Really digging mine so far although I am quite disappointed you can’t even listen to the audio in when sequencing external gear while sequencing it. Had my first crash last night too when repeating the fill command. But … i am also finding it quick, inspirational and fun. As someone suggested earlier: repeatedly sampling a single synth note with a bunch of tweaks to the sound, and then triggering random slices, is a blast.
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Dang that’s a good idea (sampling multiple variations of the same sound and slicing)
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how do people find the Tracker for sample mangling and creating more ambient or experimental type stuff? I’ve been looking for a device where I can sit away from a computer and mess up some samples and just work on some nice ambient, experimental or even a little noisy/loud tracks and it’s a real struggle to find a box that can do it all, is appealing to use and is also a decent price
I realise the tracker workflow isn’t “ideal” for this sort of music but there’s very few samplers out there which also have useful extra features, even a simple built in granular synth is amazing for the sort of stuff I want to do, let alone a wavetable synth just making it easy to get some synth-y sounds out there, the tracker is priced nice, seems to have some nice built in effects and possibilities to mangle and mess up samples, it’s just pretty hard to judge as not many people seem to be posting reviews for that kind of use
I’ve been looking at the DT and a Deluge too, but both cost a little over £200 more than this thing, and neither seem super ideal for super messing up samples (the one lfo on the DT is a minor bummer for this, even if it’s super powerful), and honestly a nice big clear display is something I’d be interested in too, so far the Tracker has had some pretty awesome firmware updates, what do people think are the chances we’ll see improvements to the granular/wavetable synths, extra offline and realtime effects and extra modulation destinations? I feel like more additions to those 3 things just make this device even more value to me but it’s hard to judge exactly how much support there’ll be down the line
ideally, one day, I’ll probably just get an octatrack and jump in to learning that thing, but for now the tracker really seems to be one of the best value all around sampler/grooveboxes…
That would be great, I haven’t seen anything along those lines broadcasted by Polyend yet, but I almost guarantee you’ll get a response with some form of answer if you send them an email with these questions.
If you wanna get experimental imo do your self a favour, save the £200 and get a 2nd hand mkI for £600.
At the very least watch a few max marco tutorials before you make up your mind. The fake-outs: ‘live’ reversing and repitching, microtonality, conditional sampling, and comb filter synthesis will start to give you an idea of the difference.
Full disclosure, OT mkI is my only sampler, and the only big box i’ve ever had. I’m interested in the tracker, but the OT covers most of the features apart from fill, granular, randomize, and performance mode stuff like switching patterns per track. You can make your own wavetables in a pretty similar way to the tracker with not much effort.
Automation wise there is no contest, e.g in the tracker you take up one of your two FX slots to microtime, on OT you can microtime, p-lock, and slide between LFO speed/depth, playback rate, retrigs, and settings for independent FX per track. Pick up an FM radio for a fiver if you want one of those.
Just felt this needed saying, because if you want to experiment, there’s no contest here. 8 audio recorders that can playback simultaneously (and then be recorded by another recorder, and played and recorded, and…), as well as the ability to stream any length samples you want.
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what the heck is conditional sampling that sounds very intriguing?
This morning, I laid down the first pattern where I’ve felt, this might be a keeper. I realise now any comparisons with the Digitakt are kind of silly, at least from my end. They’re so different, it comes down to a more fundamental choice if the Tracker’s for you or if it’s not, no matter if you compare it to something else or just shopping for anything.
I kind of agree and then I don’t, @Merv with your thoughts on the Octatrack, saying it’s no contest. The wavetable and granular features of the Tracker shouldn’t be underestimated, it handles chromatics much better than the OT, the performance fx are like a binary versions of the OT’s crossfader but with a different take on the overview, and the fx lanes and their limitation in numbers, mean you approach the track in a different way, taking you to different places.
I was on the OT for years, and the one thing that always summed it up for me when it came to Elektron’s beast was that it took me to places I wouldn’t find without it. Not all kits do that. I’d say the same goes for the Tracker. It will take you to places you otherwise wouldn’t find. And those places will not be the same as the OT’s.
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While there can always be improvements, this is how the current setup sounds already for exactly the ambient-style work you’re asking about:
I made this for the current Disquiet Junto project which asked people to create slow tracks that become even slower in time.
(Full disclosure: I am a Tracker user turned collaborator. I started as a regular Joe buying the device from Polyend back in May since it was a dream come true to have a tracker in hardware form. Then, due to their openness on their support channel it turned out I can help programming the firmware. I’m not a full-time employee though.)
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Cool. Not seen any teardowns and not opened mine. Is it stm32? That was my guess. How much flash is there left? I’d love it if they opened up the source code one day…
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@circuitghost cheers for the take! As I said OT is my only sampler so far, and it seems like my main gripe with it (the inflexibility of patterns) is something you’re also invested in challenging when it comes to hardware. I really appreciate your clear and verbose breakdowns, why features do or don’t work for you, and how products compares to others. it’s been very useful on my hunt for a supplementary sampler, so please keep doing your thing!
