Teenage Engineering OP-1 Full Review

Teenage Engineering's design tour de force. It looks lovely, but is it useful?

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[sonicstate]

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[composersgarage]

here watching this 9 years later realizing Nick Batt was epic from the start

[freddyharvey]

When this came out I was a teenager and found myself continually coming back to this video. I wanted one SO bad and 9 years later it is still a life ambition of mine to own one

[MiguelAriasS]

I´m amazed, but no only about the OP-1, but about the review. Very complete, very professional. Great work. Thanks

[bwest]

I think it's great people are still passionately arguing over this synth after 5 years. Now THAT is something if you think about it.

[uzomanwosu]

Excellent review. I've been researching for a portable device to take on the road and this fits the bill. Everything else this size either relies on a computer for synthesis or has uncomfortably small controls. I can totally imagine using this on a flight--save my laptop and mobile devices for my day job. As for the price, no device comes close to feature parity and travel readiness so it's worth every penny.

[Yourveryowncarrot]

(Insert complaint regarding rediculous price)

[darwiniandude]

@11:43 "It would've been nice to see an audio interface built into the USB capabilities, " - Added to firmware #243 14/07/2021, previous midi clock over USB midi added too, plus PO sync modes. Anyway, thanks for the great review Nick, I'm here nearly 13 years later and your review holds up really well. Concise and to the point, showing computer and iPad connectivity when iPad was only roughly a year old! Things many more detailed later reviews skip over. Appreciate your work :)

[IzzyBurgos]

Sorry to be harsh but, most of the people commenting on this are idiots. You are judging the OP-1's price based on it's cute "Lego" looks, but it is a powerful and inspiring synth. Name one other synth out there has 8 different Synth engines, 2 Samplers, several methods of Sequencing plus a 4 Track Recorder all in a battery operated portable device? Someone said (just looking at it) that it was Unplayable... Luckily I am a highly evolved Human Being that can easily adapt, and I guess some people are not. Beautifully designed and inspiring, the perfect device to sit on the couch and just noodle away to come up with ideas, why would anyone NOT get one!? And the price is just right for what it is (you wouldn't know unless you've actually worked with it.) For me, it's just another tool in my studio that I happily use... It may look like a toy, but it's not. And as far as toys go, if you are a real musician, you can make music with anything! I seem to remember a certain David Bowie using the toy Stylophone for his "Space Oddity" song. Stop making excuses for your lack of skills people!

[bark]

This would be great for plane flights, id love to have some compact synths like this

[SinaiFieldMission]

It's phrases like "hardware is dying" that are batshit stupid, Christopher Smith. I've used the OP-1 for the past 2 years and have created more roundly produced, professional sounding and higher quality tracks than I ever did using a DAW, and I've been making music for over 20 years. There's a place for virtual AND hardware options; they're not mutually exclusive.

[Splurkle]

 Think about the cost. Then, think have you ever seen something that portable that can do so much?

[ValanceJ]

When you say it seems like an Apple product, it definitely does. Especially at its price...

[imnotgovernorwatts]

Yah gotta agree the price is way to high for that amount i could just buy a couple rack synths and a drum machine

[richardfinch]

All of these comments were from years ago but I'm about to get one so I think that justifies commenting now. For $900 I think the price is well worth it. I don't think it's too crazy. I think it could have been a little bit cheaper but for as much as this thing can do and for as small as it is it's definitely worth it. It's got 8 synthesizer engines built in a sequencer and so much more. It's something you can make a full song on or even a bunch of full songs. Plus if you have to go somewhere you can bring it with you in case you have an idea for your song or hear sound that you want to sample out in the world. It's really a cool device for making music and even though it is pretty expensive I think it's worth it

[TheHotFalafel]

wow I took a look at the price for this and I expected it to be cheap. This is the same price as a sub phatty.

[sonicstate]

Pretty sure I was just reading the blurb that came with it. (no longer have it unfortunately - had to send it back)

[davedagreat]

I can't get past it being £750 and it can't even send or receive clock signals. That's pretty poor I'm afraid. Surely that's a very basic requirement for a unit like this.

[TheMrAlexander]

Your reviews are awesome. They're very much appreciated!

[Djpuzzle]

Just picked one up. Of course you are my go to for insight when I get something new (new to me).