Is Teenage Engineering’s EP-133 K.O. II still worth getting in 2025?In late 2023, Teenage Engineering, Sweden’s premier vibe merchant and synth maker, found itself in a somewhat jarring position. Its much-anticipated portable polyphonic sampler, the EP-133 K.O. II, had just entered the ring and was a smash hit. Simultaneously, the company was getting pummelled over ‘fadergate’ – a host of build quality issues that incensed the devoted user base.
We’re now a year or so down the road. As the dust, and hype, have settled, it’s worth stepping back to evaluate the EP-133 K.O. II with a clear head. Does it have staying power? Or is it a one-round wonder?

READ MORE: Teenage Engineering’s EP-1320 Medieval review: Fan service or folly?

One of the key draw cards for the EP-133 K.O. II, as with its ancestor, the PO-33 KO!, is the fun factor. From its premium packaging to its cartoony instruction manual, there’s a well-honed playfulness here that says ‘I’m serious about not taking myself seriously’. Poor packaging and delivery practices were at the heart of the much-publicised damage to faders, the speaker, and other parts of the device that we saw on first release; this certainly appears to have been solved and the review unit arrived safe and sound, swaddled in bubble wrap.
An all-plastic exterior is realised in Game Boy-esque shades of grey, with an LED panel populated by obscure but charming icons. And instead of pads, it sports 12 velocity-sensitive mechanical switch keys that make jamming a rhythm feel more like beating up on a faulty typewriter. All of this comes in a portable form factor that gets about 20 hours of playtime from just four triple-A batteries, has a built-in speaker and microphone, and weighs in at just 620g.

It may appear toy-like, but as you start using the EP-133 K.O. II things begin to feel much more grown up. The workflow centres on four groups. Each of these can be loaded with up to 12 samples and each can hold their own sequence (referred to as patterns). Recording patterns live or step-by-step is simple enough, and once you’ve got a groove going, hitting the ‘Commit’ function copies everything you’ve made into a new ‘Scene’ – this is the process by which you can start building up variations.
Something that feels even more grown up is the learning curve. Even if you’re an intermediate user of samplers, getting to grips with the EP-133 K.O. II feels much like learning a new instrument. There are plenty of multi-button combinations to learn if you want to access its full capabilities, and this necessitates a regular back and forth between the hardware and the instruction manual until features are embedded into muscle memory. But once you get over that initial hump the reward is a creative, energising groove box packed with nifty features.
You can sample via the microphone or line input and then use the Chop feature to automatically map these across an entire keygroup. You can record patterns unquantised and then, after entering Time Correction mode, you can punch in quantisation for individual notes. In a concept borrowed from the Pocket Operator range, there are a variety of ‘Push Effects’, such as stutters, bit crushing, and time warps that can be slapped on during performance, all adding hugely to the musicality of the instrument. There’s also a looper whose length and position can be adjusted for scrubbing and a key mode that maps any sample melodically across 12 pitches.
Speaking of samples, a factory selection of 300+ sounds broadly covers drums, bass, and melody. You can fine-tune the start and end points for these and set the pitch, envelope, and play mode – one-shot, legato, or gated – from the Sound Edit menu.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
One complaint at launch was the inability to easily back up the unit’s factory samples to a computer. This issue has thankfully been addressed by firmware upgrades, along with workflow improvements for copying and pasting patterns, setting loop lengths, overdub recording, and a host of minor bug fixes. There’s also an effective web-based sample management tool that lets you drag and drop files from your computer and quickly map them across keys.
All in all, there are 999 slots available for samples – which sounds fantastic until you consider the unit’s paltry storage space. Having 64 megabytes of storage on a sampler with close to a thousand sample slots felt like a bad joke in 2023, and it certainly hasn’t gotten any funnier in 2025. For a device that encourages you to load or record in your own audio, this amount of storage is just silly, and, by comparison, the Ableton Move sports 64 gigabytes of memory as well as three times as many factory samples.
Once you start noticing the EP-133 K.O. II’s shortcomings, they come thick and fast. As a place to jam out ideas it excels – but refining those creative bursts, or even just slotting them into a larger workflow, is full of trade-offs.
You can record patterns up to a whopping 99 bars long, but there’s no song mode for chaining patterns together. The Push Effects are incredibly fun but can’t be recorded as part of a pattern, while the send effects sound excellent but can’t be applied to individual samples, only to entire groups. There’s a good selection of in/out options to connect other hardware devices, but audio output is limited to a stereo line out.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
True, at £299 it’s one of the few offerings in Teenage Engineering’s product lineup with an accessible price point, but with such strong competition on the market, the EP-133 K.O. II is increasingly hard to recommend. If you’re looking for an ultra-portable idea pad then Ableton’s Move has a better build quality and a workflow that seamlessly integrates with Live. For serious music-makers looking for a powerhouse, Roland’s SP-404 MkII offers amazing versatility and far more sculpting options for roughly £60 more.
If there’s one area where the EP-133 K.O. II still reigns supreme, it’s style. That may sound silly when talking about a hardware sampler, but it’s actually not. Teenage Engineering has picked an aesthetic and followed it all the way through to the end. The result is an instrument that feels unserious in the best possible way; cool, quirky, surprising, often awkward, but always fun. You will want to play this thing, and that matters.
It’s also worth noting that this sampler has plenty of fans. Many see its idiosyncrasies as creatively stimulating and its high-concept aesthetics as irresistible. It’s why artists like Azealia Banks routinely praise Teenage Engineering’s approach to hardware design, K.O. II included.
However, this sampler rests too heavily on its admittedly good looks. Style can’t cover awkward feature navigation, a steep learning curve, and tiny storage. EP-133 K.O. II’s limitations are beginning to feel decidedly claustrophobic.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Key features

