Polyend Tracker Mini

That’s cool, this one will probably do well for you then.

1 Like

It’s close but not enough for me to bite.

I like the form factor (though not sold on the button UI) and I did enjoy my time with the Tracker. But, they’re just feels like somethings missing. Like a big gap in what this thing should be able to do for me.

Educate a dummy, why are stereo samples the holy grail?

4 Likes

Because they’re so rare

2 Likes

…ist the keystep included? Because :“i’m using this because it’s much more friendly…”

Sold me at last :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Still odd to me that smaller companies (Synthstrom and Dirtywave) can figure out sample streaming from an SD card but other companies with bigger teams can’t (I know Polyend is still a small company but Dirtywave is one guy). I realize 8 minutes of sample time is probably more than enough in most cases but it’s also something you shouldn’t have to think about when making music. Octatrack has had that feature for over ten years now.

Other than that, the button style and layout of this thing look pretty bad in my opinion. No doubt a beefed up full sized MK2 is on the way but way to devalue the original Tracker with this ad campaign.

8 Likes

Polyend discuss this in a post somewhere.

It’s hard on the processor and the PT has a very slow processor.

Strange they put a button in the middle of the d pad, that’s usually where people rest the thumb, whole button layout is a bit weird.

2 Likes

What does that middle button do anyway? I haven’t watched any vids on it yet.

I think there are always some trade offs when it comes to streaming off an SD card… like M8 can’t read and write at the same time to the SD card so no real time resampling where you tweak a sound live, although I am not certain Polyend can resample itself live either. I also think Polyend tracker isn’t running baremetal like the M8 tracker is that’s why it can do emulators and junk also but also likely why the OG tracker has had so many midi issues, hopefully the beefed cpu solves that stuff.

1 Like

Admittedly, the downside on the M8 is requiring a card with fast random-read, and very few card are capable of that. Limited sample size means you can guarantee RAM space and good performance, at the cost of not being able to stream like M8/Deluge

Any news on recording during playback?

I would guess it’s “enter” to edit the selected cell.

Based purely on how their promo video is structured I would presume you can record during playback. Would be a huge bummer if that wasn’t the case. Come to think of it - I don’t think it was possible on the Tracker actually. Been an age since I owned one though.

Edit: Here’s the Tracker info…

Based on the video it previews the sample (I think). Presume it does other things!

1 Like

[quote=“bwo, post:626, topic:192082, full:true”]
I think there are always some trade offs when it comes to streaming off an SD card… like M8 can’t read and write at the same time to the SD card so no real time resampling where you tweak a sound live, although I am not certain Polyend can resample itself live either.[/quote]
You wouldn’t really need to read and write at the same time. I mean, only device I can think of that benefits from that is the Octatrack that I can think of. But even then, the tracker can’t do that anyways so it’s sort of a non-issue.

Yeah but the cards are available and don’t cost any more than other cards. And only the M8 seems to be picky about that. The Deluge can have any SD card as long as it’s above 80Mbps read speed which is most cards nowadays.

I dunno, I haven’t had a great taste in my mouth from Polyend since the Medusa. All of their stuff looks nice but feels underpowered and above all, glitchy.

1 Like

What do you Europeans lads think of PE being the only EU supplier of the Tracker Mini? I don’t quite get it. I usually shop at Thomann and absolutely love their service.

i wonder if the promo vids/synthfluencer vids being honest about any post processing going on with their tunes?.. any tweaking going on in ableton / logic ?
ive watched a few… will look on the actual youtube details, i’m sure it’ll be there.

interesting to see that projects are also compatible with olde tracker… i presume the stereo samples get split across 2 x mono channels and pattern data is duplicated,.

Wow…really?

I didn’t think horses rode that high? WTH?!?

8 Likes

They’ve got quite some history in abondoning the last devices after a few minor software updates…

1 Like