Synthesist Luca Longobardi shared this live performance on the Teenage Engineering OP-XY, a synth, sampler & sequencer.
Longobardi did not share any technical details about the performance, and instead shared a quote:
“But what seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. (Haruki Murakami, After Dark)“
That quote sums up my feelings about the “it’s too expensive” criticism of this device. Not wanting it is one thing (I personally don’t) but criticizing the device itself or the company or people who might want one is unreasonable. The existence of Mercedes and Hyundai in the same car market doesn’t offend people, who does this?
I don’t think Teenage Engineering occupies the same space as Mercedes does in the car market. They’re more like Elon Musk’s Hyper Cyber Turbo Truck. A wildly impractical status symbol for people more concerned with image than actual performance. It’s just a great indicator for tastelessness and superficiality.
While I agree, it’s useless to rant about stuff, you won’t buy anyhow, there’s a point of maybe pointing out, that for the same price you can get really performative gear. And by that I mean gear which is actually sturdy, useful and proven on stage. In the laboratories of your bedrooms you can make any crap work together and even there are way more powerful and cheaper grooveboxes. Get a SP404 and an iPad Pro with a few synth and FX plugins (they are dirt cheap compared to the same versions on PC or Mac), a good pair of headphones, a powerbank and tell me you can’t do way more or are not “mobile” while spending less and getting absurdly more sounds, options, creativity. This whole ‘dawless jam” garbage or videos naming three devices instead of an artist or song name on YouTube should not confuse you guys and gals. These are hobbyists playing with very expensive toys. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on YouTube all the time, which pays absolute garbage for ads – but instead playing gigs (and some do tutorial series, which is cool too). Get real, folks, please.
And you can change my recommendation to a MC-707 or a Syntakt (still don’t get the hate this awesome thing gets and NO I don’t even own any Elektron boxes and NO modular is not the answer an NO I am not an ITB guy) or just an iPad with useful Midi controllers, yadda yadda. Just stay away from Kickstarter stuff, TE, Volcas, AIRA, Polyend in general if you want to take it a bit more seriously with your music. Otherwise, go nuts. No harm in noodling. Rant over.
I’ll never umderstand the concept of “live performance” while playing in your bedroom or home studio recorded on video. The guy can take infinite takes until theres no errors, sounds reasonable or whatever. Doesnt feel live at all to me.
That’s called practicing.
Sounds great, also nice to hear something very synthesis orientated on it, shows off what you could achieve.
Yes it’s expensive, but so would be a laptop, controllers and soundcard etc. Plus a bit of hardware gives focus. Also it’s a lot less detrimental to health than probably about 10 weekends out in a pub in the UK to give equivalent value.
I really liked the original OPZ so seeing the improvement in user interaction is great. Also if the OP1 is anything to go by, apart from button wear and tear, this should last years if not decades battery depending.