Teenage Engineering EP-133 K.O. II

I'm not a newbie with synths or music in general, being actively involved in music since 1992. I first discovered Teenage Electronics when I bought their PO-33 K.O! - and Teenage Engineering EP-133 K.O. II is kind of meant to be it's successor. But there is a big difference here, and it is not just the difference in size of the machines; while PO-33 was truly the gadget imagined in 'I'm the operator with my pocket calculator' (as in the Krafwerk song 'Pocket Calculator in the year 1981), EP-133 is totally different (even when there are small similarities too)! It is the size of an Ipad, and the look of it reminds me of a tabletop calculator my father used to have in the eighties. Only thing I can compare it with is Roland P-6, but even then there are differences, because EP-133 is Truly Unique! It's graphic screen is big and for a while a little bit weird, because at least to me EP-133's learning curve is kind of high, but this is not a complaint; the machine is just Unique. When one gets into it deeper, it is easy to fall in love with it. It's own sounds/samples are great, but when you start adding your own, it's powers are truly released, and depending on your need for it - meaning what kind of music you are going to make with it, techno, hip-hop, IDM for example - you can push it towards into deep and original soundworld. I have used it just for a few months now, and I use it to make experimental music, musique concrète and I have also used it to make experimental IDM. It really comes down to the issue of what kind of music you are going to make with it? It can be used in very original ways. And you can of course make your tracks and record them after, or you can use it very innovatively when using it in a real-time, spontaneous & intuitive way; playing your music while manipulating the sound with effects and all kinds of weird combinations! It also has it's 'easter eggs' also in the Tradition of it's makers, so while manuals are available, it has a lively community of users in the Internet (Reddit etc.), people reporting what they have found and discussions about how to innovatively combine this with your other machines etc.! I'm inclined to say that I would really recommend this to everyone, because of it's flexibility and uniqueness. Truly a gem!

I got the KO II a month or two ago and I must say I've never had so much with with a sampler. I own an SP404 mkII and I've used an MPC before, but the simply of the KO II is what makes it such a joy to play around with.

Getting a hang of the workflow only takes an hour or two and - opposed to the SP and MPC which I've always had to re-learn whenever I wanted to use them (which is mainly while travelling) - this is definitely not the case with the KO II, simply because it's pretty limited.

The onboard effects are really good, the old school keys feel very nice and give a satisfying click whenever you touch them and the color coded screen is definitely a plus.

The only downside for me is the 64Mb memory. In these times they should have really given us an SD slot or at least 4 times the memory size.

Highly recommended if you're into basic, but super fun samplers!