Teenage Engineering TX-6
Does it worth the (extreme) price?
So a few days ago, Teenage Engineering released a brand new product, the TX-6.
TX-6 is a tiny 6-channel mixer with 6 stereo channels, it is battery-powered, and it surprisingly also has a sequencer and a synth engine. And it can fit in your palm which is absolutely crazy. it is amazing that they somehow managed to place three-band eq knobs and faders for each channel, a small screen, a menu knob, and a few buttons in this tiny interface. While still looking very cute and cool (like every Teenage Engineering product), TX-6 is also a sturdy aluminum-built device made to last.
Let’s do a quick rundown of its features and then try to understand who is this device for.
Mixer: 6 stereo channels with 3 band EQ and an adjustable compressor for each channel. To connect your gear you’ll use some super slim cables and as you can of course imagine, it receives mini 3.5mm jacks and not the regular instrument cables.
Effects: The TX-6 has 8 built-in effects like reverb, chorus, and delay, and creative effects freeze, tape, filter, and distortion.
Synthesizer and Sequencer: There is a synthesizer and sequencer with 4 oscillator waveforms and 4 drum sounds to create beats and melodies.
12 Channel Audio Interface: A great feature is that the TX-6 can be also used as an audio interface for multitrack recordings.
So who should consider the TX-6?
The first obvious answer is people who need the portable factor of the device. Having a 6-channel mixer that fits in your pocket is amazing if you want to make music on the go and need to pack light. It is battery powered so you don’t need a power supply and 6 channels are more than enough in an outdoor scenario. The quality of Teenage Engineering’s products is undisputed so you’ll be getting a well-built, thoughtful, and reliable product.
It can also be a great solution for small studios where saving space is essential. If you just have a small desk and a bunch of gear, there is absolutely no space available for a mixer. So the TX-6 could definitely fit somewhere and solve that problem too. And it can also become your audio interface at the same time which is pretty handy.
But what’s the deal with its price?
The TX-6 is expensive. Like very very very expensive for what it is. It retails for 1.119€. Once it was announced I went on the Teenage Engineering website to check its price and at first, I saw 199€ and I thought “Well, that’s so cheap, I should get a couple of them…“ until I noticed another 1 before the 199.
I cannot honestly justify that price. A mixer or audio interface is a utility that you don’t really wanna spend a huge amount and the TX-6 is ridiculously pricey. If you consider it a mixer, the price is very high, but if you consider it an interface then it’s a bit more reasonable but still… The addition of a basic synth and some basic drum sounds in there feels more like a gimmick than something that’s actually useful.
Teenage Engineering products are always a bit more expensive since they make innovative and unique devices but I feel that this time they may have gone a bit too far with this one.
We now just have to wait until the TX-6 starts shipping to customers and find out if it lives up to its price. I trust and love Teenage Engineering’s vision of making great products that push the music-making process to new territories but I still don’t get the TX-6.
