I made a small poll to check what you guys want in a modified OP-1 FW: http://www.strawpoll.me/10636080
Poll doesn’t work on my phone. Can’t tick boxes. HTC m8 android
No option on the poll for ‘adding/switching/expanding functions/fx to the existing firmware’ so I’m guessing that’s not possible for tech or legal reasons? For me that would be the ideal eventual outcome of all of this…
If that’s not possible it would be great to see the locked features opened. Though I have a feeling all this user activity might prompt TE to do that themselves now in next OS?
If the above is accurate then from the poll options the ‘new OS’ option is proabably the most exciting/worthwhile. An option to install an alternative OP-1 could be pretty interesting
Custom graphics would be fun but not really adding much at the expense of using non-legit OS.
Ability to replace factory presets with user defined presets would be big enough for me to switch to custom OS tho… But again surely TE will add this option themselves at some point?
All a bit of a guessing game really. Would be great if TE got involved with the conversation and let you guys know if they’re going to add these things themselves.
TE integrating hidden stuff in next OS: I don’t think this will happen, no matter what we achieve here because TE had valid reasons not to include those effects (and the ape tape) in their OS from their perspective. Might be bugs, sound quality, design decisions, whatever. Just because some weirdos in a webforum are able to re-enable those, they surely won’t just also re-enable them in the official FW. I just hope they won’t actually remove the code that runs the effects from the FW which would make the choice of “offical TE FW” vs. “older, modified FW” much harder. thumbs pressed
adding/expanding functions/fx: that is only possible when the grey box that is the .ldr files are decoded, modified and made to work on the OP-1 again. That is serious hard work and I don’t know if anyone is willing and able to invest that time.
completely new OS from scratch: this might be easier than the above because you could start with some eval kit from analog devices for the BlackFin chip and just start from square one. But I think it’s also unrealistic to expect a signle person or even a small team to do that in their spare time. Not saying this never happened before but the OP-1 is already pretty niche I think…
ability to replace factory settings added to next TE official OS: The only way they could do this is by providing some PC/mac tool that modifies the FW files (the .db files to be specific) before download to the OP-1 (same thing we do now manually). And I don’t think that is realistic. Especially with the work they have in front of them with the OP-Z and all other projects they do.
TE getting involved in this: I guess it’s time we should at least contact them and ask for their general opinion on the work done so far and what will be coming. I just hope they are cool with it and see it as a small group of their customers loving their work so much that they tinker with it in a way they didn’t expect.
The sound quality argument is weak. It's like calling the Stylophone unfit to go to market.
Until yesterday there was no demo of a straightforward multimode filter bundled inside the OS, not counting the Nitro contraption which does a similar thing in an unintuitive way, while expending energy on pointless graphics.
Reverse-engineering the OP1 is not an overnight job, and I don't think anyone is expecting anything to happen, fast or slow (see here for analogy).
TE might rightfully add the software equivalent of "if you can see this text, your warranty is gone, sorry"? Entertain that notion for a moment, the answers start pouring in.
TE could be nice and see this as an opportunity rather than panic and reject it.
But what do you think TE's general opinion would be if you forced them to answer early? "Great job, keep it going"? First, common sense says it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, but this is your own device you're "breaking"? Second, a mark of a great design is it being used beyond its original scope. Third, of course we love our OP1s, or we'd part with them in an instant in this day and age.
Automatic tools or complete results are not important. Only the information.
A whole alternative OS is a big task, but one that individuals are known to have undertaken in their spare time before. It's crazy and special. This might not be anyone of us, but as the information accumulates, we never know..
I think this research is the best thing that has happened to the OP1 community since, you know, this site.
You are all hoping that TE give their blessings to this when they are still actively developing the OP-1 (albeit slowly)??
I’m sure they’re well happy that when they announce new OS and features, no one bothers attending because someone has already leaked an early version. (And formed an opinion on that early version)
It’s the sort of thing small businesses dream of happening to them. Why not develop a version of the OS that can run on some cheap knockoff hardware?? I’m sure TE will provide some stickers to put on them.
I’m obviously just assuming what TE will make of this but remember the first version of Samplr on iOS looked like the OP-1 buttons??
You are all hoping that TE give their blessings to this when they are still actively developing the OP-1 (albeit slowly)??
I’m sure they’re well happy that when they announce new OS and features, no one bothers attending because someone has already leaked an early version. (And formed an opinion on that early version)
It’s the sort of thing small businesses dream of happening to them. Why not develop a version of the OS that can run on some cheap knockoff hardware?? I’m sure TE will provide some stickers to put on them.
