The US digital radio effort has been complicated and slow to ramp up. Many digital streams are commercial free in an attempt to drive receiver adoption.
Do you believe it wont? teenage engineering has a very consistent following among audio geeks around the globe, as other comments are enthusiastically alluding to, I'd have already bought one if they weren't already sold out
HD Radio is a digital radio standard in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Many new cars are sold with HD Radio. Many new cars are sold without HD Radio. Go look at some new car listings, you'll find tons without HD Radio. Many will only say AM/FM. Sometimes they'll also mention Radio Data System (RDS), the thing that shows a snippet of text with song titles and station names. Some will mention HD Radio Ready, as in you can buy an additional module to upgrade the OEM stereo with an HD Radio decoder, this is also common with satellite radio. Sometimes a car will have HD Radio.
It has existed for a while and has been ramping up more and more over the last decade. I'm probably one of a small handful of people I know who listen to/care about HD Radio in their cars or their home stereos. Even decently technical people I know are still often surprised to find out about digital subchannels available on the radios they already have, whenever they actually have an HD Radio.
Its been nearly two decades since HD Radio was chosen as the standard in the US, and yet in 2018 still nearly half of the new cars sold had only regular analog radios. Nearly 20 years and HD Radio was only on less than a fifth of all cars on the road.
http://www.insideradio.com/more-than-half-of-new-cars-now-eq...
USA drew a short stick in the digital radio battle, by deciding on using a proprietary standard.
The rest of the world has the DMB vs. DAB competition driving the adoption, and technical improvements, while USA still had the same HD Radio of 10 years ago, and near no mobile receivers.
My very basic understanding is that most regular DAB (not DAB+) is inferior in audio quality compared to FM?
Also, and I don't know how much it has decided their design decisions, but Teenage Engineering is Swedish based, and here DAB hasn't really become a thing.
It's been, more or less, in a "trial" state since 1995, not covering the whole country and steps to upgrade to DAB+ and replacing FM canceled a few years ago.
My very basic understanding is that most regular DAB (not DAB+) is inferior in audio quality compared to FM?
Broadcasters can divide the ~1,000 kbit/s into many channels, usually 9-12. It's rare for a single channel to get more than 128 kbit/s, so a strong FM signal might sound better.
Yeah I think it was a combination of a technical decision to keep the CPU power requirements down and a political decision to not give people high enough quality for piracy. "Home taping is killing music" and all that.
Yeah... DAB can be good, if the station chooses to transmit at a higher bit rate (which can range from 64kbit mono to 192kbit stereo at least), and signal strength is unfortunately a significant factor.
In the UK, the BBC stations tend to be pretty solid, the commercial stations can be somewhat bad, although a lot of the commercial music stations seem to have shifted to DAB+ (predominantly 40 kbit/s DAB+ Stereo HE-AAC v2 apparently - presumably to fit more stations in, ~10 on the BBC ensemble vs ~20 on the commercial "National 1" ensemble).[1]
I have the Eneby, the tiny Frekvens, and twin Symfonisk speakers.
Ikea's Symfonisk Sonos speakers are Eneby taken much further... but thats it.
Like they are literally Eneby Drivers married to Sonos One SL boards. Add some porting and a case and boom, Symfonisk. But what they can do is pretty shocking, The TruePlay tech really irons the package into incredible quality by tuning out all of the downsides of the Eneby's lesser hardware. You can downright hear it outside like a house party at max volume with no discernible distortion.
Hm, the Symfonisk are much smaller than the Eneby 30.
The volume of the Eneby gives it surprising bass extension (40 Hz) but it's a bit lumpy on the way down there. I've never dared to test max volume at the risk of disturbing my neighbors…
Symfonisk is based on Eneby 20, Max volume I tested was with a twin pair (As they do stereo pairing via Sonos.) You will probably hear better quality out of a pair like I did but post TruePlay tuning, it sounded very different before and after. In the smaller room of mine, Trueplay seemed to think it was too muddy sounding and tuned out a lot of lower end EQ. The notable Eneby 20 vs Symfonisk sound to me was that the Eneby had bass that seemed...not crisp? I don't know the right word but the highs in a drum line were not there. The vocals could have sharp highs but then you couldn't hit the stick hit the drum, just the sound of the drum. Despite the exact same drivers, Symfonisk had a WAY different profile that was more crisp and had more dynamic feeling bass. I wonder if the speaker's Z-Depth helps that.
