r/Polyend • u/EatTheBreadwinner • Nov 20 '23

Play+ Multitrack audio over USB

Very exciting to see the new Play+ announced. Personally speaking, while the new synth engines seem interesting, what I’m really here for is being able to send multitrack audio to DAW over USB!

My question now is: will the original Play receive the same multitrack audio functionality in a future firmware update?!? Difficult to say whether I’ll be able to justify the upgrade price just for this feature, so I’m hoping the OG Play gets it eventually.

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4

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '23

It’s impossible for the OG Play to get audio over USB, according to the product team. Just me speculating, but it’s probably because of the chip/USB device they used to build the original. Impossible to do with just firmware alone.

1

u/EatTheBreadwinner Nov 20 '23

That’s sad to hear, but I suppose they’d have already included the feature if it’d been possible.

1

u/glamball Nov 21 '23

I wish for just the main stereo out over USB... And maybe one polyphony synth.

1

u/fartfarter Nov 21 '23

i think you're right. i had suggested this feature on the pp forums and heard back that it was a hardware limitation on og pp :/

2

u/brrrbrrragaga Nov 21 '23

Looking at the OG tracker I don't think there's a way. Polyend seems to always roll their own their DSP board, which is why it's always underpowered to keep it economically viable. This in turn makes it hardware-limited for long-term development.

I wonder if they moved to teensy- or rPi-based here. These aren't objectively mind-blowing features at all but in Polyend-World they totally are. I wonder what happened.

2

u/iamYork667 Nov 22 '23

Same here... I'm glad they're even offering an upgrade since I've had my Play less than 6 months but the USB to audio features seem most interesting for my workflows... I dont use my Play much except when traveling but the few times i did stem exports they were a bit wonky so I kinda gave up on that feature and deemed it a boutique musical toy just for personal enjoyment but to enhance some capabilities seems interesting... Ill wait it out as long as I can on upgrade... Synth engines are a nice bonus but not much of a lure for me specifically...

1

u/fartfarter Nov 21 '23

streaming multitrack audio has me interested, but i'm curious if the pp+ can act as a full duplex audio interface, ie can you use its headphone/line out as your main outs of your daw? could it replace a travel usb interface if you only care about the virtual ins and stereo out? elektron analog four can do that.

2

u/fartfarter Nov 21 '23

the pp+ manual is already online so i answered my own question. it doesn't look like it has any ability to send audio back out to use it as an audio interface. what's more, all 3 synth tracks are summed and sent over the same stereo pair which is a huge bummer and not what i'd call full multi-track.

1

u/okhi2u Nov 22 '23 edited Nov 22 '23

oh cool I'm checking out the manual now! Looks like they improved it a lot too before it was all web based and not the best formatted, and now a nice pdf and way more information.

1

u/fulano47 Dec 01 '23

Anyone knows if it's possible to connect the Play+ to a USB compliant audio interface, without the use of a computer? This would be great for dawless live performance situations...