[noman-land]

While I agree this has been true of TE for most of their existence, their most recent $300 sampler bucks this trend considerably.

https://teenage.engineering/store/ep-133/

Neither that, nor this little AI cloud device are eye watering in price.

[neom]

People loooove to complain about TE pricing. OP-Z is $499, find me anything else that can sequence sound, video and DMX (on the go) like OP-Z can, there are exactly zero others. OP-1 for portable synths.... are people pulling a Deluge out on a flight? I've seen people compose a whole set with a OP-1, over 30 minutes, with nothing else... good luck doing that on a MC-101.

[talldayo]

I own a Pocket Operator, my head's not in the sand about their cheaper offerings. The Pocket Operators are cheap toys though, you cannot tell me with a straight face that it's about to prop up your next EP. It's a mass-produced calculator PCB they forgot to make a case for, and sell at insane markup.

The same goes for the KO and indeed, the OP-Z. The OP-Z doesn't even have a screen, it has no business costing $499 for being a bunch of buttons with a USB-C plug.

> find me anything else that can sequence sound, video and DMX (on the go) like OP-Z can

How about the mandatory paired device it requires to sequence everything? That iPhone/iPad is certainly capable of doing that itself, alongside multiple things the OP-Z can't. Nevermind how far you'd get with a $300 laptop and $200 DAW.

[neom]

You can't memorize how to use an OP-Z.......?? That aside, what company is making an OP-Z alternative?

What company is making pocket operator alternative? What company is making an OP-1 alternative...?

Right, that's what I thought.

On your laptop point, I'm going to be doing a show this weekend, OP-Z, OP-1, 170 and 400. I don't even know HOW I would do that without TE gear, $50k worth of Eurorack?

[talldayo]

They've existed for almost 4 decades now under a market labelled "MPCs and MIDI controllers". To name a few common alternatives, you have the Digitakt and Octatrack, a cheap TASCAM and a laptop, a 4-track cassette recorder, the Akai grooveboxes, the Electribe series, the recent Novation Circuit line... the list goes on. People have been making beats on battery-power long before the iPhone and Garageband, if that's news to anyone.

> I don't even know HOW I would do that without TE gear, $50k worth of Eurorack?

A quad-core laptop running Reason and VCV Rack would do just as well, but I won't spoil your hardware fun. Who can deny how sweet TE's analog DCO sounds?

[neom]

Right, anyway. Can you spec for spec find me alternatives for the TE gear I mentioned? Same form function, similar software, interoperable within its ecosystem. Just name the TE model and then the brand and model alternative that is basically the same, and then how they work together in terms of their sync clocks.

For example:

OP-Z, you could buy X device, it has all the same features, is about the same price, same size, battery etc.

Very curious to check out your suggestions!

[talldayo]

OP-Z: iPhone or iPad, it has all the same features, is about the same price, same size as you would have carried, same battery, whatever

OP-1: Literally just about anything. It is a 4 channel digital recorder. You have an iPhone with USB-class compliant audio, you can do multichannel recording. Use a guitar, some iOS plugins and a $40 DAC. If you're going to complain about buttons, go blow your cash on a midi controller (it will still come up cheaper than ANY OF THE OP-1 MODELS!)

Pocket Operator: God, please grant me reprieve from finite suffering. There is no hope for humanity if we are looking for "alternatives" to grooveboxes with kilobyte-sized memory. What do I say? Fairlight CMI? Do I send a picture of the Mellotron as a joke? The Ti-84 graphing calculator? Heaven forbid... the Akai Rhythm Wolf. Is there a future for us yet if iPad children would rather pay college-tuition prices for Fischer-Price hardware that can do what their iPad does already?

You'll never please everyone, which is why snake oil still finds customers in the 21st century.