It’s fascinating trying to play any kind of tune on the pads of this device when in “keys” mode. I have the sibling model and find it almost impossible to produce anything that sounds “normal”. I don’t really mind — it’s hardly meant to be a piano after all — and it certainly makes for an interesting phenomenon. It’s also one I think the designers nod to: the pads can be retuned to different scales suggesting a complete break from any kind of equal temperament octaves.
While I haven’t had the chance to ride one, I imagine it is the same feeling as riding a joke bike where the headset is geared to invert the sense of the handlebars (left is right, right is left) or using a pair of circlip pliers where squeezing the handles opens the jaws rather than closing them.
Alas, Teenage Engineering really set themselves a high bar with the OP-1 and I still don’t think they’ve ever come close to it. The OP-Z just didn’t compete without a screen, the pocket operators (and the K.O. II and Medieval, which have the same interface) have a much less intuitive design language, their IKEA lights are controlled by colour coded, identically shaped controls on the back, etc.
They are all lovely products at good price points that do their jobs delightfully but when they came from the same studio as the OP-1 it is like comparing a Pininfarina Peugeot 205 with a Pininfarina Ferrari 250.
I had their OP-1 for a long while till I had to part with it for some emergency cash. It was a truly delightful thing to play with and lost neither charm nor monetary value even years later.
> the pads can be retuned to different scales suggesting a complete break from any kind of equal temperament octaves.
I was kind of curious about this since in the medieval era, equal temperament wasn't used very much. But it just allows retuning to major/minor and modes in equal temperament, as far as I can tell. Would be an excellent device for medieval music if it could be tuned to meantone, Pythagorean and so on!
Yes, exactly - minor/major and modes in 12TET (as well as pentatonic but that's just major/minor with fewer notes).
What would be interesting with this synth (something other synths, like my Korg Monologue, can do) is being able to tune to different temperaments, i.e. not 12 TET - for this synth especially, since 12 TET was rarely used in the medieval period in favour of pythagorean or meantone tuning.
Thanks for elaborating. I should have been clearer that I was just quoting the docs and have no idea what I’m talking about. Your comments have given me some interesting things to read (listen?) up on, later :)
If you like synths/electronic music, and you're interested in listening to music in other temperaments/tunings, check out the artist Sevish. He also designed a web app for creating alternate tunings: https://sevish.com/scaleworkshop
While I haven’t had the chance to ride one, I imagine it is the same feeling as riding a joke bike where the headset is geared to invert the sense of the handlebars (left is right, right is left) or using a pair of circlip pliers where squeezing the handles opens the jaws rather than closing them.
Alas, Teenage Engineering really set themselves a high bar with the OP-1 and I still don’t think they’ve ever come close to it. The OP-Z just didn’t compete without a screen, the pocket operators (and the K.O. II and Medieval, which have the same interface) have a much less intuitive design language, their IKEA lights are controlled by colour coded, identically shaped controls on the back, etc.
They are all lovely products at good price points that do their jobs delightfully but when they came from the same studio as the OP-1 it is like comparing a Pininfarina Peugeot 205 with a Pininfarina Ferrari 250.