Teenage Engineering PO-33 K.O.

Got his Sampler (3 times), mainly for Amen-Breakage.
1) Record via audio-in or mic something u like (recod in doublespeed for double length).
2) Trim (a bit tricky) then Reclice automatic into 16 steps (nice!) or manualy (tricky) into 16 sciles
3) Copy parts into tonal mode
4) Have fun! :D

The step sequencer (up to 4 samples at same time playable) is very nice and offers true analog pitch, tonal play, filter (lpf, hpf, bandpass, notch) per track. steps are programmable (volume, pitch, lenght, retrig, filter, etc).

Trig in to synch with external clock.

The sound is very crunchy and has character. Stuff sounds rich lofy (90ies style). Has punch.

Very portable. Blug in hedphones or even use the speakers to jam around. You can punch in (careful) the slices like on an mpc or programm step by step.

With the built-in mic u can sampe anything. Quality is good (rich lofi).

It takes some time to get the trimming right, but onceu know this gear, u will know how to work.

Happy accidents happen. Very fun.

Do not get the silicone casing tho, it sucks (cant see the step leds at all). There are third party see through hard-cases which are better. I enjoy it without any casings.

If you want a rich lofi mutlipurpose sampler and slicer with instand workflow, this is the thing. GLHF :D

Since I found out about the pocket operators series, the one that I always wanted was a sampler, teenage made it so I bought it.
First of all, if you're looking for a sp 404 or a mpc for a fraction of the price, just forget about it, you're going to blow 100 bucks(its monophonic, 40 seconds of sampling time etc...).
This is a great machine, you can record through the built in microphone and then you can cut, pitch and throw a low/high pass filter to the sample. After that you can sequence all the sounds and you can chain sequences together in order to create a song or simply make a 16,32 etc step sequence.
Good: The effects are incredibly fun to use. After creating a sequence you can create a performance by using them.
Bad: the samples are divided in racks and you can't play a 2 samples from the same rack at the same time. For example, if you have in a drum rack a quick drum and a high hat, you can't play both at the same time, the last one added to the sequence will delete the previous sound in that step.
And the sequencer is 4 notes polyphonic, so when 4 samples are playing at the same time, if you add a 5th sample to the sequence in that step, one of the samples will stop playing. That can be a good or a bad thing, sometimes can mess up completely the sequence but other time can help to to create a dynamic sequence through out the time, by adding some samples, others fade away.
Other thing that might be upsetting: You can add samples to the sequence by 16 step mode or live mode. Even though its possible to record live to the sequence, what you play is quantized, so if you try to do something weird keep in mind that the sequencer can mess it up because will quantize what you play, regardless if you want it or not.
Conclusion: Is incredibly fun machine, if you use the limitation in your advantage, you can create really cool things with it.

I *really* wanted to like this. And lots of people do: Pocket Operators - and the PO-33 specifically - have legions of fans (check out e.g. Gar Hoover's YouTube channel to see what you can do with it). So I hung on to it beyond the return window, hoping it would eventually "click".

It never did; it was a waste of money. I can't even sell it on eBay because I'm still not sure if mine is defective or not.

PRO
* the sound is nice: it does pleasantly crunchy things to drums, in particular
* it's very portable
* it's cheap
* there's a big user community, with some great people

CON
Sigh. Where to begin…?
* The pots/knobs flick around in a maddeningly unpredictable manner
* The chop-by-transient feature is erm "flakey"
* The backup process does NOT work. I've read countless pieces online, I've tried backing up at different levels, to different devices, using different connectors (…etc etc…) but I've *never* managed to restore from *any* of the backups I've made. I wasted countless hours on this, with zero success. Seriously: it's *that* hopeless :-(

If (like me) you're looking for a basic, super-portable sampler, then look elsewhere: don't waste your money or your time. Most of the reviews are very positive, and I'm happy for those people; maybe mine was defective(...?) But on the basis of this I'll *never* buy anything by Teenage Engineering again.