getting back to playing live electronic music on the op-1. Here’s a short bombastic-sounding glitch track:
https://soundcloud.com/rvxi/interlude-march
(I keep forgetting how to get the embedded cloud player to work on this board…)
Very interesting. Was that the same drum loop/pattern playing the whole time with the reverb and glitches randomly added? How much sequencing can you do on the OP-1? I’ve always been curious about that. I get the feeling that everything on it is 90% live, right?
Beautiful track, i like it very much.
Could you explain a little bit how did you compose it?
I’m very interested in making glitch, but i’m not that good at. 
thanks guys
yeah the OP-1 very much rewards live playing. The sequencers are better thought of as programmable arpeggiators rather than modern sequencers. You can do a lot with them if you’re good (look how far people have pushed X0X sequencers), but they’re very constrained. You can get more mileage if you’re comfortable with live playing. The mic and sound-on-sound style recording also encourages with integration with live instrumentation. For example, in my other 2 op-1 tracks (tracks 1 & 3 w/ vocals, violins, guitars, uke, etc):
https://soundcloud.com/rvxi/sets/portable-music-environments-op
You learn to take timing much more seriously when you try to write music on this thing. My timing still isn’t great, and it takes practice, but I find forcing you to approach music like this produces different results than I’d get in an environment where quantizing and nudging is easier to do. Everything slips off the grid and there’s much more of a rhythmic pocket, even if you’re a mediocre live musician.
People always talk about the sound of certain synths, but I think equally (or maybe even more) interesting is the sound of a workflow. Sure, with enough skill you can adapt any style to any environment, but particular environments will tend to lead you down certain ways of working, which in turn influences the sound of your music. Technically the OP-1’s synths and sampler are not high quality compared to the state-of-the-art circuit modeling stuff in VSTs these days, but the workflow has an interesting sound to it that’s hard to reproduce anywhere else. Conversely, working with the op-1 has also influenced the way I work in renoise and other programs.
Thank you for the write-up. I’ve always been curious about the Op-1, it looked very fun to me and capable of doing some weird stuff. People main problem with it is the price clouding the impression, but I’ve always looked past that because it seems so interesting. I’ve read many reviews and the owners always say it’s very inspiring and a lot of fun to play. Jean Michel Jarre listed it in his Top 10 synthes. Sometimes I want to sit down and be inspired by something simple and turn my brain off and turn my ears on and see what happens. It’s hard to do that with software, usually, which is why something like the Op-1 interested me. A simple all-in-one music maker.
I understand why sequencing might be based more on timing. I don’t think I could handle that very well, I have the worst timing! Even when I was making stuff only on an MPC, my beats were usually broken and choppy, since the preferred and quickest way to record is to simply play something out. The tracks you posted were very nice, especially Transition 1. On that and The Loop, you used the Op-1 more like a multi-track recorder and put effects? It’s surprising the quality!
Anyway, isn’t there a new OS coming out in a few weeks for it? More new stuff to play with.