The only thing stopping me from ordering a mini

I so wish the mini had the keys of the fullsize Tracker. The tactile feel of the fullsize Tracker is so nice. The buttons on the mini look no good to me. Surely the m8 and the popularity of mechanical keyboards point to the desire for this type of interface. The fullsize Tracker for me is nearly an all-time classic piece of hardware. I really hope the mini will match it UX wise. I can live with smaller buttons but give us chunky squares and not thin rectangles. In any case, buy a tracker in some form if you don’t have one already :slight_smile:

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I feel the same.
I kind of feel like the mini is a bit rushed response to M8, but I haven’t tried either, so it is only my initial thought.
I have not owned M8, but it is cheaper to Americans (harder, more expensive to get in Europe), and it has supposedly better engine with synths. But from what I have seen from M8, on paper it seems good, but UX seems way too menu-divey and small. Plus I haven’t heard a single piece of music that is not some chiptuneish thin sounding piece of music on M8, but that might just be me. So these things considered I would probably prefer Tracker Mini over M8. I preferred Polyend Tracker, the OG one, over M8 and still do!
My biggest gripe with the mini is the price, which I can understand from small independent company, but I just can not afford to buy all the gear, I already own a tracker. So at this pricepoint, the UX better be damn good.
Second dissapointment is lack of jog-wheel, which seems obvious choice for hand-held device, but couldn’t they just include a thumb-wheel on the right side?

All in all, I get it, new product means more sales, probably.
But I hope 1.7 won’t be last OG tracker update. If they could make it so that one could import separate channels from stereo samples, it would be big plus. Separate midi channels even more so. Continued updates could mean more OG tracker sales, because there are still units left. OG tracker is the best workstation UX experience so far.

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M8 and the Polyend Trackers are very different beasts in my opinion.

  • M8 uses LSDJ Style Tracking, a concept specifically designed for gameboy style input.
  • Polyend Devices use the more classic Protracker/Octamed/Impulse Tracker Style of Tracking

I’ve tried M8 Headless for a couple days and had to come to the conclusion that it is just not for me. Not because of the hardware, not because of the features. But just purely because i don’t mesh well with LSDJ :laughing:

So yeah, it’s awesome to have more variety of hardware trackers on the market. And i hope we will see even more in the future (XOR Electronics Nerdseq was supposed to become portable as well).

I personally don’t mind the lack of Jogwheel and/or the Pads. But i also hope that eventually we might see a full sized tracker again because that format was/is absolutely excellent. But i’ve already used external midi keyboards with the tracker. So with the Mini something like the Arturia Minilab will be brilliant.

I also don’t mind the price, considering that it’s going to have a much more powerful CPU and more memory inside. Which will allow for a lot of improvements down the line. Something that the OG Tracker with it’s limited CPU - sadly - just won’t be able to keep up with eventually.

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I have the m8 and the OG tracker. They’re both great devices with very different UI and approaches to song making. Those who gel with the polyend mini may not enjoy the m8 and vice versa.

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Yeah same. I do think the OG is a classic
Just needs a bit more grunt and memory (which hopefully would then allow development of some additional synth engines)

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Hey, just want to clarify a few things! The Mini was honestly not a rushed response to the M8. Bringing a product to market at this scale is a slow process, and it has been in development for years.

The Mini went through many prototypes with jog wheels, pads, and even a thumb wheel. We tested all of these prototypes and settled on the one with the best workflow. Squeezing anything more in UI didn’t improve the workflow.

I find myself making lots of music very quickly with the Mini as it is. I just made a track on the drive to Superbooth with sounds from the car, I do think people will really enjoy it!

While I understand your disappointment with the price, we do want trackers in as many people’s hands as we can put them in and are trying to keep prices reasonable. Cheers and hope you have fun with the OG tracker!

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I hope it does well. Feel sure it will, and yes, I will undoubtedly end up buying one

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The only thing stopping me from ordering a mini is my marriage

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