500+ factory samples
999 sample slots
64MB storage
12 mechanical keys with velocity sensitivity and polyphonic aftertouch
Built-in microphone and speaker
MIDI In, MIDI Out, and Sync connectivity
Power via USB-C or 4 AAA batteries
Weight: 620g

The post Is Teenage Engineering’s EP-133 K.O. II still worth getting in 2025? appeared first on MusicTech.

Teenage Engineering’s EP-1320 Medieval review: Fan service or folly?£299 / $299 / €349, teenage.engineering
An office joke? A dare? It’s impossible to know just where the idea for the EP-1320 Medieval came from, but it’s here, and it’s weird.
After the smashing success of the original EP133 K.O. II, anticipation was riding high for the next entry in the EP line. Once Teenage Engineering dropped the announcement for its ‘Instrumentalis Electronicum’ there was a moment of collective confusion as we all processed the fact that this wasn’t just a Middle Ages theme re-skin, but a whole new product with additional features, effects, expanded storage, and a curated sound set.
So let’s look at what’s different, what’s the same, and whether any of it makes sense.

READ MORE: Is Teenage Engineering’s EP-133 K.O. II still worth getting in 2025?

The most obvious changes are visual. As with all things Teenage Engineering, the EP-1320’s aesthetic is impeccable. The device’s new colour scheme dispenses with 80s retro grey in favour of olive greens and chocolate browns. There is a lot of talk that the sampler’s buttons had been purposely scented with cocoa and we can confirm that this is actually true. Why do this? What relevance does chocolate have to medieval Europe? Does it allude to the discovery of the New World and the beginning of the Age of Discovery? Are we being trolled? The puzzle will remain unsolved.
Anyway, the EP-1320 also gets a suite of new icons for its LED panel and these, naturally, feature castle turrets, cannons, coats of arms, and quills. There’s a refreshed naming convention, rendered in an Old English font, that draws liberally from Latin and faux Latin. It’s all so well executed that even sceptics will probably find themselves at least partially enchanted by the silliness of it all.

