Ahhh, important difference, but fortunately same outcome for my use case. Thank you for the detailed answer on that!
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I have a question about mobility.
Would you also use the Tracker + for this application or would you prefer the mini?
I personally see some advantages of the + over the mini, but I’m not quite sure about the size.
The + is about the same size as a Macbook Air M2 with the same weight
Thanks for your help and answer.
Overall - disregarding mobility here for a sec - i personally love the OG Tracker/Tracker+ formfactor.
I prefer the playable pads, it fits my workflow far better. I like to jam on the device when trying to find ideas or come up with things.
It’s bigger screen also makes working on it easier. I feel overall the workflow is faster on the original formfactor. That being said - it may just feel faster to me, as i have way more hours on the original tracker than on the Mini. I’m sure there is some sort of bias going on there 
The jogwheel will be purely personal preference. The solution that Polyend has on the Mini with the small and big +/- buttons works just as good/fast as the jogwheel on the bigger device.
Now regarding mobility:
Carrying a powerbank for the bigger Tracker, wouldn’t add much more weight to what you need to carry around anyway. The power consumption of all these devices are very low. So you’ll get plenty of hours out of them either way.
But if mobility/portability is your main concern, then the Mini is definitely a far more compact and portable offering, no question.
I guess it depends how you want to use it the majority of the time?
The mini is without a doubt preferable for mobility. And for at home you could always use a MIDI controller if you require a more natural way of inputting notes.
If you prefer ease of use over portability, i’d choose the OG Tracker / Tracker+ over the Mini.
And if money is not the question : get them both to enjoy the full experience .
- Use the Mini on the go.
- Pop out the SD Card when you get home and continue to work on the bigger Tracker.
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Just got mine and I have to say, I’m fairly bummed that you can’t sample into it while playing back a pattern. 
How did I miss people talking about this? Isn’t one of the major selling points of this machine to be able to not have to use a computer?
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You can send midi from a pattern to external gear and record that directly into the tracker:
But i’m assuming you mean record a live performance? The only way to do this is indeed by using the metronome.
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Seems like a strange design choice to me, but I guess being able have Tracker play an instrument via midi is better than nothing. Definitely easier to sing in key to an external synth and get the feel of your drums with an external drum machine than to a metronome… assuming what you say allows for both midi tracks to play at once?
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Agreed.
I accepted it on the OG because the processor was very weak but it’s my only disappointment about the +
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Thank you for your detailed reply.
This helps me a lot in my decision-making process
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Still torn between the Tracker Mini and the Tracker+. I really value built-in battery and microphone, but I also really value tactile control and I struggle to understand how you’d be able to gradually open up a filter on a track with +/- buttons. I wish they had implemented at least a tiny potentiometer or touch slider or similar for more expressive live performance purposes.
To those who have attempted “performing” on a Mini, is it a non-starter, or how is it achieved? And are those tweaks you do across tracks transferred via usb-audio too? Or are you better of just programming all automations and then just pressing play and leave it at that?
On the Mini Performance mode is - by nature of the device - a bit ackward to use i feel. You can prepopulate values in the Performance screen, and those are easy to use with the two sets of +/- , but a gradual change of a value, is a pain in the … to do on it, in comparison to the bigger brother. I mean you probably could get used to it, but it’s finger cramping.
If you plan on live performing and want to take full advantage. Then Tracker/Tracker+ is king.
Unless you pair the Mini with a controller that has faders and/or knobs. Then they are on equal footing.
Yes, they are,. See my earlier comment about this exact question.
Ideally i think you’ll have a mixture anyway, of automation and a few hands on effects and variability. Leaves less room for error in a live environment.
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Whose got their hands on one of these then? First impressions? 
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How have people got these? I did an Andertons pre/order and it says June 10th
It was available at Perfect Circuit for several days but looks like they sold out.
Btw, Perfect Circuits new 10% sale (they have one every other week it seems) works with the Tracker+ which brings it down to $720.
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Aside from “performance effects”, is it generally easy to go into a sound/engine and modify non-performance parameters directly while playing back a song? Let’s say I want to modify the amp envelope for the lead synth for example. Thanks!
That’s what the macros are for. Each of the 6 synth macros can have up to 6 parameters of the synth that you could assign and thereby change quickly from the outside.
But sure, you could also go into the patch and change the parameters while playing live. Just requires a couple more button presses 
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Sweetwater has them in stock, got mine overnighted. I will provide my impressions once I get used to things. I will say that I was having mine freeze constantly almost every 2-3 minutes for the first hour I was trying it. The only way to fix it was unplug and plug back in. I installed the beta firmware and so far about an hour worth of using it and no freezing. Its possible more that I just had a bad OS image installed and I simply needed a re-install, as opposed to the beta actually fixing my issue. I don’t think what I was dealing with was simply a bug, it was just hard freeze after hard freeze within minutes of booting back up.
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Small advice from all the interactions i’ve had over the years now regarding trackers (with other users). If there are lots of freezes, try a different power brick/source than the one provided. Any phonecharger will do. Often it’s either the Polyend provided cable or the power supply.
I was using the cable and brick that came in the box
Still waiting for mine, but that’s the kind of thing that I dread. Like, the T+ looks really rad, but PE isn’t really the poster boy for flawless product launch, sadly. :I
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Ordered. Will hopefully have some fun exploring trackers for the first time next week. 
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