of apps.

I expected it to sound on a par with the OP1. I don’t particularly rate the synth engines on the OP1 that highly (have owned 3 over the years) but I figured the OPZ would at least match it.

It’s early days though but all I’m hearing is masses of dull plinky plonky chip tune sort of stuff - just about all of it sounds identical!. I’d like to think TE will develop the OPZ over at least the next year or so and things will look a little more enticing than they are now. But that UI just seems designed for those with a glutton for punishment!

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As a former owner of an op-1 and a current owner of a PO35 and a PO32, I’d say the OPZ looks more like the natural progression of the Pocket Ops (as opposed to OP1 rev 2) as sort of a mega pocket operator, which is a good thing imo. That intuitiveness/versatility of the two Sonic Charge collabs specifically (Speak and Tonic) really give me high hopes for the OPZ. From all of the demo’s from the beta testers I’ve seen, it looks like the experience will be quite similar to the Pocket Ops in that they are kind of hard to describe but make a lot of logical sense once you actually start playing one.

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Gear4Music still available to pre-order https://www.gear4music.com/Keyboards-and-Pianos/Teenage-Engineering-OP-Z-16-Track-Synthesizer-with-Sequencer/1GXT

Sorry if i’ve missed this somewhere but does the ‘Z’ have stereo aux in and is it a usb host?

Wondering if I have an OP-1 audio routed into the Z (or vice versa) can I have the OP-1 usb-hosted by the Z too and easily drop samples across to the Z?

That sort of integration would be interesting…

Details are on their webpage.
Includes ins : outs : usb details.

There was a rumour of updated op1 firmware to play nicer with opz but I wouldn’t assume it’s real until it’s downloadable.
As very few are out in the wild the more specific questions are unlikely to be easy to answer yet.

How much sample time/memory does the OP-Z have?

Is there any information on how many different synthesis engines this will have?

I don’t think I’m allowed to say yet

great to see OPZ finally arrived. I really hope they will do fine, TE is such a cool company and OPZ seems to be a labor of love. I probably will pick one up later this year but not before @cuckoomusic is (hopefully) doing a nice walkthrough :+1::+1:

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whether OP-Z is a usb host and has stereo input remains to be revealed.

hopefully host as this makes for much more interesting usage without a pc in the middle.