Unofficial Firmware Mods · Original OP-1

OP-1
Mods

New stuff for the original OP-1's firmware. A new electric keys engine, six new effects with their own screens, chord mode, scales, a piano-roll sequencer, a new LFO, and MIDI CC control of almost every knob on a sound.

It's free. Drop your email and I'll send you the download, the manual and the install steps, then a note whenever there's a new build.

No spam. The download, then OP-1 mod updates. Original OP-1 only, not the OP-1 Field.

You're on the list.

The download link is on its way to your inbox too. The manual (PDF) is on the download page with the files. Read the install steps before you flash anything, there's one rule about going back to stock that matters.

Get the Download

It's free and it stays free. If it makes your OP-1 more fun and you want to say thanks, the tip jar is here.

Firmware 246

What's In It.

Everything here sits on top of firmware 246, the last one teenage engineering released for the original OP-1. The stock firmware stays in place and the mods add to it, so the OP-1 you know is still all there.

Play-mode screen on the OP-1 reading POLY 9TH, scale F minor

In 1.0

Chord Mode

One key plays a whole chord. Hold Shift on the play-mode screen and tap a white key to pick the shape. Twelve of them (triad, 7th, 9th, sus2, sus4, 6th, add9, power, octave, open, shell, quartal) plus parallel m7 / m9 / Maj7 for house stabs. The chord notes follow the scale you've set, so it stays in key.

Play-mode screen on the OP-1 with SCALE F and TYPE MINOR

In 1.0

Scales

The white keys play whatever scale and root you pick, on the play-mode screen. This started as stfj's note quantization patch. I moved it in memory so it stops crashing on some OP-1s, and fixed the scale tables (every scale except C major was coming out a fourth off).

In 1.0

CRUSH

A bitcrusher. Sample rate crush on blue, DENTS on green (how hard the bits get stepped on, 0 to 12), mix on white, and a low-pass on orange. Works on synth, drum and master like any other effect.

In 1.0

BELL

A ring mod feeding four tuned strings. Each note you play retunes the strings to that note's chord tones, so everything comes out with a chord ringing behind it. Four knobs that each move a few things at once (STRIKE, CHORD, RING, MIX).

In 1.0

MOON

Phaser and Uni-Vibe as one effect. The TYPE knob goes from an eight-stage phaser to four-stage, then morphs into a vibe chorus, then pure vibrato. On the master it sweeps left and right a quarter turn apart.

In 1.0

MIMIC

A tempo-locked echo. TIME clicks through note values from 1/32 to 1/2 and glides when you change it, REPEATS goes past 100% if you want it to run away, AGE wears each repeat out with saturation and wow. Ping-pong on the master.

In 1.0

LINGER

A plate reverb with a freeze. SIZE, DECAY, DAMP and MIX, and at the top of DECAY the tail holds until you turn it down, so you can play over a frozen pad.

In 1.0

SPIN CYCLE

A rotary speaker. BRAKE, SLOW, FAST and AUTO (fast while you play, slows when you stop), with DEPTH and DRIVE. The horn changes speed fast and the drum slow, the way the real one ramps. The screen is a washing machine.

In 1.0

KEYS

A new synth engine: tine electric piano, reed piano and clav in one. No samples. BARK stands in for velocity, TONE moves the pickup, DECAY sets the ring, TYPE picks the instrument. Six voices, three presets in a KEYS folder, and a screen with a drink on the lid that changes with the instrument.

In 1.0

TRACK Sequencer

A seventh sequencer with a piano roll. Play it in live, punch a note in at a step, nudge notes around, set swing and loop length. It starts and stops with the tape.

In 1.0

TIDE LFO

A new LFO next to the stock ones. It does what the value LFO does, plus seven waveforms (including sample-and-hold and a smooth random), a start phase, a skew knob that bends the shape, and four sync modes (free, key, beat, and locked to the tape position).

MIDI CC ranges: engine, envelope, effect, LFO and master effect knobs

In 1.0

MIDI CC Control

Send CCs over USB and they set the knobs of the sound you're playing (engine, envelope, effect, LFO, master effect). The screen follows and the values save with the patch. The stock firmware only does this through the MIDI LFO, four CCs at a time. The full CC chart is in the manual.

A finger pressing the OP-1's blue knob to latch Shift

In 1.0

Shift Latch

Press any knob and the knobs switch to their Shift job without holding Shift. Press again or change page to drop it. Handy on TIDE and anywhere you want fine adjust one-handed.

Planned

TAPE

Tape damage and chorus as one effect. Sketched, not built.

Screens

Everything Gets
Its Own Screen.

Half the fun of the OP-1 is the graphics, so a new effect with a borrowed screen felt wrong. I draw these to work like the stock ones, where each knob owns a colour and the picture moves with what you turn. Most of these are straight out of the emulator. The CRUSH row is my OP-1, from the video.

CRUSH on the OP-1 with DENTS at 00 and the can untouched

CRUSH on the OP-1 with DENTS at 09 and the can half crushed

CRUSH on the OP-1 with the can stomped flat

CRUSH. The harder you crush, the flatter the can, and the wave on the left steps down with it.

BELL screen with a flat scope trace and four tuning forks

BELL screen with a looping scope pattern on a 7th chord

BELL screen with a dense scope pattern on a 9th chord

BELL. A lab scope and four tuning forks, one per string. Each fork lights up when its string rings.

MOON screen as an eight-stage phaser with nine moon phases across the sky

MOON screen in vibrato mode with a wobble line

MOON. The lit moon travels with the sweep, and the curve underneath is what the phaser is doing to the sound.

TIDE LFO screen with a saw wave and beat sync

TIDE LFO screen with a sample-and-hold wave

TIDE. The wave is the sea, the boat is where the LFO is right now, and the moon is the start phase.

LINGER reverb screen: a singer on a stage with curtains and an audience

KEYS, MIMIC and LINGER. The drink on the KEYS lid changes with the instrument, MIMIC's dancers are the repeats, LINGER's curtains close as you damp it.

SPIN CYCLE and TRACK. The washing machine spins with the rotor speed, and TRACK is a piano roll you play straight into.

Straight Talk

Where It's
Actually At.

This is one guy and two OP-1s. I'd rather tell you where it stands than have you find out the hard way.

It's been on two OP-1s. Two different hardware revisions, and one of them is the kind that crashed with the original scale patch. That's a lot better than one, and it's still only two.
Original OP-1 only. The OP-1 Field is a different machine and none of this applies to it.
Going back to stock has a rule. If a sound uses KEYS, ITER, any of the new effects, FILTER or the TIDE LFO, stock firmware won't boot with it loaded. Switch those sounds to something stock first. If you forget, flash the mod again and it boots fine (no factory reset needed).
You bring the official firmware. The download is a patch. It turns teenage engineering's own 246 file into the modded one on your computer, so you'll need that file and Python.
Chords need a poly patch, and the chord shape you picked doesn't survive a power cycle yet.
Don't flood it with MIDI. About 200 CCs a second is fine. A burst of hundreds with no gaps makes the OP-1 stop listening to USB MIDI until you replug the cable.

OP-1
Mods

See It Running.