I actually found TE’s OPZ guide the most helpful to get to know OPZ.
First I watched Cuckoo’s video and then went to the TE’s guide to study all the things - I still visit the guide from time to time : OP-Z guide
Ah nice, I’m going to read this 
thanks!
If you understand it, it is going to be mind blowing! I’d just recommend to sample a few of your own sounds as soon as possible, and use it with the phone app if you can.
Thanks! Yeah I’m actually really excited to try it out. I honestly bought it without knowing much other than it looks cool haha, I love the OP-1’s vibe but am more of a step sequencing person so was curious to see their take on it (without spending 2k on the OP-XY lol) and it was a total impulse bargain buy.
I was just watching a video on the sample engines, that definitely seems like where I’ll spend most of my time I think, I think it will be fun to sample iOS apps into it!
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Actually OP-Z is still very capable even comparing to XY, considering the price difference.
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Yeah that is what I thought! And I’m kind of intrigued by the idea of no screen. I thought the OP-1 might be fun to use outdoors but the screen is totally invisible. I guess the LEDs won’t be visible with this but it feels like maybe it could work regardless once you get the muscle memory
Exactly! Muscle memory plays a big role in OPZ.
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OPZ is useless outdoors with the LED’s unfortunately. I bought mine for traveling/camping trips, but you need the phone app to navigate the hardware in bright sunlight. It’s an amazing piece of gear though, it always surprises me, and it sends really smart MIDI out, so lots of the mixer mutes/fx channels etc all send everything to your DAW over a single USB cable, or I think even bluetooth!
It took me a while to wrap my head around the limited sampling capacity, sound engines, editing etc. But the penny dropped, when you think of OPZ as a sketchpad/idea machine and that what you hear on the device is placeholder sounds. If you load it up with your ow placeholder drum kits a few samples etc. play and record the midi output to your DAW, and then replace the midi, there’s tons to work with and finish a track there. I recently got an ableton Move, and I think they hold a similar spot to just get ideas down really fast, then finish in the DAW.
Ah is it not really practical to use if you can’t see the LEDs? That’s a shame. Also hoping I’m ok with the LED UI as I’m colourblind!
I mean, you can squint, but it’s not fun. colours are fine, I’m also colourblind. there’s only 4 modes for the shift key to cycle through anyway, it’s more seeing things like what steps are lit, or which track is selected.
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Good to know! Cheers!
Hello op-z users I’ve got a good deal on a used OP-Z… but I’m a bit worried about quality. Is it a good idea to buy second hand? Are the new models more reliable?
Make sure to check for double-triggering issues. This is a common problem with older units.
I have to say I’m much more impressed than I expected to be with the OP-Z. It’s extremely usable for something with no screen, it didn’t really take much time to get used to it at all - I have to look up the odd key combination, but it’s really very smartly done. The iOS app is helpful when getting started but not essential (and colourblindness isn’t a big issue as the track pages reset when you change track so the green and yellow looking similar doesn’t matter as I can count).
The sequencer is really good (sure, more steps would be nice but not a big deal for me), and step components are a very nice implementation. I look forward to trying sequencing external gear with it.
I wasn’t expecting that much from the sound and thought it would be limited to “that OP-Z sound you hear on YouTube videos” (lol) but actually I think it sounds great and I’ve had no problem making it sound more like me (hypnotic/dubby techno). Of course it’s not a sound design powerhouse but there’s quite a bit of range and what’s there sounds great. Especially digging the filters, that resonance is gorgeous in a 90s sampler sounding kind of way, and the delay and reverb are great.
I think the one area where it’s a bit disappointing is the sample recording capabilities. I was hoping I’d be able to record a load of drum hits from e.g. my iOS device and have them ready to play across the keyboard, but actually you need to set the start and end points for each drum manually and you can’t sample one pad at a time. Preparing samples and the time/capacity limits are a bit janky too, and there’s no internal resampling. But still, it works, just don’t expect a really flexible sampler.
I am having lots of fun which is the main thing! I was hoping for something that I could play with on the sofa when I don’t want to look at a screen, somewhere between a toy and a creative outlet, and it does that really well - actually less of a toy than I expected, but great fun. Personally I find the workflow much more usable and less frustrating than the OP-1. For the £200 I paid I feel like I got a lot - if that’s the new used price level, I’d definitely recommend it to the curious!
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Yes it’s fantastic. Sampling is definitely not very good, but still I managed to put into it quite a few sounds I regularly use and it’s great.
still rocking in his own way despite it is a dead device ( in terms of updates )
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Yeah for sure! For what I paid, I’m happy to look at these as creative limitations. If I’d paid full price I could see being a bit more frustrated, but it gets so much right
Yeah shame that it’s unlikely to see any more updates now the XY is out. But still, it does a lot and is reasonably complete I think!
Someone has gone to a lot of effort to transform the online manual into a well formatted and really useful PDF.
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I would assume that any opz you buy used will have problems. Even if it doesn’t arrive with them. In my experience the buttons will double trigger eventually. You can fix them but it comes back. Most of the cases are bent to some degree. A lot of them have issues with the encoders being loose. However… it is a great machine. I have two, one bought new and one bought used. Both have the same degree of issues and they are all not really problems. The annoying issue will be the double triggers - even when you fix them it comes back. But such a great fun machine I can live with it.
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