To hear Bogdan talking and actually looking at him still being around for so long puts a wide grin on my face honestly. And then that little demo he played around 3 mins into the video. What a time to be alive.
I was on the fence about the Polyend Tracker, but the more videos I see, the more videos I see on this thing the more I like about thing. You did a very “hard sell” on this, now add in that the Polyend Tracker is a portable NES type gaming unit as well (!)
@@BogdanRaczynskiMusic Weird thing is I can't find anything in the beta firmware about swing. So, this is literally the only place that's mentioned it. Once that's implemented, I expect the hip-hop videos to surge.
love my Polyend Tracker 😁, been using trackers (octamed, fastracker, protracker) since the late 80's, and this takes me right back and feels like an old friend! 🙌🙌🙌🙌
That’s what I experienced when I found Renoise. Never really got used to Logic or Cubase and then someone introduced me to Renoise. The holy grail of daws for me, never looked back. Love the Polyend as well, still very tempted to try one...
I'm incredibly attracted to the step editing possibilities, especially with granular shifting and beat slicing. I feel like I could get lost for hours making each step a different sound, panning, filtering, pitching, adjusting start time, reversing etc. Probably my most desired piece of gear right now, so very tempting 🤔
I have one its a great musical tool only issue i have is long or should I say Big samples they can use up a lot of your total operating memory for each project so you stick to medium and one shots. Splice is the go to place wiith a polyend tracker for sure
It's so good to have an acknowledged prodigy of this form of music appear and talk through the features of this unit. I would love to hear from more artists on the tracker, of course, but Bogdan's input is definitive to this type of machine, I believe. There can't be anyone who is better qualified. Thanks for this video, Sonic State!
@@RonCavagnaro I used milky tracker a looong time ago. But yeah good advice, I even installed a few free DAWs to tame my GAS. Will install a tracker now.
Swing function (in addition to that work around shown), optional horizontal layout (a la old school drum machine) and listening to customer feedback and incorporating said ideas into future updates? Yessssssir
Yes. This is a beautifully designed box from every viewpoint. You can see how well the physical design (knobs, keys and pads size and placement, display) is thought out to make the most efficient use of the tracker and sample manipulation software. The perceived “limitations” clearly enhance the creative potential. Truly brilliant. On top of it, Polyend are doing an excellent job with firmware updates.
Really enjoyed this. Thanks guys. I think the Tracker is best thing I've ever bought to be honest. I use a combination of samples and hardware, and I've found sequencing hardware to be effortless and very enjoyable so I'd certainly recommend it for that. Something I need to do though is experiment with the performance mode on the Tracker more. That's something I haven't dabbled with enough yet.
Oops, my bad. I guess I was just confused by its implementation; I need to do some more research with it. My experience with time stretch functionality has been how it’s implemented in Ableton for example. This seems more ‘manual’ i suppose, but I guess that doesnt make it less powerful? How do you personally use it if I may ask?
YES! been waiting for a sonic state Tracker breakdown. The Polyend Tracker is one of my favorite pieces of kit in a long long time. Thanks for this sonic State and Polyend!
I have a tracker and its absolutely amazing. I love it sooo much. Never used a hardware sequencer or a tracker even, but its endlessly inspiring ❤️ Amazing amazing amazing
I used to use Jeskola Buzz virtual tracker for PC back in the late 90's early 00's. It's modular based plugins were really good. I used to make Jeff Mills style techno on it but lost all material when my hdd burnt out. Grrr.
Just got one of these and I’m so excited. I’m a bit apprehensive about the work flow, so I got a Moog Mother 32 and an Elektron Digitakt to help with my love of knobs. All to pair with my Korg Poly 61 out the shop. We love you Bogdan keep up the surprises.
I really shouldn't, but I'm going to purchase one of these over the weekend. It won't particularly fit in with my other gear, but I was a born and bred Octamed / Protracker man.
Mine turned up yesterday. Bloody hell is this a fun bit of kit! I love that I can sit comfortably on the armchair and come up with tracks so quickly. I can then move to my larger righ if I want to fully produce.
Waves of nostalgia, I started making music on fasttracker, Impulse tracker and renoise... remember downloading tracker files from Bogdan to check out how he makes the crazy shit he does. You but also Venetian Snares are true tracker masters!
