For the lover of musical instruments and technology, southern California’s NAMM show is a giant toy shop. It’s work for many of its attendees, of course, but we know many of our readers dream of the objects that will make their next creations. And sure, inspiring lust is not our aim; on the contrary, there is some love that goes into these things. In the ideal, that’s the relationship of creator and consumer. These are things not to be bought and discarded, but kept and really used.

So, we have a different look at the NAMM show, through the lens of CDM contributor Marsha Vdovin, who has been at this show more times than she might like to count. I’ve added some comments about what these devices are and why they’re important. And the next time we see them, these inventions pictured in silence here, we expect them to be working hard on music far from the din and flourescent glare of the trade show floor.

As always, click for larger images. Photos by Marsha Vdovin; words by Peter Kirn:

Roland’s V-Guitar marks a surprising collaboration, bringing the famed American guitar maker Fender together with the Japanese electronic maker to make an “electronic guitar,” merging the two company’s tech on a digitally-augmented Stratocaster. More on this soon – but the extended playing techniques won over many guitarists.

The Danish design aesthetes of AIAIAI have improved upon their TMA-1 headphones with a studio model. Same drivers, same basic design, but a “flatter” response to sound (rather than beefed-up, DJ-ready bass) and closed ear design. It’s impossible to hear anything at NAMM, but I can attest that the new design is far, far more comfy to wear. Actually, if I could have kept these on the whole show to drown out the sound, it would have been great.

An easy place to spot a talented celebrity was at the Dave Smith Instruments booth, at which artists clustered around Dave and Roger Linn. They were on-hand with plenty of tweaks to their stellar Tempest drum machine.

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 grew up, with new features (drum sounds! MIDI sync – at last), and grew out, with a companion product for connecting sensors and USB host mode that could be a boutique item for music DIYers. We’ll go hands-on with each this year, and while readers were disappointed on a lack of some details (will the OpLab be open source?), we expect to get more details from the Teenagers when the product is ready in the coming months.

Readers of tech blogs (ahem) may miss out on the fact that the vast majority of NAMM is really for guitarists, drummers, and traditional instrumentalists. And yes, that includes glittery, pink products from Daisy Rock Guitars. We’ve concluded this model will be perfect for Sparkle Pony. (And really, if you’re not watching Portlandia to get that reference, get on it. Also, Jenny Conlee is crazy awesome.)

Thin, responsive, and expressive, the QuNeo from Keith McMillen – funded on Kickstarter – proves it’s really happening. With continuous pressure response on its touch controls and bi-directional control, it could be the most anyone will ever have gotten from a US$200 controller. Yes, we’ll be watching.

Pioneer wasn’t showing anything new at this show — they timed those launches over the fall with new controllers like the Ergo. But they did have a glossly all-white lacquer set of limited-edition devices that looked absurdly gorgeous. Now if I want to do my flat over in the style of a Stanley Kubrick set, I know what DJ gear I’ll be buying. (If you don’t know what I mean, watch the end of 2001 again – or the living room in Tron: Legacy, which is more or less a copy.) White is the new generic-dull-charcoal.

Akai’s MPC Renaissance is unlike any other mass-market controller we’ve seen. It’s actually substantial, something that feels like a vintage MPC even though it’s designed to work with software (pictured). The audio circuitry is straight out of the modern MPC, but there’s a switch for “vintage” modes – think 12-bit output when the MPC60 is enabled, for instance. Akai told CDM they built the software in-house, but we also learned at NAMM that they licensed time-stretch tech from iZotope, giving their upcoming MPC software generous audio-manipulation abilities.

The Renaissance will cost you, with a street expected well over a grand, but that makes it even more welcome that the same superb pads and response curves are also on the maker’s MAX49 keyboard and cheaper MPC Model.

Just expect to wait: these were prototypes, and there were still some bugs to work out.

