No time-stretching — Could a manager be created within the Sample menu, with time-stretching handled there?
More precise sample start/end editing — 1024-step resolution instead of 0.2%. (When working with loops, it is difficult to find the exact attack point of a drum hit.)
Sample cropping function — This would work well in combination with the 1024-step resolution. Again, this could be included in the Sample Manager if one is added.
Isomorphic keyboard — This would improve chord playing and melody input.
Note Repeat issue on the Perc synth — When Note Repeat is applied, I expected it to affect only the selected instrument, but other instruments that sound simultaneously are also repeated. (For example, if Note Repeat is applied to a hi-hat, even when the tracks are separated, the snare also gets repeated/flammed.)
Adding Drive to VAP and Chorus to ACD would go a long way toward covering the Juno sound. A stereo chorus would be especially useful. Since the Juno and ACD have very similar oscillator configurations, it feels like a missed opportunity.
Mute/Solo control via an external controller — At least basic mute and solo functions should be controllable externally. Since audio tracks and synth/MIDI tracks are separated, it is currently impossible to control both mute and solo simultaneously during a live performance.
No resampling / no USB audio recording — Perhaps this could be worked around by adding a crop function, allowing the user to mix down and then crop the resulting sample.
Recording external inputs — This would require a hardware upgrade, since there are no physical input connectors.
More synth engines and greater polyphony.
Multi-effects that can be placed after the tracks. (Items 10 and 11 would probably require a more powerful CPU.)
More tracks — Additional navigation buttons would probably be necessary for scrolling through them.
A looper that can be converted into a sample.
Additional individual outputs.
Overall, the workflow seems to be designed around the assumption that you won’t be creating an entire track by yourself on the device.
The Polyend Play Plus is an extremely portable sketching tool for electronic music, and I think its real potential would shine if it allowed users to load samples, match loops with different tempos, apply effects, resample to overcome its limited number of effects, and ultimately create an entire track on their own.
Seems to me that the alternative is to have every type of drum sound in a Perc instrument take up an additional voice of polyphony. I’d rather not have that, personally.
I cannot see thomann selling any of these anymore. Maybe they abandoned play for good.
This year I was at superbooth, I didn’t even look at their products.
Going to take off my Mod hat for a moment, and and share my opinion just as a user of many synths/groovebox/sequencers and the like for the past 30 years. For me there is a big difference between “Serious Issues” which I would see as bugs, things that cause crashes and things not working as intended in reference to the Manual. Feature requests and things you would like to have on the Play are not Serious Issues.
I 100% respect your opinion, and your desire to have some features implemented. However starting a conversation like this is not the best way to get Polyend’s or any company’s attention. Delivery and attitude is key in starting a conversation.
As an owner of many Polyend, Elektron, ASM, Novation, and Meris products (and the plethora of Eurorack modules I own), I could never imagine complaining about anything I own not doing something, provided the manual never mentioned that it could do said function. I can (and have) very politely and respectfully asked (begged) for features to be implemented. Frap Tools is an amazing example for me personally having very nice respectful conversations with the company and the community and helping to shape their USTA with multiple features in their upgrades to what it is today.
(mod hat back on) We (and I mean this you, me any everyone who owns a play) deserves exactly what is described in the manual, and I will help you day and night if ever something is not working as expressed in the manual for the Play+. If there is something you’d like to see added to the Play/Play+, create a Feature Request and we will be happy to assist in the process
I love it dearly but it could really do with a shortcut to the synth editor, and an additional high pass filter (ala opxy / Elektron) for mixing/eq-ing.
