It is vitally tough to pigeonhole design and tech firm Teenage Engineering. One minute it’s making a choir of wood dolls, created to serenade the listener with a repertoire of choral classics, and on the opposite it’s working with Ikea to supply fashionable, multi-use LED lighting and cute Bluetooth audio system.
Hailing from Sweden however typically utilizing kanji as its alphabet of alternative, the marginally madcap however infinitely lovable firm has simply taken the wraps off its newest moveable sampler, sequencer and composer within the type of the EP–133 Okay.O. II. And it seems very very similar to my subsequent musical impulse purchase to observe up the corporate’s OB-4 radio, which is one in all my favourite possessions.
Packing a built-in microphone and speaker, 64MB inner reminiscence, 999 pattern slots and inputs for MIDI and USB, the compact and achingly cool gadget sits someplace between an beginner beat-maker’s plaything and a fully-fledged sampler and sequencer that’s able to creating the following huge trip-hop observe.
Chatting with The Verge, David Eriksson, Teenage Engineering’s co-founder and {hardware} lead, says the gadget is the “type of factor that it’s best to make music and end your songs” on, providing a degree of simplicity that follows alongside the identical traces as the superb Pocket Operator.
That stated, the Okay.O. II can be a massively succesful music-making machine, permitting you to hook up a MIDI keyboard, turntable or principally something with a 3.5mm jack to start sampling sounds. Alternatively, you need to use your voice or file an acoustic instrument by the built-in microphone, or make the most of the a whole bunch of pre-loaded drum beats, bass notes and pattern sounds.
Alternatively, you’ll be able to erase your complete laborious drive and there are 999 pattern slots to assign beats, bleeps and notes to, with your complete recording course of dedicated to 4 distinct timelines or layers, labelled A to D.
Wanting like an enormous calculator from the 80s, the comparatively diminutive gadget is powered by 4 AAA batteries, or by way of a USB-C cable for fixed juice. In all probability a very good factor contemplating the addictiveness of the model’s coveted “punch-in” results.
A transparent affect on this sampler’s identify, the second-generation of FX permits wannabe producers to entry a collection of 12 built-in packages that may immediately be utilized to particular person notes, samples or keys, in addition to to whole teams.
This permits beat makers to mess around with stay results which have the flexibility to show any fundamental sequence of beats and notes right into a looping, sweeping, ramping Aphex Twin-style observe.
Self-confessed suckers for some analogue tactility, the group at Teenage Engineering has additionally bestowed the KO II with 12 stress and velocity delicate pads, whereas all knobs and dials are meticulously chosen for his or her old-school really feel, however with fashionable efficiency.
Heck, your complete bundle is available in a restricted version 10-inch collector’s field that is designed to appear like a retro vinyl sleeve.
It prices $299 / £299 / AU$549, so it is not precisely low-cost, nevertheless it’s additionally surprisingly cheap given the specs this factor provides and the truth that Teenage Engineering’s fully-fledged OP-1 synthesizer prices $1,400 / £1,800 / AU$3,200.
Opinion: You had me at OB-4
I fell in love with Teenage Engineering once I was first launched to its barely nuts OB-4 “Magic Radio”. Alongside the ludicrously good sound high quality, coming from two four-inch bass drivers and a pair of neodymium tweeters, got here the flexibility to rewind stay radio because of the two-hour looping “digital tape” nestled inside.
The motorized user-interface is a delight to make use of and numerous features on provide are just about pointless however all the higher for it. You’ll be able to create an ambient drone primarily based on snippets of latest radio broadcasts (trippy), set a metronome (why?) or take heed to quite a few non secular mantras on repeat to get you right into a blissed-out zone (weird however truly fairly good).
The OB-4 might be obnoxiously loud, or crystal clear at decrease, background volumes. Plus, the temptation to pitch-up, tweak, warp and scratch no matter could be pumping out of the 100 decibel system one way or the other justifies its ludicrous price ticket.
Above all else, Teenage Engineering constantly proves that tech might be fashionable, analogue, expertly designed and nice enjoyable. And the EP–133 Okay.O. II is probably going the explanation you’ll discover me locked in a darkish room for the following few months.
