Guitarist and original OP-1 owner here. I wasn't sold on the OP-Z until I watched Cukoo's full mega tutorial. The sequencing aspect is what I love most about this device. If this workflow speaks to you then you will love it. Right now I'm using it to sketch out song ideas because the performance and transposition effects are so powerful. It is like someone took an old 303 and made all these futuristic customizations to it.

As we can all see by Nick's face... no PWM or polyphonic aftertouch, shame.

Gaz is Cuckoo's father? 😜

Small correction. DMX doesn’t need the iOS device. You can hook up a DMX to USB directly to the OP-Z.

*head scratching intensifies*

I am so happy with my recent Digitakt purchase: finding so much joy using my own ‘self rolled’ samples.

Pretty nice chill ambient work in the outro, Gaz! Thank you so much for taking the time to learn it and present this to us. I absolutely see the potential here, and I am def an old school hw guy. The portability is inticing. One almost has to develop a kind of usage plan in the mind in order to make sense of adding this to one’s arsenal. If it was 200 euro cheaper I just might have gone right over and ordered it after this. I’m keen on having something like this to toy with on my breaks at work (and use the sketches w my projects)

Thanks guys for yet another great in-depth review!

Wonderful overview guys, thanks a bunch ♡

I’ve used a lot of gear over the years, and this is the most fun I’ve had with a seq , it’s like a tracker with its step components. Feels kind of retro, def one for the geeks. So creative though, you really need to use it before you write it off as a toy for talentless hipsters. I haven’t used a bit of gear where after every time I’vepicked it up I’m beaming because it was so much fun.

i fell asleep watching this and had the wildest dream it was sonictalk but in the future like 20 years or so dave had an ableton push that looked almost like a computer screen you lay down like one big drum pad that was also a screen and nick asked him what his workflow was and he just used that with ableton lol, izotope had a new product called cycling, mark tinley had a modular setup with just oldschool gear and said it sounded very 60's and sonicstate was selling ring's in the ad's very weird dream haha

The Problem is as most of the time with TE the paradigms are so unusual that you need to try or better work with it for a while to see if it is your cup of tea. Combine this with the price point and it makes it a difficult to impulse buy it. But I can totally see hooking it ob to my modular even over midi. I just wanna see some CV-Ins.

T.E. has developed a “lifestyle choice” device category of musical instruments. You invest into the system, live in the system. If you are not willing or able to apply yourself, best push on.

Thanks Gaz & Nick. Typical TE (IMHO) - quirky, interesting, looks and sounds fun but you gotta get your head around the workflow/limitations. Very interesting and will be one to watch (2nd hand for me) for sure!

Btw you can do the unity thing directly on the PC through Unity with Midi without using the Ipad. You can actually get better graphics on your PC than what you could compute on an ipad.

Honestly...this makes me question my pursuit of musical creation to live a life of gardening and tending to plants

its not sold out.is on stock in many music shops online

im watching to see how jaded Nick is with the OPz im inclined to agree

This isn't something I would buy as is, but the future cv connectivity intrigues me for use with a modular system.

Always fun too watch Nick and Gaz in a review together. More of that please! As for the OP-Z, not my cup of tea. It seems to me as if Teenage Engineering started out with some cool ideas, and then every time they started working on a feature, they got distracted by their own sense of humour. We got space on the back for extra connectivity. Let's make it do Lego stuff! Let's give it a pitch bender, but put it on the side of the machine so that you can't actually use it. Let's have an iOS interface, and then make people hook it up to a pc to actually export and import stuff into it. It just keeps on handicapping itself in unnecessary ways. Yes, you could possibly make some sort of piece of music on it, eventually, after spending hours and hours and hours with it. Not really worth the effort though, if you can make music much easier and sounding more interesting using more appropriate gear. I'm all for someone going really deep with this thing and making it his own, in much the same way as I like people doing stuff with gameboys and casio keyboards. But to me it seems like a really uninspiring way of making music if every time I find a new function and think "Oh I wonder if it could do that", it turns out it can't and I'm limited once again by the creativity of the designers, rather than be allowed to be creative myself.