The Renaissance is for the MPC die-hard; the MPC Studio is the model that will directly take on Native Instruments and Maschine. It’s slim, sleek, and still has great-feeling controls. And while that makes it compelling competition for Maschine, I’m gratified to see this whole market expanding, new workflows for performance and production, and a push to better quality in the controllers. The days when computer gear meant “cheap and plastic-y” are mercifully at an end. Speaking of which –

Akai’s MAX49 keyboard could be a new model to beat. The keyboard action is satisfyingly springy, with a new keybed not seen in previous models. The pads are identical to those on the Renaissance, and feel more the way proper MPC pads should. Not everyone will love the light-up, touch-sensitive resistive faders, but I found with a bit of pressure, they worked well – and that means never having to worry about a fader catching up with the value in software. You also get serious features: Control Voltage, a full complement of MIDI ports, and aftertouch. Did I mention Control Voltage? It’s nice to see a controller keyboard with a slightly premium price, build, and features.

The last surprise from Akai was this MPC DJ. The company says it’s a prototype only, and had little more to say about it, but it’s fascinating to see the MPC and turntable controls converge.

Moog’s Minitaur was my favorite synth of the show. It just sounds consistently brilliant, no matter which way you turn it or play it – and I accordingly noticed it was the synth the most people were actually playing on the show floor.

This is what a 24-karet KORG MonoTribe looks like, alongside a silver-plated model. There’s little more one can say. It is, of course, one of a kind — and already spoken for.

The other thing of beauty at the KORG booth: a limited-edition reverse-key SV-1 keyboard.

iOS accessories were numerous, but a few were genuinely useful. IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic “Cast,” for instance, is coupled with handy software for podcasters, as a quick tool for interviewing or podcast recording.

It’s not a new product, but one of the reviews to which I’m most looking forward is this Eers product. It promises custom in-ears you make yourself, rather than the enormous cost of getting them custom-made. Stay tuned on this one – protecting your hearing and making on-stage gigs go well is perhaps as essential as gear can get.

The just-intonation Hymnatron from the Dewanatron crew was one of the most compositionally-compelling instruments at the show, with a unique sound, tuning, and key layout. And it looks mighty handsome in this one-off wooden case.

LiveWire’s modular was among the many dreamy modular rigs at Big City Music and Analog Haven, two Los Angeles hotspots for analog modulars. Did we mention space was more plentiful and inexpensive, and gigs more generous, in LA than in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco? Funny coincidence, that.

Many modules graced this show, but the most intriguing was not analog, but digital – think digital algorithms in an analog, patch-cord-modular hardware workflow. Tom Erbe, maker of long-beloved SoundHack (the app, and then more recently the plug-ins) put some of his sonic wizardry into a module, collaborating with one of our favorite modular builders, MakeNoise. The result: the MakeNoise Echofon. As such, it’s a perfect emblem of our Create Digital Music, Create Analog Music philosophy. Dear Berlin friends: let’s plug this into your monster modulars, okay?

Big City Music is a wonderful place. The other candidate for best new module: brilliant creations by Metasonix, as previewed here. We’ll be watching for these to be patch-able, too.

Casio had its classic CZ-1000 synth on-hand at its booth. The Casio XW isn’t quite a successor to the CZ, though it does include some of those waveforms and phase distortion sounds. What it does appear to be is a very affordable, do-just-about-everything workstation at a fraction of the price of any of its rivals. For someone who wants a jack-of-all-trades gigging keyboard, this could very much be a contender.

Our friends at Beatport are evidently getting into the hardware business. The most interesting launch wasn’t a set of TMA headphones with Slimer-green cords (I’ll take the Studio model, thanks, or just a non-Danish set of studio cans). Instead, I was intrigued by the eminently-practical line of gigging cords Beatport is working on with Hosa. They include features live digital musicians and DJs badly need, like color-coded cords you can find easily at a show, and hinged USB cords you can cram into tight spaces. More on those soon.

Thanks, all. Lastly, I want to thank everyone I got to spend time with at the NAMM show, and particularly Marsha Vdovin, who is responsible for these photos and keeping our schedule together. NAMM is always too crowded and too short, but it can lay groundwork for a whole year. And I’m excited for this Year of the Dragon. Be seeing you.

For the rest of our NAMM coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/namm/

Photos by Marsha Vdovin / Words by Peter Kirn.

Teenage Engineering’s hotly-anticipated synth / music-making hardware OP-1 finally got an official release last week. Early stocks promptly sold out, but new waves of deliveries should refresh availability. We’ll have more from TE on the launch and the instrument soon.

