Nothing is so fast to work with.
Now imagine if it could be both.
Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 Fieldis a tiny, portable, battery-powered music studio.
Charlie Sorrel / Lifewire
It’s also just about the most fun you could have making and recording music.
In short, the OP-1 Field makes music fun again.
Youd lay down a few tracks on that tape and have a song.
Charlie Sorrel / Lifewire
Computers make it possible for anyone to make music and make new kinds of music possible.
But they have their one downside.
The software is complex and can often feel more like using Excel than making a banging tune.
Charlie Sorrel / Lifewire
Hardwaredrum machines, synthesizers, samplers, etc.is similarly complex and often hides features behind menus.
The OP-1 F is the very opposite.
Its designed around a digital tape recorder that behaves a lot like a real tape recorder.
you might slow it down, run it backward, and overdub on any track, infinitely.
It only has four tracks, but that limit forces you to focus.
Not-So-Big Easy
But the magic is in how easy this all is to use.
And thats with the easy ones.
Let go, and recording ends.
you could immediately start playing.
This lets you sample another synth that doesnt play chords and then play chords with the OP-1.
Hit record, then play.
Famously, Bon Iver took an OP-1 toa cabin in the woods to record his first album.
Its built-in speaker has gone from a vestigial afterthought to “Wow, doesthatsound come fromthere?”
And overall, it’s just better.
It just gets out of the way.
I had an idea for a song the other day while on a walk.
Normally, I might open up Ableton on my Mac later, futz around, and forget about it.
Like I said, the OP-1 Field makes music fun again.