korg microkey (bluetooth version) works apparently

It would be great to see an in depth re-review of the OP1. The old op1 review is quite old at this point. Plus, who wouldn't love an updated review showing more of the functionalities ect :)

Does it drive bluetooth headphones?

funny I was watching this with my OP-Z in my hand and Matrix Brute by my side thinking how can I connect them up :P

Those videos, with the puzzled looks, convinced me to try one. After almost I week, I have to say that it is the most impressive piece of equipment I have ever possessed. The drum tracks are just as good as your samples, the synth tracks are not that impressive, still, they do the work. But the depth and ease of the sequencer is, for me, mind blowing. I would love to see one day an interview of the guy behind the OP-Z so he could explain his goal with this machine (btw is the "Z" for the 3rd dimension, the depth ?). My advice would be to disregard the hipster marketing campaign, and try one for a day. It can do so much more than chiptunes / nintendo covers ( look at Rephazer or rBeny). But one big negative point : it really shines with an iOS device.

Nick, exasperated: "Can't go wrong with robots, can you? after being told the vc module is gonna be a lego robot controller. I chuckled. (:

"..so you can backup all your projects and...." .NOOO YOU CANT!!! (hapiness) AND THIS IS FRUSTRATING! (much more hapiness)

@1:40 you can use a USB powered hub for that… Lovely video! I actually do that so I have both a controller from Faderfox and DMX lights… :)

+ for the review

Awesome!

Very, very interesting

Nick had me chuckling in this one

Can't believe you can't sequence the photos, I thought that was the whole point of adding that feature, I think the video features are HALF the package for OP-Z. For that, it is a visionary piece of kit. It replaces Max if you don't want to have a laptop to do your projections. For music making, i think I prefer the look of the Synthstrom Deluge.

Funny enough I have no ios, so I cant connect my opz anywhere but my pc...

Quite a bit of unjustified whining here - I’ve had mine for a couple of months, the most inspiring music machine and sequencer I’ve played with in a long long time (bought my first synthesizer 1987). Didn’t expect it to be so intuitive, but it is. Sure, it’s limited, and I wish they could allow selection of a broader variety of synth parameters for the knobs, but on the other hand the workflow is so fast. I can have an almost finished track done on my 12 minute commute on the train every morning.

looks like Gaz got the `banana` version as well. It doesn`t feel high quality, certainly for how much it costs, but it`s the one item i now would never want to be without.

Teenage Engineering seem to revel in the 're-mystification' of music production. There is an undeniable merit to this approach.

This thing is cryptic, but intriguing. I’m with Nicky Batts on one thing- “Why make it so difficult to write music?” Learning curve isn’t Mount Everest, but it is a Small mountain with a lot of obstacles to traverse in order to arrive at an operation. I’ll keep banging on my OP until these start to flood the market. a lot for sale already. If I watch enough of these vids, I should be rich with OP-Z knowledge by then 🤘🏽🤓

Wonder if this got more usable with s/w updates. Hear great things about the OPZ but it does not look like a fun device to me! I'd love to try one and be proved wrong. Love the idea of the video synthesis features

I look around for videos where people are actually making music on devises like this and my conclusion is that you can either escape reality this way or with drugs or porn.

You can't sequence the photos or videos?!

10:24. When he paused and went. 👋right ok. Obviously he wasn’t impressed at all there lol.

It took me half a year to manage my Korg DSS-1 operating system. My tech brain is full. No place for the OP-Z.

Best overview I've seen yet. Good job. The portability is the context. Everyone, try not to use the word invest when you're making the point about spending money on electronics. Electronics are not good investments. Sorry to nit ... keep hearing this because it sounds better than "blow your money". Invest time to learn, sure.

While the OP-Z will never contain the level of "Instagram Synth Flex" as the OP-1, I always enjoy creative and weird designs. I was planning on buying their little calculator style drum machine.

