Bad Gear - Play Plus 

Audiopilz: *slaps roof of YT channel* Full Tracks, Extended Jams, Sample Packs: www.patreon.com/audiopilz Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/audio.pilz/

'is geartube toxic af?' Well there's a reason this is the only gear-related thing I even look at online

Must say, you're not just a RU-vidr, you're an exceptional musician. What a talent!

I think Bad Gear episodes should be considered high art and they have to be stored in some digital museum for the future people. For Uli's sake, just look at the production level, wording, music, structure. This is how it's done, future kids! Florian raised the bar for everyone and i hope other people will follow suit.

It never ceases to amaze me how you manage to get to grips (and deep-dive) with a different bit of hi-tech gear every week... and not only that, but put together some great jams and a whole lot of video editing. How do you find the time! 🙂 Another good one.

The Polyend Play spent almost its entire life cycle in my favorite retailer's wishlist. I jumped at the Plus, which is now patiently awaiting its unboxing

Please don't end your gear-reviewing career, bro. You are proving every week that it's not the gear that makes the music, but the mind behind it. Congratulations on your channel and happy 2024 !

As a Tracker owner, jealous of all those glorious encoders. The performance menu goes a long way, but just doing a filter sweep on the fly should be a lot simpler.

Got a Synthstrom Deluge 4 years ago, and recently updated to the OLED UI. When I see this, I know the investment in learning the Deluge workflow ( I also used an overlay for about a year) was worth it. Thanks for this Florian, you have affirmed that I made the right decision. Great video, I turn in on every Friday. You never disappoint. A+ :)

I cant even wrap my head around how much work goes into these 😮‍💨 you make it look easy ♥️

The house jam particularly tasty. These bad gear vids actually kill my gas they are so good.

I am slowly learning my Play+. A fascinating device. I am impressed how quickly you are proficient with it.

I love all the dawless setups that “want to break free” but then sound 10x better when processed a bit inside a daw :-) Jokes aside, Florian i feel the Erica Synths Db 01 and Lxr 02 coming on your channel. Call it basic instinct

I bet that if Polyend was more predatory and released the Play+ with another name and without the option to upgrade, saying it's a new version instead of a revised version, nobody would've batted an eye. I mean, just take a look at TE: people complained, but they were also happy because the old OP-1 was going to become cheaper lol In any case, I understand the frustration the OG owners might've felt, but the whole toxic debacle was unnecessary. On another note, great video! Loved the last track.

I would pay a hefty sum for a full version of that ending jam, fantastic work as always!

So many great bad gear episodes but this is really great! Thanks for the fun and info regarding this box

I love the K.O.II meme in this video :) I can't wait for the bad gear episode on it!

Hard to believe you haven't covered the Roland Sonic Cell, but that's my request for this week! Thank you Mr. Pilz, as always, for the great music and awesome sense of humor.

musically, one of the best recent episodes, as always keep up the good work!

Still checking all the boxes. Well done, as usual. Watched and liked as usual. Keep it up man.

You named your project "SUBSCRIBE” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you truly are a genius. Very timely, I just got the Play+ a few days ago. Bought the "vintage Play" as soon as it was available, so def triggered by this launch, but have to say I'm extremely glad I upgraded. Luckily found someone selling it for dirt cheap, so my "upgrade" cost was significantly less than $400 💪 new synths are nice, can't wait till performance mode can be used on them/midi, this thing will be 💯 then

i joined your patreon because of that final synth showcase. holy hell i need more of that track!

You never cease to amaze me with your Skill. Happy New Year.

This man really working overtime. Thanks for the video my numba one Österreicher! 💪🏾

hahaha!!! I saw you sneak that deluge image in there! THAT is the desert island groovebox.

With all the quirks, I'm still very interested in it. Great review and productions of it.

Love the hunter S Thompson quote. Marvellous ❤❤❤

Strolling into the tiger's cage with aplomb, rattlingly ; new year put on notice. He don't care, bout yr world. the DAW-y eyed last jam was impressive- it's the little touches in the stereo field, the clever harmonic weaving; and you do this every week. its not just the sprint, it's the endurance. Happy New Year!

You totally nailed it this week! That dub techno track was the bomb!! ♥️

from the mems to the little details top notch episode as always love the bass in jam 2 .

Love this Finale Jam. Every groove box seems to groove well under your tutelage 😊

First episode of Bad Gear of the year weeee :D Happy new year mr Florian with more memes and more jams :)

Great review! I’ve been loving mine. I don’t think I’ve found a workflow in either hardware or DAWs that is this fast and intuitive to whip up tracks and sequences. Agree with you on some of the live performance limitations though

Epic tunes once again bruv! I love your taste, and greatly appreciate your ability to dip into genres and nail them with brand new gear! Maybe throw in some more UKG like the first audio example? Plenty of the groove boxes do it nicely. Go old school and do the OG green red and blue electribes?

