Polyend has released an update to their Tracker standalone workstation that adds major new MIDI I/O and sound design options, plus onboard games.
Here’s what’s new in Tracker v1.3:
- New MIDI I/O functionalities:
- Per step MIDI Chords,
- MIDI Microtune step Fx,
- Performance mode is now controllable via MIDI input,
- Master mixer levels are now controllable via MIDI input,
- Tracker can now be configured to send 6 distinct MIDI CCs per MIDI channel,
- Added support for sending MIDI channel aftertouch and polyphonic aftertouch,
- MIDI instruments in Pattern mode can now be present without a note (specify which MIDI channel to send CC),
- MIDI delay compensation for external clock sources in Config,
- Overall enhancements and workflow refinements:
- Tune step Fx,
- Track Arm Recording,
- Live Audio Line Input Monitoring is now available during song playback,
- Long Sample Importing,
- Lo-quality Importing (saves sample pool memory time),
- Delete unused samples,
- Timestretch Fx in Sample Editor,
- Bit depth available as step and Performance Fx’s,
- Transpose octaves by turning the Jog-wheel with Shift in note editing,
- Enhanced Pattern Fill command: Euclidean fills, density setting in Random fills,
- Rewritten from scratch rendering mechanism,
- New sound sculpting possibilities:
- 5-band master EQ,
- Bass booster,
- Stereo enhancer,
- Updated Limiter with gain reduction meter,
- Line Input can now be a Sidechain source for the Limiter,
- Onboard games are now available to catch a breather from a hard day of music-making.
- Polyend Tracker v1.3.0 firmware update is required to run the games,
- Download the games, unzip and copy the “Games” folder directly to the SD card root directory,
- Games will be accessible from the Files screen.
See the Polyend site for details.
the game engine could actually be revolutionary if it allows you to import your own games and if games can access the sound engine in some way. It means there is a potential to write custom UI/workflow for tracker, which if possible at least one person will do (it’s been done for the bcr2k why wouldn’t it)
this could mean potential 3rd party workflows, amazing
An amazing and relatively inexpensive bit of hardware, fabulous updates and support from Polyend- building in a NES emulator that can play .nes file…genius, and on point for an 80’s style tracker!
Sold mine already but am now considering buying another after this update. Live audio monitoring opens it up a whole lot more now. For it to pretty much be a sampler, not having live audio as your track is running kind of killed it especially when your sampling synth riffs. Was my intro to a tracker workflow so I assumed thats the way it goes in the tracker world but this is 2020, i knew they were just hiding behind that “not a traditional tracker workflow” excuse on their website. Now its a sampler with a tracker sequencer,
I loaded a bunch of .nes roms. 70% worked. Great Update!!