All this chip shortage talk is very legit. The shortage messed a lot of things up. However, Elektron was able to release Syntakt, Dirtywave was able to release M8(also teensy based).
So how come Polyend could not get their hands on chips when a much smaller company, Dirtywave, was. Perhaps Dirtywave had already stocked up.
To my knowledge there was no other company putting out products with underpowered specs besides Polyend.
In the case of Dirtywave they are tiny and probably don’t have a massive payroll to support and it’s not been very easy to get hold of M8s at times.
Polyend aren’t Roland, but they are on sale at major retailers.
If Polyend released the Play and the Play+ at the same time, like em’ Yamaha FGDP-30 and FGDP-50, would people (for those who are) be still as mad with them?
Yeah valid.
I do fundamentally believe that consumers should not take the fall for any financial issues that arise within a company.
However this is all just speculation from our part. I’m genuinely trying to understand what’s going on with Polyend.
But without any communication in regards to why they released an underpowered product a year ago and now release a version that, could have been made a year ago too, it’s hard to process the logic behind this choice.
Especially when considering the price they are asking for the upgrade. 399 is a high tax to pay for early adopters wanting to upgrade their already expensive machine.
Anyhow, my point being, I personally hope they will be more transparent with their roadmaps so users can make an informed decision.
No because that’s a fair choice. Like how Ableton put out Push 3.
Polyend is an LLC, so there’s no shareholders. The sole owner is Piotr Raczynski, though it seems like he sold 10% of the company recently.
Financially savvy people might have a look at their performance figures here:
I’d only note their profits fell in 2022 dramatically, likely due to high op.costs, while revenue was nearly exactly the same as in 2021. Before that revenue was three times less and profits a whopping ten times less, and nothing to write home about in absolute terms. (less than $100k profits in 2020, even less before that, though 2020 or 2019 figures are the same which must be a mistake).
True. Other electronic gadgets like Sony cameras or DAP, Samsung phones and Apple iPads also give incremental upgrades almost on a yearly cycle.
I don’t buy those things. And camera’s only body’s cause the lens is how you upgrade, not for a few MP’s more. But that’s quite well understood.
Why would you be? I wouldn’t. But it’s not quite black and white is it? I mean they undercut the tracker by quite a lot. I don’t think they had to do that because the big one still has the keys, the dial and a big appeal. That cost them quite a bit and so people could have got bargains and polyend could have kept the prices competitive. But it’s the upgrade model and what we’ve learnt that is not good made worse.
I completely agree.
I think what they have done is a bad decision, but I’m trying to understand why they did it.
The temptation is to see everyone who sells a product as “The Man”, but having run a small volume audio tech company that made hardware it’s a punishing industry to be in so I have more sympathy than most for Polyend.
Yes but it’s still a sloppy desicion.
So from their realisation discovery they’ve probably found better PCB components that’s cheap and can handle much more tasks and they’re just straight up replacing the existing product.
Instead of developing a new product they’ve just slapped it into the existing one cuz easier. Lazy way to profit means. I’m sure that they haven’t planned this in couple of months. Either they had this in their mind to do (which is worse) or they’ve found this and been working on it right after the release - which is sloppy.
Idk what ever it is, it’s very amateurish.
Edit, I’ve changed my mind pls read my reply.
it was a really bad decision whatever it was.
like, materials & some of the design / build choices on the tracker mini are terrible. it feels really cheap,
But… it’s a fkn amazing little yoke. a mini breakcore machine with a monstrous sample library & mic in my backpack. it’s really damn good.
it’s a real shame they keep messin up. for themselves as well as the rest of us. I wish them well.
simple…buying power, chip manufacturers priorities bigger customers first. also depends on demand for specific chips from specific manufacturers. If you need chips from a supplier who has a massive backlog or limited stock then you wait a long time. Korg had issues getting the Raspberry Pi boards for the Modwave/Wavestate etc took them 2 years to get them eventually.
almost every electronics product manufacturer had to tactically look at products and either wait for the chips they wanted (revenue loss) or re-design with new silicon that was available. I don’t think anyone here is really aware of the extreme challenges that hit the market, I work for a massive networking company (fortune 500) and we were outgunned by the a PC manufacturer simply because the bought more chips from Intel. We were forced to re-design some products in 3-4 weeks or wait years for a chip that wasn’t available. The whole industry had to do the same
Rytm owners waited patiently about 2-3 years for that update for a flagship product costing $1000’s, and they still didn’t get that fabled 2nd LFO which appeared on the Takt’s
Hence my question as to how Dirtywave, a smaller company than Polyend, was able to do it.
better decision making most likely
To be fair, Elektron never promised this and are actively looking into ways to make it work. No second LFO, but man what an amazing upgrade. It was not needed as everything worked almost fine, unlike other products that launch and stay in a broken state.
Does anyone know if the Play Plus features class compliant usb multitrack audio?
From what I read it does! Nice