Hey everyone,
I’m loving the new Tracker Mini hardware, but I keep running into the same ceiling: each step is still capped at just two FX slots – and that includes velocity and micro-timing – exactly as on the original Tracker.
I know, I know – this comes up all the time, but is there any point in asking? Is it computationally and realistically possible with the new hardware? Are there any future releases in the next five years where Polyend could ship this?
I really prefer the Polyend Tracker way of thinking, with its chains and tracks in sync, but the headless M8 – with separate velocity plus three FX – often wins when I get frustrated with the Tracker.
In day-to-day writing, that limit forces a ton of resampling gymnastics. I get that this is part of the fun, yet it becomes tedious, especially since velocity and timing already count as effects.
Why I think it might be feasible
Tracker Mini / Tracker + moved to beefier silicon (faster ARM and more RAM/DSP headroom). That upgrade already gave us stereo audio and new internal synth engines, so the hardware clearly isn’t identical to the OG. If the DSP load per FX is low enough, could a firmware update expose an optional third (or even fourth) slot per step?
Possible compromises I’d happily accept:
- User-toggle “High-FX mode.” When enabled, drop voices from 8 / 16 to 6 / 12, or disable a synth engine, to free DSP cycles. Possibly force hexadecimal on all numbers to save space.
- Hidden extra columns. Hold a modifier to reveal FX 3 / 4, similar to how pattern view already hides columns (e.g. hold Shift and tap FX1 twice to see FX 3, which opens up and takes over the screen and ideally includes things like velocity separate to effects).
- Per-track budgeting. Assign an “FX budget” per track – four slots on Track 1, one on Track 2, etc. – and warn when CPU is exceeded.Eg. way, we could have set up tracks 1-4 with only 1FX slot ech, and use the extra 4 on the other 4 tracks, giving us 3 FX on tracks 5-8
- Offline render. A background render (like Render Selection) that commits extra per-step FX to RAM would avoid destructive resampling to the SD card. This is kinda crazy but would be unbelievable if you could figure out a way to ‘render’ effects together into a single effect with 3 HEX values and a complex algorithm to show what is going on (non-editable but deletable)
- Velocity column option. Make velocity columns available on a per-project basis; if disabled, velocity gets its own tiny V channel between note and instrument. Maybe you also lose a track too, so its 7 tracks now? Idk. Anything to get that extra fx slot or velocity separate.
Questions for Polyend (and the community)
- Is the two-FX limit hard-coded in the audio engine, or mainly a DSP safeguard?
- Do the processors in Mini / + leave enough headroom to experiment with additional per-step FX? Is the non-mini + significantly more powerful, or is the performance basically the same.
- Would you consider a beta flag or advanced menu option for users who understand the trade-offs?
- If not, could we at least get a dedicated MIDI CC lane so filter sweeps or velocity changes don’t cost an FX slot?
There’s an older thread where the answer was “not possible on current hardware”, but that predated the Mini / + refresh. I’d gladly trade some features and CPU for more FX – has anything changed internally that could reopen the conversation?
Really curious to hear from devs and power users – especially anyone who’s profiled CPU load while hammering the FX engine.
Thanks for reading,
Sam (aka @samwise)
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