I figured out how to do it earlier today, but then forgot how I managed it 
. What a fascinating machine. I love getting some pulses going and some notes, and then just going crazy twisting knobs and hearing the outcome. Once I learn how to really work it, I can see the PolyPulse being a monster for live performances.
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I got one recently. What drew my attention to it were the authoritative commentaries above on how ugly that thing is. I thought, well, not to my taste? Then I realized that it offered some concepts I had been waiting for for a while.
My experience is a bit mixed so far:
Nothing to add regarding the concept and the sequencing: itās great. Very powerful. Love the cue system. Thatās why I came for it, and it doesnāt disappoint. The firmware is still in the works, so I am confident more things are to come, and some little annoyances will get corrected.
The nice surprise is the sound quality or rather maybe the conception of the sound engines and effects. It has been said, it is very good, and the sound of the device grows on you. Plus, unlimited modulations, sort of.
Something I am a little less convinced about is the ergonomics. Itās big, which is nice, but also has its drawbacks: your hands move around a lot, and not always in the more logical or comfortable manner. Not a huge deal, though, and you kinda slowly get used to it.
But, that being said, there is the major problem of the CPU limitation. It is very frustrating. Obviously, there have to be some limits, but the number of options you have makes it so that you hit them very soon. If the designer had decided that it was a machine made of 5 mono tracks with one effect per track max, then maybe you wouldnāt notice and be happy. But since you can do polyphony everywhere (whether for chords or unison) and since you can stack up to four effects per track, you may want to pretty soon. So this morning I tried to do just what I wanted, without thinking about CPU usage too much: I had a substractive track (not the most CPU intensive) playing chords (and since I wanted the chords to overlap and not cut each other, I had to set the polyphony at 6), a nice melodic bass line out of the FM engine (further shaped by a filter, in a bit of reverb, and a polyphony of two for unison), and a quad engine for rhythms (kick drum, the saw, and two hi-hat samples). That was very pleasant, but I was already hitting 78% CPU usage, so the end (crackles start at 80%). For a chord sequence, a bass line, a 4-part rhythm track. I know I did not try to be parsimonious with CPU on that one, just did what I felt I wanted to.
So I am a bit torn, because I still can return it. I am afraid I will miss it if I do, because it is unique and great in many ways, but I am afraid Iāll get a bit angry with it if I donāt because of these CPU limitations that get too much in the way ā and it is expensive.
Iāll be curious to know the feelings of users who have had it for a longer time. Could they get past this frustrating CPU limit problem? Maybe by learning to be sober, concentrating on composing rather than stacking sounds? Outsourcing things like chords and pads to MIDI-connected gear? (But there is a charm of working totally inside.)
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I loaded some one shots into the PP and then made a sample list. Was pretty easy actually.
I took it over to my buddyās house last night for a jam. It was fun and good practice. I certainly would want prep more note lists in my current projects and have more projects for playing out with it. Speaking of I may take it out for a short set next month. I figure thatās not too aggressive but just a little pressure to practice with more intention.
After another couple of days playing the Polypulse, I think itās too good/interesting to let go. Gotta work with the limitations, but itās the most inspiring āgrooveboxā Iāve been playing with in a while !
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Yes! There are dozens of us! Dozens!
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Feel free to elaborate? Thereās a lot of foreign terminology in the manual I donāt quite follow.
This is actually one of my biggest issues with it. IMO, I donāt know if 32 encoders are any more convenient or faster than 16 (or 17 to be factual). Itās just a left brain/right brain fight, and you need to hover to the middle to enter the keypad data.
I donāt know, maybe itās not designed like Elektron, where speed and hand travel are central to the workflow.
Perhaps the operation is fine? everything has its tempo ā¦prehaps putting together cuelist or navigation does not need to be Elektron jump from menu to menu fast
I do agree with everything about the size (looking at you, MPC4000 
). Workstations or anything that requires long hours per session should always take ergonomics and comfort/strain into account.
So whatās the true score here?
Iād like to have at least 2ā3 voices for rhythm. I can live with mono voicing, as the magic of this box is in its rhythmic universe and modularity. But damn, I need at least one of these to play in 2-voice mode (for ring/sync mod). So thatās 7 voices if I reserve one track for external MIDI (Im trying very hard to justify this) . Is that doable/realisticā7 voices with 3x FX per track?
Personally, I feel this is a bit misleading on the part of the instrument. If it crackles at 80% (and I imagine live this might happen very easily), then the CPU should be in the red, close to 100%. In my opinion, you donāt get to call distortion in audio within its clean CPU range. Although I understand it reflects the overall usage, it still feels misleading.