In the meantime, you can thank early-adopter Ludwig Mueller for being brave enough to post early experiments with the instrument. Ludwig is a proud owner of the beta release, one of a handful of people who signed up to get access to the OP-1 prior to its public launch – and even before functionality in firmware was entirely finalized. I’ve heard now from several readers who are beta users, and a variety of reactions to the instrument. Oversimplifying, they appear to break down to those who adore the OP-1′s restrictions and those who curse them (and those who do both). In the video at top, Ludwig shows off the process of layering beats and tracks; he not only plays the OP-1, but uses it as a production and composition tool. I asked him to share some further thoughts on how he likes his OP-1 — and what, exactly, it really is.

The OP-1 in short is a mixup of an [Akai] MPC, a pretty great synth, a radio, a mic, and a DAW [Digital Audio Workstation]. All of these components are rather limited looked at individually, but I guess what you can say here is that the sum is greater than its parts. It is the mixture of these parts and the device’s limits – recording is destructive, [so there's] no undo once you record two or more instruments on one track – force you to think ahead. But at the same time, the OP-1′s layout and abilities make you want to try out things you’d never consider in a DAW. So depending which takes over – your brain or your inner child – your results will vary from one extreme to another.

A thing that I really like about OP-1 is the fact that you can’t overtweak. In a traditional DAW, I’d EQ every track and add a little compression, etc., etc. On the OP-1, there’s no such thing. It either sounds good or it doesn’t – and if it does sound good, you keep going and building the track. At the end you turn up the mastercompressor, which BTW is quite amazing, and you’re done! Again: I love the mastercomp!

I can say that I finish a lot more projects / beats / tracks with the OP-1 than with a DAW. Granted, they feel more raw and have some hiccups here and there, but I’m willing to take that in exchange for the fun I have using that little device. And by now, quite often I actually prefer this rawness to the slick sound of my DAW tracks.

Of course there are times when I crawl back to the laptop, and do another track dissecting every element. But this doesn’t last for too long usually. With the OP-1, I can focus more on the music than on the technical side of things; it’s so immediate: No long boot up, loading programs, plugging in things. It’s just a switch and 5-second wait and you’re good to go. It also really fits the bill regarding the overall sound I want to achieve: it’s warm yet punchy. You can actually overdrive the output quite nicely using the mastercompressor within the unit. The achieved overdrive can be quite pleasing to the ear, I think.

I have heard many people say that TE should bring out an OP-1 iPad App. I am 100% certain that a touchscreen can not give you the same feel as a nicely-designed device with quality buttons and encoders.

Right now, I am on the latest OS (the one that is also available for download on TE’s site) and I didn’t have any problems at all since upgrading to that version.

If you visit www.soundcloud.com/yellow-tangerine there is a set on my page called “OP-1 Stuff”. All these tracks are exclusively OP-1 and nothing else.

Let’s give that OP-1 Stuff a listen, indeed:
OP-1 Stuff by YΞll❍W T∆ΠgΞriΠΞ

Thanks, Ludwig, for the thoughts. Plenty of design and workflow thoughts to chew over here, I think, even if you aren’t using an OP-1 – some of these same ideas about limitation can be applied to other hardware and even to software. So I’m curious to hear people respond to the musical ideas here, and not just the issues specific to the OP-1.

I welcome any reactions from OP-1 users — praise and criticism alike.

For the latest from Teenage:
http://now.teenageengineering.com/

Few synths in memory have created the amount of pre-launch buzz that the Teenage Engineering OP-1 has. Looking like a futuristic, luxury spiritual successor to the Casio VL in its compact brick form factor, the OP-1 combines computer-like synthesis features with a unique approach to virtual tape sampling and step sequencing, all viewed on its high-resolution OLED screen. We’ve been covering it for some time, and got some hands-on at NAMM in January. It’s even the surprise star of a Swedish House Mafia music video, above. (It’s perhaps a non-speaking role – I need to verify if there are any sounds actually coming from the OP-1 in the video. Sorry, this is the one video we haven’t yet featured, for now. Also, while I didn’t initially actually make it through the whole video, I now know to warn you the end of the video is a bit disturbing. And, not, this is not an official promo video.)

I’ll hopefully be at Teenage’s workshop in the next couple of days as I get to Stockholm, but today, they’ve at last revealed launch information to their mailing list. In case you aren’t on that list, here’s the information.

