Generally speaking, the recorder should sit in the background, quietly absorbing the sound without contributing to it. They are almost necessarily a neutral, unobtrusive product type. If you’re recording live audio, such as trying to capture the perfect loon call in the wild, it’s best to use a suitable shotgun microphone to pinpoint the sound. Audio recorded directly in the studio will sound great on the TP-7, but again, you can handle it with some much cheaper but still very good microphones.
The device can also be tricky to navigate, requiring some menu diving to access certain features that don’t immediately feel intuitive. You may also find some issues if you use other types of recorders.
For example, I tried streaming music from Spotify through the TP-7 to test the line-in functionality, and plugged a pair of headphones into the output jack so I could monitor the sound. At the time, I didn’t realize that audio was still playing through the plugged-in headphones and speakers on the device by default. That is, until my girlfriend came in from the other room, laptop in hand, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’m on the phone with my boss. Could you please stop playing that song.”
I was able to resolve this minor issue and a few similar confusions by flipping through the thick little loose-leaf book (aka the instruction manual). But sometimes, there isn’t an intuitive way to solve the problem without doing a manual dive. Some interactions take a little time to master.
For example, keeping the recorder running requires two Button Press – Tap the red Record button once, then press the Play button next to it individually. On similar devices from other brands, you usually only need to click the “Record” button once to start recording. These little idiosyncrasies are the price you pay for something like this. (Plus, you know, the actual price you pay for it.)
Girls just want to have fun
It’s perhaps a bit disingenuous to view the TP-7 from a somewhat disingenuous professional perspective. Because TP-7 is a good time. It’s a lot more fun than you thought a voice recorder would be. After all, you’ll remember that the entire front dial rotates while recording, and all of its buttons and smooth switches feel great in your hands.
There are also some clever, well-thought-out features that make recording even more fun. If you press the Play button again during playback, the disk will reverse its rotation and play the audio backwards. It’s a fun little option that could be useful for music producers playing around with samples or anyone checking their recordings for any secret satanic messages.
Additionally, the ability to mix and match inputs and outputs via the top plug provides a lot of flexibility in combination with other audio gadgets. I paired the TP-7 with another Teenage Engineering creation: the EP-133 KO2, which is a very affordable (for Teenage Engineering) sampling device. By mixing and matching the input and output cables between the devices, I could record from the sampler to the TP-7, then manipulate the sound there and transfer it back to the sampler, with the DJ scratch sound intact.