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OP-1

Posted: 05:50, 16 February 2014
by Gambler
Roland, Korg and many other synth manufacturers are stuck either in the 80s or 90s. I fully realized this when I accidentally stumbled upon OP-1 at Amazon several days ago. That is how you design hardware in 21st century. Yes, it looks like a toy, but watch some videos on it. It has 9 synthesis engines, sampler, multitrack recorder, pattern sequencer, several unique features and the best damn workflow I've seen. It's is a toy that can produce real music and is fun to work with.

I like how everything about OP-1 is centered around key design goals, rather than silly preconceptions. It's portable, self-contained and hands-on. Those are the goals.

It has a radio receiver. Think about it. You can be sitting on a train somewhere and getting new samples for your track. No need for wi-fi, no need for a data plan, no need for file transfers.

Drum samples are a single file. You define zones in the file and they are mapped to keys.

You cam modulate anything with two built-in tilt sensors. Why? Because OP-1 is portable, so the space for controls is limited and you can easily pick the unit up.

You can navigate around recorder track by rotating a knob. What's remarkable, you can not only see the graph of the song on the screen, you can hear it in real time, at the speed of rotation.

16 hours of battery life.

I wish people designed full-scale workstations with similarly open minds and attention to details.