I’m totally with you. As I said in another post, I’m not against anyone at Polyend, and I bought the update day 1. I feel comfortable to express how it all makes me feel, but I have zero desire to attack anyone nor do I feel any resentment towards anyone at Polyend. Good people can make less then ideal decisions
In the best case scenario; If Polyend would have said a year and 1/2 ago that this was a pricey experimental and somewhat prototype that they would hope to replace/re-imagine when the chip shortage was over when they could, I still would have bought it and paid for the upgrade. I think it’s the lack of transparency that stings the most.
What about a Play++ in 2024 ? with a drum synth ? a mic or a line in to sample ?
I keep my Play OG that I love but I hate the commercial behavior of Polyend.
They should offer a downloadable compensation to The Play OG owners.
But Polyend is the most transparent company in their league, or name a competitor communicating almost on a daily basis in a place like here at Backstage. It takes a simple search query to see what wishes the Play can’t do because of technical limitations, or even because of their product vision.
People asked about USB audio and about synths for the Play, and already last winter they officially said that the Play couldn’t have them.
Of course they don’t share all their roadmap. They don’t run an open source project or a hobby non-profit. Small companies like Polyend don’t have the muscle of the big ones, and the big ones don’t share a thing unless it works for their marketing. Also, the Osborne effect is real and it can kill a small company with a small portfolio, especially when selling to an overcrowded market in times of crisis and inflation.
The frustration of some people who made a lot of effort to buy a Play is fully understandable! But put yourself in the feet of Polyend as a sustainable business. What alternative option would increase your customer base better (this is the business goal of the Play+, upgrades for Play users are, with luck, a no-loss complement) while ensuring your capacity to pay monthly salaries, contractors and providers?
And we all love free software updates, but they too need a growing user base to make their production sustainable. The Mini and the Play+ are products to increase Polyend’s user base, just like significantly cheaper OG Trackers and Plays. A bigger user base benefits all customers in the short and long run.
Exactly. You buy a device for what it CAN do, not for what you want it to do.
Bug fixes are vital and feature addons are nice and Polyend already stated that developement will continue for the OG Play.
And my two cents for the whole complaining here:
I do music on a daily basis as a professional, i buy a device based on specs when it helps me to get the things done. The price pays off when i WORK with it.
Sorry but most of the complaining people here are first time poster wich have stated that they only payed the last rent, havent used it, only played with it a few times or even have already get rid of it before.
USE it! You are pissed of that the price dropped before you could sell it. These are musical devices to actually make music with. Only buy if you can afford it and dont be upset afterwards if it loses value.
You can use Play exactly as last week, if you havent, your problem is on a whole other level.
In musical terms, slow down the attack and lets hold on for the release a little bit longer to give the sustain more weight
No they didnt. Processor scaling in Play is the same as in the Tracker OG. As I stated in the post before, Play is totaly fine for what it is. They created Play+ for the feature requests that arent possible with Play OG. Use Play as its ment to be, buy Play+ for an extented feature set. Its called product design and everbody has done this in the past. You dont overpower a device for no reason just to add features to it in the future. Economics. You release a new one, because it lowers the cost of the product and the user can decide if they want the extented capabilities or just stay with the one they have. If you always want the latest, you have to pay. The complaining is mostly based on technical misunderstanding and GAS.
Small addition: its not Play MK1 and MK2 its Play and Play+. Its no iteration its a second extented model. Both exist side by side.
Close enough for hand-grenades! I feel like Elektron had a sort turnaround mk2. But you guys are right to be bummed. How do they make it up? They seem flexible, pitch an idea. I think they hear you and are listening.
I rather have new equipment, but i understand that is a luxury. I still feel it is harsh to call it and money grab, like people hVe been saying. It is a mistake and we hope they listen.
After some thought decide not to upgrade.
For me the pricing rubs me the wrong way.
Just cutting the original play in half is not fair to the original owners.
Spending 1200 for a plus as an early adopter is too much.
Not knowing what the real costs and margins are for polyend. If polyend chose to lower the price to 600 and the plus to 850 and have the upgrade be 200 I would have take that deal.
I do not own the Play, but I am wondering if same path is coming to OG Tracker with Mini features. And this makes me wonder if OG Tracker could just be upgraded with replacing Teensy to newer version that is supposed to be inside it and flash new firmware? I am not going to pay 400 for Teensy upgrade.
There is NO teensy devboard in the Tracker OG.
The PCB is custom made and it doesnt matter if its based on teensy or not. As i mentioned earlier, technical misunderstanding. Nobody want you to buy something not even anounced. Its very likely that the Tracker Upgrade path will be the same and I appreciate it a lot. Less electronic waste and a better controlled used market.
Unfortunately if we did a Tracker+ I don’t see Polyend offering an upgrade path again, for a number of reasons. Also there have been 3 or 4 hardware revisions with PCBs that don’t fit in the new hardware, so a lot of parts we couldn’t reuse and it would be much less effective preventing E-waste.
Thanks for clarification. As the Tracker is the oldest of the recent products its more likely you’ll come up with a upgraded design, a plus version makes less sense for the tracker OG anyway.
Just wanted to make clear in my post, that a simple teensy devboard swap will not gonna work.
