#220

Received my OP-Z today and have been loving it so far! Something about this instrument seems to fit with me perfectly.

For those also exploring: I was skeptical about using this for ambient initially, but the tape buffer delivers. Set direction to backwards, set a short loop, slow speed, and sequence away for some glitchy ambient washes. With reverb and delay sprinkled on top of course :wink:

Edit: almost forgot, play the tape fine tune for warble!!

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#221

Keep this in mind if you turn the Z on and the battery is dead,

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#222

It actually happened to one person and no one else has currently reproduced it, so it might be a single case, or other kind of problem.

#223

I just meant ā€œnot chargedā€. Mostly just wanted to post that clip. Someoneā€™s died completely?

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#224

Yes, a guy reported that when the battery died he found all of his content had disappeared. I thought you were referring to that. Anyway, I suspect PBKAC.

#225

I canā€™t wait for it! Anyone know stock info? When will TE send another batch out?

#226

Feeling the exact same way. Just received mine and Iā€™m completely blown away.

Hereā€™s something fun, if you stop the sequencer, the buffer seems to remain in the tape, so you can continue playing it with the keyboard. Works extremely well with melodies and the vinyl noise samples.

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#227

Just tried pausing playback this morning, great tip! Iā€™ve found that this technique works really well with maximum note length/drone mode (hold track, green knob all the way to the right) so you can play the tape parameters without needing to hold down the key to keep it going.

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#228

Ah thatā€™s cool, thank you for the tip! Wasnā€™t aware of drone mode.

Now Iā€™m wishing there was a way to ā€œfreezeā€ the recording buffer. At the very least, itā€™s nice mute tracks from going to the tape if you want to just have one or two parts running through it.

#229

Hey all, I was wondering how many note polyphony when loading samples. I want to hook this bad boy up to my keyboard.

#230

@eyeiaye

On the chord track you can get 4 voices. With some midi routing wizardry, and having the same sound/settings on each track, you could add lead(3) and bass(1) tracks to bring the total to 8. Avoid the drum tracks, I think they have a 2 voice limit.

Speaking of voicesā€¦ Has anybody else noticed voices dropping out on busy projects with all 8 patterns blazing? There must be a total voice maximum for the Zā€¦

#231

Can anyone with OP-Z and FH-2 test few things for me?

  1. Are you able to sync OP-Z from the modular clock and output sequences from OP-Z at the same time?
  2. If you mute the track will it mute the MIDI out of that track or do I have to do it via the MIDI track?
  3. Do step the components on the OP-Z work for MIDI too?
  4. Does Arp track actually outputs arpeggios when using MIDI?
  5. If pattern is longer than 16 steps is there a way to zoom in to see all the steps?
    Thank you!:bowing_man:
#232

I donā€™t have a FH-2, so these answers are based on OP-Z passing midi to Bitwig, my comments in bold.

  1. Are you able to sync OP-Z from the modular clock and output sequences from OP-Z at the same time? I can sync from the Bitwig clock, I can also sync the Bitwig clock to the OP-Z clock and transport control, which is my preference.
  2. If you mute the track will it mute the MIDI out of that track or do I have to do it via the MIDI track? Yes! In fact, the Z has two kinds of mute - all mute and audio mute. You can mute the audio without muting the Midi output.
  3. Do step the components on the OP-Z work for MIDI too? They do!
  4. Does Arp track actually outputs arpeggios when using MIDI? I havenā€™t tried, good question.
  5. If pattern is longer than 16 steps is there a way to zoom in to see all the steps? Not that Iā€™ve found. I havenā€™t done a super detailed search through the manual though. The manual makes me believe that the Z treats all patterns as 16 step patterns, they just slow things down to simulate more than one bar of material. Iā€™d love to see zoom into a pattern released in a firmware update at some point.
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#233

I just tried, the Arp track does indeed output arpeggios through MIDI.

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#234

Some more tricks for the tape track. It has itā€™s own set of track parameters (where you usually set note length and quantize).

Seems like Green is note length (including drone mode :slight_smile:), I canā€™t quite tell what Blue is doing (seems it would be the same as the sample tracks - retrig, gate, loop), Yellow seems like quantize and Red sets the level of the tracks being fed into the tape machine (basically a ā€œdryā€ level).

I say seems like so much because thereā€™s no indication in the app.

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#235

Thanks for the linkā€¦

Processor: Analog Devices model ADSP-BF703 ā€“ Low Power 400MHz Blackfin+ with 256KByte SRAM
DRAM memory: Micron MT47H64M16NF-25E ā€“ 64MB, DDR2-800, x16 width
FLASH memory: Micron FBGA code NW228, unknown part number and unknown size. It may be similar to code NW225.

Interesting that theyā€™ve gone with a Blackfin (same as the OP-1), rather than use an ARM core, I think the OP-1 might even have a higher specā€™d core.

#237

The warez ascii art, cracked by: teenage engineering sortof easter egg in the on disk readmes is brilliant.

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#238

Yes! Such a perfect fit. If you were part of the old warez/artScene in the nineties, thats the first thing that comes to mind when you see the opZ ā€“ its basically a loader creator, updated to todayā€™s technology. From midi music, ascii art and pixel graphics ā€“ to sequencing 20k modular systems, syncing light rigs and animated real time rendering.

its really come full circle on what was the most fun back then and the most fun now. Its hard to imagine that a company would take such a leap of faith, and at the same time, hard to imagine it was not made sooner.

whether it turns out to be amazing or not, as someone from those old times, I find the concept is nothing short of incredible.

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#239

Itā€™s definitely something resembling the track parameters. Note length seems to be the same. Note style does not have any noticeable effect that I can discern. Quantize is the same. The Red Dial does not dial in Portamento, but rather brings up the dry mix of any tracks being fed to the tape. Normally, if you use the tape effect, youā€™ll only hear the tape effected version of whatever is being fed to it.

It seems like all of the other effects tracks have track parameters as well. But on these itā€™s harder to tell if they are doing anything besides Quantizing.

1 Like
#240

Nothing to add to this discussion ā€“ yet! But Iā€™ve been an avid reader.

I pre-ordered mine today. Canā€™t wait to join the crew of anthropologists interacting with this alien artifactā€¦

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