Most are hoping the release of the Mini will bring an update to both devices as they share the same software.
If it doesn’t - then I’d take that as a sign of the future for the OG Tracker
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Polyend have publicly stated it’s going to get more firmware updates.
I imagine they have been waiting on the release of the mini.
“Since many of you are already Tracker owners and might be wondering - we haven’t abandoned the original tracker and are close to finishing the 1.7 update. However the Tracker Mini is on a new platform with a more powerful CPU, so many of the new features like stereo sampling will not be available for the original tracker.”
“OG tracker will not have USB audio, stereo samples, anything that requires a whole lot more power as the CPU is pretty maxed out on OG already. OG Tracker will get UI improvements, all clicks and a whole lot of bugs will be fixed in 1.7 but I’m not sure of everything it will have.”
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I was under the impression the tracker has had a bunch of firmware updates. I owned one for about 6 months and I remember at least a couple of pretty big updates in that time.
Frequency of updates does tend to slow as products mature though.
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İ would be ok to have 1 minutes of stereo actually.
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I don’t think it’s going to happen as I don’t think it has the CPU headroom for more channels regardless of RAM.
It would be cool if Polyend (or any company) gave upgrade discounts and recycled or donated the old units to schools. If I could trade in my old one and pay $200-300 I probably would.
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If they can somehow bring the improved headroom and reduced (eliminated I hope!) popping and clicking to this thing I would rebuy it in a flash. The Tracker is the only piece of gear I’ve sold that I absolutely miss and consider rebuying. It was mostly great but I felt like I had to spend way too much time fucking around with gain staging and smoothing out all those stupid clicks that could come from just about any use of modulation or simply applying the delay or reverb. Of course a working EQ would be a fine thing as well. I’ve had my fingers crossed for many months now and the news of the Mini or whatever they’re calling it has reignited my hopes. Not terribly interested in the Mini though…
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Pops and clicks are being fixed in 1.7
Headroom is a hardware thing.
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I have been getting on much better with headroom issues by starting all tracker projects with every channel at -10db, and doing all the mixing via the volume in the respective instrument pages. Not ideal but is deffo an improvement.
The filter is pretty terrible tho! Would be great if they could add a few diff models.
Still think it’s one of the most intuitive devices I’ve ever used, it’s up there with an MPC for me. Actually the UI is way better than an MP, just doesn’t sound anywhere near as good.
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i am sure this has been said, but can anyone explain to me in short, what is the advantage of trackers ( and specifically polyend tracker ) over lets say, rytm or octatrack, why is it better to have time line vertically instead of horizontally? i am thinking maybe i should try it out. is it capable sampler? comparable to digitakt? i am currently using rytm for sample mangling.
Well, it sure can be compared to a Digitakt but I seriously believe that the Digitakt is way better. For some reason I never clicked with the Polyend Tracker. I bought one last year, learned how to use it but did not see any advantage over the Digitakt so I sold it after 5 month or so. On the other hand, I recently bought an SP-404MK2. I love the SP. That one is a lot of fun… Of course, this is just my own feeling and opinion.
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thanks, do you think it has comparable sample mangling functionality compared to digitakt? i had digitakt before rytm, didn’t like the formfactor .
I have a PT and a OT and besides the PT being simpler functionalities wise, the fact that you can see the full sequencer for each track in one govs xox sequencer where only one track in visible. Also Tracker are like p-lock party every cell of every track can be any sample of your pool, there is no defauly sample as in the OT or DT.
I don’t think it is a matter of better or not but the approach is different in UX and partially in spirit vs the elektron sequencer (while it has been inspired by trackers).
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it does samples time stretching?
Ish? There is a time stretching effect that is… Experimental at best. You can get funny result. There is also the one grain granular synthesis approach if you want to do it old school. Not the same that the OT and not clean timestretch tbh.
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Yes, absolutely, the Polyend Tracker has a completely different sample workflow. If you didn’t like the Digitakt way, you might enjoy the Polyend Tracker
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Not better, just a different way of editing and visualising note and control data, you can work very fast once you get accomplished on trackers, that has never been a concern for me though, but I do like the precision they offer. Essentially a tracker is very similar to Roland microscope step editing or the list edit on MPC/Force, though there are some differences.
Probably a good idea to try out a software tracker first to see if you like it, there are a few free ones.
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i feel the same although i never had a PT. it’s when i researched it wanting to buy, i first tried Renoise and quickly realised it’s the closest thing to OT in software i was looking for long before
What’s the advantage of chocolate over vanilla? There’s only one way to find out.
In case you’re not picking up what I’m laying down, the answer is personal preference.
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I got into the habit of starting things off at -15db every time and pretty much any bigass punchy ringing 808 type bass note would still screw things up and cause a whole lot of fiddling. Which is too bad because other than that and the previously mentioned pops and clicks the Tracker was the easiest/funnest way to make the music that I like.
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