I Went Back to the PO-33 in 2025… and It’s Still Awesome (With One Catch)
- Sunwarper
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
With all the new gear announcements lately, I’ve really been feeling gear acquisition syndrome creeping in. My favorite way to combat that is simple. I go back to gear I already own and don’t use very often and see what it still has to offer.
So today, I’m making beats on the Teenage Engineering PO-33.
It’s old, limited and yes, it’s technically been “replaced” by the EP-133 KO II. But despite the similar name, these two devices feel very different. There’s a lo-fi charm and simplicity to the PO-33 that, for me, got lost a bit in the expansion of the EP-133.
The PO-33 is tiny, focused, and unapologetically simple. And that’s exactly why it’s still useful.
Why the PO-33 Still Works
The PO-33 forces you into a very specific way of working. The bottom eight pads are your drum tracks, or more accurately, your sample chop tracks. When you send a sample into one of these slots, it automatically chops the audio across the steps.
From there, you can go in and trim each step individually. It’s convoluted, no question, but it’s also very hands-on. You stop thinking about waveforms and start thinking about the sound and feel of each chop.
Add in the built-in filter and swing, and suddenly the limitations become part of the sound, feeling more like the early days of samplers with limited memory and features.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that each drum track is monophonic, and the PO-33 only has four voices of polyphony. That means you can’t stack everything on the same step without planning around it. Sometimes that means moving a hi-hat slightly off where you expect it to be. Sometimes it means choosing which sound matters most.
Those limitations slow you down in a good way.
Live Recording and Automation
Another thing that makes the PO-33 fun is how immediate it feels. You can live record patterns, and you can record automation just by holding the record button and moving a parameter (There aren't many parameters, but they can all be automated in this way).
I ended up filtering the drums down and recording that movement live. The result was a drum loop that sat further back in the mix and felt more atmospheric without any extra effort.
At this point, the idea was already working. And that’s usually where I stop with the PO-33.
The Catch
The PO-33 does not resample. That’s one of its biggest limitations. The workflow for copying and making additional patterns is also a little clunky. This is where pairing it with something like the SP404 MK2 makes a lot of sense.
On the SP, I had cassette sim and vinyl sim running on the input. That means the sound gets processed once as it’s recorded, then processed again on playback. It’s not just louder. The compression and saturation stack in a way that gives the loop a ton of character very quickly.
From there, I created two versions of the loop. One with drums and one without. Even without fancy pattern sequencing, that gives you a basic sense of arrangement and contrast to build up a song with.
The Real Role of the PO-33
For me, the PO-33 is not a full song machine. I don’t enjoy chaining patterns or building full arrangements on it. What it is, though, is an incredible starting point. It took about five minutes to get a solid idea going.
Compared to gear that costs a thousand dollars or more, the PO-33 looks ridiculous on a spec sheet. But it’s fun, and I already own it. It still inspires me to make something quickly without overthinking.
It doesn't have to be the PO-33 either, if you’ve got gear sitting around collecting dust, give it another shot.
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