Features:

  • A minimalist arcade synthesizer module that's perfect for modern tabletop synth rigs
  • Loaded with 16 nostalgia-inducing synthesized arcade-style sounds
  • Create sophisticated arrangements with chord mode and 128-chord chaining
  • Enhance your sounds with 16 punch-in effects such as bit crush, stutter, and delay
  • Create entire songs on the 16-step sequencer with 128 patterns and pattern chaining
If you don't want other PO's, just get this one

I can't help but view this product as more of a toy than an instrument, but it is still oh so much fun. Turned quite a lot of heads walking around town jammin' on this thing and even met a few rappers while making beats. What more can I say about this product? Fat 8-bit sounds that take you back to your childhood and a pretty cool and very easy to use sequencer. Teenage Engineering leads the industry in creating electronic music instrument layouts, and their genius is shown wonderfully in their Pocket Operater series, especially this Arcade

Love to jam

There are pros and cons to the Pocket Operators, but I think it's certainly more pro than con. So long as you know what you're getting, these things are FUN. With some help from an adult with YouTube tutorials, even children could be making some sweet beats in minutes. The Pocket Operators make great sounds and encourage you to make awesome freestyle jams. They may be the best thing on the market for playing with music. Pros: -Quick to use. Just install batteries and hit PLAY, funky beats come out of the built-in speaker. Hold down Pattern and hit 1-16 to try the 16 different loops. Hold FX and hit 1-16 to try different effects. -Love the design. Teenage Engineering is primarily a Japanese design company, and it shows. The Operators come in a paper box with a pull-tab down one side. The hanging loop on top gives it the look of some treasure you'd find tucked on a shelf in a hardware store. It looks like some 1980s pocket calculator. Funky oldschool design all the way. The little LCD display looks like an old electronic game, very neat. -Sound is incredible. Even if built-in speaker is clear and loud for what it is. The unit does distort at high volume, but if you want to output the sound leave the unit around 70% and use external gain. -Great range. You can change the BPM, volume, and parameters of all the included sounds. Add the FX, and there are tons of options. One filter can make everything sound 8-bit, another kicks up the bass to room-shaking levels. It's all there. -Syncs to a range of devices. The unit only inputs or outputs a click track, but this easily patches into the Korg Volca series and other units that have a customizable way to take an analog click track. You can also chain multiple POs, they'll all pass through the sound and click track to give you one output at the end. Love it for jam sessions. -The 16-step sequencer, with 16 sounds, and 16 effects, plus more. That's a lot to get in such an inexpensive synth. The closest competitor is probably Korg's Volga series, and one Volca may cost you as much as 2-3 POs while offering fairly similar experiences in terms of being able to put together immediately accessible jams. It's probably no coincidence that the PO can easily sync to the Korg Volca line. -Did I mention it has clock and alarm functions? In case you want this thing to wake you up with fresh beats, I guess. Cons: -The instructions in the packaging are useless. Look up a YouTube video immediately. -The screen doesn't actually give a lot of information. The main animation is mostly useless and barely relates to the sound in motion. Only a few of the icons really relate to your sound in progress. For instance, you can only tell if you're in RECORD mode because of one tiny little icon- that's easy to miss in play, which is a shame because the only real damage you can do to your loops is in RECORD mode so this should have a more obvious icon. -So many limitations that can frustrate people who know about music production, even if newcomers will never know they're missing a thing. Because there's no MIDI in/out, you can only get notes or melodies to play by twisting the parameter knobs. The sync track also won't share swing with other units, so you'll have to keep that in mind if you jam with multiple units chained. There are plenty more quirks to find in YouTube tutorials. Almost all these quirks are just things that someone with this as their only device will learn to play with, but if you're a real music producer you should check in-depth reviews before purchase. -For the price, they could probably put this in a plastic case. That's about my only complaint. The unit is so tiny, and it's a bare board, and it has such limitations- surely they could afford to either sell it a bit cheaper or put it in a case. The company does sell cases for about $30, but that jacks up the price of a Pocket Operator so high you might as well go for a Korg Volca. In the bare board form though, this is an okay deal. Plenty of people sell cheap 3d-printed cases online. Overall: In terms of only buying one unit to jam on, the Pocket Operators are about the most fun you can possibly have anywhere near this price point. High recommended as a gift for any music fan that loves to jam. Anyone who bothers looking up some tutorials will be making awesome songs in minutes. It's so neat to play with this thing. And it looks so cool, people will steal it out of your hands just to play with it. Which unit would I recommend out of all the POs? This Rhythm unit is really more of a drum machine, which some people need. It can make neat songs if you know a little about how to tweak the knobs, or it would be a fun backing for vocals or an instrument. If you need one unit for someone who already plays an instrument, or sings or raps, this is the one. The most complete unit to date is probably the 2x-series Arcade, which jams out 8-bit chiptunes (or, the kind of music you'd hear on old arcade machines). I'd recommend the Arcade for instance if someone wants to compose songs while riding the bus, assuming they like early videogame music. The next contender for a total unit apart from these two is the 3x-series KO, which lets you use samples- including things you record with the built-in microphone. Where to go from here? As said, this unit syncs both to other POs and to the Korg Volca series without much work, so it depends on how much money you have. Obvious connections in the PO line are the Sub, Tonic, KO, and Factory. The Korg Volca series makes an equivalent to pretty much all of those units- such as the Bass, Keys, and Sample. The click track syncs pretty well to almost any other synth that can output a click, so it should work in most environments. Not as recommended for people used to working with a PC(or DAW), as the lack of MIDI may hurt your work flow.