I love everything Teenage Engineering make. My first impression is always "eh, that's too weird, who would want that... who is their target market?", and over time end up at "OK, I WANT ONE!". I own way too many of their Pocket Operators now.
Though, I REALLY think I'm not their target market here: "designed to be played outdoors, in public spaces and at high volume"... that's exactly situations I now try to avoid. Hmm, unless I have it playing "GET OFF MY LAWN" on a loop?
I understand say OP-1. But how much time on average have you spent on each of those pocket operators? And are you able to use it productively after leaving it alone for some time without checking manual?
Personally, when I was commuting for work I would spend the 90 min ride in or back working on some things, though I spent more time with the OP-Z.
Sure it takes time to reacclimate to the controls but these things are not simple machines like bicycles. The overlays with the OP-Z for example are really handy for quick reference.
I was going to mention the OP-Z - I was uncertain about it until I got one, but it turns out to be a really good example of an "expert" UI. No screen, lots of button combos to memorise, an enormous amount of functionality. Completely unapproachable without hours of studying the manual, but when you know it it's very efficient to use.
The Pocket Operators are genuinely pretty inuitive, simply because they have so many buttons, and each one has at most two functions (from memory).
The labelling is also pretty good for the first 2 series at least, I haven't tried any of the third. That said, the original official case hid the LEDs which reduces usability substantially - the only useful elements on the screen are the BPM and sync status in the corner.
My issue with them is the lack of a case makes them not very ergonomic and not very portable, for the sake of an aesthetic. All the after market cases have a major downside: doubling the volume (size), hiding elements of the interface, requiring gluing components, price, etc. Also they're pretty expensive for what they are - you really want at least two, by which time you could buy a Volca.
I've thought about desoldering all the buttons and pots to build a more durable unit with bigger mechanical Cherry style switches and bigger LEDs, but I'll never get around to it.
I got one by accident. PO-13. Very fun device. I can use it without a reference, no problem. I'm a bit hesitant to give one as a gift for a child, though. OP-1 had lots and lots of visual feedback, which facilitated learning and experimentation. I wish they got back to that philosophy of design.
The pocket operator (don't remember which one) was an impulse purchase for me and one of the very few musical instruments I've ever returned. I couldn't use it productively and honestly I didn't even really like the best youtube videos made with it.
I have 2 and used them fairly often, but I later grew tired of sequencers in general (in favor of trying to do as few quantized/beat-synced things as possible, most of the time). I really liked the little effects each button had.
For what it is worth, your friend would be in addition to most modern artists. Chvrches' first album was mostly OP1, Death Cab used it heavily on their latest, The national made aggressive use, TS's Folklore is layered with it everywhere and It was used in Billy Ellish's latest works too. the OP1 is basically standard equipment for most modern bedroom to indie producers.
> the OP1 is basically standard equipment for most modern bedroom to indie producers.
That's going a little far. The thing with music gear is that if you look for people using it, you see it everywhere. But you don't see people not using it. You can't easily google "albums recorded without using an OP-1" and get useful results. So that gives you a very skewed impression about how popular any given tool is.
I'd be surprised if more than 1% of indie releases in the past few years used an OP-1. Heck, it's be surprised if more than 10% used any hardware synth, much less a quirky boutique one like the OP-1.
A friend of mine has a bunch of them and his opinion is that if you are well-versed with drum machines, synthesizers, etc., pocket operators are fairly intuitive to use.
They're kinda making fun of that with the next line:
"designed to be played outdoors, in public spaces and at high volume; carried on one shoulder with speaker elements facing the head. note: it is assumed that passers-by share the same musical taste."
The OP-1 is kind of a weird thing. I remember a few years ago I was almost convinced that I should have one, except for the price tag which was way over my league. And back then it was still being sold for about $900 in stores I think and now it’s like $1500.
On the bright side though I picked up a decent Korg Triton Le 88 waveform keyboard with weighted hammer action keys a couple of years ago second hand, and for that one I paid $300 which I think was a pretty good price. Online websites seem to indicate that these often sell for $550 to $600 second-hand, or at least that people are listing them asking for that amount.
But the greatest thing for my music making happened a year later when I was able to pick up an Akai MPC X second hand in excellent condition for $1000. The guy that sold it to me had barely even used it. The retail price for those things are $2000, and I love my MPC X to bits.
The MPC X combined with the aforementioned keyboard make for a wonderful time when I work on music.
