There’s been a flurry of cool iPhone tools coming out for the KO II and wider EP series now that folks have figured out the over the wire protocol it uses. OP-Z has a similarly powerful protocol, but I couldn’t find anyone that fully decoded it, and it turns out it can do quite a bit more than the official Teenage Engineering OP-Z app uses.
I wanted to open up and document this: https://github.com/kmorrill/op-z-sysex
The research now covers note trig and parameter automation editing across all 16 tracks, project and chain settings, MIDI setup, and installing prepared sampler sounds over normal USB MIDI.
What could people build with it?
- A visual OP-Z project editor and librarian.
- Searchable backups, project comparison, version history, and safe restore.
- Generative beat, chord, melody, and arrangement tools.
- MIDI and DAW conversion workflows.
- Phone, tablet, desktop, or web companion apps for editing and performance.
- Kit builders and sample installers that work while the OP-Z remains in its
normal operating mode. - Alternative and accessible control surfaces.
My hope is people will find fun ways to keep the immediacy of the hardware
while letting a larger screen or computer help with deeper editing,
organization, generation, conversion, and accessibility.
This builds directly on the work of opzdoc, z-po-project, libopz, leddy231’s hardware-write fork, teoperator, and opz-sample-manager. More detailed credits are included in the repository.
Honest limitations
This is unofficial and not affiliated with Teenage Engineering. The results were tested on firmware 1.2.45+. The repository is a foundation, not yet a polished editor for every documented feature. Sample installation is proven, but downloading arbitrary installed sample audio through the same route is not. Malformed writes can damage a project, so back up first and experiment on a
disposable project or slot.