The hardware itself is much the same, with velocity- and aftertouch-enabled mechanical keys, built-in speaker and microphone, ports for audio and MIDI in/out and data transfer, plus a removable panel that hides slots for four AAA batteries. It’s an identical layout configuration to the EP-133 K.O. II.
The workflow is similarly unchanged – we can hold up to nine projects, each project has four sample groups, and each group can hold patterns ranging from 1-99 bars in length. These groups can be independently mixed using the fader located on the left-hand side, and scenes, which can be created using the ‘Comitto’ button, allow you to build pattern variations and then mix and match between them. As with the EP-133, there’s still no song mode for chaining patterns together.
Getting properly comfortable with the EP-133 took some time, with lots of multi-button combos to learn before you could harness its full power. The EP-1320 takes that weakness and turns it into a fatal flaw. The archaic naming convention quickly moves from funny to frustrating. Velix, summa, demus, fabula – what do these things mean? Consult the hardware manual.
Image: Press
Small but essential visual clues, such as the copy, paste, and undo icons are now gone, and we’ve also lost some functionality on the LED screen. Whereas on the EP-133 there were a series of visual meters on the right-hand side to show what level a parameter might be at, on the new model this has been replaced with the image of an angel dropping a beat, so you’ll have to dial in envelopes blind.
The biggest advancements over the EP-133 are a new arpeggiator, the ability to properly loop samples with crossfade, and a handful of pleasing new send effects. There’s now a dark and dungeon-y echo, a droning ensemble effect, and Dimension; which sounds like a stereo widener with added creative controls for tremolo thrown in. Pleasing push effects have also been added, and these have clearly been designed to play well with the unit’s early music sample library.
Flicking through those factory samples is where things get truly bizarre. It’s not that there aren’t some useful sounds on offer (there are) but the overall palette is not just niche – it’s intentionally comical. Interestingly though, the EP-1320 arrives with nine demo projects, something Teenage Engineering didn’t feel the need to do with the EP-133 K.O. II, and these showcase the factory samples and give some idea of what kind of music you might make with them.
Image: Press
The percussion samples are likely the most intriguing and these could easily find their way into many different production styles to add an unusual timbre. The flutes and lutes sound decent, there’s a tasty bowed harp, and the Gregorian chants are pretty cool. From there, however, it’s a downward spiral of diminishing returns, as the novelty of jamming out sword clashes, armour impacts, yelling peasants, and the cries of farmyard animals lasts about as long as you’d expect.
Maddeningly, these hyper-specific samples are non-negotiable – they cannot be removed from the device. So if you wanted to keep some sonorous drum hits and clear out the samples of squealing pigs, you can’t. Out of the unit’s 128 MB of storage, 96 of those precious megabytes are off-limits, leaving you with even less space for your own samples than you could theoretically achieve on the EP-133.
This, more than anything else, gives the impression that Teenage Engineering is not even trying to elevate the EP-1320 above the level of gimmick. This is not a workhorse sampler, it’s a decrepit mule dragging a rickety cart piled with antiques and ornaments, and that’s just what its designers intended.
Image: Press
So, who is this actually for? If you compose a lot of period-specific music, there could be some interest here – but then again, you probably already have sample libraries that offer higher quality and variety. Likewise, if you’re looking to spice up your productions with some lesser-known early music instruments, there are easier and cheaper ways to source this material. If you’re neck deep in the Dungeon Synth scene then this device will have you salivating. For everyone else, it’s worth a giggle and not much more.
That said, this wouldn’t be the first time Teenage Engineering has gambled on a risky joke and had it pay off. Remember that £1,600 desk? It’s currently sold out. We may yet see DJs dropping hurdy-gurdy grooves on the dance floor.
The EP-1320 had a chance to be a genuine step forward. The new sample looping feature, arpeggiator, and additional effects are all things that users of the EP-133 would probably love to see ported over to that device. However, these improvements are ultimately hamstrung by a confusing user interface and a hyper-specific, non-removable sound set that will be useful only to the vast minority of music makers.
I’m glad that something this crazy actually exists. When the history of samplers is written, the EP-1320 will surely deserve an entry – but would I recommend it to anyone who’s not a collector or a mega-fan? Nay good sire, nay.