How come the modules like OPLab and Rumble haven't been reviewed? I guess OP-Z has already been dismissed by the majority. I was thinking about getting one, but the learning curve & high price combo is a real put-off to getting one. Let's say you learn everything there is about it, but then find you can't stand it?

Weird I’ve got that same kinder egg toy lol 6:48

That's so funny that you can connect Lego to it

circuit isn't a midi controller :S

Cheers again for the review chaps, it's very quirky, which appeals somewhat, but.....it doesn't quite feel finished in terms of reliable connectivity and the learning curve for a portable music making device seems odd. Too much of a leap into the unknown for me, I'll be sticking to my electribe 2s for now, flawed but lovable. :)

I like the iOS and video/photo stuff, but not loving the sound

I just don't see the point.

I'm a big fan of Jesper Kouthoofd, David Eriksson and the TE team, but maybe, just maybe, this would do a lot better just as a software. Although for rich kids this will probably be fun to have and play with for a few hours. (Or maybe I just envy Jesper for being able to design these gadgets and not really care if anyone likes it or not...) For those who don't know: Jesper was involved also in Elektron in the early years. Mostly for the graphic design I believe, but maybe also had some ideas in GUI and that stuff? Something for Nick to ask more about when you (probably) meet them at NAMM?

TE needs to strip out the video processing features, put it into a separate box that can be triggered by external MIDI, add in the HDMI interface and maybe this part of concept might be useful.

The rest of Nicks hair fell out after this vid..and he reached for a double Scotch off camera Huge LOL! i fell asleep watching this until Gaz mentioned an Easter Egg at 15.14. LOL! GREAT JOB BOYS! .

designer works in a padded cell right? :)

I just want to know are there really any musicians who use this? I mean really uses it not just using it for a youtube video. I saw part 1 and now part 2 all i see is just frustration. Is this really useable or just a hipster trend to show your friends that youre cool cause you have this?

Haha @4:50!

No Android app = no buy

So much useless stuff in this little device (for me anyway), all I wanted was to hear the building blocks of sounds and parameters and they're either to convoluted to show or just not the focus. Shame. Would like another part just going into the actual sounds.

Thundercats, ThunderCATS, THUNDERCATS... HOOOO!

Nic, you don’t like it? You seem very unimpressed.

Novelty product. its a concept and not a full product to me for its price and limitations at the moment.

Nick really doesn't like/get it. I like the two-hander, enthusiast versus cynic review format but this two-parter was all over the place and kept jumping around the OPZ's features without going into any real depth on anything.

Seems like a toy for non-musicians who want a machine to compose music and pretty pictures for them. Might be a big hit with DJ's...

Seems like it kind of kills real time creativity.

Teenage Engineering is like a cult, if it doesn't work for you well hopefully you can get out. I was not that lucky, as I have drank the TE Kool-Aid...Lol

iOS is just easier to develop for than android.

One of the most buggiest and unfinished machine I've ever bought. So yes it's very funny but very limited. The samples have to be aif mono 16/44.1 and 6 seconds long (exactly) to work with opz. But that doesn't work all the time. The total length of your drum kit elements do not has to exceed 12 seconds (yes we are in 2019 but I guess TE is not aware of that) so forget about the long 808 kick drums in your drum kits. First and last time I buy a TE product. And I forget to say that you can't usb plug it without having a terrible buzz/hum

Fun fun fun, and power. Even the name of it is fun. These devices are bringing music making to everyone, even people who have no music in their blood. Wonderful. Let nick talk without uh-hu, ok, yes, mm after every few words. Its annoying.

For this money. A joke imoa

I have 2, fools!

Sequencing photos? I love the smell of my own farts!

Glaube Nick mag das Baby nicht ^^ ich finde es auch etwas drüber

This product is a failure !!!!! No built in screen, no micro hdmi output, no dmx out. At least if teenage engineering want to sell this junk, they should develop an android application.

I got confused just by watching the video. Who would use this masochistic wallet muncher?

Do you have to be a hipster, wannabe musician to enjoy this?

TE is a fashion company taking advantage of people who just want to spend money and beginners who buy into hype because they don't know any better.