Polyend Tracker 5-stars Reviews

Really cool piece of hardware

From time perspective I really regret I sold it. If you are looking for classic amiga like tracker experience this is the best piece of steel you can buy. It has its learning curve but it is very inspirational. Manufacturer still provides updastes whis is really cool.

One small thing - casing was a bit wobbly but it stabilised over time.

Tracker Quickly became my main sequencer

I love the tracker workflow and features very much I've also use it to control other gear and it works like a charm, best sampler sequencer I have and is very powerful and flexible for the price, money very well spent

Great instrument

I wanted something that I could take with me on the train or bus and use to create music. I needed more interactivity and feedback than other tools that only offer illuminated pads & knobs coupled with a tiny (or absent) screen. The polyend tracker gives me that. I'm more familiar with the tracker workflow than modern DAWs so I was confident I'd get on well with the user interface and in fact it's better than I thought it would be - it's been something that's been a pleasure to learn and master. The buttons, knobs and case all feel solid and well-built, and the sound quality is great.

My only quibble is the limit on the sample bank size. I understand what they're saying about limits inspiring creativity, but 120 seconds total means you can't make certain types of music with this - specifically anything with a lot of vocals. If we were still working on Amigas with 2MB of RAM I'd be happy but these days that restriction seems silly.

If you can live with the sample memory limit it's the perfect on-the-go tool for a great price.

My favourite new toy!

Incredibly fun to play around with straight out of the box. Intuitive design with simple menus. Perfect addition to anyones studio!

I'm legit obsessed with the unit

Polyend Tracker changed everything about music-making for me. It became my holy grail, and I've completely switched to using it for production, and I don't feel like there is a way back, at least in the observable future. I've been using it for a year now, and 100% of tracks I've finished over the past year, I did on PT. It's not for everyone, but as soon as it clicks, if it clicks at all, tracking starts making so much sense that going back to piano roll feels like a cumbersome and pointless process. Total score - 5/5.

It takes time to learn it, but when muscle memory kicks in, everything falls into its place, and your ideas translate into music in seconds. I wish there were more shortcuts to navigate longer patterns, but other than that handling-wise it's great, so 5/5.

PT is built with a lot of limitations by design, so it's hard to compare with, let's say, Akai MPC, since they have very different philosophy. Compared to classic trackers, PT is loaded with features, both classic and modern ones. Wavetable synth, granular synth, loads of step effects, reverb (huge thanks to Émilie Gillet from Mutable) and delay sends, loads of sample editing effects, etc. For what PT is, I'd say it's definitely 5/5.

Again, keeping in mind what PT it, sound-wise it's good. It has its quirks, you have to battle gain staging at times, you have to accept all samples are mono only (probably the biggest bummer for me initially), mixing can be challenging, but when you know how to use it properly, it can sound great. Especially after additional master effects were added, such as Space, Bass Boost and a limiter. I'd still export stems sometimes to further mix them in a DAW, but mostly I'm working towards mixing 100% in PT, and only mastering the final mix in a DAW before uploading it. So, it takes time to learn, but it can sound good, so 5/5.

Hardware itself it great, except one big issue that a lot of users experience - excessive lubrication of a jogwheel. In order to fix it you have to unscrew it and wipe the shaft from time to time, removing the extra lube. If you don't do it, the jogwheel keeps spinning on the shaft with values not changing, or changing randomly. Easy fix, with a step by step guide on youtube, but it's annoying. Software-wise there are bugs, and while Polyend fixes them, they clearly don't have a huge staff, and their priorities were shifted towards developing new products, so bug fixing process is slow at best. With this being said, so far they were providing new features couple times a year, making it a much better product, as well as fixing some major bugs. Overall, you can definitely use PT as it is right now, but you have to work around some issues, which is also a bit annoying. So, quality-wise it's 4/5.

I'm very thankful for Polyend for making Tracker. Not only it changed my workflow completely, provided me with new ideas and inspired me, it introduced me to a wonderful community of PT users, that is the most friendly, helpful and fun community I've seen so far. I'm having tons of fun with PT, and I don't see myself switching to anything else as a center piece of my music-making process.