Anyway, Iād love to hear some demos or clips of experiments/discoveries, just some sound demos, so I can say this is worth it.
As in all sincerity, it feels like the Jomox Sunsyn tale / is worth it.
In the studio, itās a gemstone as you record audio.
But this is designed for live use, so crackles, size, and limited polyphony (and no program change for sounds engines (although u get plenty range via morph) are all a bit concerning.
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What I like about this cue system is that it is, for me, very close to how I naturally think of a song or track. Not as a succession of patterns, but as a series of events that happen at a given moment. Ā« This is going on, and then this changes, while that stays the same, and later another aspect changes, etc. Ā» So the cue system lets you plan different kinds of events in a very modular and free fashion. It can range from strict arrangements to a series of sketches and any mix in between.
For example, you can decide that at a given moment, the rhythmic structure of a given track (in the sense that there are five tracks in the machine) will change, while the tonal content stays the same. Instead of having to think, quite unnaturally for me, Ā« so I have to create a copy of that pattern and then change this aspect and then put that pattern after the first one Ā» you simply create a command that says: change the rhythmic content of that track into that. Now you can program the advent of this script or just have it at your disposal. One could imagine a composition where all the rhythmic changes are preordered, while all the tonal changes are left free for improvisation, or the other way around, and the same thing with the sound itself. You can decide to arrange everything in advance but keep for yourself the ability to play with the touch pads, for example. Of course, you can mix all these approaches: mostly improvise while at some point land on a safe place. It is not only nice for performance: it also helps (me at least) for the composition. It is easy to create some parts of the arrangements, refine them along the way, then decide to tie some of them together, or embed some of them into others. It is very flexible. On top of that, you can introduce some randomness in the structure (have this series of events have 30% chance to happen, etc.)
I donāt know if I am making a lot of sense, but that was an attempt to describe how I feel with this cue system. I havenāt seen anything quite like it in the hardware domain before. Certainly far away from Elektron-style sequencing (which I donāt like at all) and very different as well from more linear approaches (or a tracker approach, even if I love its implementation on an M8, for example). To sum it up, maybe, it simply feels like actually writing an arrangement.
The ergonomics are not the best around but after days of practice, you get it. Not awesome, but okay, and not a big deal in the end.
I feel much more at ease now with the CPU limits than in the beginning. Again, it has to be frustrating since there are no hard limits imposed, and so you tend to always push it to the max in the moments of discovery. But pretty soon you know where those limits are, and itās okay. The benefit of it is that it helps you fight a kind of lazy habit (at least I tend to have) of bringing variations into your tracks by stacking sounds, adding new stuff, instead of rearranging what is already there. Itās not only the relative CPU limits that encourage you to do otherwise, but it also fits with the sequencing/composing paradigm I described earlier. So it all kind of makes sense in a way. Now you can do stuff with the CPU you have! Seven voices of polyphony are totally possible, as long as you donāt use the more hungry engines. Three FX per track might be a little too much on top of it, but again it depends a lot on the effects. You really want to use a send for delays and reverbs most of the time. Since sampling is cheaper CPU-wise, autosampling is a strategy too. But if I am now okay with the CPU limitation itās also because I have admitted that the Polypulse has to be paired with some external gear. With, e.g., a polytimbral multi, things really open up. You can outsource pads, chords if needed. Since the MIDI implementation is good, and since there is a wealth of outputs/inputs/routing options, it works very well. I paired it with my Essence FM and tend to consider the whole as one instrument, and it is very smooth.
So, to sum it up, after initial fears, it is a big yes for me 
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Thanks for the write-up!
Itās a fascinating machine/groove world, but it seems impossible to get users to post music or even just some noodling/sound examples online. 
I donāt knowā¦ as much as I want one (and its almost irrefutable studio asset personally)ā¦ yet the ālimits are okayā statement feels like a gray area for me. Maybe you could pull off 7 voices with 4 tracks, running 3 effects per track, but using not the most CPU-hungry engines. + the size and ergonomics; just holds me backā¦
In my opinion, the designer is one of the brightest sound engineers around. I absolutely love the sound; itās extraordinary and far surpasses engineers/companies that have been in the game for decades. The concept is also highly attractive, just stellar
If a smaller unit with more CPU power comes out, itās an instant must-have. Heck, Iād even take a small/ gig friendly 3-track version with current CPU!
