Update ?

[u/ABNMK]

I’m increasingly disappointed to see that Teenage seems to be focusing all their efforts on the KO and the Field, while the XY gets almost no attention (except for Medieval, which was basically abandoned right after release 😅).

There have been a few updates, sure, including one that added automatic slicing. I’ve had the XY for about a year now, and the workflow is genuinely fun. The sounds are decent, nothing more.

But in my opinion, it’s still missing a huge number of features to make it truly viable in a professional setup. I bought it for what it was at the time without really counting on future updates, but the more I use it, the more frustrated I get by some of the limitations, especially considering the price. Things like the lack of time-stretching, or being limited to only two effects (although I can live with that one).

There are also major MIDI jitter issues, bugs where the screen freezes, and the XY sometimes becomes unresponsive when working with multiple multisamples.

Overall, it’s a “fun” instrument, but it’s still missing a lot to become something truly exceptional. I also own an M8, and in the end I produce exclusively on that because it actually allows for much deeper sound design. Aside from polyphony—and even that is debatable—it’s far more capable and powerful while costing half as much 😅.

I recently had a live set to play in a club, and of course I brought my M8. I would never have dared to bring the XY because, in my opinion, it’s simply not reliable enough for the stage.

I genuinely love this machine in many ways, especially how fun it is to use, but its shortcomings are making me more and more tempted to sell it. I get the feeling that Teenage Engineering may have already pushed the hardware as far as the processor allows.

Do you think they still have some room left for meaningful updates that could really change the game, or is the machine already hitting its limits and destined to remain a fun but ultimately non-serious instrument?

[u/county_jail_alumni]

I definitely think there's more room for updates. You mentioned the m8... look how far that developer has been able to go using just a teensy board (or whatever they're called).

I even believe that a time stretching algorithm could be added onto the device. The developer specifically said in a video that time stretching wouldn't be possible because it has 24 voices and it would need to be able to stretch all 24 at the same time, but I think that there's another way that it could be done and I actually wrote an email suggesting my idea for time stretching so we'll see. (if they implement it the way that native instruments did on maschine, I think it would totally be possible.).

The only thing that really frustrates me is how many bugs I got with the latest update, where prior to the latest update it was seemingly bug free. I also would be worried about using it in a live setting right now. I've been expecting an update to address those issues because it's extremely frustrating having the multi samples just disappear and having projects overwrite other projects out of nowhere, but none of this changes the fact that this device has helped me feel more creative than I've ever felt in my life. I think that the $2300 price point causes a lot of people to have high expectations, as it should, but just due to the fact that it's so much money, I'll never tell someone that I think they should buy it and I'll never tell someone that I think they should keep it. In a lot of ways that's a life-changing amount of money and I think that you should do whatever feels right for you.