If by scenes you mean patterns or variations, no. See these feature requests:
The more time I spend with Play, the more I like it. My only gripe (besides not having an audio input- nothing I can do about that) is I keep accidentally activating knobs. I’ll be adjusting something then avert my eyes for a split second and when I look back at the screen, I’m changing a parameter that shouldn’t be changed because I accidentally brushed my finger against the knob when I wasn’t looking. I guess I’ll just have to be more careful. So this is the setup I want to work with right now (including my guitar). I don’t want to add a mixer or anything else right now so, I had to find a way around that. So instead of plugging and unplugging Tracker/Play combo and guitar/Tensor/MC into op-1 field, I just send my guitar signal over the radio waves and use the Tracker’s radio to grab the signal. The Tracker’s audio input is receiving the Play and going into the op-1 field. When I want to switch that up and record some guitar into op-1, I just turn on the Tracker’s sample recorder and choose the radio as it’s input. Works really well. One less piece of gear and one less cable to worry about. Play is sending midi clock and transport control to Tracker. Lots of options and maybe a little overkill since I could just use the op-1 field to create my drums but, I wanted to use a good sequencer again. Play is turning out to be really fun. I haven’t even added my own samples yet. I want to use the midi sequencer on it but haven’t tried it out yet.
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You can turn that knob touch feature off. I turned it off pretty soon after getting it because it was too sensitive and I accidentally triggered it constantly.
I thought you could only turn off the double tap feature.
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Yes, it’s only the double tap that can be switched off. It will still jump to the parameter of the knob that you touch.
Oh my bad, didn’t realize that’s what you meant.
Still extremely aggravated with these touch-sensitive knobs. Maybe they’re just a little TOO sensitive. The memory seems to fill up very quickly too. I’m sure I’ll get used to these little quirks just like I did with the Tracker. Otherwise, I’m having a lot of fun with it, especially using it as a drum machine and not worrying about any other sounds. Variations, Chance, Random, Fill, Track speed, etc. are all lovely. Running it into Tensor and recording it into op-1 field. Starting to add in Tracker too. But it’s also plenty powerful on its own.
I’ll try to post some tracks within the next 24 hours.
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How are people getting on with the Play?
I’m seriously thinking of selling mine, I just can’t see to come up with anything usable tbh. Tried time and again but we aren’t really gelling unfortunately.
What sort of samples/sample packs are people using. Trying to get some inspiration from somewhere, because I don’t really want to flip it.
I found mine incredibly good for coming up with things on the fly and then incredibly bad for trying to develop those ideas any further inside the Play itself. I couldn’t remember where anything was in terms of samples or patterns since nothing is really named. I sold mine off before the latest firmware update that added individual control over the effects as well, which was something I really wanted too.
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I sold mine. Used it for a week and realized I have better AI in my DAW drum plugins.
Not that it sucks or anything, its super cool and you can start really nice tracks with it. It was just redundant for me since I can do all this stuff on my laptop, plus not have to deal with the hassle of importing the Play tracks in.
I said this before but Polyend seems to put most of their budget into paying synthfluencers to rave about how amazing their gear is. They do update their gear but its never quite stable enough or always has some annoying bug that you then have to hope they address one day.
I just prefer a company like Dirtywave, run by one guy who focuses all his effort into the device. Sure, he sent the M8 to some youtubers to get the word out but you can tell his main focus is dialing in the firmware and continuing to add value to what he has sold you. I started with the Tracker, but once I got a M8, Tracker collected dust until I sold it. It just offered no value to me at all after sitting down with the M8.
I think we are at a point of mass oversaturation with gear where 80% of it is cheaply made and the focus is to sell units via Loopop vids and not give people a product that can truly enhance their studio and last for decades. This is not a bash on Polyend, but the reality is that the Play is really expensive. I have plugins that can do similar (or better) to what it does that were $50. It’s just something to think about.
I make sample packs with Sononym, which I bought for $50 on sale and then sequence with whatever I want. An example of a replacement for Play would be Audiomodern Playbeat.
