Teenage Engineering OP-XY: time to buy an OP-Z?

Teaser campaign is broken by leaked product and price – is this the end of the affordable OP?

• Teenage Engineering OP-XY: looks like Darth Vader’s OP-1 Field
• Buttons and features look like upgraded OP-Z
• Leaked price of $2299 suggests this is not an OP-Z Mk2

The OP-XY is available for £1899 in the UK and $2299 in the USA
Buy from Thomann, or check the Teenage Engineering store on Amazon UK

You can count on two things with Teenage Engineering products. One, they will be much cooler than they first appear, and two, the internet reaction is usually focused on how very expensive they are, and the many devices you could buy instead. That pattern was disrupted by the EP-133 K.O. II (and its weird historical sibling, the EP-1320 Medieval), but the 14 November 2024 planned announcement of the OP-XY marks a return to form.

So what is it? A lot of the instagram teasers seemed to imply something new, possibly even related to the Grip Car, while an FCC filing and other hints suggested it was a successor for the OP-Z. It might well be the latter, which is why I’m suggesting that you should probably buy an OP-Z (£362 from Thomann) while you have the chance, given the OP-XY’s apparent price point.

What is the Teenage Engineering OP-XY?

Thanks to American retailer Guitar Centre, the specs and style leaked early. Most speculation was around the idea of it being a sequencer, but I think it’s a sequencer and an OP-1 Field. Now the official details have been released, I am pretty convinced that the affordable OP-Z is safe, and it’s the OP-1 Field that is all but replaced by the OP-XY.

Bear in mind that while it’s not obviously presented, the OP-Z does have OP-1 style audio recording with a simplified tape mode, and also features two FX engines and ‘eight voice’ multi timbral operation with nine-track sequencing (10 if you include the motion sequencer in that).

Tech specs – as leaked

• 64-step sequencer – 16 x 4 pages
• 24-voice polyphony
• Multiple, unique synth engines
• Drum & synth multi sampler
• Stereo signal path
• Built-in speaker
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• USB-C rechargeable battery – 16 hours of continuous use
• 8 GB storage
• 512 MB RAM
• ‘hundreds’ of user projects

So far it seems that the OP-XY is less of an upgrade to the OP-Z, and more of an upgrade to the OP-1 Field (for some users’ preferred ways of working), swapping the four-track tape recorder paradigm for a more powerful sequencer than has been featured on any TE product before. All TE machines apart from the modular series have been based on virtual synth ideas and relatively inexpensive processors, the OP-XY claims to use dual processors. As the spec suggests, if you’re shopping on CPU power for price alone it’s not going to be great value – but when a Korg Wavestate is based on a Raspberry Pi from a few years ago, who cares what the engine is as long as it’s sufficient.

The manual is now available and mentions MIDI over Bluetooth BLE and a sequencer resolution of 1920ppqn.

OP-XY software specs from Teenage Engineering:

• 8 individually sequenceable instrument tracks
• 8 unique synth engines
• 3 samplers
• 9 patterns per track
• up to 64 bars per pattern spread across 4 pages
• per pattern effects
• reverb
• delay
• chorus
• distortion
• lofi
• phaser
• independent send levels per track
• 14 unique step components for advanced step sequencing
• apply up to all 14 to every step

The OP-XY hardware specs from Teenage Engineering

IIRC the OP-1 Field is a single Blackfin CPU.

• dual blackfin processing cores
• dual ddr memory
• triple-core dsp co-processor
• 2x controller mcu’s for wireless & low power io domain
• 480 x 222px IPS TFT display
• 6-axis IMU accelerometer
• built-in microphone.
• 3.5 mm stereo line-out with headset mic support
• 3.5 mm multi-out (auxilliary audio, CV/gate, sync)
• 3.5 mm midi in
• 3.5 mm stereo line-in
• 2 octave musical keyboard
• 68 ultra low profile mechanical buttons
• pressure sensitive pitch bend
• 4 x multi purpose grayscale encoders
• USB type c connector
• USB MIDI host & device
• USB audio host & device

The greyscale equates to 16 tracks as well as 16-steps – though here, the display is showing 8 active, since the OP-XY splits instrument tracks and auxiliary tracks it seems.

Look at the design of the buttons, and there’s a tape button as well – which makes sense when you spot the four tracks below the screen. This is the potentially exciting bit, as OP-1 (and Field) are not multitimbral machines, they can record the instrument you are playing but you can’t sequence one synth or sample engine, then play another, without recording.

The pen tool suggests a way of drawing progressions, and the symbols on the left would appear to equate to sound generation and recording, eight tracks, engines or sources each, A video has dropped explaining the OP-XY features and it’s pretty logical.

OP-XY operating modes:

There are four defined modes for OP-XY. It uses X-Y grids to show how the patterns and songs are interacting, and the four buttons and knobs are used for different functions in each mode much like the OP-1. Synth engines use them to alter sounds for example.

