In his latest video, synthesist & composer Enrique Martinez (Ricky Tinez) shares his take on the new Teenage Engineering Intros EP-133 K.O. II groovebox.
Martinez argues that the EP-133 K.O. II is an “awesome device, and yes, you can make full songs on it – but it might be a challenge at times.”
Check out the video and let us know what you think about the EP-133 K.O. II in the comments!
Topics covered:
00:00 It’s Dope! but…
00:33 The Filters…
03:16 The PO-33 Can Do This.. But EP-133 Can’t
04:03 The Pattern Changes, and Project Swaps.
05:45 Easier Pattern Change “Hack”
07:02 This is super weird.. Can’t Jump To Blank Scenes?
08:48 The Fader Send FX Thing Could Be Changed.. Maybe?
10:07 I’m About To Rage Quit
10:40 The Last 2 Things, about sampling and about the fx..
It might be worth noting that Ricky Tinez is affiliated with Elektron, which makes directly competing products.
Anybody that watches Enrique’s videos can tell he’s giving you his unfiltered opinions, 100%.
He’s not always as technically accurate as somebody like loopop, but he’s not afraid to tell you if a piece of gear is actually fun to make music on – which, to me, is the bottom line.
Anyone watching Enrique’s videos can tell he didn’t bother to read the small and clearly illustrated owners manual
nice to see an “influencer” giving some minus points to a new bit of gear, I’m getting a bit tired of the “sell sell sell” scenario – Benn Jordan seems on the case as well
that said, clicks are clicks I guess
hi nick, big fan of your sonicstate reviews mate
Haha! Me too.
This was the review that made me decide not to buy it… at least until an OS upgrade completely overhauls the sequencer to make it usable as a performance centerpiece.
Wake me up if they do the same thing for the Micro Tonic Pocket Operator.
Cuckoo mentioned that this was “one of a new series” or something along those lines
So I guess there’ll be a few more
But yeah a Microtonic in this format would be great – with the sound morph crossfader from the plugin
That’s good news. If they can make it 1:1 functionality with the VST it would be a dream come true.
Kuddos for the sincere opinion… but brace yourselves for the “Bennjordangate” part 2 lads!
TE gear often seems designed for dabblers who aren’t ready to dig into more pragmatic options. Its always intriguing, but never quite hits the level of more serious tools. No one makes a “perfect” device. I simply question things which have odd OS/GUI choices that don’t inspire better work flows.
There are just a couple of common Mac functions I control with the mouse or drop-down menus because the “macro” requires hitting 3 things at once while standing on my own nads. No thanks! Its great otherwise; some people clearly don’t mind that sort of thing. No problem. Some prefer CV/gates, some prefer MIDI.
TE know how to hit the sweet spot in social media marketing. This is another pretty useless dust collecting piece of gear, but yeah, they will probably sell a lot of it…
You’ve used it?
Ricky was disappointed because he didn’t feel like he could work around the quirks and make a full track on it. Jorb was disappointed because sample chopping was a pain and there was no resampling.
Meanwhile neither could point to a $300 sampler that met their requirements? And Ricky got corrected a bunch of times about how to fix his workflow/live playing in the comments.
I don’t have high expectations for this thing and am not a fanboy but what you get for the price seems fair and I feel like gear influencers are rushing their videos out.
Koala Sampler is the answer
Ricky martin has only ever used a mpc beside his singing
mine has a strange smell of rubber and oregano
One thing about Ricky Tinez’s reviews is that they’re very much based around how well the machine fulfills his specific goals. That is totally fine, but I think he should make it more clear. Most of his complaints here seem like firmware things that are likely to be cleaned up in the future. As for the filter – it’s very hard to tell anything about the sweep contour when he shows it on two sounds that have little high end content. I would not expect an LPF to have immediate effect on a sound if the highest spectral information is around 3k or so.
Wait…isn’t this a $300 piece of gear?
I think some thought it could be an MPC.
Sheet…I’m happy if it’s just a sample based drum machine with fx.
All the rest seems a bonus.
A Pocket Operator at triple price with housing and wobbly fader. I think some will get shattered by reality when they actually use that toy.
I find new and even hard to grasp ways of creation very creative. embracing the weirdness and being pressured to fight against it until you find some diamonds.
go listen to aphex cheetah mostly using the worst ui you can think of on a synth, or syro using two sequentix sequencers to make analog synth sounds like they are vst edited on a computer, or richard d. james album fully digital album from 1996,
who said better workflow makes better music?
maybe so many people have a hard time being creative and productive because it is all so “easy” to work with. maybe this is what we like about hardware…
i got one a few days ago and totally love the feel, design and vibe of the hardware, and it only took me a few hours to learn it, it sounds really good and is powerful enough to make some real bangers. but… and i can’t believe i’m saying this because in years past i would have loved such a device, but… Koala sampler is just too amazing and if i only have a half hour to make a beat, i’m proboly going to reach for Koala. but if a fast fun standalone hardware is needed, KO2 is the one.
I don’t know i always thought this as a very nice toy. I am considering to buy it for the kids. None of this looks like a dealbraker. Perhaps the price, if it was a couple of hunderd less it would be an excellent christmas gift.
Same old TE story- great ideas, terrible execution and off-putting wokester marketing blabla. Couldn’t care less….
PS no, you’ll never make tunes like RDJ with this either
Only a dope would buy it
I bought it and I am dope as fuck!
I have to say it’s been a joy seeing my friend’s 7 year old son having the time of his life using it and customizing it with his Legos.
There’s always a group on here that s**** on anything TE makes. For years, any OP-1 post would bring out the haters, when in reality that synth that gone down as a classic FOR MANY as is used by some artists whose music I enjoy. In reality, they make some pretty great gear, but there will always be many who think differently. The reality is also that many of the haters have never touched a piece of TE gear in their life. 😉
Does it run Facebook ?