Teenage Engineering Pocket operator modular system

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Bummer. Was considering the keyboard.

I got no voucher or email, just a paypal refund. Bummer

Not sure how it works. Just took that image from a reddit post of someone that got the voucher. Im sure if you email them they will give you the voucher.

ā€¦at least two spelling errors. Odd. Guess they wanted to get out in front of the issue?

I think its better this way than having to coordinate thousands of faulty Units at the customer.

Woohoo!

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Nice! Iā€™ll check this out later. Canā€™t view IG from here.

Of all the products this year, Iā€™m most excited about this. It sounds great from the videos from the videos Iā€™ve seen (and is battery operated). For someone who owns zero modular/semimodular devices, this is very intriguing. And priced pretty well imo.

Iā€™m presuming that you bent once before breaking open the brewskis? Unless you like the sense of danger!

@jeye_musik I didnā€™t even RTFM :joy: but I saved the beer until after :wink:

Iā€™ll post some IG clips later after dinner.

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Here are some clips I made, directly recorded into ipad via Roland UA11mk2 and my eneby mixer.

Here is my brief review of the 400 system:

Packagaing and design are textbook TE, build documentation is good but Iā€™d advise looking all the way through before embarking on the build, I didnā€™t and made a couple of slight non critical mistakes, because the information is scattered around, youā€™ll see what I mean when you get yours.

Build quality is pretty good, some flexing of the approx 1.5mm sheet metal is apparent but not too bad, feels pretty solid, some of the knobs are very tight in the holes, so I might need to make some adjustments - a slight annoyance since it isnā€™t really designed to be taken apart, the case holes are self tapping and so not designed for many disassembly cycles, Iā€™d have preferred that they used threaded inserts or nuts.

Sound quality IMHO is excellent I really like the filter, a good acid filter for sure, not super versatile being only LP but very much a sweet spot kind of filter, which I like. The VCOā€™s also sound nice and have a good range, from sub to very high.

Couple of gripes about the modules themselves, a few more inputs and outputs wouldnā€™t go amiss, the LFO has no rate or reset inputs, the filter only has 1 audio input, as do the VCAs, the noise and random module should have all been 1 module, and the sequencer has no gate outputs for each stage. But to be fair these criticisms are more relevant for a bigger system which of course would cost more.

The knobs are pretty fiddly and they have no clear indicator on them, so Iā€™ll put lines on mine, or I might even look into replacing them, the speaker sounds better than I expected but obviously for most uses youā€™ll want to use external. The volume knob appears backwards but it is actually a balance control for left/right so be aware if only using the left input and wondering why fully CW you wonā€™t hear much :wink:

Also I though my square VCO was kaput when first testing, but the frequency was set so high it was inaudible, so probably a good idea to check this first rather than doing as I did and checking the power connector :joy:

Overall Iā€™m very happy with it, it is even smaller than you might expect, the width is exactly the same as the OP-Z, I think it would be a great intro to modular for beginners but also a lot of value for someone who wants to use it with other modular or semi modular gear.

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Nice one Daren.
Love that acid clip :slight_smile:

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Another for you :wink:

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My kinda jam :sunglasses:

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Another thing I just thought of is that the 400 system would make a fantastic companion to the A4/Keys, they would each compliment the other very well I think, running the 400 into the A4 inputs for fx and so on, a tidy little powerful setup I should think.

Bah! My 400 system has developed a fault with the power supply, it suddenly stops suppling enough power and emits a loud whine, I suspect one of the regulators is faulty :frowning:

Sorry to hear that. Should be covered by warranty I hope?

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Very cool patches!

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Apparently others have had the same problem, Tobias from TE suggested new batteries but it was a brand new set, he also suggested using a PSU (not supplied) luckily I had one that I could modify to work with it, it seems to work ok with the PSU, but I suspect it is a design flaw, so Iā€™m going to contact TE support to see what they suggest. Kinda bummed TBH.

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