Using the limiter you look like you were a little bit heavy on the settings. When the meter coming from the top of the screen hits the bottom of the screen there is little - if any - of your original signal getting through. Back things off a bit and it will pump things - but not dump things. Also, if you do want to process parts of the mix and not others; you can always start with the parts you want to process and then bounce them down to a single sample internally with the "pumping" burnt in to the sample. This way adding the original sound back in lets you control things, by reducing the "pumping". Creating a little side project with the same tempo and samples and using this as a "sand box" to bounce down short stems is a good way to get around the boxes limitations, and not mess up your main "song"
Midi implementation is a killer also. I sequence softsynths/hardware via tracker, and it works like a charm. Every now and then you might need to sync incoming midi with onboard samples with some Micro-move wizardry. Sample the whole beauty or just use it for getting ”HQ stereo sounds ”out from your tracker - I think we all know sometimes the sound engine might lack a bit, hence midi it! 😏
Can you sample a synth while the sequencer is running on the Tracker? I'm thinking of a situation where I'd make a nice acid line on a monosynth like the Geode and want to sample the phrase while doing a manual filter tweak, then chop up and use the sample, while freeing up the monosynth to play a live-tweaked drone over the sequenced pattern. Can it be done, or must the sequencer be inactive while sampling? Thank you.
Hey Gabe - After watching all of your groove-box videos - I think the Polyend tracker is the one for me! Back in the Mid-1990's I worked at Hollywood Recording Services - doing Audio for TV, Radio, and Motion Picture - music, sound fx, and voiceover recording / editing on the AMS Neve Audiofile - and then went out to sea as a Musician on Princess and Carnival Cruises - Sequencing The band's backing tracks on the Roland MC 80/XP 80 - so I think I will have no issues with the Tracker's work flow. I just ordered one from Sweetwater - should be here soon. I still have the MC 80 - Once I figure out the MIDI setup between the Tracker and the MC80, I will have a multitimbral synth for Midi tracks to get started with. Thanks Gabe for the in-depth research - I really appreciate your hard work and Expertise. Now I'm gonna need a small playable synth - back to your Videos...
I'd love to see you try out Renoise. I know its a little outside your usual area on UA-cam, but would be interesting now that you've gotten used to the Polyend Tracker. Renoise is really powerful.
I would not call the workflow deliberate at all. ..the fill function is amazing with the Euclidean fill and random fill that uses percentages. Also I think the granular synthesis becomes more complex if you process the same sample more than one way and then build a series of layers that play off each other. Then to free up tracks I just bump them down to one audio sample. I think the tracker lends itself to a more generative approach which is why it was so integral in the development of jungle, hardcore, ambient and idm. It offers more ways to quickly program in less repetitive styles or if you want more nuance since every step can be adjusted quickly with the fill function. Trackers are famous for the speed at which producers can come up with non repetetive compositions. If you want to do four on the floor minimal techno it may be a bit less intuitive.
Wahey first!! I just picked one of these up to compliment my OG circuit, with the developers reference guide it's amazing how much the Tracker unlocks the circuit.
@@BendApparatus so, the circuit allows you to control huge amounts of it using CC messages via midi (Google the circuit programmers reference guide) I tested it out last week because I was missing a proper synth engine on the Tracker. So I put circuit audio into Tracker in, and then mapped midi instruments within the tracker to control the circuit channels plus control parameters via CC. It's a little fiddly to start because you need to map the MIDI CC A-F effects to the correct channel in the instrument parameters on the Tracker but once you get your head around it you can: Play the circuit drums via midi but even better, map a CC effect on your drum track on the Tracker to the sample flip on the circuit (Cc 8), so now you have all 64 samples available using zero memory on the tracker. I also set up a "session" track on the tracker to sweep the main filter, change FX values etc on the circuit. Between the two of them you end up with such a powerful setup, and with so many patterns available on the Tracker you have so much more freedom. I love the tracker because it's so quick to compose something on the move using placeholder sounds, then just swap out those instruments for Midi control when you want to jam/record with live midi instruments.
@@BendApparatus for no useful reason I also tried mapping a tracker instrument to each synth on the circuit with CC control over the envelope and FX, worked awesome although not that useful.
@@saysomestuff wow...all that sounds amazing...and admittedly a bit over my head... I'm just now learning the basics of midi... I always used devices as standalone units. Only syncing clock and basic note on/off...but lately I've been curious about CC messages and it's gotten me curious about midi in general...
