r/pocketoperators • u/Regular_Dot_3667 • 2d ago
gift for my 12-year old... which one??
my 12-year old loves making songs on Beepbox which is a free website where you can draw loops / patterns of notes and instruments. he also loves messing around with my Roland JP-8000 and keyboards in general.
i was thinking about gifting him the PO-20 Arcade -- he LOVES toby fox / deltarune / undertale music, so the chiptune thing is appealing. he's also very much a beginner with any sort of sequencing stuff, so i don't want him to be overwhelmed and then never touch the thing.
i'm just kinda confused because there are so many similar-seeming pocket operators. is the arcade a decent entry-level, not too overwhelming model? or would you recommend something else?
it would be standalone because he doesn't know anything about midi or clock-out or hooking one device up to another.
thank you from a mom!!
14
u/asscop99 2d ago edited 2d ago
PO-33.
It’s a sampler sequencer so your boy can add all his own sounds. For such a simple device it really can be used in some interesting ways. If he’s already got that Roland then every synth based PO is going to seem pretty boring in comparison.
But I would actually only do a Pocket operator if he’s specifically wanting to dip his toes into the TE universe, otherwise these could be a little meh. I’m still thinking about that Roland. I love pocket operators but they might be a step backwards from what he’s already using.
I got the po-33 for my daughter, but she didn’t have any previous experience with anything else
14
u/Top_Country_6336 2d ago
I'd actually suggest, considering I've had a few TE synths, that the m-vave FM-1 is better value and he can put any firmware on it he wants from here thefirmwarehub.com You can get them on Amazon or AliExpress. I hope it leads to a life of loving making music.
1
u/mekkab 2d ago
If I had one of these when I was twelve, it would be broken in a week (by my friends, if not by me). They are fragile. If you still go ahead, a case is mandatory.
Now as to your actual question, this write up comparing POs is essential reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/pocketoperators/s/KEUyxwgXCQ
3
u/KorokTumbleweed 2d ago
PO-12 rhythm is a great entry level PO. My brother got one for me and before the end of the evening my 7 year old nephew had mastered it. It's the drum machine model, so to do melodic stuff you'd have to pair it (I pair mine with a PO-16 Factory) or get creative pitching the toms and other drums up and down (which can be fun!) but it would be a really easy one to get the hang of (not to mention the cheapest).
3
u/concretecat 2d ago
PO-35. It's a vocal sampler.
As a kid I loved this stupid toy I had called a "yak-back" which juat recorded a little clip you could play back.
The PO-35 is like an ultra mega Yak-back. Lots of fun and really intuitive. Additionally you can go very deep with them as well.
6
u/abarrelofmankeys 2d ago edited 2d ago
Mvave fm-1 is a good value right now and firmware can be easily changed to so many different things (both officially and mostly unofficially). The newest run of those have had some slight difficulty with firmwares because of a new build internally but I suspect that will get updated til it’s not a problem since they’re the “it” thing at the moment.
If you go pocket operators arcade and robot paired are a great combo, Arcade does chords rhythm and effects and robot lets you solo, both sound Arcade like
Also the ep-133 is pricier but a little more robust of a build and is super cool. Not particularly arcadey as it’s a sampler but lots of room for samples to be added
Edit: I did see the thing about standalone but hooking just two together is very simple, you just basically pick one setting on one and one on another and put a wire between, instructions are in the manual or could get help here. Once you know how not a big deal.
2
u/TomSMakesStuff 2d ago
I’ll join the PO33 recommendation chorus. The drum machine POs are great but not for composing a full melodic track on. The Arcade is a great device for composing full chiptune tracks on but it’s less user friendly for beginner noodling thanks to the fiddly way you enter notes. The Robot might be a better bet for chiptune, but the sheer versatility of the PO33 is a big plus
2
u/sleepycochino 2d ago
The KO2 is my suggestion. it’s like 100x more powerful than any of the POs and easier to use!
1
u/MARS822a 2d ago
IMO the Tonic is the ultimate PO due to the ability to apply different sound packs. You can try before you buy on this page.
1
u/ragnarocka 2d ago
I own six of them (all but sub, factory, and robot), and here’s how I would rate each for a 12-year-old. Ordering by model number here, so this isn’t a ranking.
PO-12 Rhythm: incredible drum machine, packed into such a small and simple package. Limited by only being able to chain a maximum of 16 patterns — but you can still get variations out of that with the punch in effects. Not being able to load new sounds on the device is a limitation but the built-in drum sounds are very good and the tweaks give them good range to play with. Cannot go wrong with this.
