#107

Fwiw I played with one for quite a while at moogfest and did not have a screen attached. I was still able to do a lot.

#108

I had to look up what ā€œDMX lighting controlā€ means as a feature. It hit me that this probably plays into their IKEA stuff, which has been described as including ā€œlighting to make a party in your house.ā€ Fingers crossed the OP-Z will plug into it somehow and home-jams ensue.

#109

Also - Sweetwater has pre-ordering / backordering turned on. I wrote them to ask about timing. I put in an order last night, they said Iā€™m in the delivery bucket for the next shipment they get from TE, which they believe will be in mid-November.

While the above is still true, for a variety of reasons I canceled the order. I put in an order at Big City Music. Will see if they actually have them in stock, or if itā€™s a mistake on the website. :crossed_fingers:

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#110

If you try a search for DMX in this forum, there are a few threads about it.

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#111

Big City Music appears to have them in stock, per their instagram. I havenā€™t reached out to them about logistics / shipping times / pre orders / etc, since I am not in the market for one myself. But for those who are, check it out :slight_smile:

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#112

Thanks for the tipā€¦spoke to big city, said they had a real small batch and are selling quick. put my order in should ship today.

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#113

i just got the last one :stuck_out_tongue:

excited to have in time for my tour. i want to make a tour music video with it.

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#114

That photomatic appā€¦even though itā€™s pretty straightforward and not terribly amazingā€¦was the clincher. I think itā€™s going to be simple enough that itā€™ll end up getting used a ton in my house.

#115

wow i would be so excited to have a couple lamps in my house that jammed out to what op-z was playing

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#116

In a high security safe at TE HQ thereā€™s a manila folder marked ā€œsecret plan.ā€ In that folder thereā€™s a single sheet of paper that says, ā€œmake every house party super awesome.ā€

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#117

Thanks for the tip! Iā€™ve had a preorder with Sweetwater since January (no jokeā€¦ ordered it the day I got back from NAMM). They still have no clue when their shipment arrives, but now my OP-Z arrives on Friday!

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#118

Got mine today. If youve used an OP-1 for a reasonable amount of time, a decent part of the Z will feel like home. The rest is coming along fluid and intuitive. Itā€™s deeper than it looks, and music making is just fine with no screenā€¦ I almost already prefer it, though it is nice for learning.

The photo sequencing is trippy and awesome, just need to put my learning cap on for unity/videolab.

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#119

Hey folks, how is the OP-Z for music less based in sequencing? Say drone for example. And how much control do you have over the synthesis? Iā€™ve seen that is has units and such, but really the ER-301 is looking more attractive to me right now in terms of how deep it can go. Can the OP-Z accept and respond to complex modulation sources say, like from Max/MSP, via USB?

The manual seems to treat it mostly like a standalone machine. Iā€™ve been searching for a couple days now and I could not even clear out if it is possible to multitrack record the OP-Z, but Iā€™m sure this is just me not being able to find the information, right?

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#120

Would be surprised if it multitracked. OP-1 doesnā€™t.

301 is almost all sound design, OP-Z is largely about sequencing, so itā€™s a matter of needs. And this is just top level, obviously: 301 needs a case and other modules, OP-Z is portable, etc.

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#122

As I understood @lbet 's question, I think he was referring to getting multiple audio streams of different OP-Z tracks out to a DAW simultaneously ā€“ and to that, I think the answer is negative.

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#123

So Iā€™ve seen a few videos and stuff, wondering if thereā€™s something Iā€™m missing, but I guess this thing is designed for the opposite of me. I find nothing about it interesting or captivating, and much more it seems like a nightmare (having an external screen, menu diving on tiny buttons with illegible states), and a focus on ā€œsequencingā€ is not for meā€¦

(I donā€™t really like poo-pooing on stuff, so Iā€™m wondering if thereā€™s still something I donā€™t understand)

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#124

I hear you. Iā€™m interested, but can easily see how it can also be the opposite of enticing for many.

Overall, for me, I think that Iā€™d have to get hands-on time with it to actually decide whether Iā€™d like it. For me, the draws are something like:

-ultraportability
-versatile MIDI sequencing
-self-contained ā€˜grooveboxā€™
-ability to drive modular through FH-2
-Unity / gfx capabilities

But apart from the graphics aspects, battery and portability, nothing thatā€™s actually really huge ā€“ unless the hands-on experience is really really good.

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#125

I got one the other day.
Sequencing is fun, steps can be set per track, punch-in effects are fun (dunno if the fun will last or not). Performance and Master tracks are very nice (the master track will try to recognize the key and transpose everything in that key).

Thereā€™s not much you can tweak in the synth engines, it feels like adjusting presets. Samples are all very short one-shot and are transferable via the app in the op-1 drum format (OP-Z cannot sample). Effects are nothing to write home about.
Every track has a predefined purpose and not very flexible (bass, synth, arpeggio, chord).

Iā€™m thinking about returning mine because it feels much more of a PO on steroids than an OPx. Iā€™ve wanted it for a long time and it feels so different than I imagined. :frowning:

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#126

I forgot: tape is nothing like in the op-1. Itā€™s now a speed-up/slow-down effect in the op-z. :frowning:

#128

Me realizing the above is what ended up making me decide to pick it up. Of course, I havenā€™t touched one so Iā€™m going purely on youtube and conjecture (which is also the name of my next albumā€¦just decided).

I kept comparing it to the OP-1, which is my favorite instrument. The last instrument Iā€™ll pawn when things go south, the instrument Iā€™d put in my bag to live out my final hours on the iceberg as the ship sinks, the instrument that I want with me when I go over the top of the trench. Etc.

When I compared the feature set of the Z to the 1, it just didnā€™t make any sense. I also have three of the POā€™s. The POā€™s are the reason I often go into the basement to get a screwdriver and come back up after a half hour with a beat instead of the toolbox. They tend to drag me in and then time slips away.

Watching videos of the Z this week, it hit me that itā€™s not a OP-1+, itā€™s a PO-xx++. Maybe itā€™s a lowering of expectations? Maybe itā€™s being open to what TE is delivering and hoping for the best? Maybe I have stockholm syndrome? Extreme GAS? Who knows.

I do know that when I showed the handful of TE produced feature videos to my 11 year old, his eyes lit up. So Iā€™m going to go with that. TE makes instruments that feel like toys. Toys are great, becauseā€¦theyā€™re toys.

Ahem, more, deep psyche dive

Side note, if you want to go deeper into some of my motivations here. I run a software group inside a big giant enterprise. We build software using techniques that emphasize a sort of game approach to figuring out how we want to work. Our meetings are fun, people enjoy the work and we produce good things. However, our parent company is enterprise so we run into issues sometimes where people think weā€™re giggling too much? Or we like gifā€™s too much? Or weā€™re clearly having fun instead of stressing out? A very senior executive once accused us (me?) of making toys instead of products. Which I guess makes me Santa Claus? And my team elves? It really made me madā€¦and sadā€¦and embarrassed. I went back into my candy cane workshop all downtrodden, like I needed to push the team to be more serious. Then I looked aroundā€¦realized I liked making toys (theyā€™re not toys! theyā€™re actual things companies will pay actual money for!) and that guy used the right word, he just didnā€™t give it the right spirit. If you say toy with a sneer, try saying it again with a giggle and see how that feels.

I like that this place tends to look at products in terms of how they make us feel or what they help us do, instead of side by side feature comparison. Itā€™s a good way to live.

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