Sorry, this wasn’t meant to be aimed at you specifically @joeyfivecents. Just commenting on the overarching tone of this thread, which was oddly leaning towards suspicion for debuting a new product. Polyend isn’t a huge monster brand and I feel like they need support regardless of how innovative this one new product is. I love seeing healthy marketplace competition and am all for more tools for more musicians.
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I haven’t been involved with Polyend’s history at all, but I’ve noticed a pretty weird sentiment across all channels - here, Youtube, Reddit. Everyone seems to err on the side of negativity, skepticism and not giving them the benefit of the doubt. Assuming that it’s an ergonomic nightmare before holding it, questioning the workflow, feeling betrayed because a new product has better specs than a product that was released something like three years ago, etc.
Just curious to understand this better, as someone who is genuinely interested in this new product and think it could be just the kind of handheld groovebox I’ve been looking for.
I think it stems from how buggy Polyend tends to release products. They are known for the initial release not being refined, and it taking a few updates to patch the issues. There are a couple of outstanding issues that still exist from launch, that have been improved, but still aren’t great with the Tracker, and I would guess that is what people are frustrated with.
Despite the issues with the Tracker of all the companies I’ve bought gear from they’ve always been super transparent and open to ideas and suggestions. The Medusa, Tracker, Play, etc. have evolved from community engagement. The Tracker now is vastly different feature-wise than it was on launch because of that engagement. Join their forum and you can see that engagement from Polyend.
I don’t know where the support negativity originates (beyond the bugs obviously). I’d imagine a few had bad experiences from personal expectations beyond what was resonable. I’ve always had a good Polyend support experience. They replaced my Play when I had a random key issues. Bugs I found in a firmware have been fixed in the next firmware, etc.
I’d recommend the Tracker (and the Mini) to anyone. It’s an amazing device, and most of the issues have plenty of workarounds. Just approach the new hardware with the understanding that it might have issues and not be feature complete on launch.
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I think the complaints mainly spring from:
- Bugs
- Poor midi sync
- The flaky jogwheel (had a busted one and never trusted the replacement to last that long)
- The change to a plastic body without informing everyone of the change beforehand
- Little things like no longer including the excellent dust cover
And so on. And I guess Medusa was abandoned rather early. Same for Seq, I guess.
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Not sure if honest brand loyalty or folks here have affiliation with PE. Would be good to have some disclosure on that.
There’s a reason folks are disappointed on every forum except backstage
Don’t forget about the loud click when you turn the MK1 on and off.
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These negative comments remind me of what we went through with Pioneer and there sp16. Disappointment in the lack of updates and then they introduced the djs1000 similar to the sp16 but with some added features at this point sp16 owners were fuming. There reputation went downhill and became untrustworthy and many said they would never purchase another product. I don’t think PT is at this point yet but they should be careful and listen to there customers like Elektron.
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Cool man. Got it.
Thing is, you don’t have to get it or keep it. Not happy, don’t buy it, or sell it. Lots of options out there.
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You think Polyend has people going out promoting Polyend? lol.
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Here’s my disclosure.
I have zero affiliation with PE.
I owned a tracker for about 6 months a year or so ago, liked it but ultimately sold it (can’t remember why) nothing else that PE have made before or since is of any real interest to me.
I know a few people that have owned trackers, none had much in the way of complaints about bugs or it being unusable. Sure, it’s not a perfect bit of kit and some will suffer with more bugs than others and that’s shit, but hardly unique.
Im not sure clicking on power on/off is a massive issue though, half my gear does that. Seems a bit of a petty thing to complain about.
But yeah, everyone who sees things differently to you is some sort of paid shill…
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And the bug reports!!
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Clickety-clack, motherf**er.
I think that’s going to be my new tag line.
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I’ve been excited for what they’re doing and I have no affiliation at all. I think a lot of the hate they’re getting echos what TE got with the OP-1 Field release. It’s priced too high, it’s missing feature X, they’re abandoning the original. Etc etc. We’re in such a niche market here I think expectations are way way too high. People expect absolute perfection, at the cheapest price possible, with 24/7 support, and device to receive updates continuously. That’s a fine expectation, but also not always realistic.
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i dont think its unrealistic to hold companies to realistic standards. too many unrealistic exponential growth mindsets and not enough “lets make a solid, quality product” mindsets.
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I can say that this is very much not true. I don’t understand where these blanket statements are coming from. They definitely don’t take action on every report or issue, but to state that they ignore simply isn’t true. I witnesed Polyend answering many questions on Discord and GitHub. The fact they were tracking and developing alongside reported issues on GitHub is something you don’t see from other companies. And now they are doing the same, but on Backstage.
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OP-1 Field came out +10 years after OP-1. Not at all comparable to this situation.
Also, OP-1 at the time was built on the best tech TE could find at the time. Unlike Polyend tracker which was built on old tech (teensy 3.x) at the time of release. TE and Polyend are not comparable.
The microcontroller (teensy 4.1) in the tracker mini was already available when they announced the OG one btw. This was before covid hit. In other words: they could have given users all these options from the start. Instead they decided to give users old tech that they knew would not be able to have many qol updates.
It is true though. They ignored about 70% of the GitHub submissions. See for yourself as everything has been logged.
Still waiting on that YouTube video about the updates you mentioned earlier btw 
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Side note: even OP-1 got USB audio… a device from 12 years ago. OG Tracker? Not possible.
Also that video. At 00:35 he talks about updates to the original.
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