All I'll say is that you should reserve your judgement until you've tried some competing products. The Playmobil laptop looks like a great way to do your Word documents until you try a Dell or Apple machine.

Edit: it's worth noting that both of these systems are sequencers, not tape recorders. I consider that a benefit (much longer record times) but if you want a multitrack recorder then you should look elsewhere (maybe a 4iXo DAC?)

Sure it's cheap if you compare it to Stradivarius, but if you use instruments in same type ("a CPU feeding ADC/DAC with some knobs and buttons") it is one of most expensive one in category.

OP-1 field (the only version they sell) is 2000 EUR. That's top end of synth world and you usually get more knobs and keys with that. That's the price of Korg/Roland/Yamaha workstation-level keyboards.

Do NOT try to compare it on price with anything, it will always look like a bad joke. Subjective, might be worth to you etc.

No other gear company has tackled the all-in-one synth-sequencer-4trackrecorder-groovebox that is the OP-1 in the decade since its release. TE not capitalizing on this would be financially naive.

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

> No other gear company has tackled the all-in-one synth-sequencer-4trackrecorder-groovebox

Seriously?

Plenty of other companies have. If you're old enough to remember, Elektron had an 8 track sequencer/recorder/groovebox that cost roughly the same price as the OP-1. Their mono model was actually cheaper than the OP-1 (and arguably nicer).

...which is of course to ignore the hundreds of other sub-$1000 grooveboxes that do 90% of what the OP-1 does. Hell, that's to ignore DAWs that cost 1/3rd of the price with 300% more features. If you buy an OP-1 as your introduction to electronic music, you are wasting your money.

To each their own, the only real winner here is the one selling their product.

Then again, considering how little progress there is to be made with music technology and how much of the industry is buoyed by marketing and brand, it makes sense that people defend their choice of consumption so fervently.

Like I said above, it's my mistake for criticizing consumerism on a website that lives, eats and dies on how much people buy into arbitrary things like marketing and brand.

I think it is because "just making same thing" is frowned upon and also industry cares to not eat itself.

For example take Digitakt and Digitone. It could easily be combined into one device "it is just code" and CPUs got faster since release of those but they don't, because they know having those "blind spots" in each of their devices (that other of their devices fit) is good for sales. Got a Digitone ? Want Drum machine to it ? Well, Digitakt got same interface you already know. Even their newest device Syntakt omits a lot of FM stuff to not step on Digitone niche.

Also there is plenty all-in-ones with more capability, all the way to monsters like MASCHINE+, MPC X or Force. People buy OP-1 coz they want to work within the limits and think that will make better music, not because it can do something unique anything else can't.

Which is understandable, given myriad options it's easy to get lost in tinkering with them instead of focusing on creation.