I’m obviously just assuming what TE will make of this but remember the first version of Samplr on iOS looked like the OP-1 buttons??
That would be a good reply to a letter from TE’s legal team…
It’s not about me being grumpy mate.
I just don’t think publicly displaying a companies development work of an actively supported product is going to get their blessing, based on previous events.
The sound quality argument is weak. It's like calling the Stylophone unfit to go to market.
Until yesterday there was no demo of a straightforward multimode filter bundled inside the OS, not counting the Nitro contraption which does a similar thing in an unintuitive way, while expending energy on pointless graphics.
Reverse-engineering the OP1 is not an overnight job, and I don't think anyone is expecting anything to happen, fast or slow (see here for analogy).
TE might rightfully add the software equivalent of "if you can see this text, your warranty is gone, sorry"? Entertain that notion for a moment, the answers start pouring in.
TE could be nice and see this as an opportunity rather than panic and reject it.
But what do you think TE's general opinion would be if you forced them to answer early? "Great job, keep it going"? First, common sense says it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, but this is your own device you're "breaking"? Second, a mark of a great design is it being used beyond its original scope. Third, of course we love our OP1s, or we'd part with them in an instant in this day and age.
Automatic tools or complete results are not important. Only the information.
A whole alternative OS is a big task, but one that individuals are known to have undertaken in their spare time before. It's crazy and special. This might not be anyone of us, but as the information accumulates, we never know..
I think this research is the best thing that has happened to the OP1 community since, you know, this site.
About the sound quality thing and the Nitro spending resources in "pointless graphics"...well, there´s an important and central thing about the OP-1 spirit: the aesthetic choices that Teenage Engineering made. Maybe Nitro isn´t the more intuitive and efficient filter possible, but the "pointless graphics" are really charming and fun (indeed, one of the best of our beloved little synth), helping the user experience of it.
The same idea goes to choosing about not use a pretty common and straightforward filter, with and "ordinary" sound (which I really want, by the way!!!!!!) when TE have a more esoteric approach to effects :)
However, I can only praise and thank you so much for all this interesting and deep investigation. It was something talked for years here and in the old community and then suddenly it happened in a couple of days!
@amidis: pretty sure yes. keka claims to know LZMA. But you need to remove the first 4 Bytes of the file first. Don’t know how to do that best with a mac…
maybe you have the “dd” command in the Terminal.app? then it would be dd if=op1-firmfile of=op1-zipfile skip=4
where “op1-firmfile” is the filename of the firmware and “op1-zipfile” is the filename you want to create. “if” and “of” are infile and out-file and the “skip=4” means to skip the first 4 bytes
after that keka should be able to open the out-file.
Well i deleted the first bytes and saved the file. Then Keka could unpack it and then i added .tar to the unpacked file and unpacked again. now i can see all the grafics, db and raw files.
The same idea goes to choosing about not use a pretty common and straightforward filter, with and "ordinary" sound (which I really want, by the way!!!!!!) when TE have a more esoteric approach to effects :)
However, I can only praise and thank you so much for all this interesting and deep investigation. It was something talked for years here and in the old community and then suddenly it happened in a couple of days!
Produce for a few years, you inevitably reach the conclusion that a beat needs a compressor, and there’s nothing esoteric about that, one knob or ten. Yes, cows, grids, reasonable license there, but time and again we ask about staples. Research that leads to filling those gaps one day can only be a good thing.
I can see how this might not be TE’s idea of a good thing happening but I don’t see how it would hurt any sales. You still need to have an op-1 for any of this to be of use?
Seems fair enough if an OP owner wants to put a custom OS inside and give up warranty rights/possibly have headaches when new TE updates arrive etc. No different really to having the right to throw it in a pond… Bought and paid for… As long as no one’s making a profit out of TE’s property then no harm done. And it’s kind of a case of what’s done is done now. Seems like the info is out there for anyone that knows how to do this stuff.
Hopefully something cool will come out of it that benefits both users with options and TE with sales.
Wonder if OP-Z has been coded using the same methods? If yes then I guess might mean delays on that release if they decide they want to try to make it less accessible to customising.
Or maybe they’ll try to hurry out the OP update with a bunch of users’ requests etc + filter etc included… making custom OS talk a lot less exciting to most people unless someone decides to donate a ton of time in to adding brand new fx/synths/functions etc…
Edit - also would be kind of awkward tor TE to be publicly super pissed about people tweaking their OS considering that the OP-1 has a built in radio to facilitate taking other people’s work and doing something new with it
