Polyend Tracker

Other Gear
#1

I will never sell my OP-1 or stop making music on it but, I gotta say, this Polyend Tracker is addictive. Kind of reminds me of when I first got my OP-1. I’m just barely scratching the surface so far but it’s definitely an inspiring instrument. I’ve never used trackers before but was always fascinated with the history and the workflow. Here’s a very short sketch with me just exploring the song mode and trying to incorporate my own samples (I always appreciate the example projects and included samples but I feel like if I don’t use my own sounds in my own songs, I’m cheating a little bit, but that’s just my own hang up).

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#2

I love my Polyend Tracker. I would never ditch my TE gear either, but I admit the Tracker’s become one of my favorite pieces of gear.

#3

It’s deep, like op-z. But also immediate and fun, like op-1.

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#4

man, that art work on a skin or outer shell is so doope, :star_struck::rainbow: … i keep rewatching your video and finding new things in it​:drooling_face:

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#5

Glad you like yours, I just ordered one of these myself!

Some of the first digital music I made was in Modplug Tracker, back in the last century / millenium.

I love the OP1 but i find its sequencers aren’t enough for big songs, and I end up playing it into the computer these days… so I got the Tracker hoping to separate myself again from the computer for the majority of the song production process.

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#6

The Polyend Tracker is magnificent like the OP-1 amazing amount of thought went into it, and continues to be improved with attentive firmware updates.

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#7

This thread piqued my interest, but I have a Deluge. Can anyone here with a Polyend and OP-1 compare it to that?

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#8

I have Polyend Tracker and OP-1. I don’t know much about the Deluge, but they look pretty cool. I can answer questions about the other two though…

#9

A little collection of my first few jams on the Tracker

2 Likes
#10

Sounding good!!
I just received the Tracker today, had a 10 minute playaround and already got something cool out of it. I think the combo of easy sampling and powerful chopping and sequencing is a good one.
It’s gonna be a while before I get to making a full song, and I am wondering how I can avoid making things too grid-like. I both love and hate how often I play drums by hand on the OP-1 and get them sorta-in-time. I suppose I’ll use the Tracker’s grid as a base, but insert some live elements so it’s not too perfect.

#11

That’s always the challenge for me too- trying to avoid sounding grid-like. A neat trick I use is finding a sort of long sound and letting that play over the next pattern in Song Mode. If you trigger a long sample in a pattern and don’t put in a Note Off event, it will just keep on playing over the next pattern.

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#12

If you happen to also be on the Elektronauts forum then you’ve already seen this. If not, here’s a little feature I have on Polyend’s What’s Up blog:

2 Likes
#13

#14

Anybody knows how the Polyend compares to the M8 Dirtywave?

#15

They’re both hardware trackers but that’s about the extent of it. Polyend Tracker can be had. M8 has not shipped yet and the initial preorder is sold out. M8 is based heavily on LSDJ for Nintendo Gameboy. I can report back a little more after I get my Teensy-powered M8 Headless running. Just haven’t hooked it up yet.

#16

Yeah I think that PT is more like a legacy tracker with a modern spin, M8 is more like LSDJ with a modern spin.

M8 seems to have a bit more in the way of features, PT seems a bit more user friendly, although that isn’t to say M8 is bad in that regard, but PT has more dedicated buttons and less combos to remember.

I have not used M8 but I am interested in it, I have used LSDJ and PT and Octamed.

#17

Here’s some very short OP-1 and Polyend Tracker action, if you’re into the whole brevity thing…

3 Likes
#18

polyend screen looks sharp !
what happened to the colorful shell from the first video? is it removable ?

#19

Colorful shell is the Legowelt designed special edition.

Cheers

1 Like
#20

No, I still have it. I have a Tracker problem.

3 Likes