Polyend Tracker

Wick · January 31, 2021, 8:16pm

any polyend tracker midi sync with a octatrack users? want to hear your feedback

jayhosking · January 31, 2021, 8:28pm

Yeah, that’s an RE-20. I’ve come to really prefer it (I used condensers on vocals for years) because of the reduced room noise it picks up, and because the design somehow mitigates the proximity effect. And thanks!

smkh · February 1, 2021, 2:19pm

Does the line in accept a stereo mini jack cable or do I need a splitter?
Specs say: “mono line in”

And while we are at it: How good are the AD and DA’s? I assume not very good the price considered?

Peter118 · February 1, 2021, 2:48pm

Yes, it does accept a stereo mini jack.

smkh · February 1, 2021, 3:00pm

So how does this work? Do you hear the left or right channel?

cold_fashioned · February 1, 2021, 3:03pm

I’d say they are actually really good. The main output is of really good quality (to my ear, at least). I’ve only done a little bit of sampling through the inputs, but everything came through accurately.

Edit to add: the input is summed to mono when sampling.

rad.sewage · February 1, 2021, 3:06pm

smkh · February 1, 2021, 3:06pm

Thanks! I guess I’ll order a splitter too then. Unless I stick in the stereo jack half way, probably

smkh · February 1, 2021, 3:07pm

Ah so you can choose to sample either the left or right channel in the sampling menu?

I usually avoid merging a stereo signal to mono

rad.sewage · February 1, 2021, 3:18pm

This is a good question - one of several about sampling that is not explicitly described in the manual. AFAIK the stereo signal is summed internally. I think I saw this discussed somewhere further up in this massive thread.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
The other main question I have is if the Internal audio continues to play while sampling External audio.
I just received my Tracker the other day, but I haven’t had the chance to test this yet.
Tonight I should finally have time tho!

smkh · February 1, 2021, 3:33pm

On the Renoise forum I’ve read you can hear the input and record it while the sequencer is playing. They added this feature somewhere in a previous update. It would be nice if you can confirm this, Rad Sewage
Hearing the input while the seq is running is crucial for me. We have long past the MPC60 era. Great box, though
The official manual is kind of a turd TBH

smkh · February 1, 2021, 3:46pm

I have so many questions…
Sorry for hijacking this thread. But here goes:
If you browse through the list of chords, can you preview them? Assuming the track is sending midi data on the correct channel to your external synth.
Also, can you assign a midi channel to a track? Or do you need to input this into the fx lane? I’m using a digitone which listens to channel 1 to 4

rad.sewage · February 1, 2021, 3:54pm

This thread was almost 1700 posts long before the first Elektronaut got their hands on one so I wouldn’t worry about hijacking anything haha.

I’ll try to answer your questions if I can, but I haven’t even turned mine on yet! Maybe some more experienced users can help out.

sunfalls · February 1, 2021, 4:11pm

Currently you cannot choose L or R channel when sampling. Also, when sampling with a Mono cable, only the Left side is heard when monitoring.
See GitHub issue posted here… give it a thumbs up !

sunfalls · February 1, 2021, 4:15pm

If you add Midi Chord as a Step FX, in edit mode, you can hear the preview of the chord whilst turning the knob.
Currently you cannot assign a midi channel to a track. It’s only per Step on a track at the moment. This would be great I think and I believe its mentioned in the GitHub.

smkh · February 1, 2021, 4:27pm

Ok so the way to achieve it currently I assume is by doing the following:
Select entire row fx 1 or 2, insert MIDI channel. Go to note, preview chord, input chord. Is that correct?
So that means you only have one fx slot left for a CC message. Which is kind of a bummer

smkh · February 1, 2021, 4:28pm

This isnt problematic but surely is annoying

Stazma · February 1, 2021, 4:44pm

Hey there everyone ! Here is a new “tips & tricks” video from me on the Tracker:

jemmons · February 1, 2021, 5:42pm

I don’t think so? Not that I’ve been able to figure out, anyway. Green always follows playhead and red always keeps the selection focused.

Kind of? You can change the visually highlighted bars by moving project settings’s Pattern Divider up to 12 from 4.

But that’s just visual. To make everything work with your click you also have to set the metronome time signature to 12/4 (which you can do in the metronome settings). But this doesn’t do anything to change the number of steps/BPM, so you’d also have to increase your BPM to match the previous tempo. That might throw off other things if you’re syncing clock.

So ultimately this might not work for what you want. I usually do triplets with the micro-move FX. It’s not very fun, though (and takes up an FX slot on those notes).

smkh · February 1, 2021, 6:45pm

Thanks for the reply.
However this is very inconvenient because of the sync problem you already mentioned.

On top of that, if your tempo is all weird and super fast, the fill/roll commands will get pretty redundant as I assume they will start to sound like a high pitched wave as the repeats are just too fast.

I don’t feel like Polyend thought this trough thoroughly. They included some hacky features to setup odd meters, but it doesnt really work very well in practise. I notice you can set the tempo to 800 BPM. That doesnt make much sense. The option is only available to hack your way to odd meters