Don’t try to do anything serious with it for the first week. Just play with the sequencers, tape (lift, drop, chop, overdub), get to “know” the synth engines and the sampler (both drums and synth sampler) etc.
Create an op1fun user and explore the popular patches and packs. Great stuff to be found in there
Surf around the now almost dead community op-forum. Some interesting stuff to be found in the archives.
Get a bag/case. Either the new one from TE or the old classic one from Unit Portables (my favourite- though hard to find now). You are going to want to bring your op-1 everywhere, so a bag is a must. Also, don’t buy a decksaver. Just use the bag when you are finished with the op-1. Don’t worry too much about scratching your unit in general. The aluminium casing doesn’t scratch easy. The screen however does.
Don’t buy the accessories pack. You don’t need it.
Don’t sell it, if in doubt. You will miss it and rebuy it (as I did, and many others). Give it a chance, and when you feel like you are tired of it, just put it away for a couple of months. And when you pull it out again, it’s like meeting your old best friend again.
This is such great advice! Thanks so much And as luck would have it, I got a shipping notification today so it should be with me soon, so much for 14 days
I will definitely invest in a case and I have made peace with stuff getting scratched, it happens to everything eventually lol. Might look into a screen protector though, scratched screens do annoy me a little.
And luckily, I never sell anything, seems I’m one of life’s hoarders when it comes to gear! I’ve wanted one forever just because it’s such a beautiful object and the UI is so wonderful, so even if I don’t use it, I’ll look at it
I’m really excited to play with it, I’ve been reading a lot and think I am starting to understand its strengths and weaknesses. I had in mind for a while that I’d love the electronic music equivalent of “strumming a guitar in the evening”, like something where you can turn off your “logical” brain (most of my stuff is Elektron, which as wonderful as it all is, does require a certain amount of “thinking”) and just play around, and I think it might fit the bill.
I did have a moment of “maybe this is a mistake” when I realised you only get one tape so you can’t chop and change projects freely, but then realised that this is really a deliberate limitation and kinda grew to love the idea I’ll be sure to report back once I’ve played with it!
Over on the op1 forums we have Battles, which is a good way to get familiar with your op-1. It can do so many different things so many different ways. You can approach it differently every day. I like using mine like an MPC sometimes. Check this out:
I sold my OP1 and have no regrets but would buy again if it was a more sensible price or if I was better off haha. The noisey inputs / outputs (probably fixed now to an extent by the USB audio) were my biggest complaint, together with a dodgy i/o board which failed on me twice. In the end one of the keys stopped working on me and I’d had enough.
I’ve never been as productive, or had as much fun making music, as I was with the OP1.
Thats a great price from bax. I remember seeing one on local gumtree for £550 but i just missed it. One of many great deals on local gumtree i have come close to but missed over the years.
What does this actually mean though? Could it mean that people are buying then selling/reselling? That it is the device that changes hands most frequently?
Yes probably a lot of reselling. It is expensive and a bit polarizing maybe, so those who do not gel with it are probably more unlikely to hang on to it. At least it shows that the demand is high, that people at least think that it is interesting/exciting.
For me personally it is one of the last things I would sell.
I think the OP-1 requires the user to find a workflow within its various features, like the Octatrack it can be somewhat of a sandbox, and it can be an uphill struggle trying to bend it to your will. Both have sometimes infuriating limitations or odd restrictions which often require workarounds, but they both also have some kind of mojo that if found and enjoyed can be incredible. I totally get why these machines are so polarising though.
I love jamming on the OP-1. The gravity feature is, IMO, the best feature of all. Funny that most of the videos on the OP-1 feature it flat on a desktop. I am going to get the two plastic screws with loops, then make a sling to hold the OP-1. My favorite way of playing it is vertically, with the right hand on the keyboard and the left hand reaching across the unit to the keyboard. A lot of fast, repeating notes and patterns can be played with this hand position.
That said…the stuff I tried to create on the OP-1 turned out crap. Mostly, because of the following distinction between the OP-1 and the current love-of-my-life, the Digitone:
On the Digitone, you can create all the parts in a texture, then, once combined, you can apply filters, adjust the harmonics, shorten the release phase, etc., in order to get all the parts in the musical texture working well together. The OP-1, on the other hand, succumbs to whatever original sin the user puts on tape.
I get where you’re coming from with the digitone, it’s a completely different beast in comparison to the op-1. However, once I started resampling from one tape track to another on the op-1 with a additional fx, eq, or even reversely through cwo or nitro, it completely changed the way I use it. It’s still not as flexible as the DN but it yields pretty unique results I couldn’t have come up with otherwise.
And as luck would have it, I got a shipping notification today so it should be with me soon, so much for 14 days 
So if someone is interested in a rebuy… probably i’ll regret it someday. But hey someone else has the fun in the meantime 