As is I just find it hard to justify as stunning and brilliant as it is 
Mk2 ASAP please Lambada 
Quite substantial update in new firmware
- Added wavetable playback:
- Added wavetable mode to subtractive:
- Two wavetable oscillators with variable position (WT pos) and pitch (ratio).
- 1>2 FM sets the frequency modulation amount from wavetable oscillator 1 on wavetable oscillator 2.
- 1/2 mix sets the balance between the two wavetable oscillators
- Added wavetable mini engine to quad engine:
- Wavetable oscillator with variable position (WT pos) and pitch (ratio).
- Supported wavetable format:
- Any audio file type supported by the PolyPulse (such as *.wav).
- Cycle length specified at end of filename: cool-wavetable-WT2048.wav
- Wavetables are configured from the track settings ([edit]+[track]):
- wavetable mode sets the interpolation of the wavetable position: switch (no interpolation) or interpolate (uses more CPU).
- Added wavetable mode to subtractive:
- The following sequencer parameters can now be modulated:
- start
- length
- chance
- seq reset
- per pulse:
- start
- length
- chance
- interval
- offset
- octave
- reset
- note sel
- time
- rand time
- Modulators assigned to sequencer parameters canāt be triggered by all trigger sources. Depending on what parameter is modulated some triggers are locked and set to false in the trigger settings menu.
- Sequencer parameter start, length and chance can now be set for each pulse individually by enabling start/len per pulse and/or chance per pulse in track settings.
- Improved audio recording workflow:
- Added start (track/out) to settings:
- directly: recording starts directly.
- after trigger: recording starts at the first trigger of the track(s) that are to be recorded.
- Added stop (track/out) to settings:
- manually: recording is not automatically stopped.
- no signal: recording is stopped when no more audio is present.
- no signal + no clock: recording is stopped when no more audio is present and the clock is not running.
- Added start (input): set a threshold the input signal needs to exceed to start recording.
- Added file rename after recording is stopped. Press [yes] to keep the randomly generated name.
- Added start (track/out) to settings:
- Added support for display output to the file manager (requires updating the file manager).
- New presets, samples and wavetables created by Koarse and Ward Slager (requires uploading separate .zip).
Other changes and bugfixes:
- Improvements to the note list editor:
- Adding notes using MIDI, the internal keyboard and note preview can now quickly be enabled/disabled with the numpad.
- Added visualization of the internal keyboard octave.
- Added visualization of the black/white keys to the 12 edo tuning.
- The file browser, note list editor, sample list editor, cue editor and (track) settings can now all be closed by pressing [shift]+[yes].
- Added 1+2, 3+4, 5+6 and 7+8 to the in x to out chan and in x to chan parameters. Allows mono input signals to be routed to a stereo
- FX edit menu can now also be opened directly from the sequencer, synthesis or modulator view.
- Added file manager version selection to [edit]+[settings].
- When opening a ādrop downā selection for a parameter (such as by pressing [edit] on a parameter with text values or when changing the mini engine on quad engine), the current value is pre-selected.
- When navigating one folder up, the cursor is placed at the folder that was just left.
- Improvements to file saving
- When saving projects for all tracks a *.seq and *.inst is now created regardless whether the track is considered āemptyā or not.
- JSON inside project files and presets is now minified to save space.
- Removed detune parameter from the metal mini engine as it does not have any effect on the sound.
- Fixed the note loudness (dBFS) being off by a factor of 4.
- When loading projects created with older firmware the note loudness is automatically adjusted so that it matches the actual loudness the notes play at.
- Reduced clicks in subtractive when filt freq is very low and filt reso is very high.
- Fixed a bug where sometimes in granular a grain gets stuck and does not match the loudness and brightness parameter anymore.
- Fixed inactive channels in stutter being triggered when using triggers from other tracks.
- Fixed a crash when switching to the envelope/modulator view when no sound engine or modulators are present.
- Fixed a bug where the cursor would not correctly be moved to the .proj file when opening a project folder.
- Fixed FM envelope slot names all being āenv op 1ā.
- Fixed a bug where after slicing samples or adding samples to a sample list the cursor could not fully scroll down to the end of the list.
Changes and bugfixes to the file manager:
- Added external display page that mirrors the internal PolyPulse display.
- Added renaming of files and folders.
- Added unzipping of *.zip archives.
- Added file size next to files.
- Added selection of multiple files/folder at once by holding down shift.
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I bit the bullet and ordered one to see what I think in person
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Rad. This thing is so fascinating and Iād be stoked to get more user feedback and thoughts.
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