Love your channel. You demonstrate that the gear hardly matters. It's what you do with it that counts. You have saved me a lot of money as I have stopped buying gear altogether.

This is one of the first pieces of gear you've done where I have some experience. I had the original Play. I found it very frustrating to work with- same issues with real time record, double click buttons, channel assignments didn't seem to stick... my main issue was that there is no poly per midi track meaning you have to chew up tracks if you want to record your own chord voicings. I got a Deluge new with OLED but I did it primarily because I saw how generous they were to upgrade people's existing machines for a very low price and the open sourced firmware. I do miss the velocity sensitive pads on both but the Deluge is a complete joy to work with because it behaves... graphic sample editing on the matrix- yes. Regarding Ben... I just wonder what the hell is wrong with people. He had an opinion. Disagree and walk away. Threatening the man? WTF?

Fantastic show. Interesting take on stereotypical joke about Poland as default wasteland for the gear:) we should be swimming in used vintage gear wonderland in a bit😂 happy new year. ❤

Had the OG, upgraded and don’t regret it but also understand the disappointment it has caused. I immediately clicked with the Play and its interface/workflow so to have the upgraded power and synths was tremendously exciting for me. Having fewer boxes that actually inspire and excite is my New Gear’s Resolution.

Great video as always. A challenge to you, I would love to see you review a stylophone x-1 while somehow making some amazing jams out with it.

I just bought a first gen Play brand new for under 500. It works great as the sequencing centerpiece for my dateless setup

Ah yes, the infamous PAY PLUS to the owners of the OG 😂

On your hands it sounds amazing. The first jam you made, called House solo, i would called Berlin Techno Solo. It was top notch 👌🏻❤ Nice chapter of one of the biggest hyped gear of the last year. I was sad cause the Ben Jordan video reaction, he is a nice guy. He should not give a f**k about what others think or say.

Holy cow...this was actually the most balanced review yet!!

Jam 1 (House Solo) chef’s kiss ❤

Happy Friday Florian!

Your DnB is getting better :)

As an early adopter, my beef with the “upgrade” was that IMHO play needed several other improvements more than it needed synth engines or stereo. Ideally the replacement to a new more powerful CPU should have unlocked significant changes that could have been more of a game changer. It very much feels like the release of “the thing we meant to make all along” at the expense (literally) of early adopters. Yes there is butthurt. But that said, I was hoping for a completely different set of improvements. As a user I wanted to see significantly expanded per track, per step, FX routing and layering options. Multiple different FX beyond the global reverb and delay flavors. True LFOs including rate and shape with routing options to control multiple per track or per step parameters like filters, panning, and FX. Midi delays or trigger stutter to allow for some performance capability on the Midi lanes as well as the sample based audio side. Synth engines while a cool addition comes at the expense of the Midi tracks. If you were adding a beefy chip would it have been possible to have 3 pages of 8 tracks? Samples, internal synths, and 8 external midi tracks? Its a very cool groove box, but it still has limitations that could have been addressed if you were planning a chip upgrade. My biggest concern now is that there will never be an OS update to the original play because subsequent OS updates to play+ might be incompatible with the original chip. We didn’t really need stereo samples as much as you needed more and better stereo effects to color the mono samples.

Nice work as always. Kraftwerk actually did a show in my city a couple of days ago. Edit: Also, I was quite saddened at the treatment Benn Jordan copped. I also enjoyed his reviews.

haha! a Bela Lugosi reference! great vid...id never own this thing but nice to see

God damm it, one day late for your new again briljant vid. Really appreciate your work.

very very good music you made ❤

I dunno why Polyend refuses to put a chorus send in their gooveboxes. As a chorus junkie its kind of a deal breaker.

The OG Play is still a great little drum machine and I love mine. I just thought the $400 pricetag to update it was a slap in the face.

damn that waldorf bass sounded massive! :D

that first jam is amazing 🙀😳😳😳...also great to see the Rocket in the second jam...was it used in the finale as well? nobody covers controversy like you...the Walter Cronkite of synth news 😁👍🏻

Great video! I think it'd be super cool if you checked out and did a review of the Dirty Wave M8 Tracker? I recently just got one and im absolutely loving the work flow!

The Panda smashing the kit on the desk then floor started me in a fit of laughter. I Just been going through this myself with my new OX 1 sequencer through desktop Hydrasynth for two days trying to eliminate synth by synth, cabld by cable. I got there in the end and came to bed for a fresh start tomorrow only to see the Panda doing exactly what I wanted to do 😅

Last year definitely had its fair share of controversies to feed this most hated audio tools channel. Maybe do one on Waves, Akai MPC X SE, OP 1-Field, etc.