Instrument – eight tracks, with 10 instruments to choose from. You can play and sequence multiple instruments without recording, a big change from the OP-1/Field. Auxiliary – routing and effects controls, including punch-in effects. Arrange – sequencing and routing, using the 16 steps to control eight tracks internally and eight tracks of external devices. Mix – master EQ, saturator and compressor

A step sequencer and a mixer seem obvious, then on the right side the symbols are less familiar. The profile of a head may imply a feature called “Brain chord progression”, where the button/mushroom seems less obvious. It makes me think of the Choir devices, or possibly a hole punch. It turns out that it’s for punch-in effects…

Familiarity returns with five-pin DIN indicating Auxiliary mode features; MIDI, followed by CV, and external audio (a jack plug). The OP-XY can be used to process external audio signals, where is where the tape and two effects engines come in, and it can also be used as an external effects processor.

The sequencer/arpeggiator engine (players) button from the OP-1 is present, as is the COM button for parameter setting. The top right button is a waveform in place of a microphone, and it links to recording external audio for one of the three sample engines regardless of mode.

Want to see it in action? Here it is:

That lower row has symbols that evoke sequencer features from both the OP-1 and the OP-Z, as well as effects. The dots suggest beats, the hand looks familiar from the pattern sequencer on the OP-1 (Finger – it’s called ‘Hold’ on the OP-XY), the division symbol could be time signature, the ramp and steps look like arpeggio shortcuts on the OP-Z. Take a look at the Teenage Engineering OP-XY manual if you want to know more!

There’s a bending symbol that looks like a curve in the road, which brings to mind the Nitro effect on the OP-1.

With the fan, and division symbols, I’m guessing these might be direct performance controls such as step repeating or granular/looping effects. But this is TE, they could be anything, frankly.

As it happens, they are step controls for the sequencer – the bend refers to pitch bend, and the fans, dropping stages of the sequence such as trigger, parameter lock, or repetitions.

OP-XY synth engines

Any track can have any synth engine, which is a big change from OP-Z functionality. And of course while the tracks on OP-1 are freely assignable

1. Axis: FM synthesizer
2. Dissolve: Tonal Noise synthesizer
3. EPiano: classic electric piano emulation
4. Hard Sync: a return to TE’s experimental synth engine and graphics from the OP-1
5. Organ: multi-style organ engine, drawbars, stops and tonewheels
6. Prism: virtual analogue lead synth
7. Simple: virtual analogue bass synth
8. Wavetable: the name says it all really
9. Sample: traditional sample synth
10. Multi-sample: a new style of sampler for the OP series

Drums are essentially handled by the sample engine, though it seems unusual that the drum synth of the OP-1 has disappeared so I may have missed that.

Teenage Engineering OP-XY: ports and interfaces

Physically the OP-XY looks like an OP-1 Field going through a goth phase, but it’s not identical. On the port side, which is starboard if the machine is facing you, there are now four 3.5mm jacks in addition to USB-C and the flip-type power switch. Given the mention of CV on the front panel, it seems likely that the functions of the OP-Z and Oplab (gate plus three CV outputs) have been combined.

MIDI/Sync/PO trigger features are common to OP-1, OP-Z Oplab and OP-Z Line cards, so those are probably taken care of with the existing OP-1 connections.

(Another retailer confirms this – the ‘multi out’ port integrates sync, CV etc.).

Look at the front panel picture and you can see the familiar antenna break line in the OP-1 Field shaped case. What you might have missed is the little raised bit on the lower left corner. This correlates to the OP-Z’s pitch bend pressure pad, and in the chunky metal chassis would be rather nice to use I suspect.

The port labelling suggests ‘In’ and ‘Out’, MIDI and sync, with no mention of CV. I suspect TRRS breakout cables will be joining the TE store at some point…

Given the familiar OP-1 Field rear panel complete with velcro rings, the sound quality should be great compared with the original OP-Z, and the OP-Z is not bad to listen to and jam along with. It’s much better than the first OP-1 was.

If this is an upgrade to the OP-1 Field, why buy an OP-Z now?

I could be wrong. Now the OP-XY has been revealed it does have a lot of beefed-up OP-Z about it, but there’s no motion sequencer. It’s like a grown-up OP-1 Field that has been focus-grouped with all the people who ask questions like “why is there a cow?” and “what are you supposed to do with a four-track tape and limited numbers of projects like that?” yet, the OP-XY does not have the same tape composition method. It’s very much a sequencer and production workstation, but in TE’s signature scale and workflow style.

So the worry about the OP=Z going is speculation. Teenage Engineering does occasionally drop a product line (or it simply becomes unavailable). For example, the PO Modular series is still on the website, but it was discounted and is no longer in stock and Thomann recently removed the PO-400 from the catalogue. This implies it’s gone, rather than ‘new stock is coming’.

The OP-Z has been discounted for a while, as have the expansion modules, so if it’s been a bad seller for them for two years (which is implied by the discounts, though it could have been more successful than expected for all I know and thus could be cheaper) they might not make another run.

Which would leave you with the option of buying used (where they tend to get warped plastic cases and broken feet and controls), or buying a device that costs as much as six OP-Zs…

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