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I mainly use it for drums. Created some of my own sample packs for it and also use a Perkons and a Pulsar-23 sample pack with it.
Most of the time i fill in some steps by hand or randomly and then tweak around until something comes out that i like. I had good results with recording some knob tweaking over the beats.
For me the strength of the Play lies in the quick and simple way to come up with cool grooves without thinking and programming too much. I never made drum tracks that i like that fast.
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But didn’t you kinda know what it could and couldn’t do before you bought it (considering the enormous glut of YouTube vids and user comments)?
I’d been on the fence about getting one for a while but have been put off mainly for the fear that the machine already seems to be pushed to the processing limit of what’s possible and any future updates will only make it struggle more, if it is indeed under-spec’d. I think it’s beautiful design was ultimately blinding me.
I still have mine, though not using it much at all, as i’ve said before the Play is quick to get a beat or idea going, there is no denying that, however, the problem is in the creation of melodic tracks, it seriously lacks in this department, there is a complete lack of control over tonal samples, there are no amp envelopes, no sample note length, there is still no sample slicing, no audio editing, its a beat generator/sample player with randomisation that is it for £700! The last update was allowing users to edit effects, something which should have been available from release, I knew what I was buying but I really didn’t think it would be this much of a let down.
As for alternatives, yeah I have Playbeat and it’s a great tool, however it’s missing the randomisation algorithm’s of Play and it also does not allow you to change sample per step, if they add those features it would be a game changer for them.
As for Play if there are no significant updates in the next firmware, i’ll be selling it on unfortunately, i’m just a tad disappointed in Play as a groovebox and got caught up in the hype of it being called a Deluge 2.0
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Yeah I totally agree with you. I can get some great beats going quickly, and not bad bass lines, but anything melodic it falls over for me. I get frustrated and then end up scrapping the pattern.
I sold my circuit rhythm to part fund the Play, but I think I may have flip reverse it!
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Yeah I totally get where your coming from, i’m sure other folk using it have the same thoughts when it comes to creating melodic parts on the Play mate, it needs to improve drastically in the future updates or I can see them being flogged going off other people comments here and on Youtube.
I think it’s the Deluge for me, with the oled screen upgrade and the upcoming firmware updates which will hopefully make full use of it, the only thing i’d miss on the Play are it’s randomisation algorithm’s.
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Did I kinda know? Of course. I wanted to see it for myself and my own wokflow so I grabbed one. I expected more when it came to the melodic parts, and the drum randomization was nice, but didn’t blow me away.
After doing that for a week or so I decided it wasn’t worth the expense and sold it.
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I’m in the exact same boat; all my melodic stuff sounds terrible. I’m just going to accept the fact that’s it’s basically a nice drum machine and treat it as such. Or sell it. Or team it up with the Tracker and use it’s strengths. Nothing else (at least that I have found) has the same Chance and Randomization tools (well, the Elektrons I used to own that I had to sell to survive, that I miss terribly). One day, I’m gonna get an OT again, and maybe another Digitone. I’m gonna keep trying with the Play for a while longer and see if I warm up to it a little more. Not giving up so easily just yet- however, it doesn’t give me the same feeling Tracker did initially- basically the feeling that anything is possible and constant , unwavering inspiration.
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This is probably not the place here, but I’d be curious to know in what way the Tracker (which I own but don’t use much anymore) has an edge over the Play, that seems like a much more elaborate machine.
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Polyend Tracker… a proper sampler, sample slicing, sample playback modes, sample looping for single cycle waveforms, which help create simple tones out of them, basic wavetable & granular synth engine, envelopes, mixer, note on/off/fade
Polyend Play… auto beat generator, randomisation & chance algorithms that’s about it
and the Tracker is cheaper!
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Thx for the clarification!
Watching the videos I had the impression the Play was much more… fun (for the lack of a better word). I mean giving more intricate/interesting results.
But I have to admit I haven’t dug much further than this first impression.