Key features

6 stereo / 12 mono voices
Built-in mic and speaker
128 MB memory (96 MB dedicated to factory samples, 32 MB available for user samples)
9 built-in demo songs
12 punch in effects
7 send effects
MIDI In, MIDI Out, and Sync connectivity
Power via USB-C or 4 AAA batteries

The post Teenage Engineering’s EP-1320 Medieval review: Fan service or folly? appeared first on MusicTech.

Sonic Academy JU-60The JU-60 - Juno Chorus VST Plugin is a digital audio plugin designed to emulate the chorus effect found in the Roland Juno-60 synthesizer. This plugin replicates the signal processing characteristics... Read More

TikTok refreshes Desktop App in challenge to YouTubeTikTok refreshes Desktop App, in the latest salvo in its ongoing battle with YouTube.
The post TikTok refreshes Desktop App in challenge to YouTube appeared first on Hypebot.

Echoes of My Slutty Valentine"Some of L.A.s best degenerate bands will be seeping up from the underground to make you cry, laugh, mosh and feel hornier than you ever thought imaginable," wrote promotors Basic Cable Programming on their website, by way of a description of My Slutty Valentine fest, and that's not bad but it doesn't really do it justice.My Slutty Valentine celebrates Valentine's Day, but leaves out the cheesiness and vanilla romance. In its place, we get heaps of sex positivity, feminist and queer joy, and a ton of glorious outfits. Love is in the air, but lust won't be pushed out. Frankly, the event is a fucking riot.Music Connection was at The Echo and Echoplex from the 5 p.m. start on Sunday. That meant 20 bands, conveniently overlapping, on three stages (inside at the two neighboring venues, plus a third on the Echo patio). Nobody was bad and, indeed, we discovered plenty of bands and artists that will appear in the pages of our magazine in the future.First up was brutal and uncompromising hardcore punks CNTS, swiftly followed by deceptively upbeat rocker Spooky Marvin (bit Ramones, bit Gun Club). Codex continued the rowdy punk vibe outside. BushfireThe Memories have a sound that is somehow lo-fi and upbeat. Somewhere between Weezer and Dinosaur Jr. They were followed by the raw, AC/DC-esque rock 'n' roll of Tyranis. Bushfire upped the ante somewhat. Incredible tunes, boundless energy and a frontwoman who looks like she's ready to kick everyone's ass.Caravan222 offered a change of pace; outlaw country and dusty Americana, with an edge and real heart. Then there was the glorious trash rock of Lord Friday 13, who wowed with their glitter-and-grime take on glam-punk. Legs were kicking, balls were swinging, and feet were tapping. Shamon Cassette

SpunkShamon Cassette were a bit of a revelation. P-funk, punk, metal and hip-hop collided in a gloriously loud, perfect mess. The wonderfully named Warblob put the focus back on the hardcore punk, as did the even better-named Spunk. The latter in particular went for the jugular with a set of riotous, gnarly noise.Mz NeonMz Neon may well have stolen the night. "Check on your trans friends--we're not ok," she said. "Things are crazy." That is undoubtedly true, and the crowd at the Echoplex was quick to show its support. Naturally, we will too.The alt-rapper was spectacular, with tunes like "Pussy Stick" (we think) whipping up the Slutty crowd. Magnificent.The Urinals