I have always preferred working with my music without using a computer for it when I play, and with the MPC X you get something that is still very tactile while at the same time also having quite a few of the features of a DAW. My keyboard is connected to the MIDI in and MIDI out of the MPC X, and I play on the keyboard, record MIDI notes, make changes to them and do all kinds of stuff.
Now you may be wondering why I am bringing this up. Like, an 88-keys keyboard and a piece of other hardware sitting on top of it, all on a keyboard stand, it’s not portable so it’s not an apples to apples kind of deal quite.
But the point is that I paid $1300 for this music gear and even though I don’t have the portability that an OP-1 would give you it just gives me so infinitely much personal joy to be making music with.
The OP-1 meanwhile, I think even if you picked it up second hand you’d be unlikely to find it for less than $1000 anytime soon. And I think for me personally, yeah the OP-1 looks neat I suppose, but I am lucky that I could not afford it because this setup that I have instead I think is giving me much much more than the OP-1 ever would for me.
When in the distant future I can afford to buy anything more for my music making, I don’t think I would actually ever buy the OP-1 at this point tbh. Because whereas I used to be intrigued by it and inspired by some of the videos I was seeing and the music people make with it, I think for me the truth is that it would not really help me musically.
Not saying the OP-1 isn’t good or anything. Like I said, some people make cool music with it. Just think that for me I have found a different path to music for myself than what the OP-1 is for. And I feel like with my MPC X and my keyboard I can do all of what I would have been able to do with an OP-1 but not only that but so much more.
It's tempting to think of Teenage Engineering as a frustrating synthesizer manufacturer, but they're really a design studio. They're much more interested in exploring new ways to integrate sound, life and technology than excelling at a particular product segment.
It's pretty much the opposite of what Behringer is doing. That company is totally focused on scale, reducing consumer prices, and bringing synths to the mass market. (with all the ethical corner cutting that brings with it)
Indeed Teenage Engineering is a design studio which just happens to have some synthesizer products.
One of the TE founders, Jesper Kouthoofd, used to work with Elektron, a Swedish synthesizer firm. While there he designed the Machinedrum product's UI.
Yeah it’s a weird situation where I feel like a lot of the people who the OP-1 is aimed at either can’t afford it, period or aren’t going to pay $1300 on a “toy”. Because of its market positioning it ends up being this unattainable luxury item that only professional/ established musicians use, instead of a MPC-esque everyman’s tool. The “toy” design positioning and huge price tag work in tandem to keep it unattainable- it’s not that people can’t afford it (although a lot of people can’t afford it) but at the high price tag, people start seriously min-maxing what they’re getting for their money. People are really reticent to spend an entire paycheck on something that’s even somewhat limited, and possibly the best “feature” (the high level of polish in design and UX) is sort of invisible and not looked at as a utilitarian “feature”.
I'm not going to try to defend this expensive radio thing, but regarding the OP-1 I don't think $1300 is an "unattainable luxury item", I'd reserve that label for something like a proper Leica camera.
There are plenty of ways to spend a lot more on a musical instrument - buy a decent saxophone, or a Moog One! I just found a ukulele online for $1500. The OP-1 seems overpriced because it's very small, but that's also the whole point of it.
It's worth noting that the price of an OP-1 was much lower when it initially launched. I bought mine directly from TE for $850 + shipping + import duties. A re-launch of the product bumped the price to where it is currently.
I also agree that the current price, while high, is not leagues above what other music gear is priced at. Take a single synthesizer, a sampler, add a keyboard, a sequencer, effects pedals, and a mixer and you can easily exceed $1000. The OP-1 has multiple synthesis engines, multiple sequencers, multiple effects, and sampling capabilities (you can even sample from FM radio, sound familiar?)
While the OP-1 may not win awards for any one of those features, it does unify all of them into a portable package. The OP-1 has also served as a gateway drug for me. I've since purchased even pricier synth gear :)
I think it boils down to whether your primary orientation is live/jam or home-studio/finished-songwriting.
Teenage Engineering's stuff makes me imagine visceral live shows with lots of space for free form, improvised content-- up to & including a whole new growing subculture of kids being able to instantly make piping fresh, context appropriate art anywhere from the living room to the campfire.
Tweaking instruments and song parts iteratively over days & weeks to get an ideal finished product is really a whole different thing. The more big gear you can bring to that effort the better. I also second your advice on second-hand music equipment, most of my stuff over the years was acquired that way and it definitely gave me more opportunities than problems.
