Unfair cost upgrade since the original has only been out for a year. I paid 799 for the original and have to pay another 399 for the upgrade which totals 1200 plus delivery costs. This upgrade cost more than half the price of the original.
And the original costs only 499 now. So we could get the upgrade or buy another OG for 100 bucks more.
Also important to note that Polyend most likely had this version with these options in mind when they released the original play.
R&D for the new processor and engines takes time and research, then you need to test the hardware(although it is Polyend…), get components, etc.
My point being that this has been in the works for a long time and it feels very misleading knowing that they chose to release the Play early.
Reminds me of crypto pump and dumps where the buyers are left holding something devalued while the people behind the project move on with the next scam.
But as I understand it the structure in play is pattern -> project -> song.
So you ca only have 3 synth patches per project… you can’t switch per pattern… really bad imo…
This is crazy. If my other hardware had a 1yr lifecycle I simply wouldn’t buy hardware. I’m very happy with the gear I have that is over 10 years old and still going strong: prism titan interface, vermona perfourmer mkII, etc. I think my motu midi router is over 20 years old. Even stuff like the OB-6 and digitakt are 7 or 8 years old. But 1yr? Give me a break, glad I never bought any polyend stuff. Compare this to the deluge lol.
Now this is an arguably ‘better’ device in terms of features, closer to what it should have been originally, but the Play+ is shoehorned into the original polyend play hardware so that it can be upgradeable. To me this makes the synth portion (which i’d be excited about) seem difficult to use and not the priority of the UI. Labelling still says “Sample Attack” and “Sample Decay” even though that knob controls “Synth Attack” and “Synth Decay” too. that’s just confusing, why not just update the faceplate labelling to work better for this new device?
look at the editability of parameters on the screen, many knobs but two parameters shown at a time? yikes, I’ll agree with others who’ve said this is the ‘not good’ type of menu-diving.
Also, no on-board sampling, still can’t get it right I guess. I honestly think when the Polyend Play++ comes out, that will be the one for me. might only be a couple months!
I’m wondering with all of this product and synthfluencer bashing where the mods are to remind us to be kind to other humans? Is this release different from others?
I AM BEYOND PISSED. I woke up this morning and saw that Polyend, not only, introduced an update version of a product version of something I owned, but took about two to two fifty hundred dollars of value of the product I owned. If my math is mathin, if I update, an additional 400, then it would put at 1200. That the price of a deluge, and yet not as powerful. Bye Polyend 
Look, Play+++ samples! It’s obviously the one we meant to do this whole time! Buy it now for $1000, or trade your old one in for $2000.
2024 is gonna be awesome.
They should have waited another year and used that time to develop the hardware and firmware to actually sample from a line-in. Instead they went premature (again) and fisted all the previous Play owners 
People skills at Polyend are seriously lacking 
EDIT: they are getting savaged in the comments on instagram by anyone who is not a synthfluencer 🫡
Not going to update my Play but just sell it. $400 upgrade is too much. It was half that to upgrade the Deluge, and it’s just a better machine with a better community/company.
Yeah, I hear you. Seems like that’s just a quick firmware thing, when I use my play I tend to think of the project as more of an entire song than a setlist, but I can see how that’s frustrating.
Leaving emotions aside, I agree with this.
I’m sitting here behind my desk which has the Play, Digitakt and Syntakt on it. ST & DT have 10 encoders yet they feel more “hands on” and “knob per function” than the Play ever did with its 16 encoders. Working with drum samples and MIDI sequencing this never bothered me THAT much (I’ve found that I’ve defaulted to using the touch capacitive encoders as buttons to select paramateres and use the main clicky encoder to do the actual editing). But with the new synth engines this UI seems to be more of a hurdle.
For me the perfect all-in-one groovebox would be the marriage of Plays grid and page/encoder UI from Elektron.
Some of the credit there has to go towards the Elektron design being intentionally ambiguous. Like discussed on the point of labeling - with the exception of Digitakt sample tracks having “suggestions” for purpose, it’s about building muscle memory instead of visual memory. If Elektron decided to add a new “machine” to the Digitone, it would fit fine, because the A-H encoders are just A-H encoders and their function will adapt to what is on screen.
Yes, huge props to Elektron!
I’d just love to see other companies steal some ideas for a good UI experience. No need to reinvent the wheel and all that, there’s no shame in it.
Looks like the new Torso S-4 is taking a page out of Elektrons book, so did the Squarp Hapax.
cue elektron droppin’ firmware updates for their current line 
Also i’m seeing 4 synth engines, but looking closer:
ACD - “Japanese Vintage Mono”
FAT - “3 Osc Ladder Filter Vintage”
VAP - “2 Osc Multiple Filter Model Poly”
WTVM - “2-op FM w/ Wavetable Osc”
With the way these are used and edited (per the loopop video)
I feel like this could have been 2 synths.
- Virtual Analog w/ osc and filter models and different mono/poly modes
and - a cool 2-op FM / wavetable oscillator synth.
obligatory positive ending to a negative post:
Polyend is a small company and they’ve put out some really nice products over the years.
I enjoyed the medusa, though there were many complaints about the complete-ness of that product as well. I think this product is well intentioned and definitely a step in the right direction.
I’d love to see another revision with on-board sampling.
I can even forego the menu-diving on the synths, as I appreciate at least having them on board.
I’m curious to see how this sells, and how Polyend updates and supports it in the future!
As someone who doesn’t own the OG play, I thought this was looking good … until I got to loopop’s ‘pros and cons’. This definitely feels … a bit wonky. (Samples features you might expect not available on synths, onlt 3 synths PER PROJECT, ete, etc)
Streaming audio over usb is a pretty big feature… but could that really not be added in a firmware update? That’s something the original should have had at launch.
Oh man this is below the belt.