First off, the project is nearly done – no, this isn’t vaporware – and the functionality of the modules is now (mostly) public. All those details:

Project status
When it comes to functionality, 90% percent is completed and working.
Some parts of the system is still being fine tuned and optimized. Overall we are extremely happy with what we have.
The OP-1 will be shipped with 6 synthesizer engines and 2 sampler types. Pulse was shown at the NAMM show, the other synthesizer engines are DrWave, FM, Phase, String, Digital, Cluster. Further it will include 8 effects, 3 LFO types and 3 original sequencers. The Mixer section has a dedicated EQ and Drive as well as Master Balance and an additional Master Effect slot. The Sequencers can be matched to the tape speed with a feature called Beat Match.
The Tape also have additional ONE-KEY features added that will be revealed at launch.

The first people to be able to buy the OP-1 will be part of a limited “beta” list; that list is now closed. You’ll be a “beta” tester in the sense that you’ll be one of the first to be able to buy the machines. The “beta” aspect of it means you’ll see firmware updates prior to the final launch, and get a chance to provide feedback along the way. (That beta list will also get a mention in the manual.)

So, what’s the timeline? Unfortunately, that depends on sourcing the parts. With the global economic slowdown, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about part sourcing. It’s never much fun, but it seems even more painful than usual. Here’s what the Teenagers say in their newsletter:

Hardware
We just received the golden sample for the keyboard module / plastic parts from the factory. And we are very satisfied with the look and feel of it.
The complexity level of the OP-1′s electronics makes component sourcing a bit tricky. As soon as we get the missing chips we will go into production with the first beta batch. Shortly after, the first full production run will be started. So keep your fingers crossed that all this works out.

They’ve also announced pricing.
Estimated street price: $799 / Euro 799 (includes EC-VAT — note that the added tax means that’s not a big difference US vs. Europe)

Go ahead, complain about it. Right now, the OP-1 is about the only thing I’d consider spending $800 on, so I’m not complaining. Updated: A friend described that as “a steal,” and I’m inclined to agree. Sales will be initially direct-only.

Stay tuned for more on the OP-1.

With full-blown computers as competition, how do you make sequencing with buttons irresistible?

While I was in icy Stockholm last month, I got a look inside Teenage Engineering’s studio, where their upcoming OP-1 instrument continues its gestation. The (literal) garage workshop is the sort of thing a lot of us dream of having: a room in which hardware and software design happen, on-site, simultaneously, with a small group of bright, zany, creative people. My timing (entirely unrelated to Teenage Engineering) happened to coincide with the creation of a new sequencer.

I almost hesitate to post these videos, as I suspect not everyone will get it right away from watching a YouTube demo. But the idea is, rather than sequencing with lots of menus or a big note grid crammed into a tiny screen, they’ve made the sequencer as compact conceptually as the device is small. It’s stunningly simple: you key in your sequence of notes, and adjust everything with the knobs.

For all the value of the touch interfaces I’ve been describing lately, it’s a sequencer you might actually practice, then perform. Muscle memory becomes part of the equation. Somewhere, I think, there will be people who will master the skill of “playing” the OP-1 sequencer. And to prevent the “squint at a tiny screen” phenomenon common on most hardware, they buck the prevalent trend. Instead of shrinking the graphics and enlarging the screen, they keep the screen small and enlarge the graphics. It’s impossible to convey in an early demo, but it made me want to retreat into a snowy cabin with nothing but a prototype and practice myself.

This isn’t just about inspiring gear lust, however. When you see a design that can reduce a musical activity to its most minimal activities, in a way that makes you want to practice and get better and using it, I think the design itself can inspire. It certainly makes me think about new ways of making sequencers with hardware and software. And since a sequencer is itself a kind of compositional game, working out how to design or play such a thing is engaging the act of musical composition.

