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Pocket operator sync app

It’s been a while since I posted anything non-work-related… Keeping me sane during these Unprecedented Times has been a couple of Teenage Engineering’s pocket operators. They’re a good balance of fun and productivity (lots of the former; less of the latter), although I’ve been looking for a way to extend their capability without having to buy the complete (and expensive) set of these things.

Inspired by this Processing sketch by u/neel_on_reddit, I’ve made a similar app in Max that generates a sync ‘click’ to control the tempo of a connected pocket operator. If an audio input of a pocket operator is connected to the output of your computer (and sync mode is set to SY4), the incoming click will start, stop and change tempo. As another small extension, this app will also pass an audio file to the connected pocket operator, which will be played through the onboard speaker.

The pocket operator sync app (v001), built in Max.

As far as I can tell, it’s not possible to compile a standalone app from Max for multiple platforms. So at this stage, the app will only work on macOS. But it should be a simple case of compiling on Windows from Max for it to also work there. So I’ve made the Max patcher available here as well. Any feedback is welcome…

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