But the OP-1 is literally the only piece of music gear you can bring on an airplane and write a whole song.
Why has no one else figured that out? With all these groove boxes etc, why has no other music gear taken the step of being portable and all-in-one.
Show me another way to write a song in an airplane, and you can have my money.
Apart from...
* Laptop with your favourite DAW
* iPad with GarageBand or Android Tablet with Caustic
* I would put Novation Circuit in similar category though depends on your definition of whole song
* Synthstorm Deluge
* Digitakt Elektron?
* Some of the Roland grooveboxes and systems
* Some of the Akai APC/MPC or Native Instruments Machine? Not fully familiar with either but I thought e.g. Akai Live lets you do a full production
* Bunch of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting
I feel we are actually in a bonanza and cornucopia of portable music creation devices! And that's a good thing :). Heck even the Yamaha Reface is super portable, battery powered, real keyboard, lots of sounds, and you can hook it up to phone or a simple recorder/looper to make good stuff on the go. OP1 might be the smallest by some metrics, that may or may not be seen as a good thing.
* Kastle while $SONG == $DRONE
* Model::Samples while $SONG in @SAMPLES && isNotOnFire($BATTERY)
* !$BUDGET && PO-33
The app is simple and constrained and makes it easy to write down sketches.
Far better than the OP-1, by miles ..
See also the 1010music BlackBox:
https://1010music.com/product/blackbox
Easily set up on an airplane seat-table for production.
Definitely a killer workstation.
It's a nice groovebox but I don't think it really compares.
$2k is a steep price but there's a lot going on here that's not immediately obvious to a lot of folks.
I can't even imagine how WiFi or Bluetooth would be useful or desirable.
You can do quite a bit with audio on Deluge, as well. Run audio clips of unlimited length. Assign audio samples to kits.
Sequence as many tracks as you want for as long as you want.
Deluge has far fewer limitations than OP-1.
Deluge is a very, very fun device, very powerful and feature-rich, and far superior to the OP-1 in every single way. OP-1 is Ikea, Deluge is Henge.
It is literally not the only piece of music gear you can bring on a airplane and write a whole song...
Just a recent example, the Syntakt is very capable for writing full songs. So is other gear in the Elektron lineup, namely Digitakt.
Otherwise you also have (cheaper) gear like the Novation Circuit Tracks that can also do the same.
I mean, a cursory search for "portable grooveboxes" should have revealed a ton of results for you, that are able to do the same job as the OP-1 but for even as low as 1/4 of the price (the Circuit Tracks)
The Tracks is nice, but the synth engines are not fully accessible in the hw interface. At least the params are labeled now, trying to change sounds on my original was quite frustrating.
Yeah, not being able to 100% customize the synths on the Tracks is bothering me as well. Luckily, my workflow is usually two parts that I do separate. One for sound design (with the Tracks hooked up to the computer) and one for everything else. For that, it does just fine, although the UX could be better for editing the synths.
Apart from the several other great options mentioned in other replies, there’s also the Dirtywave M8. It, and the other tracker-style devices like the Polyend, actually make it much easier to write proper songs than the OP-1’s finnicky and unforgiving tape-based recording interface. (I own all these devices and have used them extensively.)
But if you are really serious about writing music on a plane just use a laptop and a modern DAW.
Assuming you mean without using a phone, computer, or a tablet:
Yamaha Reface DX ($400) + Korg SOS Recorder ($100) + TE PO-12 Rhythm ($60), and you not only have a portable studio, but a performer's rig.
I'm powering mine from a powerbank via a USB-to-12V adapter, it lasts forever on a charge.
I can busk with Reface DX alone (it's built-in speakers are loud enough for a quiet street). Throw in a mini-amp, and it's a band.
And it comes with an optional keytar strap too, so I cann sling it around my shoulder.
And it's the best FM synthesizer ever made. Worth it for the E-Piano patch and Final Countdown-like leads alone, but the real magic comes in realtime manipulation of sound (something you couldn't do with the clunky controls of DX-7).
Yeah, I don't know if it fits your "all-in-one" defitinion, but surely OP-1 doesn't fit mine: it's missing a proper keyboard (my main rig is Yamaha MX-88, and I still say that Reface DX's keyboard is great).
And with some creative application of electrical tape, the drum machine / field recorder just become upgrades for the Reface DX, giving yout the ultimate unit.
I'm sure there's others, but it's true that the OP-1 offers an impressive feature set for portable production.
