Teenage Engineering was apparently worried we’d stopped thinking they were bats*** insane. So they’re here with a fully Medieval edition of the EP-133 drum sampler/composer, complete with lute and farm animal samples and a silkscreen inspired by illuminated manuscripts.
Okay, now granted, if you let me design “the world’s first medieval electronic instrument,” you’d wind up with something that had some neumes for its editing interface, only supported homophony, used just intonation, and had a dedicated crumhorn part. But this isn’t far off. Yeah, technically, it’s just an EP-133 (re-named the EP-1320) with a new paint panel design, display graphics, and pre-loaded content. But wow did they go all out on this one:
- Redesigned send and punch-in FX (a “torture chamber reverb” and “Bardic ensemble,” among others)
- New arpeggiator
- Multi-sampled instruments
- Stringed instruments: hurdy-gurdy, citole, bowed harm, gittern
- Reeds/brass: bagpipes, shawn, flutes, trumpets
- Drums/percussion: frame drums, tambourines, chan rattles, battle toms, clappers, bells, coconut horse hooves (channeling Monty Python’s take on the Middle Ages, but okay)
- Foley and sound effects: swords, arrows, farm animals, “and no less than two separate witches, rowdy peasants, and an actual dragon” (sorry, an actual dragon? What the hell is going on in Sweden?!)
- Partially labeled in Latin
There’s also a Demus mode that lets you play along with nine pre-loaded medieval songs. I’m disappointed L’Homme Armé didn’t make the cut, but you do get Rocke-de-Fete, Caerbannog, Banquet of Fools, and Harvest Dance.
They’ve also redesigned the display with Medieval-style segment LED display, “cocoa” pads, and more. The EP-133’s powerful feature set is still there, and despite the cute Medieval box and sticker set, the price is just 349 EUR / $299. Special t-shirt, “Medieval quilt” bag, limited vinyl record, and keychain are all sold separately.
If this seems like the product planning involved some sort of strange drug-induced fever dream, well – here is that drug-induced fever dream, in the form of the launch video. (It’s okay; it’s how I do a lot of my planning, too.)
So, having said you might need a bingo card to predict Roland, I think you’d need to go on some kind of spirit quest to predict Teenage Engineering. Happy 608 Day or… happy 1320 AD; I have no idea where or when I even am at this point.
https://teenage.engineering/products/ep-1320
I guess maybe MeeBlip can come back with the world’s first Assyrian Synthesizer if we really work on it, documented entirely in Classical Syriac.
I expect the target here is for dungeon synth or, more recently, bardcore genres (each of those is a thing), but this won’t stop me from shifting a few centuries back to the OG roots.
It’s late Medieval, but yeah if I get a review unit, I promise to make a preset pack based on this:
Gregorians, yes, but also Cistercians (still late, sorry):
Some Victimae paschali laudes also really calls out for a drum sampler.
Or how about some drum sampler and weaving action with a tasty Chansons de Toile?