First time I saw one it was in a music video and I was convinced that it was a fake gadget. Didn't realize it was a real thing until a year or two later. Which sort of makes sense, since I think the OP-1 didn't come out until a year after this Swedish House Mafia video came out:
They have a really weird list of counties (bottom left corner). About 100 of them, and I can't understand why they were chosen. A lot of small countries in there, and big ones missing.
I missed that flipping through on my phone somehow. Probably because FM radio was just another bullet-point under "wireless" along with 2 bluetooth modes. The lack of any visible tuning controls also threw me.
First guess is the FM is more of a toy experimental feature combined with DAB probably requiring license fees. Also there's no DAB in the US or regular service outside of Europe.
I know, but Europe is the only place that uses DAB basically and not universally so if they sell out side of there which they do having DAB is just a cost and no benefit unless they build different SKUs.
"JBL Boombox 2" is going for about 400 euros right now and as far as I can tell JBL bluetooth speakers are hugely popular to the point of almost becoming a genericized word for bluetooth speakers. This is just 1.5x the price for something that at least looks much better. I'm not getting either but it doesn't seem outrageous.
Build first locally, and then transition to China is a pretty natural pattern, especially for a smallish design firm... you can get the design and production process tightly controlled in a situation where you can easily visit the manufacturing facility, then move it to somewhere that can handle your scale economically.
There's a dual marketing benefit too, as when the initial reviews are coming out you get into peoples' heads as "made in EU" and then that brainworm never resets when you move production, and you also get to gauge your demand without the time+money input of ramping up production on another continent.
One thing I like about this and the OP-1 is they hit that retrofuturism, Tokyo-in-1985 kind of vibe so well with their marketing, its really well thought out.
exposed drivers on a 'outdoor use' 600 dollar device gives me an extreme sense of anxiety.
Reminds me of Braun products; products designed to look nice, but in general usability suffers in favor of sleek metal human interfaces, nice weights, and a generally 'quality' feel.
People complain about Apple products because it’s one of the most used by people who actually care about what they use, and then fail to provide any decent alternatives.
Did their usability suffer? I always remembered Braun as being simple and intuitive growing up. Like you almost knew how to use whatever it was immediately without inspection.
Does this kind of marketing actually work for many people? Without trying to sound too unkind, I genuinely hope there are not that many people out there who want to use this thing by "carry(ing) on one shoulder with speaker elements facing the head".
If it wasn't for the price I would buy it just for this "ambient. zone out to a drone generated by snippets of a radio broadcast" feature as it sounds precisely like my fav type of music.
Although his work is more house music, and less ambient, there's a producer named Akufen who has done some really interesting music with this exact sound palette.
The example on the webpage sounds like a radio station passed through a granulator with a lot of reverb, something like Clouds from Mutable Instruments. It's an open-source granular effect eurorack module, there is a software port in VCV-Rack. This is another famous granulator: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/granulator-ii/
It's ok that you are not privy to the hype around Teenage Engineering in general.
Musicians like their devices because the UX design is interesting and relatively smooth, and the devices have a lot of flexibility for making interesting music.
Kind of funny to see synth stuff come up on HN. There are people who know and need to let you know they know, and people who don't know and don't get it being grumpy about it.
The musician love for TE is on the wane as the company pivots from doing innovative industrial design for creative people to becoming another pointless luxury brand. They sell a $170 blank sweatshirt now.
HN is fundamentally a community built around products and commodities (and especially tech startups). What discussion happens here about programming is a very market-centric view of the field. This post seems par for the course to me.
HN is always subject to astroturfing, it's just generally managed by YC directly. Ensuring positive opinion and adoption of their investments while keeping the competition soundly off the radar.
No, that's not the case. We do have Launch HNs for YC startups that get special treatment (one of three formal things that HN gives back to YC, the other two being job ads and displaying alumni usernames in orange). This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. But those formal things aren't really the main value that HN has for YC. I've written about this lots of times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... If you look at those explanations, you'll understand why we don't manipulate HN in the way you suggest. The good faith of the community is worth far more than anything we'd get by squeezing the lemon that way. Besides which, it would be wrong.
