Teenage Engineering calls its new digital music sequencer an instrumentalis electronicum, “the ultimate, and only, medieval beat machine.” I call it coolium thingamajignus because the EP-1320 embodies all of Dante’s circles of weird and wonderful. On first sight, the gadget doesn’t make much sense. I really don’t know why the Scandinavian design house decided to create a medieval music sequencer, but after studying it like a Augustinian friar, I fully embrace their Gregorian wackiness.
The EP-1320 is loaded with hundreds of sounds and musical instrument samples from the age of darkness. Think of it as an instrument for those looking for new experimental compositions with very unusual sounds. Perhaps that why the hardware design is so much fun. The small brick (it measures 9.45 by 6.93 by 0.63-inches) features beige, brown, black, and red. The buttons are set in some kind of Gothic script—I can’t really resist those capital keys—and colorful electronic display icons that belong in a retro Zelda platformer.
The aesthetic screams medieval but also has a retro touch that makes it feel like a home computer from the ’80s, thanks to the rubbery, pressure-sensitive keys. And those knobs, which you can use to set the beat and tempo, are the icing on this delicious cake of harmonic trotters and jelly.
According to TE, the EP-1320 comes with readily playable medieval instruments created from multiple high quality samples of the strangest musical contraptions created in the Middle Ages. There’s the stringed instruments, which include the hurdy gurdy, citole, bowed harp, and gittern. The reeds and brass feature bagpipes, shawn, flutes, and trumpets, while your drumming needs will be covered with frame drums, tambourines, chain rattles, battle toms, clappers, bells, and the Monty Python-esque coconut horse hooves.
There are plenty of ad-hoc sound effects available too: swords, arrows, farm animals, two separate witches, rowdy peasants, and a dragon (likely not sampled from real dragons). If all this glorious sound fest (a total of 96MB) is not enough for you, the EP-1320 also features an internal microphone, which allows you to store 32MB of your own high quality samples recorded at 46 kHz and 16-bit resolution.
All of these wonders of antiquity can be played combined in six stereo or 12 mono voices, both using the keypad or any attached MIDI keyboard or MIDI-enabled instrument. The device also features an arpeggiator—which will sequentially play the keys of a chord going up or down if you are feeling like a lazy jester—a multifunctional fader, a medieval punch-in pocus, a bardic ensemble, and even processors that will make it all sound like it’s being played in a dungeon.
The last feature is something that TE calls “demus mode,” which allows you to play along to nine medieval songs using all the instruments and sounds in your arsenal. The medieval instrument is powered by four AAA batteries or USB-C and has its own built-in speaker.
All your Middle Age jams could be stored in the device’s memory, allowing you to save nine projects, with four groups per project, 99 patterns per group, 12 tracks per pattern, and a maximum 99 bar pattern length. So, yes, the Medieval instrumentalis electronicum may feel like a joke because of its concept, but like every other sequencer TE makes, this thing’s power is as serious as the bubonic plague.
And while this invention may seem overkill, useless, and unnecessary for some, I say to them: Off with your heads. For $299 USD, it actually seems like a steal worthy of Robin Hood.