The Polyend Tracker is back at $359. You can get it for this price at Amazon too, but you get a little bag of candy from Sweetwater which sweetens the deal. Sorry.
Type:Sampler with Sequencer and Wavetable Synthesizer
I'd say this is not accurate at all. There are some great people at Sweetwater. Daniel Fisher alone is one of the most important people in the synth community in my opinion due to his very thoughtful demos. Amazon does nothing for customer education. Amazon doesn't weigh and photograph individual instruments.
I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
I bought one of these from The Midium (great small retailer) for the same price last time they were all on sale for $360. I don't remember if they send candy but they did send a handwritten thank you.
This is a fun device but I haven't put enough time in yet to really be productive with it. I've also seen people selling these locally for less recently, and the Tracker Mini for a similar price. The Dirtywave M8 is under $500 used these days, and is preferred by many people (check out Red Means Recording on YouTube).
My comment from the last post:
A tracker is like making music in a spreadsheet filled with hexadecimal codes, which is pretty obscure at first glance.
However, plenty of kids started making music on tracker programs in the 90s, so there have been beginners who found success with a similar interface. It probably depends on how your brain works. One advantage of the interface is that a lot of information is visible on the main page, once you understand what you're looking at.
I'd recommend watching this video to get a sense of how it works but remember that Loopop has years of music production experience, and you won't be able to make stuff that sounds nearly as good without lots of practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBVvAtY
(Watch up to 5:04, then skip to watch 42:50 until the end, then watch the middle if you're still interested)
You can also download a demo for Renoise, which has a similar interface although it's more powerful and probably a bit harder to learn. https://www.renoise.com/
If you're interested in a groovebox (an all-in-one hardware device that can make beats and melodies, i.e. a full track) like this, I'd consider the Novation Circuit Tracks for a similar price. The Roland MC-101 might also be good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3yveNXnQs
I found it very easy to use. I made a song without ever watching a video or reading the manual. It was one of the most intuitive devices I've ever used considering the complexity.
It's really cool to create a piece of music, and then throw it in perform mode where you can trigger reverb, delay, bitcrush, and a bunch of other effects on a per track basis and just chill. I've got tons of instruments to mess with when I want to play, but the more passive style of this is really chill to use in bed getting ready to sleep.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank zoysiamo
04-25-2024 at 01:31 PM.
I bought one of these from The Midium (great small retailer) for the same price last time they were all on sale for $360. I don't remember if they send candy but they did send a handwritten thank you.
This is a fun device but I haven't put enough time in yet to really be productive with it. I've also seen people selling these locally for less recently, and the Tracker Mini for a similar price. The Dirtywave M8 is under $500 used these days, and is preferred by many people (check out Red Means Recording on YouTube).
My comment from the last post:
A tracker is like making music in a spreadsheet filled with hexadecimal codes, which is pretty obscure at first glance.
However, plenty of kids started making music on tracker programs in the 90s, so there have been beginners who found success with a similar interface. It probably depends on how your brain works. One advantage of the interface is that a lot of information is visible on the main page, once you understand what you're looking at.
I'd recommend watching this video to get a sense of how it works but remember that Loopop has years of music production experience, and you won't be able to make stuff that sounds nearly as good without lots of practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBVvAtY
(Watch up to 5:04, then skip to watch 42:50 until the end, then watch the middle if you're still interested)
You can also download a demo for Renoise, which has a similar interface although it's more powerful and probably a bit harder to learn. https://www.renoise.com/
If you're interested in a groovebox (an all-in-one hardware device that can make beats and melodies, i.e. a full track) like this, I'd consider the Novation Circuit Tracks for a similar price. The Roland MC-101 might also be good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3yveNXnQs
FWIW: Sweetwater is as bad as Amazon, if you care... just an investment fund now. But they'll also call and harass you every few months.
I'd say this is not accurate at all. There are some great people at Sweetwater. Daniel Fisher alone is one of the most important people in the synth community in my opinion due to his very thoughtful demos. Amazon does nothing for customer education. Amazon doesn't weigh and photograph individual instruments.
