There was a recent comparison here.
If money was no issue, I would strongly consider the m8. It’s more fun to use and more importantly more powerful. The only knock is the availability of finding a m8.
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You can always test drive the M8 via picking up a cheap Teensy 4 and running the headless version of the firmware.
I like both, but personally prefer Polyends take on the tracker workflow (plus the bigger screen for my bad eyes), and the performance mode has no direct equivalent on the M8.
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I had the original polyend with the jogwheel, but that thing was so underpowered and froze and crashed a few times. However, the form factor of the jogwheel, and mini keyboard to play melodies and use numbers instead of hex was nice. For example importing samples is slow on the polyend, and I get crashes. On the m8 there’s no issues, and slicing is faster too.
Yep, that’s just how they work, the Polyend devices load samples to a RAM buffer, whereas the M8 exclusively streams from the SD card, always. Which is why large files with many slices can cause drift, and SD cards degrade quicker over time. Two very good yet very different approaches.
The M8 also has a much quicker firmware refresh/update cycle, but is driven by a sole developer.
I don’t find importing samples on the Mini significantly slower than streaming on the M8, I also find the slicer and waveform view rendering much quicker on the Mini, as the sample is already loaded and available in memory.
In recent firmware I’ve pretty much never had the OG Tracker crash.
Let me come back to my question about sound quality.
Are there any differences here?
I have OG tracker and played a lot with it a never had any crash if I remember (wait, only in 1.7.0. and it was fixed quickly). Maybe other people’s units are broken, I don’t know but my unit has been totally stable.
I have both. Some points:
- Filter on PT Mini is … unlovable. M8’s filter is perfectly serviceable.
- Same goes for the reverb.
- Bit reduction is nicer on the PT Mini than on the M8 (which quickly degrades to unusable levels).
- M8 has per sample clipping / overdrive. It doesn’t sound spectacular. PT Mini has overall clipping / overdrive which sounds very nice.
- Overall sound quality is fine on both.
- On the PT Mini chopping is a bit clunky. On the M8 it’s fairly smooth, but be aware M8 requires you to save the slice markers to the sample file itself whereas PT stores them in the project.
- Resolution (for sequencing) on the M8 is terrible, defaulting to 6 ticks per step. PT, on the other hand, has 100. If you always stick to the grid, this isn’t a problem but for hip hop or other more groove oriented genres M8 is difficult to use. There are workarounds, but they’re clunky.
- On the M8 you’re working in increments of 16 steps and except on the song screen you only ever see data for one single instrument. Of course you can (and will) combine these into larger structures but you’re always working on small parts of your track. On the PT, on the other hand, you’re working inside patterns that contain data for all 8 tracks. Patterns can be 128 steps long.
- Working on the M8 is very fast. The button combos allow you to zip through the interface with incredible speed. The drawback, of course, is that you will have to do a lot of that zipping around because the elements that make up that interface each contain only a small amount of the available functionality.
- Working on the PT is just plain fast. The interface is not as jaw-droppingly awesome as on the M8, but it’s easy to find your way around in and works well.
- Buttons on the PT are mushy. Buttons on the M8 are clicky. They feel really nice but they’ll annoy the people around you.
- Screen on the M8 is very small and I personally need to use its large font mode to make it usable. Screen on the PT mini is generous (twice as big as the M8 rev 1 screen) and very readable.
- Build quality of the M8 is ridiculously solid. Build quality of the PT mini is fine, I think, though quality control can be a bit spotty. I had to have mine replaced.
Overall, I’m leaning towards selling the M8 and keeping the PT. I find I don’t gel with the M8’s granular workflow. On the PT working on a larger scale feels more effortless. I realize this means I’ll have to give up the nicer filters and reverb of the M8.
More generally, I feel that while the M8 has more features, getting it to do what you want requires thought and effort whereas the PT can do a lot less, but everything it does is … effortless.
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But on the PT you still only see 4 tracks at a time I think, not all 8 ?
(Thanks for that summary, BTW)
Yes, 4 tracks at a time, but you can scroll left and right (and up an down) whereas on the M8 what’s on the screen is all you get (except the song screen, which you can scroll up and down).
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you can select 8 or 4 with a button combo. 4 has more visible data. with 8 you can choose which data to view I fink.
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Great write up
One thing to mention is the PT has master overdrive and per channel overdrive although the master is much more sophisticated.
This. You can select either Note, Instrument, FX1, FX2, and review all 8 lanes for that 1 parameter. Given that tracks are a few buttons away, this is normally not normally needed, but a nice option for reviewing a single paraments across a while pattern. Mainly useful for notes and slices imo.
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You can view any two of Note, Instrument, FX1, FX2 simultaneously if you wish (all 8 lanes).
While holding [1] press any two of those.
Everyday a school day - so you can!
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It is a bit awkward to press two of them and [1] though, if you are holding it in your hand!
So usually it’s easier to just view one parameter at a time. But sometimes it’s useful, e.g. if you use different instruments on one lane and want to see Note and Instrument for all 8 lanes.
This one surprised me. After listening to Benn Jordan’s productions, which he claimed 100% used the built-in reverb, I thought the reverb was one of the strongest points of the PTM.
if it’s the same as the play+ reverb it’s lush imo. that one is a mutable clone iirc, and it’s beautiful.
maybe the mini uses a different one I dunno
Dont forget PTmini can multitrack to daw.
Can M8 do that?