Teenage Instruments OP-1

I saw an OP-1 on YouTube before it was released, and I thought, how cool is that? A tiny, precisely engineered instrument that could be an impressive palette to create tracks while I travel (I am in a airplane and in airports for about 50 hours per month). They were released in small batches, and I was lucky enough to get an order in when round two was announced for August 1, 2011.
I've now had the OP-1 for a year, and I really never travel without it. Everything it does, it does very well. It sounds awesome. The tactile feel of the device and the ergonomics of the interface are phenomenal. In fact, I would liken the quality of engineering to that of the Apple MacBook Air, and it's functional software is to music creation what MacOS X is to computing. The construction of the device is a work of art. It is solid like a macbook. The buttons and knobs feel like serious NASA-grade equipment, and the layout of the controls in relation to the software and a creative workflow is well thought out.

Quick Overview

It has basically four modes - Synth, Drum, Tape and Mix.
Synth has a sampler that can record from a microphone or FM radio, and a number of different sound generation types - from FM to Phase Modulation to Pulsewidth synthesis.
Drum is basically a drum sampler, and it works quite well.
The Synth and Drum modes have various types of LFO, Effects and sequencers, that allow you to create very cool loops.
You can record up to four mono tracks into the 4-track tape mode, and then use the mix mode to mix it, compress it and EQ it. and add a master effect, and then output it as a stereo audio file through USB.

Limitations

• It only has 256MB of storage, and it's not expandable - which is a farce when this thing costs as much as an iPhone, and storage is cheap. It should have at least 2GB.
• You can only use one effect at a time for each of the synth and drum modes, and then one master effect on everything. There is no Master FX send control - everything goes through the master effect.
• The effects are gimmicky. Spring and Delay are cool. It took a year before they added the Nitro filter, which means to get a filter on your sound you can't use any other effects. At the very least a standard LPF/BPF/HPF filter would have been nice. Even at the cost of losing LFO. I'd rather have a filter than an LFO 90% of the time.
• The sequencers are not all that useful - Pattern is basically not much better than an old Roland TB-303 with 16 quarter-notes; Endless is a basic manually programmed arpeggiator (don't make a mistake), and then there is the gimmicky thing called "Finger" for two sequences (painful to use). If they just made Pattern have an option to go up to 64- or 128- notes, and some option to have note length adjustments, then we'd be in business.
• The biggest problem using the OP-1 to make "songs" is that the sequencers for Synth and Drum cannot run at the same time, and even worse, if you want to record them into Tape, there is no synchronization with the bar markers on the tape - you have to press record "right on time". 

In most cases, when I use the OP-1, I can't help but feel that it is basically a modernized version of a TB-303 and a TR-909 with some additional sound creation tools. I can make a really cool 4-bar house track in minutes, but that is about the extent of it. After that, I am begging to open my MacBook Air and run Propellerheads Reason.

Usefulness

I have found three good uses for the OP-1.

1. A toy to make cool sounds and 4-track loops for fun. A really expensive toy.
2. I can create really unique sounds with it, that I can either play live with the keayboard, our put into a 16-note sequence or an arpeggio and plug it into my guitar rig for dramatic effects, and record it like I would record my guitar (mic up the tube amps) into Propellerheads Reason. This is actually very cool. It really turns this into a solo performance tool.
3. I can use it as a keyboard controller for Propellerheads Reason. This is a recent addition to the OP-1 operating system, and I find it very useful when travelling. I basically can open up my macbook, plug in headphones and the OP-1 via USB, and have a full recording studio at my disposal. It would be nice if I could use the audio I/O on the OP-1 in my Mac - but they don't have that feature either.

It's a fun machine. Hopefully Teenage Engineering will grow up a bit (bad pun), and write some major new enhancements to the software, rather than adding the old game "Choplifter" to it. With the exception of the storage space and possible the capabilities of the processor, the hardware is awesome.