This is an interesting device; glad to see you tried it and got an opinion about it. what the Tracker is falling short is the lack of the sound engines, that make it basically just sample based, and in that area there are a ton of other devices sadly, that offer a better value for the money spent. Maybe Polyend will make a V2 with some decent sound engines and get more memory onboard.
Thanks for the review! I felt exactly the same way at the beginning. It takes some time to get used to. But once you get the hang of it, it's great fun. My tracks done on the Polyend machine sound like nothing else I would have produced on other devices
Great review! I've had the Polyend Tracker for almost a year now and I can say my experience is very similar. I can't imagine myself making music without it anymore. But I also had a harder time making a listenable track on it (compared to for example MPC) due to me having to adjust to the workflow and although that has improved, it is still hard to making something decent with the built in Wavetable and Granular synth so I really hope to see an improvement on that in a future update! And yes.. the sidechain is pretty useless 😅
I have to dissagree on your points.I use garnular for anything basicly:Basses,big lush pads with reverb,leads,glitchy timestreach effects.wavetables are ok if you pitch them 2 octaves down with decent tables not any sample.Sidechain on master is great for hip hop beats.If you are creativ you will find the way.the most useless thing on PT is eq in sample edit section and only because it's not visual.and that's only my opinion
Fair enough, the pitching down goes a long way. And I do use the sidechain for testing how my track will sound with sidechain, but I probably wouldn't use it in a final track.
@@MrXamanX I'm definitely not calling them useless, but for example the most interesting thing (to me at least) that Granular synths have, is the ability to spread the granular parts and randomly mix them. Which the Polyend doesn't have. And the wavetable is ok, but again nothing special. I feel like you definitly can get some cool sounds out of both engines, but compared to other devices, I feel like it requires a lot of time for underwhelming results. I feel I can get better sounds at a much faster pace out of just resampling external gear and using slices, lfo's and step effects to get to the result I want.
After getting this I sold my Digitakt and MPC One. Those were both very good machines, but the Tracker works really well for me when I want to do something away from the DAW. I think the song mode is the strongest and simplest impelementation amongst all the grooveboxes.
When I first got mine, three buttons stuck. Once I figured out how to fix that, I started liking it again. I might even pull it out and see if it fires up! Thanks for the encouragement.
Yeah once that clicked, they became a lot easier to work with. Still, I wish there was a way to live record in such a way that a note goes on until the sample ends or it gets cut off by the next note, like what's possible with step sequencing.
The 100 project limit completely stopped me from using it, simply because it's a pain to deal with. I reached out to them, they said they won't fix it. (There's a solution for it ie: samples, so there's a way). I'm not even a musician and I made over a 100 (smaller projects) within 2-3 months. If it's not an issue for you, get it. It's a great machine.
I've wanted to like this thing for what it does but just cannot get over how anxious the Matrix/Guitar Hero screen and lights make me feel. On top of that, I feel like the learning curve for this some what unique workflow makes me feel that it'd just end up collecting dust on shelf.
It's super easy to use and intuitive. The screen seems daunting until you use it and then you realise how logical it is. The learning curve honestly isn't steep at all. It's probably the easiest-to-learn piece of gear I've ever had
Hi Grabe. Thx for your videos :) I'm begginer and have a microfreak. I'm hesitating between novation circuit tracks and Polyend Tracker. The Polyend Tracker is more complete, but I get the impression that the Novation will be more immediate and easier to use. Which one do you recommend to start with the Microfreak?
Love your comment on that troll SynthPunk's channel. He simply does not respect anyone or anything. His jealousy has made him insecure, he can barely make music, he thinks blips and bloops is something people should hold him in high esteem. Good on you for standing up to him, he is an a grade A hole who has had his channel terminated numerous times for DMCAs filed.
Still struggling but this gives me hope! I am creating an AV performance controlling MaxMSP visuals from the PT. Wouldn't use it for looping live techno but it is very useful for this kind of pre-arranged compositions.
THANK YOU for saying it's a MicroSD card. So many reviews just state "SD Card" without realizing that uhm, no, there's a huge difference between those two.
