Good news for all aspiring Moogs and
Moroders: Swedish hardware designers Teenage Engineering have created
one of the most accessible pocket synthesizers to date. The Pocket
Operator (PO) line includes a drum synthesizer, a bass line synthesizer,
and a melody synthesizer. Each one is made of little more than some
circuitry and cardboard, and costs $59 each.
That price tag is nice, but it’s not just the price and feather-light weight that could bring these little synth-ing gadgets to the masses. With the PO line, the Teenage Engineering guys have made playing a synthesizer a lot like playing a game. From its size and shape to the black-and-white 8-bit LCD display at the top, the new synths channel the handheld Nintendo systems from the 1980s and 1990s.
Teenage Engineering
“We wanted to create something that was instant fun,” says Jens
Rudberg. Obvious as it sounds, the rest of Teenage Engineering’s product
canon haven’t exactly delivered on the “instant” part: the designers’
first products, the OP-1 synthesizer and the OD-11 cloud speaker, are
stunning instruments that cost upwards of several hundred dollars and
require some expertise to play. With the new PO gadgets, they’re looking
to expand on where and when users can make music: “We want them to use
the POs in all kinds of ways. On the bus, in the studio, in live
performances, standalone, or synchronized with other equipment.” They’ve
already gotten orders from schools, so the plan could be working
already.
Each gadget comes with 16 different punch-in sound effects, on 16 different keys that can be played and used to improvise freely. But because the PO line was made for real music-making, the Teenage Engineering team built in parameter locks that let players designate certain sounds for certain lengths of team over a sequencing of 16 beats. The idea is to give users an endless palette of sound sequencing. That’s also where the 8-bit graphics come into play: each one tells a story—”For the PO-14 bass synthesizer,” for example, “the story is: ‘life as a submarine engineer can sometimes be lonely. Making low frequency bass lines is the only way to stay sane,” Rudberg says—that changes each time to sync with the new synth composition.
And if none of these technical details make sense, fear not: the PO gadgets handily double as alarm clocks
That price tag is nice, but it’s not just the price and feather-light weight that could bring these little synth-ing gadgets to the masses. With the PO line, the Teenage Engineering guys have made playing a synthesizer a lot like playing a game. From its size and shape to the black-and-white 8-bit LCD display at the top, the new synths channel the handheld Nintendo systems from the 1980s and 1990s.
Teenage EngineeringEach gadget comes with 16 different punch-in sound effects, on 16 different keys that can be played and used to improvise freely. But because the PO line was made for real music-making, the Teenage Engineering team built in parameter locks that let players designate certain sounds for certain lengths of team over a sequencing of 16 beats. The idea is to give users an endless palette of sound sequencing. That’s also where the 8-bit graphics come into play: each one tells a story—”For the PO-14 bass synthesizer,” for example, “the story is: ‘life as a submarine engineer can sometimes be lonely. Making low frequency bass lines is the only way to stay sane,” Rudberg says—that changes each time to sync with the new synth composition.
And if none of these technical details make sense, fear not: the PO gadgets handily double as alarm clocks