Polyend Synth

The Lounge Other Gear
640

It does sound good but my unit started collect dust soon after purchase as well. It felt buggy and unresponsive.

And to be honest, for me it’s more important that something is fun to use rather than how “good” it sounds. This thing just pissed me off.

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641

I agree, I feel it’s a tremendous missed opportunity because the Synth could be the perfect sound module for a lot of setups. But clearly Polyend designed it from the ground up as a standalone box, with little concern towards playing well with others.

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642

I have both. Bought a Polyend, sold it, and bought one again 2 months later because it is so versatile, and I got one for cheap.

The main differences are:

  • voice count: Synth has less, doesn’t bother me much
  • flexibility: Synth has more engines, a greater variety, more parameters, more filter types (the sh4a only has one filter model that is used for all engines, it’s neither a Juno filter nor a Sh101 filter), and works with user samples (granular, regular, and wave tables)
  • Effects: Synth has 3, Sh4d has a lot more slots, plus EQ for each channel, plus compressor and master eq, and a much greater variety of algorithms
  • UI: both are excellent, knobs are less elegant than encoders for a multitimbral synth
  • controllability: Polyend has Macros, and once these can be controlled via Midi, that’s a game changer for a sound engine. Sh4d has macros if you sacrifice one of the 4 modulation slots for each.
  • sound: both sound awesome.

Other differences:

  • Synth is lighter, has a bigger display, the grid keyboard, and macro knobs
  • Sh4a runs on 4 AA batteries.

Backup: Synth gives you access to the storage, you can access all Performances, Patches, Sequences, Wavetables, Samples, copy, paste, rename, delete them as you wish. That’s great, but comes at a price: program changes do not work, because sounds do not have a slot, so there’s no number attached to the sound, they are a file in the file system, and located by name. And that specific file system is limited to 250 entries per directory, so you get a maximum of 250 performances, 250 presets per engine, 500 samples (250 for grains, 250 for DWA), 250 wave tables.

Roland only gives you a blob with all data, so you you can’t buy sounds without losing all you did previously, and the 256 user sounds and 128 patters are all you get.

If you want a playground for lots of different sounds, get the Synth. If you want effects or Polyphony, get the Sh4d. If you can afford it, get both.

FWIW, I use the Synth at home as a sound module for my Cirklon, and I have a small project going with a friend where I bring only my Digitakt (for samples and as as sequencer) and Synth, and that works just fine.

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643

Thanks for the comparison, it’s difficult to find a multi voice synth, there doesn’t seem to be many options, I have a digitone which is excellent but I really want more synth types. 8 voices is enough for me, of course more would be better but its been fine with the digitone.

I really like the idea of the polyend and looks like an excellent way to jam and come up with ideas. It sounds great and lots of variety too.

I have a few questions, I hope you don’t mind.

I had a polyend tracker a few years ago and it was quite buggy which is a concern especially after reading similar experiences. Have you experienced many bugs?

MIDI Input Pad Mapping to make grid pads playable with MIDI inputs does this new feature have something to do with allowing midi to make use of the chord features? Is there any way to make the chord features work via sequencing it?

Is there any way to get the multiple tracks out or do they just mix down to a stereo channel?

644

There were a few in 1.01, but those have been fixed, I’m not aware of any bugs in v1.3. however I don’t use the Grid much, so I would not know about that.

There are things that I miss (MiDI control for Macros and Mixer parameters, Macro access to Mixer parameters, logarithmic curves for volume controls), but I can work with that.

I’m not interested in the chord features, so I wouldn’t know that.

No, stereo out only. Apparently audio via USB is also not an option, Polyend says that is beyond what the CPU can handle. But t you can pan one sound left, and another one right, and skip all internal FX.

There are two more things that might be interesting:

Most engines in the Synth have two LFOs, all but one engine in the Sh4d is limited to one LFO.

And the Sh4d does not ask you if you want to save your changes when you change a pattern, so you need to be careful to save all your changes. Synth ask you when you change a scene. But that is more of an issue when you use the Sh4d as a groove box.

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645

I think I’ve ruled out she sh4d for now. Yeah the one lfo is pretty bad.

There’s so much to like with the polyend but also a few things that might not work for me. Thanks you for the advice. I might have to look into how well a iPad can be controlled via the digitakt as a possible option.

Now I’m off to watch 100 YouTube videos of polyend.

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646

Honestly if wasn’t going to use the performance controls I’d get an iPad

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647

Making some cc templates for say 4 synth apps on the digitakt. Then jamming could mostly be done with the digitakt itself. The iPad mini seems like a good size too, not sure I want a gigantic screen of the normal size. More videos to watch on how well the system works.

648

If you do end up going for an iPad then going for a M series chip might make sense (possibility of Overbridge for iPad in the future, but only on M-series chip devices)

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649

Echoing the same question.

I tried to search into the manual but no luck.

I’d like to know how’s the midi behavior with this latest fw release, both for sequencing synth from an external sequencer keeping the chord/arp/scale/follower functionalities and if the machine still sends out only the actual triggered pad(s) regardless of chords/arp they would fire within the internal sound engine.

I mean, if you can at least use chords/arp/follower/scale stuff sending just an external note input, like pressing a single pad on the Synth itself, that would be enough to externally sequence the machine without loosing one of its core functionalities

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650

It’s worth noting that the 4D engine allows you to use the fourth oscillator as an lfo. Frankly I rarely run into issues with the SH4D where I wish I had more LFOs or other modulation options. I use it all the time and can’t imagine getting rid of it.

Personally I never touch my Polyend Synth. After the honeymoon phase wore off it kind of lost its luster, for the same reasons others have described above. I thought it would be a fantastic Multitimbral module to sequence from my cirklon, and in practice I haven’t really bothered because I just don’t like using the thing even though it sounds good.

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651
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652

Hey, you’re not the only person who experienced the CPU overload, this is well known and well documented.
Polyend first acknowledged that in November 2024)

We did make the choice to allow users to exceed CPU instead of arbiratirly limiting the device.

If you know what’s going on, it’s simple to avoid this, just read the explanation linked above.

Edit: it’s also been mentioned in this thread several times.

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653

Ok

654

The new synth engine sounds impressive. Overall this synth is one of the best I’ve had regarding sound quality. And is very very easy to create new patches.

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