Poppy Jean CrawfordL.A. punk vets The Urinals were playing to a younger crowd that what they might be used to, though they had fiery gems like "Ack Ack Ack" to blast through. They didn't disappoint. Neither did Chimera, who have a vocalist with one of the better hardcore voices we've heard in a while.If Mz Neon stole the night, Poppy Jean Crawford ran her close. The alt-pop star-in-the-making recently announced a tour with veteran Brit goths The Mission UK, and on this evidence she'll go down a treat. Elements of PJ Harvey and Siouxsie Sioux meld beautifully, as she purrs through her stunning set.Greenwitch add some welcome death metal to the night, while S.O.H.'s brand of lively punk rock kept the energy levels high (although we don't know what the initials stand for). Slaughterhouse followed suit, and then it was time for Mac Sabbath.Yeah, it's all a bit silly. The band's rewriting of Black Sabbath songs to cover fast food subject matter is, frankly, ludicrous. But the yin to that yang is that the musicians inside the costumes are super-talented, the songs sound immense, and the showmanship is glorious. Songs like "Chicken for the Slaves" and "Sweet Beef" reinterpret Sabbath classics in a manner Ozzy could never have imagined. But shit, it's fun.On the way out, we caught a bit of indie-pop artist Mothe, and we heard enough to intrigue. We'll be checking out more.The post Echoes of My Slutty Valentine first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Hyperliquid flips Solana in fees, but is the ‘HYPE’ justified?Hyperliquid’s $9 billion in volume and profitable mechanisms will make vampire attacks on the network’s liquidity a challenge.

Snowflake grows startup accelerator with $200M in new capitalSnowflake plans to expand its startup accelerator with $200 million in additional commitments, the tech giant that specializes in cloud-based data storage said Thursday. The new injection of capital follows a string of activity by Snowflake over the past several months that illustrates that company’s growth ambitions. The Snowflake Startup Accelerator, formerly known as the […]
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Thermorphs: Self-Folding 3D PrintsPrints separating from the build plate or warping when you don’t want them to is a headache for the additive manufacturer. [CNC Kitchen] walks us through a technique to use that warping to our advantage.
Based on a paper by researchers at the Morphing Matter Lab at UC Berkeley, [CNC Kitchen] wanted to try making 3D printed objects that could self-assemble when placed in hot water. Similar to a bimetal strip that you find in simple thermostats, the technique takes advantage of the stresses baked into the print and how they can relax when reaching the glass transition temperature of the polymer. By printing joints with PLA and TPU layers, you can guide the deformation in the direction you wish, and further tune the amount of stress in the part by changing the print speed of different sections.
[CNC Kitchen] found that Hilbert curve infill slows the printer down sufficiently to create relatively stress-free sections of a print to create flat sections which is an improvement over the original researchers’ all TPU flat sections with respect to rigidity. We’ve covered how to reduce warping in 3D prints, but now we can use those techniques in reverse to design self-assembling structures. These parts, being thermoplastic, can also be heated, reformed, and then exhibit shape memory when placed back into hot water. It’s very experimental, but we’re curious to see what sort of practical or artistic projects could be unlocked with this technique.
We’ve seen a few other interesting techniques with folded objects like laser cutter origami, some flat-to-folded 3D prints that might be interesting to try with this technique, and also folded hybrid mechanisms made with laser cutting and 3D printing.

According to Bob Horn, “Pro Tools meters affect the sound of your mix” – or do they?A podcast clip in which mix engineer and producer Bob Horn claims that Pro Tools meters affect the sound of your mix has left music makers divided.
The clip, taken from the My StudioNerds Podcast (hosted by Devvon Terrell, L. Jean, and Courtney Taylor), shows Horn – who has worked with the likes of BTS, Michael Jackson, and Timbaland – suggesting that the meters in Pro Tools each have “a sound”, and that Pro Tools Classic meter is “the worst” metering type to use.

READ MORE: Billy Corgan thinks Pro Tools made music worse: “It brought a lot of people into the music business that really have no business being in the music business”

In the video, Horn says, “Some people think I’m crazy but the ones that have heard it just freak out – the Pro Tools meters have a sound, and depending on which ones you choose, sound different. So what meters do you use? Is it Pro Tools Classic? That’s the worst one.
“The code written for the meters must be in like a series to where they affect the audio, and if you’re summing it gets recorded. So if you’re in the box it’s just how you’re monitoring, but I always say your best monitoring will help you make the best decisions. If you’re summing it matters, and Pro Tools Classic sounds horrible. So the masters have a setting and then tracks and auxes have a setting, two different settings, so my ultimate combo… It’s linear (extended) on the masters and K-14 on the tracks. The look of it takes a minute to get used to, but when you AB that sound, it’s different.”