The most fun I've had with a synthesizer

This little guy blurs the line between being a toy and being a "real" instrument, and my time messing around with it has been the most fun I've ever had with a synthesizer. All of its sounds are reminiscent of old school video games and arcade machines. You get an 8-bit Mario fireball "bloop" sound, chord stabs, arpeggios, simple percussive sounds, and each sound can be tweaked in its waveform and pitch. As you play with it, you essentially feel like you're creating a scene in a video game, everything moving to the beat of the music. You punch the buttons on this crazy looking computer chip thing, objects on the screen dance to the music, and you're surrounded by crunchy and crisp 8-bit sounds of nostalgia. Its physical build quality is exceptional. All the buttons feel very solid and sturdy, and the feedback you get from each button is perfect. You know when you've pressed a button, and you know when you've turned a knob. A weird thing you have to get used to is how naked it is. It's basically a naked computer chip with buttons and a screen on it. Even the batteries underneath it are exposed. None of this is to say it looks flimsy, though. It looks like I can drop it a few times and it'll hold up just fine. Plus, this unique look adds to its personality, and is bound to turn heads. Musically speaking, it's not the most powerful synth in the world, and it has many limitations (eg you can't do sustained notes, notes are mostly limited to the chord you set the pattern to, everything is cemented into 16 beat sequences). But in a lot of ways, these limitations allow for even more creativity in the way you use it to make music. One unexpected thing is how small it is. I was expecting it to be small, but it's basically the size of my palm, and about the same size as an iPhone 5 (see photo). Overall, I love this thing, and I'm sure it's going to be a coffee table piece 24/7 now, so me and anyone else can pick it up and start making some cool beats at the push of a few buttons. This synth is perfect for people who grew up with retro video games, gamers, chiptunes fans, and anyone looking to create some cool old-school video game sounds. Highly recommended!

this little synth/instrument/gadget is fantastic. You can spend a lot of time creating ...

this little synth/instrument/gadget is fantastic. You can spend a lot of time creating sounds with it. It's a great concept and it's executed nicely. Maybe the only thing is, even though the construction is very solid, I think the case would enhance the experience a lot more.

amazing, in every way

im a hobbyist/semiprofessional musician that has owned just about every value-priced synth/sequencer/music toy/audio gadget you can get nowadays...i have owned them, and inevitably re-sold them all, losing interest or just not being happy with overall functionality...that being said, this is the most full-featured and easy-to-play musical instrument i have ever owned. for the price paid (even paying full price, which i did not, having gone ding-and-dent from amazon warehouse for 59$ i think? torn package but no damage) i could not have asked for more. its really fun to learn, and even more fun once you get fully accustomed to its interface (or lack thereof?) and controls. Yes, this mainly produces chiptune/video game style sounds, but the tweakability of each sound (along with things like swing/chord/fx) ensures a wide variety within this style...you truly wont be disappointed.

So much fun. Seriously. So fun.

This thing is fun. Just... fun. I'm not a serious musician, I bought this to mess around with, and it has been worth every penny. The controls can be a little funny at first and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have that down it's super easy to program sequences and even chain them together and it's a remarkably powerful little synth. Plus it just looks cool. Anyone who sees you playing with it, or even sees it laying around in your home, will want to pick it up and try it out.

Extremely fragile!!!

Be careful. They are very fragile and replacing batteries is a challenge to avoid damage. This was purchased for my 14 year old and quickly learned how to use it and loves it .

Exactly what I was hoping for.

This little device is loads of fun. It comes preloaded with 16 patterns, which can be erased and over written once you understand how to program them. The sounds it makes are fun to play with, easy to manipulate, and they sound pleasing to the ear, assuming you like, bleep-bloop, chiptune-esque sounds. It has a number of effects to apply to the sounds as you play, as well as the ability to set and adjust chord progression through your composition. I have had the Pocket Operator Arcade for about a week and I am still learning about it, but I would say that I am very pleased overall, and will be trying out the other models Teenage Engineering has to offer. One important note, though, it is a small device, and as far as durability of this thing goes, it is basically a circuit board with buttons and knobs. I can't see it holding up if you plan to travel and don't take special precautions. This isn't a criticism, but more of a forewarning. So if you're going to carry this little guy around, you want to think ahead, or spend the extra money and purchase a case for it. It's a great price at $60-ish dollars, so $20-$40 more for a well-made case isn't a bad investment, I highly recommend getting a protective case. If you don't like TE's cases, there are a number of custom and third party options out there. Have fun.

Possibly the most fun you'll have with a "toy" drum machine

Possibly the most fun you'll have with a "toy" drum machine. Anyone can pick this thing up and start making interesting sounds and having fun with beats and effects. Those of us who are experienced with drum machines and computer music can unlock the real power of this baby; any genre is possible and you can get mad deep into complex patterns and sounds. I use this with my mini-rig setup but it is a seriously wonderful musical tool on its own, too. No, this isn't a serious piece of studio equipment, but it's some serious fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves making music. I've had this for a few months and it's still one of the most fun pieces of equipment I own. I would say I recommended it to my friends but after anyone plays with it for 5 minutes they are hooked and ask me where they can get one for themselves.

which is good because it makes it short

Smaller than I expected. Seems well built. Buttons are responsive. Don't forget that the kickstand is just a wire. The instructions are very simple, which is good because it makes it short, but the "advanced" stuff had to be figured out manually/looked up online.

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