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Cut your own vinyl – Why Teenage Engineering remain in a field of their own

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As far as musical equipment goes, Teenage Engineering are very much in a field of their own. Where competitors such as Behringer and Korg aim to cut costs wherever possible and deliver something affordable and practical, TE are all about that “wow factor.”

Their instruments are legitimate works of art, and the form factor alone puts them on par with peak period Apple as far as I’m concerned. Yes, that beauty comes at a price but it’s a price that will hold. Indeed, their flagship synth, the OP1, if worth more now than when it was launched more than a decade ago.

But what is it about TE that makes them the sexiest and smartest music tech team in the world? For me, it’s their willingness to reach outside what is a pretty niche market with a rare ambition that should be celebrated in a world of copycat machines and “all-in-one” grey boxes of meh.

Their latest foray into the world of home entertainment tech underlines this ethos quite spectacularly.

Cutting your own vinyl

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Showing off their unique sense of humour, TE recently dropped their latest music gadget/toy in the shape of the PO-80 Record Factory. Designed in collaboration with Japanese artist Yuri Suzuki, the miniature record factory is actually a one-stop shop for personalised vinyl creation.

Although the colourful player also functions as a (deliberately low-fi) record deck, if you pop one of TE’s custom 5in discs onto the machine the multifunctional needle will cut the input from the 3.5in audio jack onto its surface. The results are going to be choppy and fuzzy but as an experience, it’s a pretty alluring prospect. 

Granted, you’re not going to want to be using this to cut professional records to sell to your adoring fans but for vinyl nerds like me, the ability to cut our own loops, riffs and ideas and hear them back in glorious lo-fi vinyl, complete with that heavenly crackle, is a hard sell to deflect. Indeed, I’d already have bought one myself if they weren’t already sold out everywhere!

The teenage ecosystem

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It’s just the latest piece of batshit engineering whimsy from the Swedish company and it’s one that is designed to work perfectly with their dozens of other products, including the OP1, the OPZ sequencer (which I am lucky enough to own) and the various affordable Pocket Operators. It’s halfway between a toy and a legitimate tool and that’s perfectly fine with me.

It sits nicely alongside their OB4 loudspeaker as a machine that feels more like a platform than a product. We’ll just choose to ignore the misguided attempts at modular at that bizarre IKEA Frekvens… thing… from a few years ago. But hey, at least they’re willing to push the boat out and try truly different ideas, no matter how daft they might sound on paper (and look in practice).

Personally, I can’t wait to see what they pull out of the bag next. Personally, I’ve always wanted to see how they approach the electric guitar. Even if they did, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it but I’m sure it would be a thing of beauty anyway.

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