Anyway, if none of this makes sense now, I promise to revisit it when the OP-1 is ready. And I’m happy to let the Teenage Engineers take as long as they want to get it right. More videos provide further glimpses of what they’re developing:

Here, it’s clear that the sequencing function can really center on the performance interface: it’s a sequence in the simplest sense, as in a sequence of notes, quite a lot like on analog sequencers:

Lastly, one more demonstrating the virtual tape feature:

Previously:
Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 Instrument: Hands-on, Videos, Why it’s Different

More (HD) video updates and news at the Teenage blog, all posted a short while ago:
http://www.teenageengineering.com/now/

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 is something unique in music hardware. It’s got a form factor inspired by the Casio VL-Tone series – you know, those cute little 80s-vintage synths. It’s a sampler. It’s a synth. It has an FM radio. It will have a variety of sequencers. It has, we’ve just learned, a multi-track tape mode that lets you do beat-synced virtual splicing as a performance technique. It is expected to integrate and interoperate with a design lifestyle including, if you like, a luxury-priced, meticulously-machined desk lamp, and according to one rumor I heard, perhaps even a specially-designed electric bicycle. (Seriously.)

I got to spend some hands-on time with the current prototype of the OP-1, and hanging out with the guys from Teenage Engineering. I do mean “the guys” – I had expected to go out to dinner with the CEO and found myself with almost the entire team of 9. (One was sleeping off Sweden-to-California jetlag.) The company has a pedigree in sound engineering, including the legendary drum maker Elektron, but also in marketing, advertising, industrial and product design.

The OP-1 is real, it’s coming, and it’s far enough along in the prototyping phase that I think we’ll see real details on getting one soon. Pricing will be under US$1000 – perhaps a goodly amount under, depending on the final details of manufacturing. There’s no availability date, but progress appears to be accelerating. I poked fun when the OP-1 was introduced, only because it seems like something too cool to be real. I am surprised, though, that people are now complaining that the OP-1 is taking a long time – I think some people don’t realize how time-consuming hardware development really is, and we only just saw an under-glass prototype last spring. The fact that the OP-1 does integrate hardware and onboard software tightly and does do things in new ways is a testament to having a single, small team that works on the whole product.

Teenage Engineering – OP-1 @ NAMM 2010 from Neil Bufkin on Vimeo.

In the din of the NAMM hall, some people didn’t seem to “get” the OP-1. The prototypes available aren’t entirely refined in regards to the sound engine, so it’s too soon to judge sound quality, and some functionality was missing from the units on display. And it’d be easy to see this its collection of synthesis and sampling tricks as nothing new. (In fact, I get the sense that some people dialed up essentially an init preset and judged the sound quality based on that.) But look closer, and even prior to the finished product, there’s real design genius here. Some of the little touches I was able to glean:

You can record backwards, an idea so simple in sampling, but also powerful, it’s a wonder it’s not widespread. Go crazy with this, and you can prove some pretty out-there results. It’s not hard to imagine putting an OP-1 alongside a computer, and using it alternatively as a hardware synth and a tool for resampling the output of a live computer mix.

It’s a four-track virtual tape recorder, complete with virtual splicing. The craft of early electronic music was deeply connected to the process of recording to tape, then splicing, into a finished product as a collage. The OP-1 is the most convincing adaptation of that idea I’ve ever seen. A simple, iconic on-screen representation of a reel-to-reel shows you your recording in real-time, with even some light physics simulation so it behaves like tape when you stop the transport. But you can also cut the virtual tape – split, lift and join features are quick key shortcuts away. Just like on tape, you can change the speed during recording, not just during playback. And, so as not to be too caught in the past, the tape deck itself can be beat-synced. Let’s just reflect on that for a second: you can sample the instrument or an external source, and then speed and slow the recording like tape synced to beat, all on hardware. Sampling features are nothing new, but the implementation here really is something special.

Whereas clunky hardware designs from mainstream manufacturers have typically treated tape recording as something you do to record an arrangement, the OP-1′s tape recorder is one you can play as an instrument. (See our video of one of the Teenage Engineers jamming with this feature, which I smuggled off one of their Mac laptops.)

And it’s finally a sampling feature that functions on recording like tape, not just on playback. That sound you heard all around NAMM was the sound of developers and engineers collectively saying to themselves, “why didn’t I do this myself, first?” (Okay, knowing this site, I’m sure we’ll get someone on comments who has done this first, so do speak up.)

Watch it in action in this video of a live jam, shot by Teenage Engineering and smuggled off one of their computers for CDM:

The screen isn’t just beautiful: it fits perfectly. To me, the greatest accomplishment of the OP-1 is making a small screen seem integral to a hardware design, rather than a concession to practicality. Since computers became commonplace in the 80s, the primitive screens on music hardware have seemed an anachronism, a compromise. I remember synth shopping for the first time around 1990 and being frustrated by that, and things aren’t much different now. The design of the OP-1′s interface is so minimal, however, that the onboard screen seems perfect. The display itself seems like part of the hardware and the instrument, rather than being a menu system or a tacked-on indicator.

