13 thoughts on “Warm Leatherette On A Teenage Engineering OP-1”

  3. I’d be curious to know what aspects of this track are uniquely OP-1-esque. In other words, what is it about this track that really highlights the OP-1. Or is it more that using that the work-flow, process or interface brings about this kind of result.

    For my tastes, it is too repetitive for my VERY SHORT attention span. For those kinds of short loops, I like to hear more development, layering in/out, and evolution, but that’s me.

  4. I found it a bit repetitive also… which is, admittedly, fairly true to the original !

    I’m glad to hear a song that was completely realized on the OP-1, though – like most Synthtopia readers I haven’t been hugely impressed by most of the demos of the device and I expect that (like most new instruments) it’s capable of a lot more than we have seen or heard so far.

  5. Very cool. This minimalism is refreshingly brutal, anodyne to treacly melodyne’d pop hits. The piece makes a good case for the Op-1 as a potent composition tool, sort of a swiss army knife synth/sequencer well-suited to mean sounds of early electro. I’d like to hear more of this kind of thing – minimal gear making minimal music.

  6. “i havent been hugely impressed by most of the demos”…

    Re: Phhffsst. You obviosly aint been being hearding of Yellow Tangerine or Virtual Flannel.

  7. Firstly, thank you synthtopia for sharing my video link. I didn’t expect it to get as much attention as it has and am quite flattered by the overall response to it.

    Secondly, to those not impressed. That’s fine. But you probably need to lighten up a little bit. It was just a bit of fun and i wanted to show that the op1 isn’t as awful as most of the demos out there would suggest. It’s repetetive because i wasn’t attempting to impress anyone with programming skills or the finished item. Without the video this cover probably does get boring fast. The video was made by taping a phone to the windscreeen of my van. Driving for 50 minutes and cutting out the bits i liked. Again, nothing fancy, i didn’t spend hours tweaking it or obsessing over it and for that reason i’m not overly bothered if someone doesn’t like it.

    I saw the op1 as being a bit like the elektron monomachine. If i’d have taken notice of just the user uploads on youtube i’d never have bought one. As it is i chanced it, took the time to get to know it and found it to be an interesting if limited machine. Think of the op1 as a four track cassette recorder with a hundred times the convenience with editing crossed with some quirky synth engines and samplers and you’re on target. It’s not a powerhouse of a synth, there are no virtual analogue filters, not a sequencer in the usual sense and definitely not in the same ball park as something like an akai mpc. It’s unique, fun, but an aquired taste. It’s built in speaker adds to the fun aspect of it no end. Just fire it up and play about. No leads, amps, midi etc etc etc. just the op1, as simple as a casio keyboard and as versatile as you can be bothered to make it. Also, it really does demand that you load your own samples into it as those supplied with it leave something to be desired.

    The entire thing is put together on the OP1 using a mixture of synth samples loaded into it and the vocals straight into it’s internal mic. I did it in the space of about two hours just messing around finding my way around the synth. Finally i dumped the contents of it’s four ‘tape’ tracks into reason and record and added a vocoder to one of the layers of vocals before final mixdown.

    Anyway, thanks to everyone who’s taken a moment to watch it.

    1. Thank you for that explanation. I really like the OP-1, but I can’t bring myself to spend the money (yet!) to buy one. I wish they made a plastic version for a few hundred dollars less. It sounds like a fun machine. Thanks again.

    2. I thought it was great. This is a great example of someone using limited gear and getting some nice results, which I totally dig. My first piece of gear was a Roland MC 505, and I rocked shows with nothing but that box, with a bunch of drum loops, synth lines and bass lines that I programmed into it, and I would build and break down the loops using the mute buttons and then do build ups with snare and kick rolls controlled by the arpeggiator. I would just get creative with it; mess about with the filters, turn up the delay here, reverb there, reverse my drums with the pitch knob etc. Now I’ve got all these synths and DAWs and controllers, and it’s awesome the amount of flexibility that I have, but sometimes I really miss just step sequencing on my groovebox and doing everything on one little machine. I must admit that
      I achieve much more complex/polished results now, but the fun factor isn’t the same.

  8. Thank you. Like i say it was just a bit of fun. i was inspired to do it by my lovely friend lucy who as always is there to tell me by just being her that life isn’t as shit as sometimes it seems and that my view point isn’t always the way it all is. To say things are nice and that someone is lovely sometimes can make you feel fuckign amazing. She loves the original and so do i. She’s a gold mine of obscure music to me and i kinda wanted to do this just for her. to say thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life right now. As i say, it was never meant to impress anyone. i just wanted to try out the op one in as lofi a way as i could in as charming and laid back fun way as i could for a laugh. The final result was far beyond what i had in mind initially. The original i mixed down onto the op1’s ‘record player’ was double tempo like the original and not as ‘charlie clouser NIN’ as this final product. I just got carried away with it and ended up sampling the hell out of a korg ms20 and roland jp8000 to add the dirtier side to it. Regardles of this, had not the op1 have been such a spontanious and fun instrument i probably never would have bothered. I care little for production value obsession and dubstep drum programming master pieces and lean more towards the charm of bedroom made music and lofi minimal works that end up sounding a million times more than their parts. Grew up on a cassette four track and still love to hear other peoples works when written in a pretention and pressure free environment.

    #in death it ends, ritualz, mascara, crystal castes, commodore 64 tracks > rob hubbard (i grew up on). Martin galway (i also grew up on) i fucking love all of that stuff. Beautiful so much of it and inspirational. Original by todays standards by a long shit. Fuck production obsession and dubstep en vogue ‘must have to be’ techniques. Just write good music and appreciate the praise no matter how small or large for what it is. Peace ???? 😀

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