I am pretty sure real professionals use carefully configured personal computers with keyboards plugged in.

The same as how professional photographers use expensive 'real' capital-C Cameras with interchangeable capital-L Lenses but still carry pocketable point-and-shoots for 'fun,' e.g. Ricoh GR, Fuji X100. Tools should be enjoyable to use, which these gadgets offer in spades.

But in this case, the just-for-fun pocket device is more often expensive than the capital-K Keyboard.

Both of the cameras I listed are more expensive than many perfectly capable interchangeable-lens cameras (Ricoh GR ~$1000, Fuji X100 ~$1300 [currently prone to scalping for even more]), but still rightfully warrant the demand because of their usability.

Which is fine. If professionals collect them for novelty, nothing is lost. If a beginner were to spend all their money on a novelty camera instead of an interchangeable lens model, then it does become a bit of a waste. Almost like they bought into the hype because of the end-product or social sex-appeal, a phenomenon that ties neatly into TE's marketing.

They aren't novelties any more than using a prime non-zoom lens on an antique film camera is a novelty. That would be tantamount to claiming that playing on a large unwieldy needs-to-be-tuned acoustic piano is a novelty compared to a digital keybed with plugins.

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

Smaller devices are still used as notepad for ideas.

My opinion is based off the weekend I spent with a rented model. I very quickly realized that the OP-1 is like an iPhone app that someone turned into pricy hardware.

> 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.

That last 10% is precisely the point. Nothing AFAIK has the audio-oriented tape-style workflow with a keyboard and groovebox functionality in as small a footprint as the OP-1. The reality is that the OP-1 has been successful enough to warrant a successor and that are not negatively affecting other manufacturers doing whatever they want to do with their offerings, and this affects you personally... how?

I just find it utterly fascinating how rich, clueless tech workers throw money at cool-looking companies they see on YouTube. It's so unfathomably stupid to me that I feel the need to share it on HN, but I realize in retrospect this community might not share my opinion.

It's unfathomably stupid to me that one would care so much about what others spend their money on, as if it were something actively harmful.

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

Sometimes I forget this is a business website first, tech website second. Touché, the abject waste of money is so easy to ignore when you contextualize it on a website of moonshot founders and Apple enthusiasts.

I have a fair share of dislikes of what people spend their money on, e.g. conspicuous consumption on fads, Teslas in particular, because they have or will directly impact my being as an individual through policy and regulation. The instrument someone enjoys making music on is so insignificant that it shouldn't warrant my concern.

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.

If you don't care about it, nobody is egging you into further conversation. I talk about this stuff because I enjoy making music, and there is intellectually gratifying criticism to be made on the gear being produced today. If you don't care about that, then admittedly I could see how this is pedantic and pointless.

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.

It's not "care", it's morbid curiosity about how psyche of humans work.

There is a marked difference between curiosity and kvetching.

"Who in right mind buys this overpriced gadget? Why ?" is both.

Yep, if you really think about it people not overcharging for their products are the real suckers.

Synthstrom Deluge does everything the OP-1 does (and much more), and was $400 cheaper until recently.

No UI, no keyboard requiring a different mental interface if you are coming from a traditional i.e. piano-based instrument, at least twice the size.

It's also much bigger and heavier though.

Shh don't tell Uli Behringer about it /s

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.