"It costs too much and we don't need it but, yes, we really do want one": Teenage Engineering OP-XY review

What is it?

OP-XY is a typically divisive Teenage Engineering product that will have TE fans weeping with joy and detractors fuming at its asking price, leaving the rest of us bemused and confused.

That's because on the one hand, it can be seen as a mobile performance instrument with the coolest and sleekest of designs that is capable of jazzing up any groove you (easily) produce and performing it in endless variations at the twist of a gyroscope. Yet on the other, it's 'just' an 8-track multitimbral synth that you happen to be able to put into a large pocket. And one that costs £1,899/$2,299.

Muddying the OP waters further, XY is – depending on where you stand – either an upgraded OP-Z with an OLED screen and many souped-up features. Or it's an OP-1/OP-1 Field that moves on from tape-based sequencing to step sequencing with joined-up features that make it more of an all-round music studio in a box.

Teenage Engineering OP-XY review: What we love about it... and what we don't - YouTube

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The truth is, it has enough going for it to consider it its own boss, so that's how we'll review it and keep those comparisons to a minimum. Which is hard when you unbox XY, as it initially looks and feels like the evil twin of OP-1 Field, very much the darker destroyer with a grey scale finish and none of those friendly, colour by control features of OP-1. It feels slightly menacing, then, but it turns out that it is as logical to use as any OP, not to mention as well-built, and it certainly feels expensive. Just as well…

Performance

Launching straight into create a tune – and you will, trust us – OP-XY works with projects (of which it can hold over ten thousand across its 8GB of drive space) with which you can either create your own with the press of the Project button, or select from a dozen or so pre-baked examples (with more presumably on the way) by pressing the Shift button.

Projects each have eight instrument tracks, including a couple of drum channels, all easily reconfigurable. There are also eight auxiliary channels accessed via the Auxiliary button, one of four main XY modes, the others being Instrument, Mixer and Arrangement for the sequencer setup. The eight aux channels include two for effects (with six effect types each), and several for configuring inputs and outputs (microphone, MIDI and CV), plus a channel each for adding real-time performance effects and setting scales and automatic key signatures by way of the Brain option. Many of these options set XY apart from a standard multitimbral sequencer in that they introduce all manner of performance options, which we'll cover later.

Filling a project with eight tracks of sequences (each of four pages of 64 steps) is as simple as selecting an instrument channel from the eight keys on offer, and either playing a note or sound and choosing a step on which it will appear, or recording live playing with quantise and swing options to tweak. We're not kidding, we had a half-decent tune within three minutes of booting XY up for the first time; it really is that simple. Just press the track number, hit Shift to choose a sound from eight categories (Strings, Pluck, Bass and so on), record in either step or real-time, rinse and repeat on other tracks and you're there.

In our test unit there were up to around 30 preset options per instrument category, as few as eight in the Strings folder, but we'll assume more will become available as downloads. Each sound comes from XY's eight synth engines (including subtractive, piano and wavetable options), and here's why it doesn't really matter about the number of presets, because XY makes tweaking each sound's main parameters to create something new as completely easy as it can be.

XY's cool grey-scale screen gives an often off-the-wall representation of what you are doing across four main editing rotaries – but at least you see something happen – and as soon as you like what you get, save it. You will do both (like and save), but better still, just hit the track number and Scramble option to come up with an invariably great random sound.

More than an 8-track

We're already impressed with both the sounds, their tweak-ability and the ease at which you can create entire tunes, but that four-digit asking price is still casting its shadow, so we have to ask 'what else?', and fortunately we've only just scratched the surface. We touched on the real-time performance options earlier and these are the deal makers/breakers, along with XY's modulation capabilities.

For the latter, on a sonic level you can add four LFO types: Element, Random, Tremolo and Value, with Element being the most interesting as you can select an envelope, or XY's built-in microphone and gyroscope as your mod sources (or a combination of the three). You then get sonic movement literally by moving the device using the gyroscope modulator – a familiar physical option for TE users where moving XY forwards, backwards or sideways can, depending on the instrument engine chosen, alter a sound's parameters – open a filter as you practice your Parisian mime on stage, for example. While we jest, of course, it has always been a cool option although we've not witnessed many TE users applying it live, plus we're old enough to recall German band Trio with their Casio VL-1 on TV back in the eighties, so we're not convinced we want to.

On to the real-time performance options and we'll start with Step Components, the ability to add one of 14 variations to any sequenced step you have recorded. You can simply play these over the top of your sequenced track – hit the track number, press Shift and choose from the 14 options along the bottom keys and you will add repeats, velocity/pitch changes, skip/hold steps and a lot more to your chosen track. All changes can be recorded into the sequence and deleted quite easily. Great fun and again, familiar options for TE veterans.

Not to be confused with Step Components are the 24 punch-in effects on Aux channel 2 that add percussive (bottom keyboard octave) and melodic (top octave) effects to your sequences; again these can be either performed live or baked in per track. These and the Step Components add an almost overwhelming number of performance options that can turn any loop into a song with many (many) variations. Tape is yet another Aux option that adds some real-time intrigue, this time using an audio buffer of your loop to introduce tape style effects to a performance.

Finally we must also squeeze in some words on both Brain and Maestro from XY's many other features. Brain offers key and scale changing and transposing options while Maestro is a chordal/melody generator that allows you to play and record chord and lines with a single key press. Brain uses an intelligent algorithm to determine progressions and is a very useful addition in the Aux department. Both offer yet more ways to vary those sequenced loops so by now it's pretty clear that XY is all about creating and performing complete pieces on the fly, and little out there comes close to its ease of achieving both of these.

Verdict

It's fair to say - and much of the internet will be saying it, as we speak – that you can get an awful lot of music gear for $2,300. A full-sized synth workstation with multitimbral recording will do the same thing but not in as small a form.

A laptop running a performance-based sequencer will do the same for less and in an almost as mobile setup. Products like Synstrom Audio's Deluge will even give you the all-in-one studio-in-a-box approach for less and offer more. Heck, you could even get an OP-Z, an EP-133 and all the Pocket Operator range, and still have change left for the bus fare to Stockholm.

But, as we hope we have conveyed, there's a lot of stuff buried and not so buried in XY that nearly warrants that asking price. Plus we suspect that the more we tell TE's potential customer base about any more logical alternatives, the more they'll ignore us and opt for an XY anyway.

One look at the design and the cool aesthetic, plus the gyration abilities and all of those many live performance extras, and those worries over the price will fade – indeed the fact that the price excludes this device from 'the masses' might even /increase/ its elitist appeal.

So basically whatever we say is irrelevant and we're guessing you've made your mind up already too – we know we have: XY is lovely, cool, does so much but costs too much, and we don't need it if we're being totally sensible and honest. But, yes, we really (really) do want one.

Hands-on demos

Teenage Engineering

create a track in 50 seconds with OP–XY - YouTube

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Specifications

• Keyboard: 24 Velocity-sensitive mini keys
• Polyphony: 24 voices
• Parts: 8 synth engines plus multisampling
• Eight aux channels
• Four filter types
• Effects: 24 punch-in, two channels for insert (choose from six), master EQ, saturator and compressor
• Sequencer: real or step time, 16-tracks, 64 steps, 4 pages, 9 patterns per track, 9 songs per projects, 14 Step
• Components; Arpeggiator and Maestro chord memory functions
• Brain and Tape real-time key and tape effects
• Connections: USB-C, mini audio out, multi-out (audio, MIDI and sync), audio in, built-in mic
• Power supply: via USB-C port
• Dimensions: (W x D x H) 288 x 102 x 29 mm
• Weight: 0.9 kg
• Contact: