Comment by cole-k
8 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_(guitar)
Not to defend Teenage Engineering, but I have seen a surprising number of OP-1s in music videos/live performances of bands I respect. Does that justify its price tag? I feel somewhat certain in saying "no," but I have no expertise. Love its aesthetics though.
The OP1 is a genius piece of design tbh. It is very flexible and powerful for its small size, and devices in its category were very rare when it first came out (it helped define the modern incarnation of that category).
It was pricy but still under the $1k mark - pretty standard for a piece of consumer creative gear.
The design made it extremely approachable, which means a ton of techie people who wouldn't be into music gear otherwise still wanted to grab one just to try it and who knows, maybe it'd turn them into musicians.
So yeah, fantastically designed piece of kit. Lots of respect to TE for having brought that into the world.
I think a lot of the frustration directed at TE more recently is due to the fact that that base equation around price/features/quality of the product, which was very good for the OP1, has only gotten worse for later products.
And the OP1 itself, despite being an almost 15 year old product, has gone up in price A LOT (and the 1f upgrades don't justify the bump).
I fell in love with the OP1 when I first saw it many many years ago. A few years back I took some of my bonus and finally got one, despite the price being a little higher than launch (I want to say maybe $1500?).
It’s an amazing little piece of gear and is super fun - it’s definitely not for everyone, and requires a different approach to music making that (for me) focuses less on the functional, reproducible aspect, and more on an ephemeral journey that might end in a new track or might just be a jam, but I hardly ever fire it up and walk way not having a good time.
Currently have it wired to a Deluge and a POM-400, and mostly I send some MIDI notes to the OP1 for some added depth. But the synth engine feels so rich and powerful for such a little bugger!
10/10 would recommend and also there’s probably a lot more bang for your musical buck out there (cough couch Deluge)
It's not particularly expensive for professional music gear, which enough professional musicians use it as that I think I have to consider it that as well. Whatever else teenage engineering sells I don't really have an opinion about but that thing gets serious use by serious professionals so I feel obligated to take it seriously. Compared to a nord piano or a cello or a rhodes or a stage mixer or whatever it's not among the most expensive pieces of gear you will routinely see on a stage.