Teenage Engineering is a design firm as much as it is a musical instrument company. Its devices rarely look or behave anything like what youâd buy from a Korg or a Moog. The best distillation of its identity remains the OP-1, a quirky groovebox that garnered as much attention for its aesthetics as its all-in-one music production features. Effects are accompanied by nonsensical graphics, like a mechanized cow, and it basically forces you to commit to a musical idea by using a virtual âtapeâ with intentionally limited editing capabilities.
But all of Teenage Engineeringâs instruments are a bit odd and often polarizing in their own way. The OP-Z is a surprisingly capable sequencer, but its screen-free design and array of icons are bewildering. The Game & Watch-inspired Pocket Operators are extremely simple but are basically disposable toys. And the $1,999 OP-1 Field is its own thing entirely, eschewing MIDI sequencing in favor of live recording.
The companyâs latest portable instrument, the $2,299 OP-XY, represents something of a greatest hits tour for Teenage Engineering. Itâs a sequencer, like the OP-Z, but it also has the performance-forward live effects of the Poc …