Teenage EngineeringPO-24 Pocket Operator Office Noise Sequencer

If I were allowed to swear I would. This device is brilliant. If I explain why I bought it you'll see what hole it fills.This is important as if you want something super basic this is not for you; if you want something with every bell and whistle out there, this is not for you eitther.Right, here we go:I have played on iPhone apps that allow you to sequence drum machines. They are fun but they all seem a little too basic and far off what a professional may use. They also do not 'feel' like a good stepping stone into music production. So I wondered what to go for. I checked out software first. There seemed to be lots out there ranging in price and complexity. I was reluctant to go out and buy some software that would just put me off for life. You know what I mean: you go and buy photoshop pro, try to draw a circle and find you have to spend four hours on Google to learn how to do it! I did not want the photoshop pro version of music sequencing; I did not want to have to boot up the computer sit at a table with a mouse (and possibly a keyboard) to get going. I wanted something the size of an iPhone that I could just grab and make music.Then along came this bad boy: the pocket operator. Before you read on check out YouTube to see what people have done with it. When you link it up with another (or even more) you can get some real professional music laid.How easy it is: I am gonna be honest. It was not intuitive for me. You can't just open it and get stuck in. I struggled to even play around to work out what things did. This may not be the case if you have experience of this sort of thing; the symbols (pun intended) may mean something to you. I was a little frustrated but remembered why I bought it. I wanted something a little more professional that a simple iPhone app. And that was gonna require a little learning.So I put the work in. If you have peace you can become proficient with its use in about an hour. You may need to refer back to the instructions to remind you how to do some if it but it is actually relatively simple. I would advice learning one function then spending a few minutes playing with it then moving on.The hard part is actually making a good track. But then if that was easy we would all be pop stars!The internal speaker is not brilliant but it is much better than I was expecting so don't let that put you off; with earphones its perfect. It takes two AA batteries and is constantly on. There is no off button but this does not matter. To my understanding most of the screen is just for show but some of it does help. All the LEDs near each button all mean different things depending on what you are doing. I found it a little confusing at first but quickly got the hang of it.So, if you are looking to put your foot in the water - get this; it is wicked. I was picking my wife up from somewhere the other day. I arrived early so killed 15 minutes in the car with the Operator, wrote a little track and smiled. Boom!I read that the Rhythm was was the best to get if you were just getting one. It is not just a drum machine; you can get melody on your tracks to.

This review is about the PO-20 Arcade.They may look a bit odd and minimalist, but they sound incredible and provide a lot of fun for the creatively minded. If you are a beginner to electronic music, the PO may somewhat puzzle you, but in the hands of someone with even a little bit of experience, these provide hours of fun and even some serious musical capability.The PO-20 totally takes me back to my youth when I used to own an Atari. The rich 8-bit quality of the square wave arps superbly re-create the atmosphere of that era, but with a modern twist. The chord sequencing is inspired. Very clever indeed, hats of to Jesper Kouthoofd and his team for producing something remarkable. I love the way the chord sequence changes the arps and baseline, even without turning up the drone. The side chain compression simulation on the drone sound is a very cool sounding modern twist.I am also astounded by the very expansive sequencing capability. You can store 16 x 16 step sequences and link them into a chain of up to 128 patterns, that is whopping 2048 steps! The chord sequence of up to 128 "bars" (from a choice of 16 cleverly chosen chords) is independent from this so the options are virtually limitless. Each sound has two parameters that can be sequenced too.I love the fact that I can sync my PO to my Korg Volcas and other synths. Very easy to set up, plug in and select SY2, that's all there is to it!The only bit of criticism I have is about the packaging. I get that this is all part of the overall minimalist design of the product, but does not protect it enough when sent. Especially the knobs are vulnerable as they stick out of the packaging. My first one arrived with one of the knobs smashed in. This is partly because Amazon did not properly packaged it (just stuffed it into an envelope, which got crushed between heavier boxes). The replacement came in the same rubbish packaging, but all works fine. I disagree that the unit is vulnerable to damage. Of course there are always those that treat their kit like Casey Neistat, but then of course nothing is safe from damage.Highly recommended, seriously thinking which one I want next!

I did take a bit of a gamble on this after seeing a few videos on it.ProsIt's so much fun! Seriously it is very fun to just muck about with this and try out new sounds, record samples and re-mix them.Very small and very portable. Easily slips into a pocket or a bag and so light you'll never notice it.Great for getting into sampling and re-mixing. It's probably the cheapest ways to get into this out there.Has some great options and you can create some really great sounds and tunes from it using even simple filtering, pitch adjust and trims. Good thing is it never erases the original recording, so if you want to go back and change the way you've tweaked the sound you can.Cons:It does have a bit of a learning curve. There are no instructions, and even the online guide is limited in that it only explains basic functions and doesn't go into detain on how they combine. I can recommend watching some how to videos on this to learn the complexities.It has a 40 second sample memory, but that's split across all the 16 samples, so you may find it a bit restrictive. The built-in ones don't count to this 40 second limit and you can overwrite them with your own.The built in speaker is very quiet. You can connect headphones that helps, but in all the videos I've seen of it they are definitely amplifying the audio.Overall I have really enjoyed playing with this and I am seriously considering getting one of the other rhythm based units to connect to it.

Im definitely impressed with the PO-14, easy enough to learn from a you-tube video or 2 to have fun with, Nice Noisy bass sounds an pre loaded patterns to start with, Quite fiddly with it being so small so avoid if you have fat fingers, not really for me but i will try out the PO33 too, sent back

Great battery life and fun to play around with. Takes a bit more of a learning curve to use and is quite delicate. It’s very impressive and compact! It’s awesome to be able to fit it in your pocket and have a dedicated music device that you can create yourself. It’s a bit expensive, but a neat item to have on hand! Of all the different types of pocket synths, this seemed to be the best choice because it allows 3 channels of music layering.

I hereby declare the need in our lovely planet earth for a special edition PO with phonemes from the MIKUVERSE to grace our ears in syllables galore! Wondaful device, clever, smart, teenage, pocketable, playable, sharable, snackable, so many good things about this... leaving me with just one great big desire, which is ANOTHER ONE with the cool benefit of HATSUNE MIKU voice samples instead of the (very good) default set which is contained within this awesome unit. If you look at youtube you'll find many people who say this is THE best pocket operator because it's totally unique in the music world. Nothing quite like it!

I have a handful of POs and this one is my favorite even though two of my collection have built in mics for sampling. This one is great for creating Nine Inch Nails style industrial drum grooves. It's got a really unique sound and it operates differently than any other Pocket Operator I've ever used. This is one I still need to learn to get the most out of it whereas the others have pretty much the same sorts of key combinations and functions to do similar things. The Solo functionality isn't really useful to me but as I learn to use it it may and the parameter locks and effects are very cool. This was out of stock for a long time and I get why. I would not be surprised if this were the most popular pocket operator.

MUY BUEN PRODUCTO DE CALIDAD, REALMENTE ES DE MAXIMA CALIDAD !!!!

Product is what I ordered but, arrived partially defective because of horrible packaging. It should've been shipped in a box and NOT an envelope. And of course there are no refunds. Rather frustrated as it is not exactly the cheapest little gadget.