I love this thing but I haven’t figured out how to do everything I want to with it yet so I get stumped and won’t use it for a few days, but slowly but surely with enough sessions with it, will be fluid songwriter on it, I’ve been working on a chaotic breakbeat type song, just by messing with the beat slice, wish I understood midi, but I try to figure it out on this thing, being a newbie doesn’t help but couldn’t help myself, trackers seems pretty cool and getting a hardware one is cooler imo
Yooooo how did you disable sending NOTE OFF events when recording live? That's been the bane of my existence since it will take up like 2-3 tracks just to play one melody or drum performance
Wow nevermind guess I needed to finish the vid. OOP! Hopefully Polyend will toss in an update to disable that like you can with microtiming and velocity.
Like your channel! Just minor thing which a little bit annoying: the camera always focuses on your mic, hence your face are blurry. Sorry, I have ADHD 😀
Hey Gabe, great video! Thank you so much!
I think that YT just ate my second comment about the v1.6 firmware beta update, but you probably received it as a private message...
Using the limiter you look like you were a little bit heavy on the settings.
When the meter coming from the top of the screen hits the bottom of the screen there is little - if any - of your original signal getting through. Back things off a bit and it will pump things - but not dump things.
Also, if you do want to process parts of the mix and not others; you can always start with the parts you want to process and then bounce them down to a single sample internally with the "pumping" burnt in to the sample.
This way adding the original sound back in lets you control things, by reducing the "pumping".
Creating a little side project with the same tempo and samples and using this as a "sand box" to bounce down short stems is a good way to get around the boxes limitations, and not mess up your main "song"
Midi implementation is a killer also. I sequence softsynths/hardware via tracker, and it works like a charm. Every now and then you might need to sync incoming midi with onboard samples with some Micro-move wizardry. Sample the whole beauty or just use it for getting ”HQ stereo sounds ”out from your tracker - I think we all know sometimes the sound engine might lack a bit, hence midi it! 😏
100% second this, I got an Audiothingies Micromonsta and it's great to take on the road
Can you sample a synth while the sequencer is running on the Tracker? I'm thinking of a situation where I'd make a nice acid line on a monosynth like the Geode and want to sample the phrase while doing a manual filter tweak, then chop up and use the sample, while freeing up the monosynth to play a live-tweaked drone over the sequenced pattern. Can it be done, or must the sequencer be inactive while sampling? Thank you.
Hey Gabe - After watching all of your groove-box videos - I think the Polyend tracker is the one for me!
Back in the Mid-1990's I worked at Hollywood Recording Services - doing Audio for TV, Radio, and Motion Picture - music, sound fx, and voiceover recording / editing on the AMS Neve Audiofile - and then went out to sea as a Musician on Princess and Carnival Cruises - Sequencing The band's backing tracks on the Roland MC 80/XP 80 - so I think I will have no issues with the Tracker's work flow. I just ordered one from Sweetwater - should be here soon. I still have the MC 80 - Once I figure out the MIDI setup between the Tracker and the MC80, I will have a multitimbral synth for Midi tracks to get started with.
Thanks Gabe for the in-depth research - I really appreciate your hard work and Expertise. Now I'm gonna need a small playable synth - back to your Videos...
I'd love to see you try out Renoise. I know its a little outside your usual area on UA-cam, but would be interesting now that you've gotten used to the Polyend Tracker. Renoise is really powerful.
Nice Gabe. I agree with all the things… it has some quirks, but lots of attributes that make it really unique in todays groovebox worls
I would not call the workflow deliberate at all. ..the fill function is amazing with the Euclidean fill and random fill that uses percentages. Also I think the granular synthesis becomes more complex if you process the same sample more than one way and then build a series of layers that play off each other. Then to free up tracks I just bump them down to one audio sample. I think the tracker lends itself to a more generative approach which is why it was so integral in the development of jungle, hardcore, ambient and idm. It offers more ways to quickly program in less repetitive styles or if you want more nuance since every step can be adjusted quickly with the fill function. Trackers are famous for the speed at which producers can come up with non repetetive compositions. If you want to do four on the floor minimal techno it may be a bit less intuitive.
Wahey first!! I just picked one of these up to compliment my OG circuit, with the developers reference guide it's amazing how much the Tracker unlocks the circuit.
🤔
I haven't heard about this...
And I own both as well...
What does it enable?
@@BendApparatus so, the circuit allows you to control huge amounts of it using CC messages via midi (Google the circuit programmers reference guide) I tested it out last week because I was missing a proper synth engine on the Tracker.
So I put circuit audio into Tracker in, and then mapped midi instruments within the tracker to control the circuit channels plus control parameters via CC. It's a little fiddly to start because you need to map the MIDI CC A-F effects to the correct channel in the instrument parameters on the Tracker but once you get your head around it you can:
Play the circuit drums via midi but even better, map a CC effect on your drum track on the Tracker to the sample flip on the circuit (Cc 8), so now you have all 64 samples available using zero memory on the tracker.
