Teenage Engineering OP-1

We love gear that makes us forget the DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation. We love our Logic Pro as much as the next person, but we learned music with the "hands on" hardware approach and the DAW menu-system, with its thousands of plug-ins and pre-patched sample choices leaves something to be desired in the creativity department. We feel like we get in a production rut of sorts when always wokring with a DAW and we yearn for gear that makes us think outside that DAW-box, much like the way we learned with limited hardware many years ago. Yeah, many will think it a backwards thought, but we miss the concept that necessity forces invention.

Enter the Teenage Engineering OP-1. What is it exactly? It's an "Operator 1"... errr... ummmm. Okay, well... technically it is a 4-track tape recorder/FM radio/drum machine/synthesizer/audio effects processor/stereo album recorder/sequencer/voice recorder/computer control interface and more... but in short it is a shitload of fun. Some geniuses in the world dismiss it as a toy, and without ever having worked on an OP-1 mind you. Such is the way of the Internet I guess. We happen to love it and don't find that we have many periods of "necessity" forcing invention; we just find the OP-1 inspiring invention more than anything. It's quirky, it's a raw digital unit with software updates on a fairly regular basis, it has character and we can't put it down. Here are some pictures of our unit, but if you are really curious about taking your production out of the DAW this may be the ticket for you and Teenage Engineering would be happy to provide one to you.

News, December 2011

Those crafty boys over at Teenage Engineering, yes the ones from Sweden that made the amazing OP-1 studio tool/synthesizer/art piece, have posted up user created drum kits on their Library and Soundcloud pages. Check out my submissions here:

 

Teenage Engineering Library

 

Thomas White Kits on Soundcloud

From their site, "Since the official release of the OP-1 earlier this year, the community around the machine has really grown a lot. We are thrilled to see and hear all the awesome stuff put out by all the OP-1 users around the globe! Thank you all so much! We like to contribute, promote and help out as much as possible and so, we are super proud to present to you: The new OP-1 Drumkit Library section - an all free constantly growing collection of downloadable OP-1 Drumkits, shared with us by highly skilled OP-1 masterminds."