Polyend Tracker is an awesome piece of gear

The tracker workflow really refreshes the creative mind. It's been a long time I had so much fun playing an instrument. The perform mode is such a great live performance feature. Now, with firmware 1.4 you can use the perform mode throughout the entire song in stead of a repeating pattern. Love this device.

Easy to learn, hard to master

Synthesis machine with a lot of possibilities. Be aware, it can paralize you. But it deliver a lot of fun. It can be serious or funky as you wish. Do not fill the memory card with sounds because moving sound to the pool is the most painful thing in whole process. Less is more, guys, less is more. Especially with so much possibilities on board.

Firmware updates pretty often and always deliver something new.

Superb desktop tracker sequencer, lots of fun to be had.

As a longtime user of Jeskola Buzz I was looking forward to this product, so grabbed asap in 2020. I was not disappointed.

It is also a welcome break from conventional workflows and a hell of a lot of fun. If you need to disrupt your creativity this will torpedo any artistic comfort and get you thinking is different ways.

Also note that in this epoch of continuous software delivery the updates come thick and fast, so if you are used to fairly static firmware then this may come as a surprise. Features are dropping every month or so, especially if you follow the beta. For clarity, the beta has never given me any problems. Build quality is also great. No complaints there.

Though bugs were not hard to find early on, its pretty sharp now. But I do take one star off each for;

Its occasional glitches on step edges or pattern boundaries. While not a unique phenomenon to this device, it has always seemed more prevalent on the tracker. On the upside though its far from prohibitive to use or creativity.

Features are light in the song sequencer (No track mutes or measure length, position pointer, repeat (qty) (I'm thinking Elektron tracker ala MachineDrum. Even just track mutes per song step would be handy. Effectively you must think of your song development only in patterns, as there is little to no creativity to be had in song mode. This criticism may not date well to be fair, and I am behind by a couple of months

Quality overall is good, but I was shocked by the firmware condition at the time of release (even with an instant update). This should not be a problem now (in 2021) though.

Put simply, just buy it.

amazing

the tracker reinvented the way i make music. this machine is insanley capable and is packed with features. it also is great in a dawless rig with sampling in, loads of midi channels (including sending chords out!!!), performance effects and loads more.

Heart of my setup

Polyend once again outdid themselves on the creation of this device.

The Tracker keeps all of what was awesome of oldschool trackers and ads a powerful sampling engine with cool features like a performance mode with effects, radio live recording and wavetable and granular synthesis.

This completely changed my workflow in the best of ways and it's now the center of my setup. I do all of my sampling from it and control a TR-8S, Digitone and MAM MB33 from it.

It's pretty much all I've been doing for the last few months!

Build quality is amazing. The whole case is metal, not just the top.

Pads are a bit too small for my taste. Even smaller than Synthstrom Deluge, but playable with a bit of practice.

The tracker workflow takes a bit of getting used to with trial and error in order to get some creative result, but it’s different than your piano roll so it might spark some creative results if you put some time into it.

The sample editing, chopping, and instrument parameters allow you to do cool things with samples turning them into full fledged instruments.

Conclusion: I was reluctant about the tracker workflow and its Excel-ish UI, but I love it.

I bought it with the thought that I have 30 days to get used to it but in a couple of days I got used to it quickly and it’s definitely a keeper.

awesome machine

awesome machine - just like the old trackers, but hardware

I was not expecting something this good

I have not been able to put this down since I got it a few days ago. From the moment I switched it on I was transfixed. The editing and navigation buttons are very logical, the jog wheel is fast with a superb feel making the workflow on this machine a dream. The sampler is stuffed with features and super smooth to use. The soft keys are not velocity sensitive which is a shame and as such I would have preferred them to be hard buttons like the rest of the device.

LOVE TRACKING!

Waited 30 Years for this revival, some wishes do come true.

So much more efficient than those left to right Piano Roll based systems, With Tracking you can see multi tracks note data and automations at the same time, Just one reason Tracking is the Future Retro way of doing things. Love to see a Pro version for 2021 AMEN LEN303 kenspocket