I also set up a "session" track on the tracker to sweep the main filter, change FX values etc on the circuit.
Between the two of them you end up with such a powerful setup, and with so many patterns available on the Tracker you have so much more freedom.
I love the tracker because it's so quick to compose something on the move using placeholder sounds, then just swap out those instruments for Midi control when you want to jam/record with live midi instruments.
@@BendApparatus for no useful reason I also tried mapping a tracker instrument to each synth on the circuit with CC control over the envelope and FX, worked awesome although not that useful.
@@saysomestuff wow...all that sounds amazing...and admittedly a bit over my head... I'm just now learning the basics of midi... I always used devices as standalone units.
Only syncing clock and basic note on/off...but lately I've been curious about CC messages and it's gotten me curious about midi in general...
@@saysomestuff this is how i feel about using my BS2 to control my SH-01a ;)
This is an interesting device; glad to see you tried it and got an opinion about it. what the Tracker is falling short is the lack of the sound engines, that make it basically just sample based, and in that area there are a ton of other devices sadly, that offer a better value for the money spent. Maybe Polyend will make a V2 with some decent sound engines and get more memory onboard.
Bought one afew weeks ago. I can't put it down! Thankyou for your in depth reviews.
Thanks for the review! I felt exactly the same way at the beginning. It takes some time to get used to. But once you get the hang of it, it's great fun. My tracks done on the Polyend machine sound like nothing else I would have produced on other devices
Great review! I've had the Polyend Tracker for almost a year now and I can say my experience is very similar. I can't imagine myself making music without it anymore. But I also had a harder time making a listenable track on it (compared to for example MPC) due to me having to adjust to the workflow and although that has improved, it is still hard to making something decent with the built in Wavetable and Granular synth so I really hope to see an improvement on that in a future update!
And yes.. the sidechain is pretty useless 😅
I have to dissagree on your points.I use garnular for anything basicly:Basses,big lush pads with reverb,leads,glitchy timestreach effects.wavetables are ok if you pitch them 2 octaves down with decent tables not any sample.Sidechain on master is great for hip hop beats.If you are creativ you will find the way.the most useless thing on PT is eq in sample edit section and only because it's not visual.and that's only my opinion
Fair enough, the pitching down goes a long way. And I do use the sidechain for testing how my track will sound with sidechain, but I probably wouldn't use it in a final track.
@@MrXamanX I'm definitely not calling them useless, but for example the most interesting thing (to me at least) that Granular synths have, is the ability to spread the granular parts and randomly mix them. Which the Polyend doesn't have. And the wavetable is ok, but again nothing special.
I feel like you definitly can get some cool sounds out of both engines, but compared to other devices, I feel like it requires a lot of time for underwhelming results. I feel I can get better sounds at a much faster pace out of just resampling external gear and using slices, lfo's and step effects to get to the result I want.
My first beat on the tracker was created by accidentally hitting the insert key and nudging all the steps - accidents (sometimes) sound cool!
Ha, same. My best track so far was by accidentally hitting "expand pattern" which turned a terrible hip hop beat into an awesome ambient vibe.
After getting this I sold my Digitakt and MPC One. Those were both very good machines, but the Tracker works really well for me when I want to do something away from the DAW. I think the song mode is the strongest and simplest impelementation amongst all the grooveboxes.
100%!
This is interesting to hear. I’m waiting on a M8 and I’m wondering why I have a Digitakt. Something about these trackers that are clicking with me
@@AndyTanguay the M8 is amazing!
When I first got mine, three buttons stuck. Once I figured out how to fix that, I started liking it again. I might even pull it out and see if it fires up! Thanks for the encouragement.
I’m almost 100% set on getting one, i think it’ll be good for Drill. Nice timing on the video
The Polyend Tracker excels at drum and bass (check out Polyend Tracker + Amen) Drill should be a piece of cake for the Tracker
Bro, it is PERFECT for drill and trap! Honestly, trackers are the best thing for those genres
Nice shirt! The Endless Summer is still in my playlist. I can't put it down.
Think of note-off steps as "the end of the note". Like on a piano roll each note ends at some point, that's the note-off step.
Yeah once that clicked, they became a lot easier to work with. Still, I wish there was a way to live record in such a way that a note goes on until the sample ends or it gets cut off by the next note, like what's possible with step sequencing.