It’s finally a small screen that seems ideal for its purpose – maybe even better than looking at a computer-sized screen. And that’s not just because it’s pretty; it’s because it’s functional. For a look at some of these beautiful design ideas in motion, here’s a video from a hands-on (more with sound yet to come):

The synth and sampler are friendly – toy-like in the best way. In keeping with some of the most fun instruments of all time, the OP-1 is something people will want to play. Color-coded knobs and extensive graphical feedback make a reasonably sophisticated set of synthesis, envelope, and sampling options accessible. There’s nothing revolutionary in the synth or sampler; it just takes the 90% of sound-making techniques most people use and makes them more immediate.

All of these things are wonderful, and clearly it’s a gorgeous little device. And it’s impossible, as always, to judge a design that isn’t finished. I have a suspicion, however, that some of the most important magic of the OP-1 lies in what the impishly-secretive Teenage Engineers aren’t saying:

• What are the sequencers? I don’t know what braincell-killing spirit the Swedes prefer, but I’m going to need a lot of it if I want to find out what the deal is with the OP-1′s internal sequencers. That’s sequencers – plural. Teenage says they’ll have multiple ways of sequencing the instrument, and they won’t say what any of them are. I saw a brief glimpse of a grid of dots that suggested a tracker-style sequencer of patterns, but I wasn’t able to conclude anything. And ask anyone from Teenage what this is all about, and they’ll hint that what we haven’t seen is what they think will make the hardware must-have.
• We haven’t heard most of the synths yet. When it ships, the OP-1 promises the following models: “FM • String • DRW • Pulse • T10 • Cluster • PSE.” I did get to play with the pulse synthesizer engine, which you can see a little bit in the short video I saw, and was struck by how intuitive the display is – the OP-1 really makes it easy to visualize the harmonic content of your sound patch, and gives you immediate control over the sound. But I didn’t get to hear much, and some of the synth models I most want to play with weren’t ready yet. That means most people at NAMM missed out not only on the coming sequencers, but also on a lot of the sounds. I’m convinced enough by the interface that I think those synth models hold a lot of promise.
• What other sonic recipes might make it onto the OP-1? Teenage prototypes their sound creations and interface in Python, wrapped around native code, before re-implementing them on the device. That means there are all sorts of potential software features that could still make the cut. By the way, if you’re wondering why hardware tends not to work this way, it’s because too many music hardware developers have huge gulfs between the people who engineer on the hardware/embedded/DSP side, and on the computer desktop software side. At Teenage, it’s really just one group of guys who know their way around both. They’re in one office, not separated by lots of time zones or a language barrier. (It makes a difference; trust me.)
• Where do the bike and lamp come into this? This isn’t Roland or Yamaha, or even IKEA. Teenage have an immaculate studio, and have conceived and built an expensive work-lamp that’s machined out of medical-grade metal tooling. The lamp can be used to conveniently produce stop-motion animation, noted one of the Teenage staff. It’s not only a standalone lamp: it’s a modular system for all sorts of application. Oh, yeah, and they’re also working on an electric bike. TE are design-obsessed, and I get the sense that there could be a connection between these products. Already, it sounds like it’ll be possible to integrate the lamp and the OP-1 in your work setup. Could the electric bike and the OP-1′s synth have some connection in the future? TE weren’t saying. Will I be able to afford this luxury? No. Does it tickle my inner design geek? Yes. Oh, yes. Maybe for those of us who are poorer, I can publish some hack that lets you connect your OP-1 to the unicycle and cheap IKEA desk lamp you own.
• There’s been no mention of MIDI in. Something a number of people seem to have missed: TE has promised MIDI output (so you can use the device as a controller for software), and even a USB storage device (for drag-and-drop sample interchange). But one thing they haven’t yet said is that you’ll be able to route MIDI into the OP-1. This could be a deal-breaker, of course, to some people. But I’m holding out hope for another solution, like finally having hardware you can sequence with OSC. (I’m going to be doing as much research as I can on USB OSC implementations and dumping them on the studio in Stockholm, just as a hint.) The problem with MIDI has been that it tends to impose certain design decisions in regards to timing, how musical events are represented, and even the size of devices (given the amount of hardware that still has onboard DIN connections). So, while this aspect of the OP-1 remains a mystery, I’m intrigued by where it could lead.

