Medieval

Nice 'Holy Mountain' vibes in the promo video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Mountain_(1973_film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdXGhsAynGI

I love the blackletter style 7-seg display.

Seems like the people at TE have fun over-designing gadgets that are more aesthetic than usable. Good for them that they've managed to make a viable business out of it.

An ornate piece by B&H:

“Tales of the EP-1320: Medieval (teenage engineering)”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BaIx0KMOg5I

Don’t miss the lovingly crafted manual: https://teenage.engineering/guides/ep-1320

Looks great blown up on a 4K monitor due to extensive use of SVG.

Why "1320" ?

Could it be because, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1320 "In France, a large group of common people band together in Normandy on Easter Sunday to begin a crusade, after a teenage shepherd says he was visited by the Holy Spirit" (my emphasis).

B&H has a demo of this on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaIx0KMOg5I

I've managed to convince myself over the years I wouldn't actually use any of Teenage Engineering's stuff, however I might lust after it. But 200 hours of Manor Lords and a Lankum gig later, this was the fastest £249 I've ever spent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9mRQK9kCHA

Ooohhh they even medieval-ized the numerals in the segment display. I don't need this at all, but I must have it...

Edit: to add something unrelated, until today I never knew how badly I needed hurdy gurdy electronic music in my life.

This seems to be the same as the EP-133 K.O. II with a difference:

- 128MB memory including 96MB ROM sounds and 32MB user sample memory on the Medieval

vs

- 64 MB memory, or 999 sample slots on the K.O. II.

O man I love teenage engineering. I built a visual archive of their work just a few days ago -- https://play.soot.com/teenageengineering

If you've never heard of bardcore it's well worth a google

I found it really funny. It's obviously probably useless for actual medieval music[0] but I think it can find it's users in bardcore or dungeon synth circles.

You can definitely recreate this just by collecting appropriate VSTs and sample libraries, even probably by just loading some "medieval samples" to some groovebox.

But if I got this second hand on cheap price I would definitely make some fun with it even if it has somewhat cryptic labels.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_8ZEhmaGE

At first I thought this was an Aprils Fools' Day joke then I looked in the calendar and saw it was too late.

Is there any functional difference to the EP-133? Interestingly It seems that they have different operating systems.

https://teenage.engineering/downloads

I don't need this. I didn't need this.

I'll get it when we upgrade Spitfire this year.

This is so wacky I thought it was like an old April Fool's Day joke page by them

It’s fascinating trying to play any kind of tune on the pads of this device when in “keys” mode. I have the sibling model and find it almost impossible to produce anything that sounds “normal”. I don’t really mind — it’s hardly meant to be a piano after all — and it certainly makes for an interesting phenomenon. It’s also one I think the designers nod to: the pads can be retuned to different scales suggesting a complete break from any kind of equal temperament octaves.

While I haven’t had the chance to ride one, I imagine it is the same feeling as riding a joke bike where the headset is geared to invert the sense of the handlebars (left is right, right is left) or using a pair of circlip pliers where squeezing the handles opens the jaws rather than closing them.

Alas, Teenage Engineering really set themselves a high bar with the OP-1 and I still don’t think they’ve ever come close to it. The OP-Z just didn’t compete without a screen, the pocket operators (and the K.O. II and Medieval, which have the same interface) have a much less intuitive design language, their IKEA lights are controlled by colour coded, identically shaped controls on the back, etc.

They are all lovely products at good price points that do their jobs delightfully but when they came from the same studio as the OP-1 it is like comparing a Pininfarina Peugeot 205 with a Pininfarina Ferrari 250.

I’ve been producing music on both software and hardware for 20 years. Borrowed the EP-133 KO II from a mate and found it to be highly initiative and pure style over substance. I don’t get what its selling point is. OP-1 I can understand but this thing is pointless.

But at least the layout follows she Golden Ratio I guess.

Whoever is the creative director at TE is amazing.

Has anyone began dabbling in music production, just to play with some of teenage engineering's gadgets?

I'm pretty sure if I bought one, it would just sit in my cupboard, but I'm looking for an excuse to buy one, has anyone here gotten more use out of one of their gadgets than they expected they would?

I have no use for it but I am really happy there are people doing this.

Really like the website design. Unique, but not at a sacrifice of usability

Had EP-133 KO II. Very frustrating. First time, I had an inspiration for a beat so I grabbed it and after an hour of learning curve I realized basically anything I wanted to do I couldn't. Limited time signatures didn't let me record the beat I wanted in the first place. Then it turned out only one fx can be used at a time (want delay and reverb? nope. want delay on the synth and reverb on the beat? nope again), you cannot actually save projects, cannot tune notes etc.

Even for using it just as a fancy overpriced MIDI input, velocities from pads were way too unpredictable compared to a cheap korg nanosomething.