The 100 project limit completely stopped me from using it, simply because it's a pain to deal with. I reached out to them, they said they won't fix it. (There's a solution for it ie: samples, so there's a way). I'm not even a musician and I made over a 100 (smaller projects) within 2-3 months. If it's not an issue for you, get it. It's a great machine.
Hope you get your hands on their teased new instrument!
Really curious what that one is.
That would be dope!
@@alecsbuga The Polyend Play. There are a few pics leaked (by Polyend), but so far it's not even announced.
I've wanted to like this thing for what it does but just cannot get over how anxious the Matrix/Guitar Hero screen and lights make me feel.
On top of that, I feel like the learning curve for this some what unique workflow makes me feel that it'd just end up collecting dust on shelf.
You can learn it in a day basicly.It's pretty self explenatory
@@MrXamanX well that's cool but it still don't change the first part of what i said
It's super easy to use and intuitive. The screen seems daunting until you use it and then you realise how logical it is. The learning curve honestly isn't steep at all. It's probably the easiest-to-learn piece of gear I've ever had
You should check out Synthstrom Deluge or maybe you have? I’m sure it’s been on your radar, we’re all on the same internet
Yeah I'll get there eventually!
Pretty neat explanation. Thanks for sharing.
@@Drteomas either way, it is needed! ;)
Hi Grabe. Thx for your videos :) I'm begginer and have a microfreak. I'm hesitating between novation circuit tracks and Polyend Tracker. The Polyend Tracker is more complete, but I get the impression that the Novation will be more immediate and easier to use. Which one do you recommend to start with the Microfreak?
I have always been curious about trackers , never had chance to use one but my pockets burning a bit since seeing the polyend.
Love your comment on that troll SynthPunk's channel. He simply does not respect anyone or anything.
His jealousy has made him insecure, he can barely make music, he thinks blips and bloops is something people should hold him in high esteem.
Good on you for standing up to him, he is an a grade A hole who has had his channel terminated numerous times for DMCAs filed.
Still struggling but this gives me hope! I am creating an AV performance controlling MaxMSP visuals from the PT. Wouldn't use it for looping live techno but it is very useful for this kind of pre-arranged compositions.
THANK YOU for saying it's a MicroSD card. So many reviews just state "SD Card" without realizing that uhm, no, there's a huge difference between those two.
No prob! I imagine they know the difference, but it's an easy shortcut to take that can be accidentally misleading.
It's so mindblowing to think that the polyend tracker competitor is a gameboy sized device with 8 keys
Yeah it's a fun time to be into music gadgets!
Will definitely be at the expense of user experience if they're feature comparable.
@@superchroma I thought that until I tried it. The M8 blows the Polyend out of the water
I love this thing but I haven’t figured out how to do everything I want to with it yet so I get stumped and won’t use it for a few days, but slowly but surely with enough sessions with it, will be fluid songwriter on it, I’ve been working on a chaotic breakbeat type song, just by messing with the beat slice, wish I understood midi, but I try to figure it out on this thing, being a newbie doesn’t help but couldn’t help myself, trackers seems pretty cool and getting a hardware one is cooler imo
You'll get there!
lol, "sidechain ... I just don't love the way it kicks in". :D
(I appreciate your jokes, even if perhaps most people don't even notice them)
Yooooo how did you disable sending NOTE OFF events when recording live? That's been the bane of my existence since it will take up like 2-3 tracks just to play one melody or drum performance
Wow nevermind guess I needed to finish the vid. OOP! Hopefully Polyend will toss in an update to disable that like you can with microtiming and velocity.
Yeah if you ever figure out how to turn it off, let me know!
Are you sure about the sidechain limit
yeah tracker is fun stuff!
Does it have any sort of simple swing? Or do you have to program that in also…
you can set Swing FX per step (of via Fill function), or just record notes live with disabled quantization for that "live" feel
I want this
No stereo sampling?
Correct, everything gets summed to mono.
Good
Like your channel! Just minor thing which a little bit annoying: the camera always focuses on your mic, hence your face are blurry. Sorry, I have ADHD 😀
Fair enough! I'll look into fixing that if I can.
I had to laugh when you said it was calling you.
Best ♥️👍
I told you it would grow on you 🤣
OP-1 and gimmick are almost redundant.
But.... Polysynths tho ..
Looks like a limited Synthstrom Deluge
The unit has no headroom in my experience.