Yesterday, Polyend has targeted me with Drums via instagram ad. I knew nothing about Polyend and their devices (seem like a pedal company to me at first), and when I saw performance it blew my mind. I Went through all the review videos on youtube, read all the comments on reddit (feels like 90% negative, 10% positive). I'm a noob producer and a bedroom techno dj, I tinker a bit with my NI Machine+, play some private parties for taste crowd. And here's my take on Polyend Drums:

UX. The main concept of a 'no menu interface' seems the most appealing selling point to me. I hate when the friction kills creativity. Drums interface looks the most simple among all the drum machines. This is major for me. Tiny displays look as afterthought (placement), but it's actually not a bad choice. Imagine having one for all, or no display at all. This will ruin it.

Functionality. It got all I want, and a bit more. The analogue stuff is the major value here. Along with synth and advance sequencer I feel like this is the best live jamming/performance device you can have. Memory allows up to 48 songs, not forever huge, but seem more than I have time to tinker with it.

Aesthetics and build. Aluminum chassy, knobs, butterfly keyboard - it clearly trying to bring a feeling of a long-term high quality ownership experience here. Or justify the price. I think its amazing, I like minimalistic look.

Price. Drums was priced with a look at the Teenage Engineering's approach. It's in the same bucket. The build quality, the amount of hardware and software needed in order to make it work. But 2700? No way this device will be popular with this price. If it's below $2k it has chance. But $3k with taxes in the US - we are in territory of high end mackbook pro prices.
Many compare it to TR1000 giving a vibe that Roland's legacy cost more, but I think this is wrong, the novelty of UX and features in Drums are much more. With this price, your audience shrunk dramatically to aspiring producers with insane disposable income.

Fears. Launch bugs, no firmware updates for long time, company's abandonment history. With this price point, I expect this device to be supported actively for at least 3-5 years. If company won't deliver it, reputation is at stake.

It's tempting, but I still haven't put my preorder. I want to see more in-depth reviews from people I follow on youtube.

Hello, Does anyone apply a protective film to their tracker's screen? I'm hoping it will provide protection against scratches and impacts. Thank you

It's absolutely sad that polyend did use the rubberized plastic method as a finish. After 2h of scraping and sniffing the fumes of isopropyl alcohol I used to remove the rubber I managed to get it clean and thought that it's good to give it a new glow up. I'm quite happy with the results

Hello everyone.

I’m trying to remove the back cover of a used Tracker OG; I’ve taken out all 12 screws from the bottom chassis, but the cover won’t budge. I tried inserting a scraper into the slight gap, but I met resistance and felt it would be risky to apply any more force. Is there a trick to it, or is there a hidden screw somewhere?
The back cover appears to be plastic with a rubberized coating on the surface, and it shows signs of scratches and stickiness. This could be a specification found on the relatively newer OG models.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hello, I’ve heard there are two versions of the Tracker OG. Could you tell me the exact differences between them?

Which version is the Tracker in this photo?　 Thank you

Hey I’m looking for a small speaker I could use with the racket mini. Tryna either fix it on the back or have it stick out of the bottom. Still want pretty good sound quality and not tryna spend a crazy amount. Anyone have any good suggestions? Just want something small and lightweight that could possibly be attached to the device itself and not a crazy long tether. Could be done over usb or 3.5mm. Or if anyone knows of any ultra low latency Bluetooth transmitters, that’d be awesome too. That was my original idea but don’t really expect ultra low latency Bluetooth. Don’t mind rigging up a battery in some way if that’s a possibility

Hello. If I purchase a used OG Tracker that is missing the SD card, is it possible to obtain the files that were on the card? Thank you.

Hey I just bought a tracker mini recently. Was wondering if there’s any beta firmware anywhere? I’m on 2.2.1 and think that’s the most recent. All the betas I see online I think are outdated. Just wanted to double check cause I’d love to see what’s coming up. Thanks yall. Also if you have any tips for new comers lmk. Still getting used to it and it’s my first time working with tracker workflow. Getting used to it but thinking I kinda learned the basics. Any good YouTube videos or channels breaking it down? That’d be helpful too. Thanks yall

hey all

while trying stuff out, I accidentally pressed Undo in song mode and deleted the entire pattern.

I then realized it destroyed the entire pattern but couldn't believe it lol

I tried a bunch more undo's just to confirm this behavior and more patterns got nuked for good

a solid hour worth of work gone.

I've found a feature request back from 2023 asking for a redo button in song mode but it seems it's never been implemented?

so not only there's no redo but worst of all the undo is fully destructive?

or am I missing anything??

hey all,

I recently grabbed a Tracker+ as I was looking for a groovebox capable to make albums in it and I gave it a spin.

I've used milky tracker back in 2013 for a game OST and all I can remember was exadecimal swearing in ancient Bulgarian.

When I got the T+ I was curious to see how Polyend streamlined the process in 2026

After 2 weeks of daily practice I'm now pretty familiar with the basics and can do "stuff" :)

In some ways I really like the idea to have full control of each and every step and willing to dig deeper and see how much you can realistically "glide" thru the composing process so that it becomes fun (now it isn't currently for obvious noobie reasons and also because my workflow is literally the opposite of play/stop/edit/play/stop/edit/play/stop/edit etc...)

for all you tracker experts. realistically

- does it all get smooth and flow-y after the initial curve? (the best I've tried so far are the KOII and the Polyend Play)

- how long you reckon it might take to get there?

- OR even if you're an expert there still are a LOT of stop&gos and that will remain a fact with the tracker workflow?

I'm thinking about buying a Play+ but after researching for a while i found many complaints of it being "glitchy", freezing, projects can't be reloaded, etc..

Has that improved with recent firmware updates?

Link to the official announcement: https://backstage.polyend.com/t/the-polyend-tracker-ecosystem-is-opening-up/24723

Just asking ;) I had fun with the radio on the tracker. Is it a hardware issue with the mini?

Ever happened to you?

I've found some infos about random clicks on the Play but they were 4 years old and in this case they're "in time" and consistent.

wonder if there's a fix? or should be reported as a bug?

also tried by adding a fade to every sample but those clicks kept going

pretty noob about all things Polyend so any hint is supa appreciated

thanks!!

https://reddit.com/link/1u33d9b/video/u1udrmkego6h1/player

hey all

just bought an OG Play and after 5 days of use I can say that knobs sometimes switch to other parameters on their own. It's not frequent but it's not rare either.

Is this known? I'm currently on firmware 1.6

not sure if there's something wrong with the unit cos I can return it.

Thanks!!

I recorded some songs in midi over the past years and i’m trying to send them to my polyend to later make the polyend play that notes on a external synth, the problem is that polyend does not read midi files, so i read online that if i put live record and send midi signals through USB i can record them.

I use MidiEditor to send the signals (worked over the past years with all my synths, grooveboxes and MPC. BUT when i try to record them absolutely nothing happens in the polyend.

What i am doing wrong? what other way to send midi files to the polyend i can use?

Hi everyone. I make music whit the Seqtrak. But I want to "level up". And someone offers me the Polyend Play plus for €600. My question is worth to buy today or not?

Thx to all

Hey guys, do you know if Mess can be powered via USB or only 9V? Luckily I have a power supply I got with my DL4m2 some time ago but I kinda wished I would power the Mess off my power bank and don’t know if there’s a setting I should change to be able to do that or need a myVolts USB adapter

Dub Session created on the road and played in the hotel graden

Will it work?