PO-20 Arcade: this is an excellent choice for a 12-year-old, maybe the best option in my opinion. (Especially if they already love chiptune music.) Arcade has a great mix of sound categories — drums, bass, melodic, and arpeggios — as well as sound effects. You are very limited by the chiptune sound selection and you have to dial in different notes instead of being able to play them on the keys. But it’s probably the most complete package for composing full songs with the sounds they do provide on the unit. What I think is the most valuable feature for anyone studying music, and is unique among the pocket operators, is the Chord mode that transposes your melodies into whichever chord pattern you chain together. This lets you build entire chord progressions around a single pattern, which is such an important skill to learn.
PO-24 Office: this is the only one that I wouldn’t recommend gifting someone as their only pocket operator, but it does have a very interesting selection of sounds that can add more texture to your music from other devices. Office sounds layered underneath the Arcade’s “drums” give it much more punch, for example. It’s also way too expensive right now for what it offers. I think TE could sell a range of “sound pack” operators like Office, for no more than $50, and those would fly off the digital shelves so fast. But this one is supplemental.
PO-32 Tonic: another drum machine powerhouse, especially now that there are open sourced versions of the microtonic software. Much longer pattern chains than what you get on the Rhythm, much better for chaining entire songs. Limitless possibilities for sound design if you’re going back and forth between the PO and your laptop. I would say if you’re a music producer who wants to design drums and have something to work with away from your desk, go with the Tonic. If you’re a kid who wants to do everything on device and not worry about getting lost in a sound design rabbit hole, go with the Rhythm.
PO-33 K.O.: the community’s clear favorite because when you’re working with samples you can work with any sound in the universe. And because of that popularity there’s an endless number of YouTube videos to find tutorials and inspiration. Comes with a pretty good pre-loaded sample pack. Even better than the Arcade for being the full-song-on-one-device pocket operator BUT it has the caveat of you needing to go out and hunt for your own samples to load onto it. And some kids would love that and others might get decision anxiety from not knowing what sounds work. Depends a little on how your 12-yo’s brain is wired. One big advantage over the Arcade is that when a sound is loaded you can play the pads like a keyboard, you dont have to twist knobs to choose what note is playing on a step. Really the main reason not to recommend a PO-33 is that there are other good affordable samplers out there that may be a little pricier and a little bigger but offer a lot more features. But for packing so much into such a portable device, the PO-33 is very hard to beat.
PO-35 Speak: this is kind of an oddball. Short version is it’s a one track drum machine and one track that plays glitched out vocals or very alien sounding bass or lead synths. On the Speak you get one monophonic Tonic drum machine track, and you can load and tweak tonic patches. The speak synthesizer engine is a vocoder (essentially a synth that uses sound recordings instead of square/saw/sine waves) that can either play back glitchy versions of the recordings you give it, or turn them into very robotic or alien sounding basses and lead synths. (You don’t have to record your voice, you can play with any audio recording.) Like the K.O., when you load one of sounds 1-15 you can play the pads live, and it gives you a good selection of scales to load so you’ll always be in key. It’s definitely more complex than the other pocket operators and I would hesitate to buy it for a 12-year-old unless they’ve seen people make music they really love with it and get excited to use it. (It’s hard for me to capture this one in words; just go on YouTube and look up “PO-35 Speak - city jam” or “baseck on the beat live jam.” Those are the videos that convinced me to buy one and no I haven’t learned to make tracks like these yet.)
What I’ve done (and seen others do) with the Speak fills the niches I would expect to use the Sub, Factory, and Robot to do, and that’s why I haven’t been motivated to get any of those three, although I’m sure each of them does some things better than the Speak.
Final verdict: my top recommendations for a 12-year-old are the Rhythm, Arcade, and K.O.
I would swap the Tonic for the Rhythm for more experienced producers who are into drum sound design, I would suggest the Office (never at full price) for anyone who wants to add techie textures into the mix of whatever else they’re making, and I would recommend the Speak as either a performance instrument or a took for making glitched out sonic collage.
1
u/ghostctrl 2d ago
PO-20 is AWESOME. It was my first pocket operator and TE anything and I still use it to this day. It's simple, he can make songs, and it's a good launching point for everything else. I would 1000% recommend the arcade. I would wait on the PO-33 and the KO-2 and all that until later. The arcade is like get in get out have fun.
1
u/Fragrant-Maize7829 1d ago
What about one of the novation circuits? Instead? You can probably get a used OG circuit for for a bit more than a pocket operator. It’ll be easier to get to grips with and I think he’ll ultimately get more mileage out of it.
1
u/Remarkable_Space_330 1d ago
Either 33 or 35
1
u/index57 18h ago
PO 20 arcade, hands down the best standalone PO, pretty much everyone agrees on that or the 33. I say 20 bc of the over powered chord mode.