I recently acquired an OP-Z. Great device !
However, as always, it’s never perfect.
And one simple feature seems to have been omitted.
OP-Z works with tracks (each related to midi channels)
- track 1 : kicks… all the available ones across the keyboard
- track 2 : snares… all the available ones across the keyboard
- track 3 : hihat etc.
- etc.
Although I understand that such a layout is convenient for the sequencer, it is totally against the approach that drum-machines or OP-1 offer : It is impossible to use at the same time a kick, a snare and hithat/percussions on the keyboard at the same time.
Any “looper artist” would need such a thing, as it turns to be mandatory live operation (Check the Artist FKJ for example).
On OP-1, drumkits are made of all the required sounds of a drum-kit, laid-out over the keyboard. It’s convenient to play live over existing tracks, over a song or whatnot (But of course the OP-1 had other issues that doesn’t make it a good live device…)
The least I would expect from OP-Z is to be able to do the same : sometimes it’s cool to just make a simple live-beat over anything, for fun or for quick and dirty track recording.
Did anybody find a trick to do so ? I would have expected OP-Z to offer a sort of mapping for the keyboard to reach the right sound at the right track…
The 2 solutions that came-up to me are :
- have an external midi device on which you can configure each pad to reach the right note and channel (OP-Z track)… but yet another device to buy ! And I have no idea which device to take for this
- connect the OP-Z and configure a special drumkit on the track 4 (the one for samples)… but it’s rather limiting, since I’d have to do it again as soon as I need a different setup of drumkit
So, it’s puzzling that such a beautiful device missed such a simple feature. I wish they change this on next firmwares.