OP-1 or PO enthusiast to help on Vietnam travel video

Hi guys,

I'm a new user around here, since I've ordered my OP-1 recently and although it's been shipped to my place in Montreal yesterday, I won't be able to use it because I'm currently travelling.

One of my goal for the OP-1 is to produce my own background tracks and sound effects for the videos I will produce on youtube.

That said, I won't be able to do that myself during my next bicycle trip across Vietnam in the next 2 months because that's just too expensive gear to bring with me with the high risk of getting it stolen in Vietnam. I'm travelling alone on a bicycle, so it's just too heavy to always bring it in my daypack with the expensive stuff like my computer, money, passport etc. Also, travelling by bicycle alone is a lot of daily logistic, so I just won't have the time to pedal, film, create music and do the video editing and all, it's too much!!!

There's some free music out there, but the tempos are often really slow and rather boring. The real reason is also that I like the idea that all the sounds are created by an OP-1 or PO, since that's what I intended to do with mine. Collaborating with some OP-1/PO owner sounds like fun, too.

So I've been thinking about maybe collaborate with some OP-1/PO music enthusiast, just for the fun of it! This project is not about making money, neither for me or for you. I don't plan on making money from this, but rather I see it more as a "practice project" managing a youtube channel and learning about the effort required from a real, hands on experience. I hope that might lead me to a future money-making project but at the minimum, it will have been a great learning experience I'm sure.

What do you get out of this? Well, that's for you to decide. Fame? Probably not. Money? Definitely not. Experience? I think so. Building a habit of delivering a final product on a schedule? Yep! Improve your creativity? Go for it! For many people including myself, sometimes it's better to have a specific project to accomplish progress rather than just pushing buttons randomly with no goal.

There's a million reasons why this could be interesting, so you decide. For me, it's just a personal goal to become a PRODUCER instead of a consumer. I like the idea of creating sellable products in the medium term, but for now it's just about having fun, delivering results, try new things, expand my horizons and ideally make friends with interesting people along the way.

What's expected from you if you're interested?

Some background music tracks with a lively tempo to match with a bicycle travelling through Vietnam. Maybe one "opening jingle" (if that's the correct terminology) that will be used to begin all videos on the channel. Maybe even a few interesting sound effects?

Hey, I'm not paying so it's all just about getting together for having FUN and being creative for the fixed duration of my trip to Vietnam from February 23 through April 10th more or less. Then we are done and we congratulate ourselves for achieving something, good or not. At least it gives ME a lot of satisfaction when I *complete* a project. You?

That said, please only contact me if you really intend to put some efforts into this for the duration of the project. I don't expect you to be a pro musician at all. I just expect someone who loves his OP-1 or PO and who is excited by the idea of seeing this through. Still, if you must drop this project at some point, well, so be it. We won't die. For that matter, it could be ME who has problems producing the videos. I just don't know the "complications" that I will meet while biking in Vietnam.

Side note: I intend to publish the videos on youtube and put a few links on other websites but that doesn't mean there will be thousands of viewers. Are you fine with 8 views from my family members? Ha ha ha.

I almost forget: you can keep ownership of your music or whatever, but you need to give me full permission to publish it, naturally.

Was that the longest post you've ever read or what? If the post tickles your creative brain, buzz me! :-)

Sounds like a fun project! Could be a forum Battle topic? Only thing I’m a bit wary of is, what will be the context of the music? What kinds of videos will you shoot? Just random impressions by a cycling tourist? What’s your angle to Vietnamese society going to be? Any ideas on that?

Hey vehka,

I wish I knew. This is all new stuff for me. I'll be shooting stuff that seems interesting as I go around. The view from the bike. Commenting along the way. Trying to make things fun if possible, because I'm not a Vietnamese history teacher at all, ha ha.

I take this all very lightly, you know? If I'd summarize this whole thing, I'd say my primary goal is to learn to start a project, make the project, finish the project. I'm really trying to become a creator, and set goals. It's not about winning a prize for "best documentary" ;-)

I guess we can assume some similarities with the already existing videos out there, of bicycle travellers who have done the same. So anyway, I think the context is driven by these keywords: bicycle travel, adventures in Vietnam, fun, discovery.

