I’m a later adopter of the og play. Before purchase my initial impressions led me to refer to it in my mind as the polyend random. Still, I could not resist the curiosity to explore the potential.
I’m not sure how I feel about these most recent betas, They certainly align with the Play concept but not being able to record what you play in those modes is meh. Much respect to Polyend for being transparent and showing the work they have continued to put into their devices.
Play gets so many things right. The per track play modes and independent track speeds among many other things are brilliantly implemented. But IMO, as a sample oriented groove box, the lack of modulation options, sample looping and mlr style gesture looping per track are disappointing.
I’ll be keeping it for a while I think. I’m using it mainly as a rhythm machine and midi sequencer. I haven’t enjoyed programming on board melodic content on it as much as I would have liked up to this point. Time will tell.
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Hi,
Which features do you refer that are not being able to record ?
I was referring to the perform modes in the new beta firmwares.
greetings.
still havent tried the beta, would be very surprised if perform mode didnt record the notes. surely that cant be right.
I also use play mostly for midi, the sample options are pants anyway.
play is a fun box but I would love to see some quality of life updates.
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@tapst3mpo What don’t you like about programming melodic content on it? Is it hard, complicated, just weird? 
I’m entertaining the thought of getting a used og Play for both percussion sequencing with the internal sample engine and midi sequencing external gear (a couple of eurorack voices and a couple of synths).
The thing that caught my attention is exactly what you mention of track play modes, speeds and generative features and made me think it might be a good fit for me.
I knew before purchase that there were no modulation, slices, etc. But you can do a LOT with the sample part of Play. A lot. It has a sequencer so well designed that it’s a joy to program steps in it. It doesn’t have certain things, and does have other things that other machines can’t do.
It makes the process of making music more inspirational and less technical if you want. No endless options to tweak. Just make music. For other options and more in depth sample managing there are other machines outside.
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The play has 128 pads that you can’t use to record note input. I’d like to be able to PLAY the melodic content using the big grid and live record it. The only way to do this currently is with the isomorphic view on the left side pads which I find very clunky.
I mostly agree with sentiment here. Still I have not been able to escape my feelings towards the idea of a sample based machine like this lacking sample looping. The play has limited ram so being able to loop short samples would be especially useful.
Like I’ve basically given up trying to do much melodic stuff with samples on the play. Still dig the play for rhythm and MIDI sequencing.
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thank you @tapst3mpo and @ameliagagarin !
I think I’ll look for a good deal on a used Play and have a go at it.
It does seem quite a fun device for the purpose I’m after.