Teenage Engineering Now Shipping Full Pocket Operator Modular Line

Teenage Engineering has announced that they are now shipping their complete Pocket Operator Modular line.

The line consists of ‘IKEA modular’ components – ‘flat-packed’ modular synth gear that you assemble yourself. The company originally introduced the Pocket Operator Modular series in January, as as a sort of “poor man’s modular synthesizer”.

The company cancelled orders for their 170 modular synth and 16 modular synth keyboard a few weeks later, citing a manufacturing problem. In our discussions with TE, they told us that they wanted to take the time to get the design right:

See the TE site for details.

32 thoughts on “Teenage Engineering Now Shipping Full Pocket Operator Modular Line

  1. look at that stupid speaker! good luck hearing any lows. that thing looks like it would explode into a pile of legos if it fell off your desk

  2. These products are as modular as the Korg Volca Modular. For a price of $400 for the model 170 and $500 for the model 400, why do they advertise it as a “poor man’s modular”? The Korg Volca Modular goes for $200.

  3. I ask myself whos buying these when behringer brings quality for lower price….
    I mean if the had do something special like their op… ok maybe they have a chance with this but not with standart modules in a plastic case…

  4. They created the OP-1 and folks went crazy for it. They updated it and made it even better with even more features. They never revisited it and released Pocket Operators, the OP-z and now these. They began stating that they were a product company, not a music gear company, then they kept making sub-par music gear. They are all over the place.

      1. Yeah, i thought about it after i said it and I’ve never used it so i should shut the hell up but seeing video of it and having owned an OP-1, I couldn’t get on the ship. The Op-1 is magical. Only my nintendo switch could compete with my attention. And porn….:)

  5. They dun goofed with the Op-1 price gouge stuff. I was a loyal customer who bought many of their products (including the op-1 and accessories). Not anymore. The timeline is clear if you look into it: a lot of greed on their end and just bad business in how they handled it.

    1. Nothing about their price gouging affected anyone who already owned it or anyone willing to pay, its still awesome! Not like the price increase made the software buggy. The perception changed but perception doesnt make music.

      1. “Nothing about their price gouging affected anyone who already owned it or anyone willing to pay”

        There’s a LARGE population between those two points that represent interested – but lost – customers, IMHO.

        1. Capitalizing LARGE doesn’t make it real, the internet makes everything seem blown out or proportion. Since neither of us have actual facts to support our claims so we have to believe that a large population didnt purchase it when it was available, heard it was being reissued at a higher cost then didnt want to purchase it…again. All we know is there is a large population that is indecisive.

    2. I’m not a OP owner and unlikely to at the current price, but all these years later there’s still not a direct competitor. Might as well get what the market says they’re worth.

  6. This stuff reminds me of designs like the Brionvega RR126 stereo. Moderately expensive, limited function, but high style. And 50 years later they are selling for $25,000 each if you can find them.

  7. I got the 400 on preorder and it just sits on my desk not doing anything. It sounds okay, but I feel like whoever designed it has never used a modular synth before. The features are pretty limited for the amount of modules it has. The knobs are tiny and difficult to get any sort of precision from. I think eurorack is about as compact as you can get for a real performance device. For cost effectiveness and compactness/feature density, I prefer ae modular. Which leaves the TE systems kind of awkwardly in between.

    1. I still don’t get if it saves 16 sequences. Also, any velocity? The only video I saw it looked hard and unresponsive

  8. 22 weeks I waited to hear back from Teenage Engineering about a faulty OP-1. In the end the retailer just replaced the unit because TE just wouldn’t respond. And that was for €1200 synth. Good luck to you getting customer support from them for any of this garbage

  9. a company that decided to make music creation themed toys rather than music creation instruments. even they are distancing themselves from the music production industry.

    clearly there is more money in toys rather than professional gear… why on earth would they make that weird crank gameboy?

  10. So much uninformed slagging but that’s what comment sections are for, right? TE has been successful despite the online hater hordes and will continue to be. Their modular stuff looks great, looking forward to seeing what they do next.

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