Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by Bjartr | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Bjartr

I would love to know about any other device that ticks the boxes the OP-1 does:

* Battery powered * Easily backpack portable

* Standalone DAW

* Piano layout

* Physical knobs and keys

* Sequencer

* Screen (and accompanying UI) large enough to not feel incredibly cramped

That's plenty of stuff that beats the OP-1 on plenty of these, but there just isn't much out there that hits all of them at once.

View on HN

A Synthstrom Deluge arguably ticks those boxes, except perhaps for the "piano layout" (not that I think that makes much difference when you can't play either device like an actual piano, and at least the Deluge has a luscious isomorphic keyboard) and the large screen (though the screen isn't really the primary interface on the Deluge, taking a more supporting role of dynamic visual feedback to the real interface, which is pushing the physical buttons - you can get quite far on the Deluge without even looking at the screen.)

The Deluge was definitely a close runner up. Ultimately the OP-1 won me over on being smaller and having an integrated battery.

Smaller, granted, but the Deluge also has an integrated battery? Lasts ages too.

The Deluge came out a decade after the OP-1

And it's still a joke. Spend $200 less and get and Osmose[1] and have a keyboard that you can actually use, a better synth engine, and something that is actually used for music production. They even off free shipping. Portability is overrated when your keyboard tech is stuck in the early 90's, without velocity sensitivity let alone aftertouch and MPE.

1: https://www.expressivee.com/2-osmose

The original OP-1 was $600 less than that when I got it for noodling around with music during my commute to work. So yes, if you choose to ignore some criteria, there's plenty of options.

The OP1-F has velocity sensitivity now.

And it costs what, $600-800 more than the original OP-1?

The "field" reboot is such a sad joke. All that fans had been asking for, quite literally for decades, was for Teenage Engineering to fix the supply chain for OP-1 and produce them in-volume. Instead they upped the price and made it even more rare.

an iphone + korg nano series 2 :)

That's not standalone, that's two pieces.

try the latest Ableton Push, or NI Maschine+

OP-1 is under half the size.

The whole kitsch with that device is being able to make music anywhere.

Which is cute, but every single YouTuber you've seen fiddle with it bounces their stems to Ableton Live and mixes on their computer.

Neat! Those weren't available last time I looked around. Thanks!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com