I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
I found it very easy to use. I made a song without ever watching a video or reading the manual. It was one of the most intuitive devices I've ever used considering the complexity.
It's really cool to create a piece of music, and then throw it in perform mode where you can trigger reverb, delay, bitcrush, and a bunch of other effects on a per track basis and just chill. I've got tons of instruments to mess with when I want to play, but the more passive style of this is really chill to use in bed getting ready to sleep.
I'd say this is not accurate at all. There are some great people at Sweetwater. Daniel Fisher alone is one of the most important people in the synth community in my opinion due to his very thoughtful demos. Amazon does nothing for customer education. Amazon doesn't weigh and photograph individual instruments.
I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
Totally agree. My sweetwater rep, Cliff, is one of the longest standing relationships I've had in my life. And he still calls me to make sure I don't need anything. How sweet is that?
Totally agree. My sweetwater rep, Cliff, is one of the longest standing relationships I've had in my life. And he still calls me to make sure I don't need anything. How sweet is that?
Sweet as making a dollar. I like Sweetwater too, but if you think all the after sales calls are because they genuinely like you... Perhaps, but most are just trying to drum up more sales.
FWIW: Sweetwater is as bad as Amazon, if you care... just an investment fund now. But they'll also call and harass you every few months.
Not worth anything TBH.
Sweetwater is great. Very personal touch. My sales agent realized I'm not interested in phone calls so every once in awhile he would email just to touch base.
They don't harass.
Great service, great product, and great payment plans.
Sweet as making a dollar. I like Sweetwater too, but if you think all the after sales calls are because they genuinely like you... Perhaps, but most are just trying to drum up more sales.
Boy, you're a regular business major, eh? Good catch!
Yes, it's the salespeople who call. Not the shipping dept or the CEO.
They won't call if you don't want them too. My rep emailed.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank air_towel
04-29-2024 at 08:56 AM.
This is a very niche piece of hardware, designed out of a nostalgia for tracker-based music production which started way back on the Amiga 500 (even Commodore 64 in a limited fashion). It's clinical and spreadsheet-like. Literally coding music in hexadecimal. And it's the greatest music creation tool I've used in over 15 years. The last time I was this wow'd was when the Waldorf Blofeld came out and you could get up to 16 channels of PPG Wave in a tiny little desktop box. It's not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's *really* for you.
Everything is where it should be, the entire UI makes sense. I owned a Digitone for a little bit and I constantly felt like I was fighting the interface, having to dive in the manual for weeks to get a workflow going. With the Tracker, most guesses I make end up being the function I wanted. Similarly, I tried a headless Dirtywave M8 and while more powerful, the UI is very dense and requires a big time commitment to learn.
Anyone buying should note, Polyend will likely release a Tracker+ at some point with (at least) the feature set of the Tracker Mini, stereo sampling, audio over USB, etc.. They also got some people angry by offering a trade-in program for their Play groovebox ($400 + your old Play for a Play+). But for what you get from a design perspective, $359 is a fantastic price, even if a shiny new one appears on the horizon.
Polyend has a real premium problem where they will DLC-lock features, kind of like you buying a base model car that has the automatic windows disabled unless you pay for the subscription upgrade. They really screwed over early adopters of their flagship synth with the required-trade-in upgrade and have killed their market because of it. Sweetwater has some of the most informed employees of any music hardware group, but they are still marketers at the end of the day, so use a fake phone number when signing up for their mandatory user account to get your receipt and not a lifetime of shilling and cash-grabs.
I got in on the deal last time too. But I returned the device soon after. This is clearly not a device for those just learning about grove boxes and music making.
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I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
This is a fun device but I haven't put enough time in yet to really be productive with it. I've also seen people selling these locally for less recently, and the Tracker Mini for a similar price. The Dirtywave M8 is under $500 used these days, and is preferred by many people (check out Red Means Recording on YouTube).
My comment from the last post:
A tracker is like making music in a spreadsheet filled with hexadecimal codes, which is pretty obscure at first glance.
However, plenty of kids started making music on tracker programs in the 90s, so there have been beginners who found success with a similar interface. It probably depends on how your brain works. One advantage of the interface is that a lot of information is visible on the main page, once you understand what you're looking at.
