I requested toggle instead of hold as well.
It makes so much sense
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That Dibia$e clip stream was timely - mine landed this morning. First thoughts are gonna be superficial obviously enough, but first impression is good - the attention to detail in the packaging and stuff like the case and cables, SD to usb connector, all really nice. Probably could’ve gotten away with dropping a lot of that stuff and still charging the same, so kudos to Polyend for that. Buttons feel good, had seen some comments criticising them but they work for me. Will admit that I spent my first 20 minutes with it playing Tetris - didn’t even know when I ordered about the NES thing but I’m not complaining.
Did have a few issue with a 128gb sandisk ultra that I bought for this, was pretty temperamental trying to transfer samples on my Mac, reformatted with the tool the M8 guys recommend, but had to use free file sync to get things running. Usb storage mode is pretty hit and miss so far. But got there in the end.
Limited time to dig in but it seems to be clicking pretty quickly - obviously a bit of a learning curve, but I’m starting to feel like I was correct to think that this was about the right amount of tracker for me. Was kinda an impulse buy so was a bit nervous that it’d immediately start wishing I’d held out for an M8, but not looking that way so far.
One thing I’m finding weird is … tempo per project rather than per pattern? It probably won’t be a huge deal for me and how I want to use it, but seems pretty limiting for people who are trying to do do more complete productions on this, especially with chopping. Edit - just after clicking that there’s a tempo fx command, nvm - learning curve, like I say.
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Dibia$e again, feeling pretty fortunate that he’s giving guided tours just as mine landed. A lot of really nice and clear walkthroughs of chopping on the mini from about 15mins.
I’m loving mine, even now I feel like it’s possibly my best groove box in terms of sitting down and working out the two or four bar groove that’s going to drive the track. Really makes it easy to work out how things will sit together. Also went well on the commute which I was a little surprised by. And quick. I’ve been on it a lot all week, but I feel like muscle memory for the buttons and shortcuts came pretty much straight away.
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I’m bummed since I’ve been keeping mine in the backpack whole week (I got mine last Friday) but I had to stand each time I was commuting back & forth from work. The weather is crap in Poland ATM, so people aren’t using bikes as much as they would otherwise, so the trams & busses are packed.
Have you subscribed to the newsletter? They’ve been giving away discount code for (free) sample pack yesterday.
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Yeah, and they’ve been doing this for a while now every month. Some of the stuff has been really good too…
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Wish I could get the codes for previous months’ freebies 
They’re not valid anymore unfortunately
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Yeah, I’ve been getting the packs for a few months now. Pretty good marketing from them as it for sure helped put the Tracker Mini back on my radar. I think they’re really good, don’t seem to be over processed like a lot of other packs.
Re travel, I think it was discussed earlier in the thread, based on past experience it wasn’t a major part of my thinking getting the Mini. But on the first day I had about 20mins on the train and at the end was like … huh, this is actually something. Same thing again on the way home. Pretty much the same thing after that. Next thing I knew I was using the mic to sample station sounds and announcements. Using HD25s which are reasonably compact and rugged. I feel like the super logical tracker approach lends itself to short sessions for me a lot more than more playable instruments. I’ve installed the beta with not input on the macro buttons, but honestly haven’t really used that function so far.
Think there are a few factors going into how much I’m liking this. Last year I went through all my old projects and bounced stems and loops, plus I’ve been building a library of material for the past couple of years that’s pretty well structured and organised. And I already got through the adjustment to trackers in general using Renoise. So was pretty much primed before it arrived.
But the device itself has exceeded expectations - I did wonder was it a bit basic vs. M8/Renoise but that’s actually turned out to be an advantage. It’s clear and to the point. Only issue from the stuff mentioned above is that sometimes my thumb will slip off the shift button when selecting - not a big deal, just a technique thing of remembering on this device you need to apply decent pressure. Double click to toggle would be nice but not essential imho. Synths are better than expected even if programming on this interface is not ideal, I mainly got it for the sampling so this is a bonus.
Only real issue has been the SD card - got a SanDisk Extreme 128gb which I formatted to FAT32 but it doesn’t play nice with my Mac. Dropping over folders any bigger than 20mb or so usually fails. Then I used this tool to format, which I’ve seen tipped in M8 threads, but same issue. Ended up using Free File Sync for all transfers which works reliably all the time.
Still early days and I could change my tune with more time, but right now I feel like not only is this a good device in itself, but it’s also helping me develop better habits for composition that will apply on other devices too. I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of reviews and it’s definitely making sense to me right now.
The layout encourages me to think about how things are interacting. Probably across the board one of my problems is that I tend to write parts independently, then struggle to make them work together. Skill issue, but even so having all parts on one page definitely helps bring this into focus vs. individually playing into a separate clip/track or working on a sequencer lane.
Also writing chords note by note across 3 or 4 tracks seemed like a pain, but in reality it helps focus on voice leading and linear movement within progressions - skill issue again, but I’m usually a sucker for big block chords, so a little nudge to break out of that is very welcome. Fill function is also working great, in a similar way encourages me to think about the shape of basslines and melodic parts.
So yeah, really happy so far, early days though.
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Mini works as USB Storage when connected via USB to the computer, so you don’t have to remove the SD Card to transfer data 
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Yes, that’s my impression as well!
It can actually break my 7 years of dry spell of not being able to finish anything 
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Yep, that’s really handy. I think the issue is between the card and the Mac rather than the Mini, I get the same problem whether I use USB mass storage on the device or take it out and use a usb adaptor. Haven’t seen any problems on the device itself once the stuff is transferred, but it does make me a little nervous so I’ve been backing up my projects as I go along.
I’m also just hitting the stage of getting into how it’ll integrate with all my other gear - gonna have to hook it up to synths and other samplers via midi over the weekend, seems like a guaranteed good time. I tested exporting a .it file into Renoise, which kinda works but doesn’t seem to bring instruments with it correctly and doesn’t include track effects. Understandable, and it’s fine as a starting point, but would be nice to be able to pull with minimum hassle into Renoise/Redux.
Definitely very possible to work start to finish on this, but aesthetically I prefer to have at least some chaos and played parts to balance the logical side. So probably will want to get the basis of the groove down on the mini - which it’s really excelling at - and bring it elsewhere to jam over. I guess I could try midi out or stem export, but so far I’ve found the quickest thing was just to remake the groove on Ableton/Push.
Please upvote my FR here which I think could be useful in this scenario
Polyend just announced a sexy aluminum special edition of Tracker Mini that makes me reach for my wallet. No idea of the price yet, but this makes me go rewatch all Tracker Mini videos on Youtube.
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dammit Wuola!!
Looks nice, jogwheel could be helpful, but I think I refer coloured FX/note buttons. Guess that’s why there were some deals going in the past few weeks - ain’t complaining. Hopefully gonna drop the new firmware alongside.
interesting
Well f**k.
I guess I’m sending my Mini - bought just a week ago - back to Polyend, then.
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So bright, so beautiful
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wonder if it would be too reflective in the sunlight