Teenage Engineering OP-Z as a Windows 10 sound source

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I’m loving my Teenage Engineering OP-Z. Great fun. One of the things I like about it is its versatility. The usb port can be used to make it into a usb MIDI host (so that you can hang other devices off it) or a usb MIDI client (so that it can hang off other hosts) or a sound output (so it can sample sounds sent over USB) or a sound source (so that other devices can grab digital copies of the sounds the OP-Z produces).

The only problem has been that I can’t get the last option to work on my Windows 10 PC. If I want to record stuff I’ve created on the OP-Z I’ve had to send out of the OP-Z headphone socket and then re-digitise it. Which seems a bit silly for a digital device.

Anyhoo, today I was able to try the OP-Z on a non-Windows device and discovered that it worked perfectly. Knowing that something is possible is very useful if you are trying to make it happen, and so I put a bit more effort into making it work. And I managed to do it. Here’s how, if you are having the same problem:

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After you’ve plugged in the OP-Z, open up Device Manager on your Windows 10 PC by right clicking the Windows icon in the bottom left of your screen and selecting “Device Manager” from the menu that appears. Then open up the Sound, video and game controllers item. You can see that the OP-Z is a speaker (so we can send it sound) but not a microphone (so we can’t listen to it). Wah.

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No matter. We’ve got this. Type “Control Panel” in the search box on the task bar and hit enter to open the Windows 10 Control Panel.

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Now type “Troubleshooting” into the search window at the top right of the Control Panel and select the troubleshooting icon from the list that appears.

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Now click Troubleshoot Audio Recording in the middle of the page.

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Now click Next.

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Select “Synthesizer - OPZ from the menu that appears and click Next again.

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Windows 10 will do something magical that it should have done first time. Close the Troubleshooter and the Control Panel. Go back to your Device Manager and you should now see another input.

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You now have another input device that you can connect to Audacity or whatever you fancy.