0:44 I bought one of these on release day - that joke HURT !!

I'd be outside the gates of Schloss Pilz with my flaming torch and pitchfork, but the pitchfork caught fire on the bus. As did the bus. As someone who lived with the joys of 96ppqn vertical scroll sequencing on the Atari, courtesy of Dr.T's KCS, the thrill of 3 column greyscale GUIs and neolithic workflows has long since left the building.

I really dig the background visuals in Jam 1 from 7:15 . Would you mind sharing a link?

The DnB set up is perfect.

Ah, I feel for Benn, I may be wrong but I think it was just opinion rather than paid-for promotion, but either way the backlash was still OTT. People are free to make their minds up and shouldn't really be hurling abuse like that at reviewers unless they are actually lying about the abilities or quality of a product.

Very nice, diese Abreibe 🙂

I’ve owned the OG Play and now the Play +. Now that it’s more of a standalone unit and don’t have to hook it up to external MIDI gear, i can take it anywhere and jam more easily. I love this thing.

Another great video and jam 👏 So if I got you right, sound design is menu-divey, and as far as I know there's no LFOs? Not replacing my Digitakt, then!

Can’t wait to buy the ++ next year

that opening was fly af

Could you make an episode about the new Yamaha seqtrak whenever you get your hands on one? Would be amazing to see your point of view and creations on it! Thank you!

I got (and sold) the OG Play and I must say it's a super fun and immediate machine... I bought it as a "cheap Deluge", which it isn't... This new Plus it's better, although the best feature I think it has is that you can get the original WAY cheaper, as it's a really fun machine... Anyway, if you are looking for a portable DAW in a box, it's the Deluge with community firmware, IMHO. BTW Florian, you're videos are fucking awesome. As suggestion, I think the Perkons should get also the BG treatment 🙂

10:00 Jeez Florian, that's a (very distant) blast from the past.... 😆

You managed to make those who suffered through buying the first version feel a littl ebetter about it if they upgraded. the sounds you got out if the plus are genius.

And I think we have a new record holder, congratualtions Polyend 😂

That zoom pedal is some very good gear

On the subject of trackers, you might consider an episode on the m8.

Could you do an episode on a synth FX device like the zoom ms-70cdr, or maybe the mod dwarf (which can also be used as a synth)?

Love my Play +. love this video, love the tears of those that remain frosty in the pants that Polyend hurt them. I love it all.

What about a Novation Circuit? Greetings! And a better year 😊

love the opening reference to the book"Kill you're friends" helter-skelter of a read for anyone in the music trade

Finally, with this video out in the world, Elektron could greenlit the Digitakt 2.

"Pitch" 😂 That machine sounds amazingly good, by the way, don't know what it is but there is a sort of a hi-fi quality to it...

Damn this makes me want one sooo bad

I bought the Polyend Play about a couple months before the Plus came out. Although I would have liked the additional features, I mostly bought the Play for its ability to easily randomize and mash up drum beats. I do wish that the Play Plus had been announced before its release, though. Kudos for the shots from Lifeforce in the last jam. I just recently saw that movie for the first time, and regret that it took me 35+ years to see it. :)

I think the meme at 4:30 is about King Crimson's Frame by Frame

Welcome to Bad Gear - the show that I have to adjust the settings to half-speed in order to catch all the memes

Rad AF Sir!

Thought about buying both of them, a few times. Just haven't wanted one bad enough to give in. At this point, maybe in a few years, when they will be on the market used for a few hundred, instead. For me, that makes more sense.

I would love to see the Tracker Plus model. I have the original Tracker, and I really love the UI because it's super-intuitive and it's faster to work with than a lot of other grooveboxes. It would be cool to see all these synths from the Play+ on the Tracker. And also a bit more polyphony (or at least ability to play chords on one track) would be nice.

I'll wait for the Play+ Deluxe Maxx.

I hope you can loan a Chompi off of someone that thing is a SynthTube Bad Gear hall of famer for sure.

Liking the use of Lifeforce in the visuals.

What’s the’s source of that animated space shuttle clip? Loving that and need more. 😂

Your the best I love your show

Another great instalment! The Play, and now the Play+ seem pretty damn good. I want one; it would make an excellent centerpiece, sequencing both its internal sounds and external gear. I can see why its release rubbed some people the wrong way, but it's kinda cool that owners of the original can upgrade for a cheaper price. It's also a shame that certain people's comments made Benn pull the plug on his gear reviews. That wasn't cool.

I was waiting for this lol

Have an original Play and love it. I will eventually get the Plus and will have less regrets than trading in a car for a new one.

Play+ synths rule great video ! i made some demos of it and want to make tutorials on how the engines work :)

I had never heard of this til now.

Are you planning to do for deluge ?

talking about the waldorf blofeld synthesiser keyboard somewhere?