Polyend Tracker

The Lounge Other Gear
6460

I think if I went in with a mindset of trying to write tunes that are polished and “complete” then the Tracker would likely drive me up the wall. There are some things that slow you down on the sampling editing side that would burst the creative bubble for sure. Of course there are things that do the opposite too and really keep a flow going.

But I’m still treating the Tracker as my “get away from the DAW” machine. Almost toy like in my approach. That is not me claiming it’s limited or can’t produce excellent results, it’s just I’m really bad at letting go of songs when ITB and spend ages tinkering. Good or bad, it’s easier to move on to playing about with a fresh blank canvas with the Tracker.

For where I’m personally at right now with my music journey, that actually feels invaluable at the moment! It’s a great little device to have to hand when feeling in a bit of a rut.

6461

Just out of curiosity I wonder are most of the people selling their trackers people who are doing mostly sample based in the Tracker, self contained kind of stuff or people sequencing external gear etc… just trying to figure out if there is any kind of consensus in the majority of the turn over?

6462

I flipped mine purely because of going back in the box with Bitwig. Nothing wrong with Tracker at all – used standalone or as a midi controller for DAW-based stuff. It’s just not for me right now, but I might return in the future and couldn’t care less whether it has a metal or a plastic bottom :slight_smile:

6 Likes
6463

I think for me getting the right samples in the right slots is key to enjoying using it, I was not too sure how much I’d enjoy it before getting it, and once I first laid hands on it I still was not sure at first. But a few hours diving deep and it revealed to me its (future) potential, so I’m happy to invest the time into learning to get what I want out of it. I’m 24 hours in with about 8 hours of time playing it.

I think it is an esoteric box, even for a tracker, it quite reminds me of the Roland MC-4 I used to have. Currently I’m not feeling the realtime recording, seems overly fussy/fiddly although I’m sure this will change with more use. Also I’m kind of rusty in my tracker chops, knowing placement/rhythmic relationships, but I’m confident this will come back to me soon.

I think there are some strange omissions, and some things that could benefit from being changed, however I am mindful of the fact that the purpose of it is to be barebones, but a few enhancements of the kind I’m thinking would not detract from that. I’m running the latest beta and it feels like a beta, it almost feels a bit incomplete/unfinished in a few places - that said I do feel that what is good is very good indeed, so I don’t want it to sound like I’m moaning, even if development of new features was to cease I’d still be happy with it, although I feel it would be a shame.

As I alluded to earlier, revisiting a sample based tracker after so many years away has been quite inspiring, remembering forgotten workarounds and techniques, some of which I will use on the OT albeit with a different method but the same or equivalent net result.

I have not explored all aspects of it yet or RTFM (don’t like pdfs) so there are a few things like moving data which I may not be doing as efficiently as possible, at the moment I’m copying/pasting but I think there are other methods possible?

I think for geeking out and programming tightly precise stepwise music outside of a computer the tracker appeals to my workflow preferences in almost the same way as does Elektron gear, and they compliment each other well.

I’d happily release music made on the tracker alone, put some good samples in and it can sound really nice, there is just enough there I think.

For the kind of music I make most of the time it suits me quite well, I look forward to seeing where it takes me and I take it.

5 Likes
6464

Through Heat this is definitely possible. A resonant high pass to bring out the subs and a bit more crunch on the overall mix really suits it imo.

2 Likes
6465

I was there too and it was quite hard for me to get my ideas down to any kind of step sequencer. But then I tried to imagine or visualize, which keys I would play and where notes and rests should be … after some exercising and experimenting putting in note for note works for me now.

1 Like
6466

I use the tracker as a sample based groove-box in most cases. That and the workflow have been the reasons, why I got the PT in the first place.

Then I tried to control midi gear and it worked excellent as well … but I think it will not become my MIDI brain for the studio :wink:

6467

Tracker arrived today. Just need to get through a day of work so I can get stuck in…

5 Likes
6468

Muscle memory needs some time to build… it will come!

2 Likes
6469

yes probably.
I think I’m not used to work with one shot samples for melodies. Takes me some time to get static samples sound good in that context. I always used synths for that.
I might work more with loops, or use granular and wavetable modes… Or single cycles etc… Use the synth options basically

1 Like
6470

I really hope for x/x iteration in the fx, that would really open up sequencing a lot IMHO.

There seems to be a gate bug where some shorter gate times do not always sound on the latest beta at least.

6471

Me with every one-shot on the PT:

  • Set playback to forward loop
  • Mess with loop points until it doesn’t pulse too much
  • Use the volume ADSR from then on out.

Can’t break free of my synth roots :frowning:

2 Likes
6472

yeah same.
My roots are actually sample related, but rather chopping and manipulating longer samples. Were there is melodic content already integrated.
Would work on the tracker too. But I thought I try composing with one shot samples on this kind of tracker layout

6473

beta 3 is out, p much just some bug fixes

9 Likes
6474

Anyone have an up to date invitation to the discord?

6475
2 Likes
6476

Just realised the PT has no table function, anyone know if it is on the roadmap or requested it? Would be killer to have tables.

3 days in and I’m really enjoying tracker, it does feel a bit feature light though, and I don’t mean it should be renoise in a box, but a few oldschool tracker things are missing which would be nice to have, and a couple of UI enhancements too.

Does anyone know if there is a better way of moving a tracks position other than cutting/pasting - like a track rotate? So you have a track where you want step 7 to be the first step - effectively moving all other steps in tandem.

1 Like
6477

Backspace ?
Position scroll head on position 7 and hit backspace 6 times

1 Like
6478

Backspace and insert unfortunately don’t take account of track boundaries, so events will be lost in cases where they are shifted beyond the first or last step, AFAICS?

2 Likes
6479

yeah that’s correct, it doesn’t wrap around. Would be a good feature if it did

3 Likes