#183

If you have a tracker on your computer I guess you also finally got midi export. Seems weird they did not include that in the first place.

#184

Just received mine but I’m having some trouble loading samples onto the SD card. I created a folder in Samples and threw in a couple wav files (44100, 24 bit) just named Synth 1, Synth 2, etc. My folder shows up in the sample loader on the Tracker but none of the audio files are there. Has anybody run into anything like this?

#185

I’ve had that happen before. Its bizarre. Sometimes if I alter the file path a little, they pop up… I Can’t say why, but it certainly is something that’s happened to me.

1 Like
#186

Interesting! I sent Polyend an email as well but I’ll play around with it, thanks.

#187

They’re super quick about their responses. I mean, I saw that happen with factory sample sets on the included SD Card!

#188

My childhood dream comes true with a hardware sound tracker. To celebrate, we’re making it play XTD’s economy01, a classic '90s demoscene tune:


It’s a MOD from 1992!
20 Likes
#189

Nice and touching !
No sound is embedded in the .MOD file, is it ?

#190

There are six tiny samples embedded in the MOD, all but two (the bass drum and the snare) a manual equivalent of granular synthesis with very short loops. The sound is made pleasant with fake delays, panning (which I had to redo here: original four track MOD files on Amiga hard panned tracks in hardware: tracks 1 and 4 were left, while tracks 2 and 3 were right), vibrato and tremolo.

Polyend Tracker has a little trouble with those 8-bit samples, overdriving them somewhat. The original lead wasn’t distorted at all. Renoise does a better job here. But it still sounds very good, there’s some pleasant grit in that aliasing distortion. And the Polyend Tracker did a better job overall importing the MOD than Renoise which I found unexpected!

2 Likes
#191

Just for posterity this was Polyend’s reply to my samples not showing up:

Theoretically, Tracker’s engine will read all the 16 bit, 24 bit and 32 float .wav files as long they are 44,100.

But there are different codecs, while Tracker uses PCM.

Please convert your samples to 16bit and see if it helps.

I converted to 16bit using Max and that did the trick!

3 Likes
#192

I got the Polyend Tracker out of pure nostalgia for the olden days (I was using Fruity Loops and Buzz at the start of the 2000s).
This thing is pure joy for me and I have not even connected it to any external gear yet. I probably spent two days of the last week losing myself in microedits to make unlistenable breakbeats that I would never want anyone to listen but also some nice weird sample stuff that does not really feel to rigid to me. It is easy to overdo it with the obvious tracker tricks like the rolls, I just love them…

Whenever I run into obvious limitations I can usually come up with a workaround that would not even have felt like a workaround “back then”. Eg I used to place 2 bar samples in fruity loops. It usually involved first recording something to minidisc (while listening to the fruity studio stuff in headphones and then bounce it back onto the computer. That was just the easiest thing on that old Windows 98 computer with 16MB RAM, 133mhz (Pentium one??). Quite funny how now everyone wants to do it all at once.
(End of old man story.)

7 Likes
#193

I can’t stop feeling the love for this thing either. Last night I made this odd little bear with a kick drum in the tracker’s samples and the sequencing Slate + Ash’s Cycles (in granular mode). Finally, I had the max patch Returns running for my arc, with an LFO changing the grains position and the second arc knob control the grain size.

All super simple, and the tracker was only running a 4 line loop. Strait up one bar.

Nothing SUPER complex, but it just is one of the ways the Tracker can be used to just find myself with something.

6 Likes
#194

Anybody here created a new SD card for their tracker? I reached the limit of the included card and can’t seem to get a FAT32 card to read at boot.

1 Like
#195

I haven’t tried but it seems the limit is 128gb.
“The attached SD card is 16 GB, cards up to 128 GB were successfully tested too (formated to fat32). Probably larger capacity could be used either.

If you need to format a larger capacity SD card to fat32, you may like to use the following tool:

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm “
(From their webpage)

Would be curious to know which cards work fine myself.

#196

I’ve done this with two different similarly rated cards. FAT32. 32GB cards. I am going to try and format on a Windows machine instead of a Mac today. Maybe that’ll make the difference.

#197

I actually wonder if it might be worth trying exFAT, as I am unsure if cards bigger than 32 gb actually work fine with FAT32 just because of this entry on the SD Association:
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/faq/#faq01
Someone in the facebook group said he would use 128gb FAT32 successfully in the tracker.

#198

I tried that too. Next up I will try another SD. I decided the windows machine might be an interesting attempt

#199

Appears it was the card. Bizarre. This 32gb card has the exact same traits as the included 16gb. Just formatted a 128gb card with FAT settings and worked like a charm.

1 Like
#200

I’m on a weeklong vacation to the Tatra mountains without my usual hardware and software. This is a track I made exclusively with the Polyend Tracker:

There are no overdubs, no external software or hardware, no post-processing either.

G-major, 174 BPM, 4/4. 7 tracks are used, the last one is left for the lead. When just this one is left, it’s easy to accidentally mute a note when there’s no channels left for the lightpad playback. That’s why I kept the noodling rather safe. Plus I’m still getting used to the chromatic lightpads.

8 Likes
#201

This is wonderful! I have a lot of questions about how you achieved this:

  1. Guitar sample; this a few single string hits that you’re making sound like hand played guitar or a longer sample?

  2. Guess the same goes for the drums? are these longer samples sliced and layered?

I’m guessing the bass is just pitch bent and stuff, but dang, that’s v-nice

2 Likes
#202

The guitar sample is a complete phrase. It’s very hard to achieve sounds of guitar picking with the amount of nuance I have here using single hit samples. You’d essentially have to have chopped parts of the phrase here anyway. On the Polyend Tracker you’d hear inter-sample clipping and the 8 track limit would get you fast.

The drums are shorter loops that I chopped, re-arranged, layered, and panned. Same applies: you’d have problems putting so many sounds with single hits with 8 tracks, especially during the finale which plays the guitar, the bass, the lead, three layers of drums, and the stereo polysynth (wavetable).

I guess it would be a bigger achievement to create all those sounds “from scratch” but it would be hard to pull off to sound organic. In case of drums you’d battle ringing out cymbals, hats, and snares being cut by following single hits (unless you spent like 4+ channels on drums alone).

4 Likes