TE made one really stand-out product, the OP-1, and one kinda-pretty-good product, the OP-Z. They have a few other products of mixed reception and a bunch of typical high-end boutique junk if you really want their logo on your t-shirt or whatever. They're coasting on their reputation of the OP-1, which is deserved, but they haven't really come up with anything worthy of their reputation since.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
The real explanation might actually be that a lot of people on hacker news are easily taken in by marketing. A new look for something that was popular when people were kids at a 1000% markup should be easy to see through, but stuff like this happens all the time.
I totally bought into the hype and paid $1k (CAD) for an OP-1 that's unfortunately collecting dust. It's a marvel of design and engineering, but I suck at making music.
For anyone not familiar, these guys are kind of like a cheeky Apple of musical hardware design.
I've been looking for a high-end pair of bluetooth speakers, so this really peaks my interest.
I've been wanting the B&O Beolit, but they used to come with built-in charger, so you could just plug in directly into the wall.
But now they switched to USB-C charging, which means that you need to use an external charger unit. Not every USB charger will deliver enough power, so that's just a step back in user experience. The older models had a room for the cable, so what was the point of changing it?
Nothing was added in place of the internal charger and the price didn't drop. They just took away a feature and wrote "Now with USB-C!" on the box, as if they added something.
So this one having "universal built-in power supply" and a power cable in the box, is a really big plus for me!
FWIW, Bluetooth is the wrong tech if you want high end. You are much better off with something Wifi connected and the quality is much much better. Obviously doesn't work for everyone, but I imagine this is not much better at reproduction than even mid-range Sonos Speakers.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadMany cars still ship with no digital capability.
Ordinary FM makes reasonable sense here.
They should do well with that thing.
https://hdradio.com/get-a-radio/new-cars/
The answer was "it exists and has been ramped up for a while". And I'm not even talking about SDARS.
When they run ADS on the HD streams, we will know it is much closer.
Some regions are almost there. Many are not.
Its been nearly two decades since HD Radio was chosen as the standard in the US, and yet in 2018 still nearly half of the new cars sold had only regular analog radios. Nearly 20 years and HD Radio was only on less than a fifth of all cars on the road. http://www.insideradio.com/more-than-half-of-new-cars-now-eq...
The rest of the world has the DMB vs. DAB competition driving the adoption, and technical improvements, while USA still had the same HD Radio of 10 years ago, and near no mobile receivers.
We could have had a much quicker, cheaper system.
Then there is the whole artificial highs above about 8khz thing...
Also, and I don't know how much it has decided their design decisions, but Teenage Engineering is Swedish based, and here DAB hasn't really become a thing.
It's been, more or less, in a "trial" state since 1995, not covering the whole country and steps to upgrade to DAB+ and replacing FM canceled a few years ago.
Broadcasters can divide the ~1,000 kbit/s into many channels, usually 9-12. It's rare for a single channel to get more than 128 kbit/s, so a strong FM signal might sound better.
In the UK, the BBC stations tend to be pretty solid, the commercial stations can be somewhat bad, although a lot of the commercial music stations seem to have shifted to DAB+ (predominantly 40 kbit/s DAB+ Stereo HE-AAC v2 apparently - presumably to fit more stations in, ~10 on the BBC ensemble vs ~20 on the commercial "National 1" ensemble).[1]
[1 - http://www.wohnort.org/dab/uknat.html]
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/frekvens-portable-speaker-black...
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/frekvens-speaker-with-subwoofer...
TE designed both this OB4 and the Frekvens, this seems like the Ikea line taken to a very far extreme. Very neat, lots of cash though.
I have to say, it kinda reminds me of Ikea's Eneby too, but TE did not design that: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/eneby-bluetooth-speaker-black-0...
Ikea's Symfonisk Sonos speakers are Eneby taken much further... but thats it.
Like they are literally Eneby Drivers married to Sonos One SL boards. Add some porting and a case and boom, Symfonisk. But what they can do is pretty shocking, The TruePlay tech really irons the package into incredible quality by tuning out all of the downsides of the Eneby's lesser hardware. You can downright hear it outside like a house party at max volume with no discernible distortion.
The volume of the Eneby gives it surprising bass extension (40 Hz) but it's a bit lumpy on the way down there. I've never dared to test max volume at the risk of disturbing my neighbors…
..And
> like the Ikea line taken to a very far extreme
Looking up the specs, 1x2.2W vs. 2x38W.
Wondering how they designed the structure so that the speakers don't blow up the unit into pieces.
You can test them side by side in the store, next to Ikeas own brand.
> *ROLLING 2 HOUR RECORDING
Then maybe not call it "endless" if it's not even practically endless?
