OP-1 PO-20 (or 128) and K.O. II Strategy

OP-1 Help
#1

Alright alright alright. My brain is fried thinking about this. So let me brain dump here and see where we go with this.

Looking to use all three sweet babies in a little sessshh.

Things Used

  • OP-1
  • PO-20 (or 128)
  • and the K.O II.

Sync Order Idea 1

I want to sync these sweet angels together. With sync in mind it feels like the order should be.
K.O II, PO, OP.
Tempo is easiest set on the KO so KO goes first. then because it’s hard to mix input sound and generated sound on the PO, it goes middle.

BUT. Let’s remember that Tempo and Tape are a thing on the OP-1.

Best Order for Performance

Alternatively from a sound perspective it would go
PO, KO, OP.
This way all previous sounds can be recorded onto tape on the OP-1.

Alright, with all that being said. Here are some goals and rules.

Goals

  • Be able to use the KO II effects for all the stuff
  • Be able to record into the OP-1 from all the stuff
  • Be able to mix the sound of the PO better (if sound comes into the PO, it’s weird. You can’t downmix the PO without also turning down the input)
  • Tempo should sync across devices
  • Tempo should also sync to tape on OP-1

Alternatives

Syncing these devices in line may be an issue, it make make more sense to purchase something like the TX-6

What is everyone’s thoughts on how you’d make this work?

#2

i think what you proposed sounds great topology to me. i thought about this quite a bit too with my po-32tonic + ko2 + op1f. it boiled down to this basic conclusions:

  1. op1f is always last in the audio chain
  2. midi from ko2 is sent to op1f so that you can actually play finger drums without fear of smashing the op1f

reasoning for #1) you can’t apply the punch in effects of the ko2 on the live input from the op1f, so you dont gain anything from feeding the op1f audio into the ko2, and conversely you lose the ability to record ko2 stuff if you do it this way. and of course you can play your ko2 live into the op1f and pipe it to your speaker in real time so there is IMO no reason to plug op1f into KO2 unless you, on a one-off basis, wanted to sample some unique piece of audio but i have not come accross that yet

reasoning for #2) i dont think its crucial but by having midi being optionally sent to the op1f, you can basically get all the wonderful audio coming out of the ko2 with the punch in effects AS WELL AS control the powerful op1f with much more expression by having that extension of pads.