@@BogdanRaczynskiMusic I was happy to see a peek behind the curtain all the same, I think you came off quite well here. I'm glad to see you're still making music! Infinite respect
I remember reading an interview with Bogdan in a magazine in The Northern California area called "Grooves" magazine during the early 2000s. I think when he made that "my love" record. I always assumed he was British, because he was on Richard's label? shows What I know!?😅
Wow I’ve never heard bogdan talk Like when I got out of highschool I listened to only 5 bands: Autechre Bogdan Xanopticon Uziq Skinny puppy I was around when Boku dropped and only way you could hear it was through some links in forums
Sold mine, I just couldn't get into it. But its a lovely machine, very well made. I had it less than two weeks and I lost £65 which was fair enough, But it sold first day it was advertised so quite in demand. I replaced it with a 1010 music BlackBox which I have fallen in love with(I know, I'm Sad).
Is it possible to edit steps while a pattern is playing? I'm sooo used to the Elektron workflow I cannot imagine not being able to edit steps without the pattern playing.
You are not used to working with trackers. You can have a different instrument per step on the same track (so you can control a MIDI device and trigger samples from the same track). There’re plenty of examples of entire tracker songs (with multiple instruments of course) with only one or two tracks. More tracks would just mean more clicking entering and searching for data in different screens and gaining nothing.
I have one. My biggest complaint as a former Amiga OctaMED user is that the screen should have been central with buttons either side. Experienced tracker users do everything on the keyboard with the mouse only really needed for sample editing. So it would have been nice to have used both hands and not have everything operated with the right hand.
i felt that at first but after a while muscle memory takes over, and I've found it a very speedy workflow once you get the shortcuts worked out. Fantastic bit of kit that I always dreamt of having back in the day! 😁👍
Renoise is great. The most capable tracker ever, but is not as friendly to use as this because of the wider options and because it is software. The thing with this is that the hardware allows for the tracker to be manipulated in a much more efficient way. You’d need significant investment in time and money for controllers to take Renoise to this level of usability.
@@WxkR I don't want to hear how efficient it is because I can't really afford it at the moment. I will get one in the near future but after watching that video my Gas is going crazy lol!
8 measure limitation Again. 4 and 8 measure limitations don't work for other kinds of music other than EDM. I use the pattern sequencers in high end arrangers, one to over 100 measures long looped or one shot, musical with zero quantize or a percentage quantize to grid from 1% to 100%. 8 tracks, stereo or mono tracks, entire 8 tracks can change pitch to a chord change, any time signature including 5/4s or 7/8s, for example, 12 versions of 8 tracks for a total of 96 tracks, 4 fills, plus phrase sequencer, plus sample instruments, MIDI connected instruments, and internal instruments for making sound.
That's like a carpenter complaining about a bean counter's abacus. Right tool for the job my friend. Trackers were built to produce chip tunes originally, not EDM. (Although it could be argued chip tunes are EDM too! 😆)
It's funny though in this interview that the tracker is valued for how "fast" you can "make" music. That's sort of the thing with trackers - their tendency to produce repetitive pattern based stuff - a flow of soundbites targeting a market where music's existence is a shallow ephemeral experience. I own a Polyend Tracker.
Yeah Well I like the square ones better as well... But I've just found out (because I'm going to buy the damn thing) that the rounded version is an update because the square buttons gave some problems. They're not only rounder, they're higher as well, which I don't like either. But newer and less chance getting into buttontrouble for the same price.... Sooo I guess I'm going for the updated round version.
@@Tekunikaru there was/is no problem with square buttons (i know, i have that version). They changed to rounded version because the company making the original square buttons got affected by covid19.
Yeah, I love everything about this product and polyend stuff in general, but how does it compare to a dedicated pc/mac running renoise (which runs on lunix as well)?
I think a real computer keyboard is better. Much faster in use. The memory/track limitations don't bother me but the physical interface is a deal breaker. The pads are too small and the button layout less than optimal if you are used to computer trackers. Mine is gathering dust at the moment. Hoping for a better designed version 2. I don't get why it is so hard to find a good hardware sequencer, MPC Live has too much going on, bad navigation around the system, Polytracker has a slightly compromised hardware interface , I think I'll go back to my Amiga 1200. Yes, I'm picky and complain a lot. But I seem to set the bar too high these days with music tech. Too little time to spend on it.