I wonder which teenagers they target :-)
Though, I REALLY think I'm not their target market here: "designed to be played outdoors, in public spaces and at high volume"... that's exactly situations I now try to avoid. Hmm, unless I have it playing "GET OFF MY LAWN" on a loop?
Sure it takes time to reacclimate to the controls but these things are not simple machines like bicycles. The overlays with the OP-Z for example are really handy for quick reference.
The labelling is also pretty good for the first 2 series at least, I haven't tried any of the third. That said, the original official case hid the LEDs which reduces usability substantially - the only useful elements on the screen are the BPM and sync status in the corner.
My issue with them is the lack of a case makes them not very ergonomic and not very portable, for the sake of an aesthetic. All the after market cases have a major downside: doubling the volume (size), hiding elements of the interface, requiring gluing components, price, etc. Also they're pretty expensive for what they are - you really want at least two, by which time you could buy a Volca.
I've thought about desoldering all the buttons and pots to build a more durable unit with bigger mechanical Cherry style switches and bigger LEDs, but I'll never get around to it.
As always, its not the instrument - its the musician.
That's going a little far. The thing with music gear is that if you look for people using it, you see it everywhere. But you don't see people not using it. You can't easily google "albums recorded without using an OP-1" and get useful results. So that gives you a very skewed impression about how popular any given tool is.
I'd be surprised if more than 1% of indie releases in the past few years used an OP-1. Heck, it's be surprised if more than 10% used any hardware synth, much less a quirky boutique one like the OP-1.
"designed to be played outdoors, in public spaces and at high volume; carried on one shoulder with speaker elements facing the head. note: it is assumed that passers-by share the same musical taste."
Guess that's why they're teenage engineering?
Please read the site guidelines my friends.
> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Let the moderators do their job.
The one thing I'd add (hot tip from bitter experience) is that it's best when not combined with swipes like "This reads like an ad".
On the bright side though I picked up a decent Korg Triton Le 88 waveform keyboard with weighted hammer action keys a couple of years ago second hand, and for that one I paid $300 which I think was a pretty good price. Online websites seem to indicate that these often sell for $550 to $600 second-hand, or at least that people are listing them asking for that amount.
But the greatest thing for my music making happened a year later when I was able to pick up an Akai MPC X second hand in excellent condition for $1000. The guy that sold it to me had barely even used it. The retail price for those things are $2000, and I love my MPC X to bits.
The MPC X combined with the aforementioned keyboard make for a wonderful time when I work on music.
I have always preferred working with my music without using a computer for it when I play, and with the MPC X you get something that is still very tactile while at the same time also having quite a few of the features of a DAW. My keyboard is connected to the MIDI in and MIDI out of the MPC X, and I play on the keyboard, record MIDI notes, make changes to them and do all kinds of stuff.
Now you may be wondering why I am bringing this up. Like, an 88-keys keyboard and a piece of other hardware sitting on top of it, all on a keyboard stand, it’s not portable so it’s not an apples to apples kind of deal quite.
But the point is that I paid $1300 for this music gear and even though I don’t have the portability that an OP-1 would give you it just gives me so infinitely much personal joy to be making music with.
The OP-1 meanwhile, I think even if you picked it up second hand you’d be unlikely to find it for less than $1000 anytime soon. And I think for me personally, yeah the OP-1 looks neat I suppose, but I am lucky that I could not afford it because this setup that I have instead I think is giving me much much more than the OP-1 ever would for me.
When in the distant future I can afford to buy anything more for my music making, I don’t think I would actually ever buy the OP-1 at this point tbh. Because whereas I used to be intrigued by it and inspired by some of the videos I was seeing and the music people make with it, I think for me the truth is that it would not really help me musically.
Not saying the OP-1 isn’t good or anything. Like I said, some people make cool music with it. Just think that for me I have found a different path to music for myself than what the OP-1 is for. And I feel like with my MPC X and my keyboard I can do all of what I would have been able to do with an OP-1 but not only that but so much more.
It's tempting to think of Teenage Engineering as a frustrating synthesizer manufacturer, but they're really a design studio. They're much more interested in exploring new ways to integrate sound, life and technology than excelling at a particular product segment.
It's pretty much the opposite of what Behringer is doing. That company is totally focused on scale, reducing consumer prices, and bringing synths to the mass market. (with all the ethical corner cutting that brings with it)
One of the TE founders, Jesper Kouthoofd, used to work with Elektron, a Swedish synthesizer firm. While there he designed the Machinedrum product's UI.
https://www.elektronauts.com/t/elektron-and-teenage-engineer...