@captain8 described in detail here, conditional sampling is using MIDI loopback on the OT to trigger the record buffers with MIDI tracks. This let’s you use trig conditions (1 in 2, 50%, etc) to trigger sampling. Record buffers can be assigned to audio tracks, so you can have a track playing the buffer which ‘updates’ as you overwrite it. 8 x MIDI tracks x 8 x record buffers x 8 x audio tracks.
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You nailed it right there. That’d be my main and core gripe with their stuff. Elektron do a lot of stuff really really well. Tools for coherent song writing are not one of them. Ironically, the Octatrack’s song mode is actually pretty good compared to what came next, in the analogue machines, and then they must’ve realised “Aw, we just can’t do this at all so let’s not even try”, and dropped it all together from the Digi series and onwards.
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Did you try the latest firmware 1.2.1? From the changelog:
– It’s now possible to play pads and use the sequencer over the MIDI output in the Sample Recorder section,
– New external MIDI recording options in Config – only notes/velocity/microtiming/velocity+microtiming,
– Start/Stop live recording without stopping the sequencer
I would like to know if is possible now sequencing the external synth and at the same time to sample incoming audio from the synth back to the Tracker?
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You can sample the incoming audio when playing back patterns but you must be in the sample recorder page. If you exit this page then you can no longer monitor the input (I’m not in front of my tracker right now but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works).
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this is a really awesome track, it’s good to hear it’s already this flexible and if they keep expanding the firmware as much as 1.2.0 did I really can’t see why this thing wouldn’t become some sort of value classic, the features at this pricepoint seem pretty unbeaten bar just using a laptop and software
and yeah I feel the comments on the octatrack, I think it’s something I want to end up getting one day anyway when I have larger set of hardware to use with it and utilize some of the live looping and sampling possibilities but I’m still pretty new to music and I think the tracker fits in a budget and smaller space lot nicer right now, and honestly I can’t escape the cool flexibility of having a built in wavetable & granular synth, that sort of thing is super what I’m looking for when combined with using samples
it’s a little hard to tell from videos, is there now a delay and reverb send per instrument? a lot of the videos floating around just have old firmware where it’s just a delay, it’s a pretty unfortunate side effect of good firmware changes is it’s a little hard to keep track without owning one, but being able to stick delays and reverbs per instrument without taking up an effect lane seems incredibly useful, especially over a granular synth
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I did not get this to work. But I’ll give it another go @davidpro
Ok, so now I got it to work, but it behaves erratically and somewhat inconsistent. It monitors in stereo, which is cool, but since it sums to mono when I record, I’m not sure what good this is. I’m not hearing what I’ll sample until I actually sample. I could see why this would be useful if the Tracker allowed for just monitoring a signal as the rest of the pattern plays, Digitakt style, but since it doesn’t and Polyend has stated (as far as I can recall) it never will, due to its architecture, what am I gonna do with stereo monitoring?
Also, launching a midi track and then hitting record causes the Tracker to either double the steps, reduce them in half or cause a crash. When it does none of this, it works pretty well, though. Since recording doesn’t sync, it just starts when you hit record and the sequencer seems unrelated to this, it’s more like a free form looper style of sampling. Which is fine, I don’t mind. Sampling is quick, easy and editing it and then taking it to town with fx and stuff, is very cool.
The bugs and crashes, I don’t mind. Polyend seems very quick to fix things so I’m sure this will be sorted soon. The stereo monitoring, I don’t get. It’s like “Listen to how awesome your Prophet 12 sounds in stereo, through our Line input. Behold, as this is of no use to you in the Tracker context. Hah.”
If any of my assumptions above are wrong, I’d love to be set straight.
Small edit: It’s pretty cool that you can play the pads as a keyboard from the sampler view, though. I can lay down a chord, press Hold on my Prophet 12 and then sample. Not bad, Polyend. Not bad. Honestly, I think this approach makes more sense for sampling into the Tracker. Find a slice of something. Bring it in. Let the funk commence.
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I just had a quick go on my tracker after I wrote the message and I find all the things you mentioned. Sampling one shots is pretty easy and useful but sampling a sequence is very buggy. Sampling sequences is probably not what they had in mind when they designed the box, but I think they could improve it a little. And I agree with you, the stereo monitoring is pointless!
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Yeah, it does seem like they’re setting this up to actually work with synced recording and stereo monitoring. And yet, I do believe they’ve clearly said this won’t happen. So it’s like, okay?
But it’s very easy to get around this, so it’s not really a problem, more a curious decision from their end.
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Hoping that we can select left/right/both input for sampling in the future…
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how’s the midi sync with the PT with Octatrack patten change? is the octatrack is sync as master or slave?