The OP-1 is definitely one I’ll be following; it’s at the top of my list for the year. And it’s about time we got some really significant new hardware. For more information…

MusicRadar got a hands-on with some sounds.

Teenage has a lovely set of photos on their blog – and yes, that’s me, by coincidence amidst a crew from Hispasonic:
NAMM Photo Bananza

Check out the full Teenage Engineering blog for loads of videos, including a few in the fabulous luxury of their Super 8 motel room:
http://www.teenageengineering.com/now/

And don’t miss the product page, which now has a lot of detail on it:
Teenage Engineering OP-1
Among the juicy specs: how about an onboard accelerometer, Li-Ion rechargeable battery, a 60-fps display, and a powerful (for this kind of gear) 400MHz processor core?

Just please, please, don’t judge the sound quality of a non-shipping synth based on YouTube videos. I’ll be sure to report back on final sound quality before you unload your hard-earned change.

For lovers of the simplicity and fun of the Casio VL series, a successor seems is finally here. The Operator-1 (OP-1), even in prototype form, has us hot and bothered more than anything we’ve seen recently. We’ve been able to snag some additional details.

MusicRadar got a video with the creators, though you won’t learn anything new from that. In the interview, Teenage Electronics are just as tight-lipped as they were on the website, and the video “demo” is basically watching the OLED screen light up inside a glass case, with no sound – the prototype just isn’t ready to do more out in public yet.

However, our friend Nostromo did manage to get some other details.

• Swedish All Stars: The team includes veterans of Elektron, the ACNE design firm that worked on MachineDrum and MonoMachine packaging and UI, and Johan of LSDJ fame.
• Casio love: The inspiration is, not surprisingly, hardware like the Casio VL-1.
• Pricing: It’s unofficially expected to be “under the 1000 Euros mark." Note that the target price is EUR600, which is pretty far under EUR1000. Anywhere near that, and it’s a steal.
• Production: They do plan to put this into production. (I believe that, despite my awesomeness vs. shippingness graph – I’d love for them to be the exception.)
• The “mystery” sequencer: It sounds as though it won’t have a tracker as a sequencer, but may bring other “Swedish surprises” as Nostromo puts it.

Back from the messe [nostromo@noisepages]

And a friend of ours also sent along some impressions from the booth (with an even more encouraging target price, if they can pull it off):

The Operator-1 was under glass, so I couldn’t touch it. It is made of solid aluminum, and about an inch wider and longer than a nano controller (have you gotten yours yet, btw?). The OLED [Organic LED] screen is predictably gorgeous, and you really have to be off-angle for the contrast to be affected. It has a USB-rechargeable battery,

It has a rechargeable battery, but no real indication of what battery life is yet.  There’s a 1/8” in, and I was told It will apparently have sampling “in the future.”  They’re looking to hit a price of around 600 Euros, but who knows.  They’re currently working very hard on the sequencing bits.

Also shown by Teenage Engineering are these concept alarm clocks. When they’re not just empty boxes, they’ll have 16×16 LED displays, and the internal synth workings of the Operator-1. Wake up each day to a different synthesizer sound! This would last 10 seconds in my apartment, before I throw it across the room in a groggy haze.

Keep in mind, nothing here should be considered official or on the record. This is stuff that was overheard in the booth, and for a design that’s in-process. I can tell you from having worked with designers that finding price points is incredibly hard, so I feel their pain – even if you want to charge x amount, you may have to balance that against other design compromises you don’t want to make, to say nothing of scale.

Official information from their blog on the beta:

The Beta sign-up is non-binding and all of you who has signed up, will get a confirmation email when the time is right.  • The Beta release is scheduled (very) late this year.  • The hardware dev. is on schedule and will be finalized before summer.  • 4 synth modules are completed and 4 more are under dev.   • We will mail more information next week to all Beta prospects.

But I can certainly say, the thousands who signed up for the beta and I are very, very eager to watch this evolve.

And I want to wake up to those alarm clocks.