It's the first time I am going to do something without knowing what exactly I'm going to do. I'm normally too much of a planner, which often makes all projects grind to a halt, so that's why I'm just trying to "go with the flow" on this one, also work with someone to maybe get interesting ideas, and ...see what happens :-)

hey, that sounds pretty close to my own story! i’ve purchased my op-1 about a year ago (and then a few pocket operators) with the idea to craft some cool sounding tunes for my wife’s as well as my own youtube and instagram posts, big part of which are related to cycling and touring.


first releases were hardly usable, but today i have a dozen of tracks released, some of which took their place in a number of vlogs and promotional videos for various projects.

unfortunately, i have a full time office job and unable to spend a lot of time on the music fun, at least on a regular basis. these days, however, i’m lucky to have a free evening or two every week and hope to post at least a couple of new tracks this month. crafting something cool for the ongoing battle is next on my list and once i’m done with that i really want to try my double bass with POs and/or OP-1 synths and sampler.

that being said, i offer my released tracks and upon request may tweak any of those to fit your video content better.

i’m not quite sure if it is appropriate to post example video links here, but you give my username a try around the soundcloud or just pm me if that fits your project.

oh, and be sure to grab a good helmet and a decent amount of any powerful
mosquito repellent!
Hello xpelled,

Fun to know other people had the same idea of using OP-1 / POs for the purpose of producing YouTube videos :-) To me it just looks like both OP-1 and POs are just tools made in heaven, as far as letting amateur music producers create the sounds for their YouTube channels. These little marvels are easier to learn but still help creativity and experimentation, allow creating music and sounds quickly and efficiently, and being travel-friendly tools, they are perfect for the YouTube creator on the go!

On my next trips I will be better prepared to bring my new OP-1 on the road with me. This time I'm just too short on time and I won't be able to learn how to use it before I leave, so this and the fact that Vietnam is a good place to have your bags snatched, with nobody else but me to check over my bike and stuff, it made me decide to forget the OP-1 this time and travel as light as possible.

Thanks for offering your tracks together with possible tweaks, that sounds like a good option to begin with :-)
On first sight, I think these might be good fits:

-Snowy pockets
-Radio Riff
-Longlasting with operators
-Subfactory pocket operators

Now the question is, how in hell do I get those tracks?? I've never used sound cloud... But I could BUILD sound cloud, I'm a computer software guy! Ha ha. I see you're an IT guy and you bike to work too every day? Gosh we are a lot the same! I'm definitely interested in looking up your bicycle touring videos if you don't mind. Love bicycle touring!

In fact I like it enough to have ditched my "full time office job" as you say, in order to pedal for a while in 2018. Also to put more time on music. The funny things is, I've been refusing recent job offers and told the HR people I had decided I really needed to travel the world a little bit before going back to a day job. The big surprise: they ALL totally encouraged me and told me that was "the right decision" and they'd contact me when I'm finished travelling. How's that for a surprise? And me who never dared quit a job until now, ha ha.

I'm not sure if the helmet will be good enough in Vietnam though, sounds more like I'd need a tank to protect me on QL-1, ha ha, but yes I have a helmet for skateboarding so that's a tough one :-) just like my mosquito repellent. It sounds like you've been there before!?

Okay so now I might have a good start with your tracks. Still, if anybody is interested in a more involved cooperation, also for doing a "jingle" for the channel intro, or a few sound bites that might be required, let me know! After all, my goal is ALSO to get to know new interesting people like 'xpelled' (too bad you're so busy! You look a really cool guy.)

hey @ABicycleRide, just PM’ed you the tracks’ links and hope they are alive and work fine.


as for the helmet - there’s a billion of motorbikes on every street and accidents do happen. also, it is pretty hot there, so you may want kind of a road helmet capable of decent ventilation. and, probably, a cap underneath to avoid any sunstrokes. yes, few years ago i’ve spent 3 weeks travelling from thai to vietnam through cambodia, unfortunately had no chance to bring any of my bikes with me back then.

now i’m a bit challenged by the “jingle” thing and would give it at least a try if you share the animation/video for the intro.