I'd recommend watching this video to get a sense of how it works but remember that Loopop has years of music production experience, and you won't be able to make stuff that sounds nearly as good without lots of practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBV
(Watch up to 5:04, then skip to watch 42:50 until the end, then watch the middle if you're still interested)
Another good tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXu5254
You can also download a demo for Renoise, which has a similar interface although it's more powerful and probably a bit harder to learn. https://www.renoise.com/
If you're interested in a groovebox (an all-in-one hardware device that can make beats and melodies, i.e. a full track) like this, I'd consider the Novation Circuit Tracks for a similar price. The Roland MC-101 might also be good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3yveN
It's really cool to create a piece of music, and then throw it in perform mode where you can trigger reverb, delay, bitcrush, and a bunch of other effects on a per track basis and just chill. I've got tons of instruments to mess with when I want to play, but the more passive style of this is really chill to use in bed getting ready to sleep.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank zoysiamo
This is a fun device but I haven't put enough time in yet to really be productive with it. I've also seen people selling these locally for less recently, and the Tracker Mini for a similar price. The Dirtywave M8 is under $500 used these days, and is preferred by many people (check out Red Means Recording on YouTube).
My comment from the last post:
A tracker is like making music in a spreadsheet filled with hexadecimal codes, which is pretty obscure at first glance.
However, plenty of kids started making music on tracker programs in the 90s, so there have been beginners who found success with a similar interface. It probably depends on how your brain works. One advantage of the interface is that a lot of information is visible on the main page, once you understand what you're looking at.
I'd recommend watching this video to get a sense of how it works but remember that Loopop has years of music production experience, and you won't be able to make stuff that sounds nearly as good without lots of practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBV
(Watch up to 5:04, then skip to watch 42:50 until the end, then watch the middle if you're still interested)
Another good tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXu5254
You can also download a demo for Renoise, which has a similar interface although it's more powerful and probably a bit harder to learn. https://www.renoise.com/
If you're interested in a groovebox (an all-in-one hardware device that can make beats and melodies, i.e. a full track) like this, I'd consider the Novation Circuit Tracks for a similar price. The Roland MC-101 might also be good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3yveN
https://themidium.com/products/po...d-sampler?
I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
It's really cool to create a piece of music, and then throw it in perform mode where you can trigger reverb, delay, bitcrush, and a bunch of other effects on a per track basis and just chill. I've got tons of instruments to mess with when I want to play, but the more passive style of this is really chill to use in bed getting ready to sleep.
I've been a Sweetwater customer for years. I've got a single phone call, not directly related to an order, from my sales rep in this time. He knows I don't engage, so he leaves me alone. I'm very happy with everything, every time. If you can buy from a smaller music shop, do it, but saying Sweetwater is the same as Amazon isn't true.
Totally agree. My sweetwater rep, Cliff, is one of the longest standing relationships I've had in my life. And he still calls me to make sure I don't need anything. How sweet is that?
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Not worth anything TBH.
Sweetwater is great. Very personal touch. My sales agent realized I'm not interested in phone calls so every once in awhile he would email just to touch base.
They don't harass.
Great service, great product, and great payment plans.
Boy, you're a regular business major, eh? Good catch!
Yes, it's the salespeople who call. Not the shipping dept or the CEO.
They won't call if you don't want them too. My rep emailed.
I haven't heard from him in a couple years.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank air_towel
Everything is where it should be, the entire UI makes sense. I owned a Digitone for a little bit and I constantly felt like I was fighting the interface, having to dive in the manual for weeks to get a workflow going. With the Tracker, most guesses I make end up being the function I wanted. Similarly, I tried a headless Dirtywave M8 and while more powerful, the UI is very dense and requires a big time commitment to learn.
Anyone buying should note, Polyend will likely release a Tracker+ at some point with (at least) the feature set of the Tracker Mini, stereo sampling, audio over USB, etc.. They also got some people angry by offering a trade-in program for their Play groovebox ($400 + your old Play for a Play+). But for what you get from a design perspective, $359 is a fantastic price, even if a shiny new one appears on the horizon.