teenage engineering OP-XY Dynamic Performance Sequencer, Synthesizer, and Sampling Workstation

Instrument: The 8 track buttons allow you to control and edit the 8 instrument tracks available in the OP–XY

Auxiliary: The 8 track buttons allow you to intelligently transpose your tracks, edit the send effects, edit external inputs and outputs, and play and sequence punch-in FX

Arrange: Allows you to build your song by chaining scenes, which are made up of patterns from your 8 tracks

Mix: Here is where you control levels and panning for each of the tracks. The main EQ and master compressor are also adjusted here

The core workflow of OP–XY is based around step sequencing, and a row of 16 buttons across the center of the control panel represent the musical grid to which sounds and notes are recorded. At the end of the row is the bar button, where you can move between up to 4 bars. The bar button also allows you to adjust the length and scale of the sequence. When used in combination, you can have a maximum pattern length of 64 bars or 1024 1/16th notes spread across four bars.

You can manually enter notes and chords, or you can use the live record function by pressing the record and play buttons at the same time. When you do this, the sequencer stays parked on the first step and is activated by the first note or chord you play. While the song plays, holding the record key allow you to overdub. You have quantization and editing options, and you can also record parameter changes, locked to a single step or automated smoothly over several steps.

With the Step Components feature, you can apply rapid variations to specific steps to expand the sequencer's capabilities. Alter anything from randomizing pitch, to bending, skipping, and even multiplying steps. The options are represented by graphic icons on each of the major keyboard notes.

In Instrument mode, the 8 track buttons allow you to control and edit the 8 instrument tracks available in the OP-XY. An instrument can either be a pack of stereo drum samples or a built in synth engine, each with its own characteristics. Choose from a wide variety of presets available in one of the 8 synth engines. The engines offer an enormous pallet of sonic options including an FM synth for pads and digital leads, Dissolve—a tonal noise engine, an electric piano, a hardsync synth tone, an organ with transistor and church presets, Prism—a synth for bread-and-butter basses, leads, and everything in-between, a simple synth for crafting basic patches, and a wavetable synth with a choice of 9 different wavetable. All the patches can be intuitively edited using the 4 encoder knobs to adjust parameters for the envelope, filter, and LFO.

To sweeten and enhance your synth and drum sounds, the OP-XY offers 6 built-in send-effect engines that can be assigned to 2 FX tracks. The available effects include chorus, delay, distortion, bitcrusher, phaser, and reverb. And just like the synth engines, the 4 encoder knobs let you quickly tweak effect settings to customize your sound.

Auxiliary mode holds 8 aux tracks, including MIDI effects, audio effects, FX sends, and punch-in FX. Use the auxiliary tracks to vary OP–XY’s built-in sounds, or even to control and send to external ones. Track 1 in this mode is the Brain track, which provides an intelligent way of transposing a track or even an entire song. Brain will listen and figure out the key signature of your song/track; you can then manually adjust the key and scale to your preference.

On track 2 in the Auxiliary mode is the Punch-In FX track. Punch-In FX are a great way to quickly add variations to your song. Use them while producing a track, to get ideas then quickly, record them, or perform them live, to add powerful variations to your beat. The lower octave adds Punch-In FX to any percussion tracks, while the higher octave adds them to melodic tracks. Some Punch–In fx make use of the gyroscope and pitchbend to add modulation or alter their behavior, when you move the device or press on the pitchbend function.

Tracks in Auxiliary Mode provide control over external MIDI and CV/gate instruments, routing audio into and out of the unit, drive from the OP-XY's built-in preamps, filtering, tape effects, and LFOs.