What are the options with similar portability, sampling, synthesis, fx, and multitrack recording, that you can buy new, and is not just an ipad or something, for under 300 dollars?
That's the rub. I have no interest in the TE stuff (or, for that matter, most other manufacturer's stuff), but what we can do on our hosts, these days, is amazing.
I remember using a Tascam recorder for our sessions, where you keep remixing tracks, until the hiss becomes your "signature sound."
Nowadays, you can have a 24-track, digital system on your handheld, for peanuts.
They've "productized" an instrument that shouldn't cost more than $200 to manufacture at their scale. I'm mostly mad at how consistently stupid their target audience is, not the fact that they exist.
Show it, then. (and btw "half as much" is significantly more than "under 300 dollars")
>but people will balk at it complaining that it doesn't have a cow animation like the OP-1 does.
Probably I will complain that it lacks synthesis, a multitrack recorder capable of making long tracks, an input for sampling, or something. (I agree the animations in TE stuff are silly though).
I posted some examples of cheap, shitty grooveboxes I would prefer to the OP-1 in another comment below. Understandably not all of them will be to everyone's liking, but all of them are cheaper than the OP-1 and easier for me to recommend to learning musicians.
- Novation Circuit
- Roland MC-101
- Korg Electribe
- Used Digitakt
- (God forbid) Teenage Engineering OP-Z
The list goes on but those are the big names. Again, I'm mostly fascinated that such a nothingburger company like TE can capture the hearts of rich people everywhere. Maybe it just goes to show that the most successful businesses aren't the ones with the best products, but with the most effective marketing and highest sex appeal.
This goes without saying.
Also, having owned/used over half of those on the list, none of them emulate the tape functionality, which is arguably the OP-1's killer feature in the same way that the sequencer is the OP-Z's.
I wouldn't say any of them would be an alternative.
I think OP-1 is overpriced because there is nothing like it. I mean a secondhand laptop with a 69$ daw such as Reaper can do more, an MPC is more complete. But people who see the appeal of the OP-1 probably already have a computer and a DAW so this is not what they are looking for. They want a toy to make music.
I am not in the market for such a thing but I guess it is not that overpriced if some people are willing to buy it at this price.
Close enough.
> And it lacks knobs and piano keys
Well you can get like a dozen of various sized synths for that price but you'd then complain it has too many knobs and keys