Review: Teenage Engineering TX-6

At this point there’s little to say about Teenage Engineering that hasn’t been said. Every review of the sleek Swedish audio brand's gadgets commences with a hot take that ultimately underscores the same points: While their gear is quirky and astonishingly expensive, it’s tough to hate what they’re doing when they do it so well.

Within the synth space, and the broader realm of Very Online People who make music between bouts of doomscrolling, the Swedish gearmaker functions somewhat like comedian Tim Robinson’s Netflix series I Think You Should Leave. The final product is proudly defiant concept art that’s brilliant but also kind of annoying. It’s critically acclaimed, yet clearly not for everyone. And the memes that swirl in its wake are pure gold.

When compared to its brethren in the brand's “Field” series of ultraportable musical devices, the TX-6 makes a compelling case for being the most useful and worthy of its hefty $1,199 price tag. At its core the TX-6 is a mobile USB-C interface and standalone mixer, with an impressive six stereo ⅛-inch inputs packed into a sturdy, handsome little unit that’s smaller than a deck of cards. Plug an audio source into one of the top-mounted jacks and the small black-and-white display asks whether you’re using a stereo or dual mono source. Adjust highs, mids, and lows with the cutest little trim pots you’ve ever caressed, and the vertical sliders below adjust each track’s volume, which outputs to a ¼-inch jack at the bottom of the unit.

A white knob under the display screen steps gently as you turn it left or right to adjust the master output volume. A click of the knob opens up an expansive menu of options like tempo syncing, Bluetooth connectivity, and defaults settings for the channel knobs. A pair of color-coded FX buttons toggle effects like reverb, delay, and EQ, and the shift button unlocks a world of menu diving that lurks beneath the TX-6’s small but mighty surface. The USB-C port offers a driver-free, class-compliant connection to an iPad or the desktop device of your choice. It even works seamlessly with an iPhone through USB-C to Lightning, via an MFi-certified connection. Insert a thumb drive in the USB-C port and you can record a live stereo track directly to the drive from the TX-6’s master mixdown channel. You’ll need to furnish your own mic to capture audio on the fly with this method, but it’s a tad more practical than the similar workflow you’d find on the TP-7.

Photograph: Pete Cottell

A Teeny Tiny Mixer

It’s no surprise the unit's diminutive size necessitates significant tradeoffs that a traditional studio-based musician will find annoying. Plugging in a guitar or a traditional microphone requires a converter, and the plastic housing of the average ⅛-inch connector you’d find at Amazon or Guitar Center is a tight fit next to the other inputs. Pair that with the lack of 48-volt phantom power for condenser mics and your best bet is either a cheap lavalier mic with a built-in ⅛-inch output or a newfangled influencer mic like the Tula or the Austrian Audio MiCreator. Teenage Engineering sells its own connectors, of course, with prices ranging from $12 for a simple ⅛-inch to ⅛-inch cable, to $19 for a stereo ⅛-inch to dual-mono ¼-inch cable.

Photograph: Pete Cottell

Knobs on the channel strips are almost as tight, but textured metal and smooth action make it easier than expected to dial in EQ curves or alternate settings like panning, input gain, and compression. As nice as the tactile feel of a knob may be, the TX-6 really shines when you use Bluetooth to pair it with an external controller that can send Bluetooth MIDI (BLE) messages to its knobs, both physical and virtual.

Teenage Engineering did a commendable job of publishing a MIDI implementation chart that makes sense to anyone who understands the basics of MIDI, and the amount of “hidden” features one can access on the TX-6 via some clever MIDI programming is staggering. Whether you’re automating reverb, cutting lows before brutal EDM drops, or implementing more granular adjustments to input gain or the squishy built-in compression, the usability and value of the TX-6 is supercharged once you’ve taken the time to map everything in the MIDI chart to digital buttons and faders on a USB controller with a WIDI jack or a BLE-friendly iOS app like Loopy Pro. It even has a built-in synth and drum machine engine that can be “played” with an external MIDI controller. Neither sound particularly great, and it’s not possible to swap out the existing sounds with your own, but it’s a cool feature that can kickstart inspiration in a pinch.

The combination of price, aesthetics, and design quirks found in TE devices immediately beg the question of who it's for. The TX-6 is no different in this regard, but it’s easy to imagine that a tiny box anyone can use to plug into their phone and record impromptu jam sessions, assuming they have the means to plug their gear into the thing, is far more useful for well-heeled normies than a luxe voice memo recorder or a laughably overpriced folding table.

Photograph: Pete Cottell

I’ve lost entire weekends with the TX-6 as the central hub of my iPad-based setup that uses Loopy Pro to stack layers of sound coming from a handful of synths and guitars. The process of plugging things in quickly and quickly adjusting their levels and EQs to fit in the mix could not be easier. An AUX send at the bottom of the TX-6 makes it easy to send each channel through a chain of guitar pedals and back into one of the six inputs, which can then be EQ’ed and mixed even more. A six-hour jam session with the inputs maxed barely pushes the battery indicator into the red, and it charges quickly thanks to the magic of USB-C. A busker is more likely to get arrested for being a nuisance than pulling the plug due to the battery going kaput. They can bring their entire college glee club with them, assuming everyone brings their own adapters for their mics.

It’s accurate to state that a similarly-priced audio interface would be easier to plug in to for the average joe who has graduated from their Focusrite or PreSonus era, but Teenage Engineering has rightly placed their bets on the chance that not every musician who’s ready to spend more on gear is excited to be chained to a stationary mixing environment. Anything that makes it quicker and easier to hit the record button on the go is worth its weight in gold, and although the TX-6 is expensive, it’s among the best in terms of features and ease of use.