EDIT: clarify what JK designed and added link.
There are plenty of ways to spend a lot more on a musical instrument - buy a decent saxophone, or a Moog One! I just found a ukulele online for $1500. The OP-1 seems overpriced because it's very small, but that's also the whole point of it.
I also agree that the current price, while high, is not leagues above what other music gear is priced at. Take a single synthesizer, a sampler, add a keyboard, a sequencer, effects pedals, and a mixer and you can easily exceed $1000. The OP-1 has multiple synthesis engines, multiple sequencers, multiple effects, and sampling capabilities (you can even sample from FM radio, sound familiar?)
While the OP-1 may not win awards for any one of those features, it does unify all of them into a portable package. The OP-1 has also served as a gateway drug for me. I've since purchased even pricier synth gear :)
$1300 is a nosebleed luxury price tag for shoes, but it's a junker car.
But for a synth? Yeah, wouldn't blink. Musical instruments in general have personality, and they cost what they cost.
Teenage Engineering's stuff makes me imagine visceral live shows with lots of space for free form, improvised content-- up to & including a whole new growing subculture of kids being able to instantly make piping fresh, context appropriate art anywhere from the living room to the campfire.
Tweaking instruments and song parts iteratively over days & weeks to get an ideal finished product is really a whole different thing. The more big gear you can bring to that effort the better. I also second your advice on second-hand music equipment, most of my stuff over the years was acquired that way and it definitely gave me more opportunities than problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkQ5rEJaTmk
I still want one, even though I have absolutely no use for such a device.
> have you ever wished you could instantly rewind when listening to the radio, to hear the title of the song just played?
> 72 hrs listening how about normal radio listening for a week without charging?
> if you skip the traditional inputs like line in, bluetooth and FM radio
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lu5XB1Y2rHk
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hKupFmiMvbw
You're mostly just paying for the unique features, smaller production runs and look of the device.
I own an OP-Z and luckily haven't had any issues but the forums are full of people who's units are bent or have the dials pop out.
Unlike £250 bluetooth ear buds. That I'll never understand
There's a dual marketing benefit too, as when the initial reviews are coming out you get into peoples' heads as "made in EU" and then that brainworm never resets when you move production, and you also get to gauge your demand without the time+money input of ramping up production on another continent.
One thing I like about this and the OP-1 is they hit that retrofuturism, Tokyo-in-1985 kind of vibe so well with their marketing, its really well thought out.
Reminds me of Braun products; products designed to look nice, but in general usability suffers in favor of sleek metal human interfaces, nice weights, and a generally 'quality' feel.
Jony Ive is openly inspired by Dieter Rams, the designer behind many of Braun's products.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braun+t52&iax=images&ia=images
This thing seems like a very expensive toy.
Although his work is more house music, and less ambient, there's a producer named Akufen who has done some really interesting music with this exact sound palette.
No DAB+ tho, sad :)
This sounds really cool. Is there anything like it available in software?
Seems rather suspicious to see so many commenters enthusiastically salivating over an advert for a very expensive radio.
And also for said advert to hit the #1 spot on this site, despite not fitting into the usual categories for a compelling post.
Musicians like their devices because the UX design is interesting and relatively smooth, and the devices have a lot of flexibility for making interesting music.
There are also lots of explanations about how we moderate threads involving YC or YC startups: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Actually just a huge fan and having owned 2 OP-1's, I'm just a big fan of Teenage Engineering.
b) It's an expensive tech gadget, these are discussed here all the time?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
I've seen his performances at HOPE conferences and it's pretty cool. See a full set here: https://archive.org/details/hopeconf2020/20200730_0000_RADIO...
For anyone not familiar, these guys are kind of like a cheeky Apple of musical hardware design.
I've been wanting the B&O Beolit, but they used to come with built-in charger, so you could just plug in directly into the wall.
But now they switched to USB-C charging, which means that you need to use an external charger unit. Not every USB charger will deliver enough power, so that's just a step back in user experience. The older models had a room for the cable, so what was the point of changing it?
Nothing was added in place of the internal charger and the price didn't drop. They just took away a feature and wrote "Now with USB-C!" on the box, as if they added something.
So this one having "universal built-in power supply" and a power cable in the box, is a really big plus for me!