Horn’s opinion has got people talking with some people agreeing, and others believing Horn’s conclusion isn’t accurate. One person writes, “I knew I wasn’t tripping”, while another states, “Tried it! There’s definitely a difference in sound! A noticeable one at that. Unbelievable.”
On the other hand, another user says, “Just null-tested this in-the-box with offline rendering: perfect null. Meters make no difference, sorry guys and gals.” Another also states, “The meters don’t have a sound, but the way you mix with different meters results in a different sound. K14 meters zero out at -6db.”

You can check out the full podcast below:

The post According to Bob Horn, “Pro Tools meters affect the sound of your mix” – or do they? appeared first on MusicTech.

“Immortalise” your place in an artist’s journey with SoundCloud’s new Fan Recognition featureSoundCloud has launched a new Fan Recognition which highlights your most dedicated supporters on the platform.
The new module is proudly displayed on your track page via web, and highlights both your first fans – whose names will be displayed in order of plays accumulated during the first week of a song’s release – and top fans, who are the most prominent listeners of your music overall. SoundCloud believes the feature will “immortalise” a fan’s place in their favourite musicians’ journeys. Discover a huge artist before they became big? Now you’ll forever have the bragging rights that you were there early doors.

READ MORE: “I swear we’re working on it… Innovation is ongoing”: SoundCloud responds to criticisms of “destroying” transients in song uploads

To qualify for Fan Recognition, fans must be aged 18 or over and have liked the track and followed the artist, in addition to having a username, profile picture, and verified email address. Fans can also opt out of Fan Recognition if they wish.
The platform cites research ​​MIDiA and Luminate as a drive for the new celebratory feature, which shows the importance of direct fan relationships in an artist’s success. Luminate reports that 90 percent of superfans engage with artists through live performances, and 81 percent amplify their favourite artists by spreading the word. “Recognising and nurturing these connections early can be game-changing for an artist’s career,” says SoundCloud.
It seems more and more industry giants are realising the power and value of fans – last year, UMG CEO Lucian Grainge and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl both underscored a focus on cultivating and monetising “superfans”.
“We need to develop our direct artist-superfan products and experiences,” Kyncl told WMG staff, as part of his plan to ‘increase the value of music’. “Both artists and superfans want deeper relationships, and it’s an area that’s relatively untapped and under-monetised.”
Find out more about SoundCloud’s Fan Recognition via its official newsroom.
The post “Immortalise” your place in an artist’s journey with SoundCloud’s new Fan Recognition feature appeared first on MusicTech.

Camp David AudioSuite Clarity EQGet 20% off when you purchase on KVRaudio. Camp David AudioSuites first generation equalizer comes ready to add clarity to your recordings. A simple to use design, Clarity EQ comes... Read More

$500m-valued Suno has admitted training AI on copyrighted music. That hasn’t stopped Amazon from adding its controversial tech to AlexaThe new voice assistant is also integrated with the Claude chatbot from Anthropic, an AI company facing a copyright lawsuit from music publishers
Source

Gems from Song Athletics & BORO Song Athletics’ latest project has been developed in collaboration with BORO, a Montréal- based creative sound studio led by composer and sound artist Noah Cedar Sherrin.

Instagram shares How Reels Algorithm Works as new App Rumors riseInstagram shared more about how Reels algorithm works in a blog post and video including some good news for emerging creators. The reveal comes alongside word that Meta is considering a separate short video app.
The post Instagram shares How Reels Algorithm Works as new App Rumors rise appeared first on Hypebot.