Stocking fillers for Christmas 2015 - Noisemakers

As I have been a fan of highlighting in the past, we live in an amazing time where there are lots of different synth and music production products out there to suit all budgets and uses. So with Christmas coming up, here's a quick look at some of the options at the lower end of the market that would suit a budget of under £100 for stocking fillers to make for a noisy Christmas morning!

Pocket Operators - SonicLab review

Arriving in my inbox this morning was notification that Gaz Williams, frequent contributor and panellist for Sonic State, had published a series of videos about the wonderful new Pocket Operator series of digital synths. These are a look into these three machines and I have quite a few take homes from a more thorough look into them.

Positive

• Lots of interesting sounds
• Shuffle (Volcas, take note!)
• Built in effects
• Syncable
• Charming Game & Watch style displays
• Cheap
• Straightforward to use

Negative

• AAA battery powered only
• Only Ionian scale (no sharps/flats!)
• Danger of damaging components too easily
• Game & Watch display nearly useless when making music
• Controls look far too small
• Very few parameters
• Almost demands the use of the case (sold separately)

Any negative feedback for the Pocket Operators can be easily dismissed in terms of the especially low price, though getting hold of one (or all three) is another thing altogether, with stock shortages at the moment. The more I look at them, the scaling problem in particular, I have started to see a number of large compromises in these units that will make me want to take a closer look at them until I eventually get to play with them myself.

Keep any eye on Sonic State as they are due to release another video on chaining all three together and good to see Gaz outside of Sonic Talk!

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW64y2tidRL5njv0JrQdvbA

NAMM 2015: Teenage Engineering - Pocket Operators

It's been a while since Swedish music technologists Teenage Engineering had produced a new hardware unit since their OP-1 machine (a very swish all-in-one digital machine that can now be found for around £450-£600 second hand), however their recent releases at NAMM have been causing a stir at the lower end of the market.