This made me think of a question I've had for a bit now.

What is the cheapest way to get a grid of buttons that wires into a laptop (mac if it matters) to play sound effects? My wife is a teacher and would really enjoy hitting a button and getting some dumb sound effect to play. But it's just a lark, so it's not worth too much $ invested.

I had assumed a cheap drum pad + midi, but not 100% sure that makes sense.

While I’m not a consumer of this product, I met some of the product designers at the medieval week in Visby, Sweden today. And that the company supports a project like this, which is clearly a passion project, displays joy. After this I think teenage engineering is a great place to work. Not just a SV product factory.

Incredible, but I can't believe this came out before their TWS.

https://www.yankodesign.com/2022/07/27/teenage-engineering-b...

Everything on the teenage engineering website, every product, everything is too creative. Loved it!

Website design made me click the buttons for good several seconds until I realized this a photo of a real deal, not a web replica of the instrument. Nicely done, wonder if web trial would be possible and attract more “I probably want this” fans/consumers

Oh wow .. did they get Pil and Galia Kollectiv to do that marketing video?

https://www.kollectiv.co.uk/TheImmigrants/index.html

Teenage.engineering must be owned by “people of leisure”, creating things they feel are personally fun and satisfying without worrying about the business side of things like profitability.

Sure the OP-1 and the PO-400 are cool, but the price of the OP-1 Field is a non-starter and the usability of the K.O II would make lookmumnocomputer cry.

Now… this!?! Who would look at this and say “yes, I need one of these” (I just checked the date to make sure it’s not either April 1st or Halloween)

Maybe they’re really performance artists wanting to hone their industrial design skills in parallel on the side

Looks incredibly kitsch, they should stick with their futuristic designs.

No love for the long s¹ when using a medieval font :(.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

You can tell Teenage Engineering is a fun place to work.

I'm a fan of Teenage Engineering. I think they make some really cool products but they have a few that really makes me wonder, who is this for?

Does anyone have recommendations for a more practical, entry-level device for making small songs? I’m making a survival-horror game for the Playdate and need some music that fits the vibe.

The reason I’ve been eyeing hardware is because I spend all my time writing code and drawing pixel art, so it would be nice to have something away from the computer to work with.

Don’t forget the cocoa-scented pads. Most important feature! (I’m not kidding, it’s tucked away in the middle of the feature list.)

Taking retro to its logical conclusion.

How the heck did they get 7 segment LEDs (probably more than 7) in that style? And where can I buy some?

Was hoping it would just be a cute lil $10 or so VST/AU plugin, but still love the concept

These bastards. I know I'll use this thing 5 times and I've resisted buying one but they look so cool I want one.

I love medieval stuff. They're even being campy/mocky and I don't care I want a medieval synth.

It's madness that they're selling merch around this. I love it.

Aah so this is how we got the medieval version of still D.R.E.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Uvr5v8IOE

Is this limited edition?

It's the second coming of Enigma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCMXC_a.D.

Shouldn't the Latin be "instrumentum electronicum"?

"instrumentalis" and "electronicum" are both adjectives.

(But it's 25 years since I had to read Latin at school.)

If I was rich, I would buy all the Teenage Engineering things.

I like the interesting segment display.

I absolutely hate the rounded rectangular buttons within the hard square cut-outs.

i'm not the market, so maybe I just don't know what i'm judging.

How can you hate on this. These guys are slaying so hard

This is going to dominate the dungeon synth.

I love the segments in the LED display. That's attention to detail. Bet that cost a pretty penny

I'm only mildly and peripherally interested in music making but this looks _like so much fun_.

I can’t take this company seriously after all the R1 nonsense. I get that no product is perfect in its first version but it sure feels malicious how they fooled everyone with what they promised vs what they delivered.

I would love the product visual to be interactive. It screams "play with me".

Might as well buy Nord piano and access their awesome sound library.

Teenage Engineering is like the reincarnation Apple Computers.

Seems cool, I'd buy it and put it on my book shelf

User research IFYKYK

someday i'll be able to afford a TE product. someday...

if i can afford an OP-1 without flinching i know that i've made it.

Weird is good.

The 10-segment digits are very cool.

This is unnecessary consumerism...

i checked if it wasnt april 1 :D

Visuals are top-notch.

this is going to be amazing for fantasy mmorpgs

i prefer almost medieval. but very nice

Medieval what?

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc.

However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear.

At the very least, Teenage Engineering hardware is generally very well designed, high quality and built to last. At least this product has some creative spirit behind it. I'm in love with the merge of Medieval and Modern Electronic here!

For an example of excessive consumerism, look no further than the Eurorack[1] space. They don't call it Eurocrack for nothing!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack

Medieval, more like MIDIeval, am I right?