Many other grooveboxes are quite painful to use. Here I’d include the Korg Electribe which is terrible at inputting musical notes. Or the several trackers which look more like scientific calculators than musical instruments. My MPC live can run circles around most grooveboxes, the OP-1 included, but that’s because it’s a computer: quite a bit heavier, takes time to boot, requires you to manage projects and adjust many parameters.
The Model Cycles doesn’t have a battery. Can be powered by a portable one, but that makes it just a little bit awkward. Elektron did launch a handle battery but it tended to catch fire in rare circumstances :-) Elektron boxes are in general considered difficult to use, even if the results can be impressive.
The Novation Circuit doesn’t allow full editing of the synth parameters. The synth parts are more like preset editors. Expect having to manage them from a computer.
The Deluge has a cumbersome buying process, where one has to basically buy from the manufacturer (NZ I think). I actually can’t but it from my/any local store. In reviews I’ve read that the interface is not that user-friendly/immediate.
Then there’a the multi-device set-ups consisting of Volcas, Rolands, etc. These can be nice, but it requires wiring them up every time! If I had to wire together 3 devices before I could make music, I’d rather do something else personally.
And so on and so forth. The new OP-1 is overpriced though. Maybe at 1500€ this would make some sense, but at this price point most people would rather deal with the disadvantages of other devices or device combos.
I own a Model:Samples, the battery is just velcro attached to it. This is not awkward, it serves as a tilt stand which is actually nice.
The Deluge buying process involve adding to cart, pay. How different is it from anything else really?
We are talking about boarding a plane? How boot time of the MPC Live/One or a daw on a laptop is relevant?
Also, quite a great company support experience too.
BULLSHIT. There are tons of things the OP-1 DOES NOT DO that other devices listed here actually do. And frankly the OP-1 synth sound like crap, so it's not really inspiring for some of us musicians... when it comes to fun, that $2000 thing with a crappy sequencer is not fun to me.
You can send your money directly to Apple.
The OP-1 is cool as hell, but realistically it's a £500 musical toy marked up to £2,000 simply because hipsters latched onto the design and marketing of it.
There are many things the OP-1 does that nothing else can do quite the same, but I wouldnt say thats one of them.
Pencil and staff paper.
My email address is in my profile if you would genuinely like to send me your money.
This is just false, the Korg Electribe 2/ Sampler, the AKAI MPC 500, the Roland SP404, the Roland MC101, the Novation Circuit and many other devices allow the creation of whole songs and can easily be brought into a plane because they run on internal battery.
> Why has no one else figured that out? With all these groove boxes etc, why has no other music gear taken the step of being portable and all-in-one.
These devices I listed might not do everything the OP-1 does, but the OP-1 doesn't do everything these devices do either. The OP-1 is hardly an all-in-one music device and certainly not the first portable groovebox that runs off battery power.
A Electribe 2/Sampler costs $300, not $2000.
> Show me another way to write a song in an airplane, and you can have my money.
Answer my comment and I'll share with you my email for payment details. Put your money where your mouth is.
I have zero music talent or experience, so let me ask: Would there be something missing with a quality soft synth on iPad with GarageBand?
The hardware buttons, sure, but is it possible to write a "serious" song with such a setup (iPad, paid synth app)?
Physical knobs and buttons feel good, OP-1 also forces you to commit to specific audio and puts some limitations on yuu which may help with creativity.
You can create something amazing using just your phone. But to get skill to be able to do that, you likely need toys that keep you inspired and make you want to play all day.
The iPad's touch screen is usable, but its velocity sensitivity isn't nearly as good as a hardware keyboard.
I could take a pen and some paper and write a whole song. Or take my laptop and write, record & mix a whole song. Or an iPad. Or the MPC as others have said, the Synthstrom Deluge... It's a fun toy, but not unique in that regard.
Of course - it's all in software solution but it's pretty powerful actually. But it's more like a DAW or tracker style of things.
I don't make much music, but I've been having a blast tinkering with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54uAhMBA1A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q_d-rfzZPM
Note that the 1st video is from 2010.
I have been looking at the Roland TR-6S or T-8 to go with a portable DJ kit like the Reloop Ready.
Laptops exist too. And also who is writing whole songs on the OP-1? A song needs to be bounced, mastered and uploaded which is gonna require another device.
An iPad running Korg Gadget is much, much more capable, though arguably not as hip and cool.
yep... There's quiet a few :)
Why, anything else just can’t be done! It’s uncivilized!