Well, well, well. Never thought I’d be writing this post, but here we are.
This post will be half-review, half-winsome essay on musicmaking and the tools we use to draw inspiration. I bought the OP1 Field about 6 months ago, after what seems like years of occasionally looking it up, watching videos, or thinking about it.
Teenage Engineering products have a curious effect on me. Simplicity in creativity is something I value. The promise of TE, to me, is straightforward production gear without cables, conversions, or juggling different manuals for different products. I believe I traded that for menu-diving, but we’ll get to that in a second.
Overall, I love my OP1 Field. It fits my meticulously DAWless setup well, but I would NEVER recommend it for someone else. I got it for myself as a celebration for a recent promotion; I can’t imagine it being part of someone’s regular daily driver. This was an extreme luxury purchase that I am frankly embarrassed about.
I’m embarrassed about a lot of the Teenage Engineering gear I own. When I bought the OP1 Field I thought I had reached the zenith of ownership. Yet after achieving the “flagship” product, I wound up with an OB-4 as well as the exceptional Medieval. I try to put black censor bars mentally over anything of the OP-XY I see. I don’t need it, I remind myself. I don’t want it. I don’t have use for it. But wouldn’t I have said that about the OB-4 at one point?
OK, let’s talk about the actual device. It’s so premium I’m afraid to take it places, and I’ve been looking into aftermarket cases to make it less scary to carry in a backpack on a motorcycle. (Any recommendations, hit me up!)
It’s a pleasure to touch and interact with. The OP1 Field has given me a crash course in a lot of electronic music terms and the bones of building tracks. The tape recording feature is what I am looking for in a simple, compact music maker. The second I learn how to count better, it’s all over for you once I learn how to make beats.
In all seriousness, I have dedicated time to learnings the OP1 Field and it has rewarded me with many ideas put to tape that would have lived forever in my mind. The worst part about it is managing the files on a computer. I understand this is a small barrier many of you have likely overcome, but smaller barriers are what caused me to opt for the OP1 Field for my idea-capturing in the first place. There are tracks I love on my OP1 Field that I delete because I simply never will take the time to meticulously transfer the files to another device. I realize how crazy that may sound to some of you, but that’s just how my brain works. The ephemerality of what I create on this extreme luxury device only adds to the razor’s edge of guilt I feel when using it.
I feel rewarded every time I return to the OP1 Field and remember where certan settings or sounds are. I will feel a great deal of accomplishment once I am familiar with all the different sound engines and their limits. I find great satisfaction in digging around into the sounds and seeing what certain knobs and dials do as I pull ideas together. For others who are more familiar with soundmaking and songmaking, you may know these sounds by other names. For someone like me who has been seeking an all-in-one solution it’s the best way to start, and I wouldn’t do it any other way.
The OP1 Field fits in well with all my other instruments. MIDI clock and syncing is something a bit beyond me yet, but it works well with my guitars, mixer, and other synths. So far it’s the perfect way to lay ideas down. I’m the type of person who will go from watching something, listening to someone, or thinking about something to humming and I need to get down a snippet of the song to come back to later. The OP1 Field is unmatched in meeting me where I’m at in this regard. In that case, it feels like a secret backpocket tool, something I’m still not willing to tell too many people about that I have. The price is eye-watering, and the reality is others with more discipline have found out how to do everything this can do cheaper, just with more pieces and parts.
I’ll wrap this out by saying thank-you to all the Teenage Engineering fans out there! I am thankful to be part of this community and I am sure I will see you floating around the forums here.
- law
