Polyend Tracker costs 599$, preorder 499$. It looks like a device with a very nicely streamlined workflow and I can imagine it is very interesting for people doing music live. But it is nothing for me.
M8 looks neat, too bad it’s limited to 8 tracks.
WOW, LISP REPL in Tracker?
I am sold.
Same as Tracker. I think i will save for m8 when it gets a proper release, looks juicy.
8 tracks is twice as many as LSDJ!
I used to have one of these back in the day - I really wish they’d bring these back! It’d be a nice controller for Renoise.
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Would be a laugh to use it as a Keytar with the full QWERTY too.
Synth equivalent of those double-neck guitars.
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I forgot this! I had one too, that was my first midi keyboard. Quite toyish piano keys, but super-convenient for making music with a tracker. 
I’ll to RENOISE. I went back to it after using Logic for 1 year. Now? RENOISE is it because I actually do end up finishing songs… Something about Vertical arranging sequencing that makes inspire to realize what to do next…
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Im so happy to see that people have started making handheld music arrangers again and happier still that they are running trackers.
I wonder which kind of chips the M8 unit has inside, or is it a sample tracker?
I love the idea of PSPSEQ and Little Game Park Tracker which run on PSP.
Little Game Park Tracker needed only a few things like multisampled instruments and a graphical sample editor, graphical envelope editor, save as and a dialog for rendering to wav on the PSP itself. It is sometimes buggy. It was/ is one of the greatest designs for a portable tracker ever but it seems development has stopped ever since ipad and iphone distracted a lot of people.
PSPSEQ is so great once you have tried it enough…The FM synth and Karplus synths are capable of really great sounds, not only for melody but also for drums. I would say it just had a few things which could be improved, like when you shift pattern forwards notes get lost off the end of the pattern instead of reappearing at the start of the pattern. Also the ‘loop names’ are only five characters, could have been 8 (for writing things like chord names).
So I always hoped for a tracker like LittleGameParkTracker which ran the synth engine of PSPSEQ instead of just samples, because tracking with single cycle waveforms has certain disadvantages like aliasing and tuning. PSPSEQ synths really sound excellent if you spend some time and push them, editing parameters per step on every step in every pattern.
Just being able to lean back in a sofa or sit cross legged in the wilderness without a table is what makes the gamepad style form factor so great for writing music…yes it is slower than keyboard, but its not too bad (you can press a button to scroll through values faster or to jump 10 or 16 values at a time).
Honestly I think composing music is just more fun when comfortable and leaning back or when free to roam and not tied to a desk.
Obviously, you should be able to render your stuff and add to it in renoise later though, once you are back at your desk…when I was quite fat back in the day sitting at a desk leaning forward was horrible, gave me heartburn (acid indigestion).
another thing to consider with a handheld music device is that it should be comfortable to hold even when monitor headphones are plugged in because you dont want a headphone jack sticking out making the device uncomfortable to hold and you want to get all the filtering right first time by using monitor headphones instead of normal earbuds, so it should have the power and battery life to drive them (PSP does, but in PSP seq I must turn track volume up loud with DT770 headphones). Things can sound drastically different if they have been composed on tinny earbuds once you get them back out into the computer and are listening with monitor speakers or headphones…
I think the best place for a headphones jack is at the top edge of the handheld because if it is on either side it will stick into your hand, making holding it uncomfortable, if it is on the bottom, you will not be able to rest the device on your legs (this was one of the only problems with the form factor of the psp for tracking and sequencing)…also buttons should be quiet for all night tracking sessions in shared flats or shitty accomodation. Should be able to link up two or more devices for synced sets with a mixer and kaoss pads. should be able to plug in a midi keyboard or drum pad maybe if enough power (this will need keyscaling, filter scaling, volume scaling). Should be a live mode in which any synth sound from any track with parameters including pitch set as the user pleases, could be assigned to any of the buttons including shoulder buttons and dpad…this for gamepad drumming and simple melodies…
I also dreamt of a handheld tracker device with real chips so it can sound nice like akemies castle with the OPL3 chip or maybe even some CASIO or yamaha drum ICs (integrated circuits/ chips) or something similar for an old school drum sound…but they are quite big and probably heat up too much or eat too much battery…imagine adlib tracker 2 redesigned for a handheld tracker with extra features with a real opl3 or a few of them…it might take 20 years to design and make it though…seriously difficult all the PCB design and even chip design…could find a casio engineer or even speak to sony, casio, yamaha directly and pitch it to them who knows…like casio’s product development and music engineer Hiroko Okuda who did the slengteng riddim and has internet fame a little recently after people found out the sleng teng riddim comes from a casio keyboard (sleng teng is the song ‘way in my brain, no cocaine, i dont wanna go insane’, a famous song). Those people who have been at casio for over 20 years probably know a lot about circuit board design, chip design, product design…but only casio can access the mass production to make it a cheaper device.
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I think it runs off some kind of teensy board, so the DSP is probably done in software.
Yes, apart from samples, a ton of “braids” software synth engines are included, see this 2 hour interview of not too long ago: https://m.twitch.tv/videos/663941172
M8 based on teensy 4
Nice. This thing is starting to look really superb. It’s basically what i have always wanted to have: LSDJ-esque tracker in the handheld form-factor but with good sound ie. not just GB bleeps, and not a silly price like OP-1/Elektron trendy shit. PocketCHIP looked so promising at one point, but they fucked up their business, and it was a bit weird to use anyway from the looks of the thing.
yeah the OP1 is ridiculously expensive fo what it is.
This M8 (mate) looks really cool. It looks like something Ive always wanted.
Almost like the super update to LittleGameParkTracker.
So it will be open source software running on teensey board, does this mean it will run on other handheld games systems like the fake PSPs and stuff that are out there (if you dont need midi, line in, usb?). Will it be for sale as software only as well as harware + software?
It has synths based on mutable instruments braids, so probably it can be as raw or smooth as you want. also can use samples.
I wonder how it deals with render to wav and backing up songs.
Will it do render every pattern in every track to separate labelled files to get them into renoise easily after writing something, if you want to add something else to it?
It has 64 instrument limit per song, envelopes will be programmed into tables i guess in the same way as LGPT…with instruments that rise in volume starting with volume set to zero and using volume slide commands and hop commands in tables?
Im so up for it, I think its seriously great. Looks excellent.
I think I saw those guys recording LSDJ onto tape in a recording studio mostly used by country and folk musicians, cool documentary (not 100% sure its the same guys).
im excited about this kind of thing, the age of handheld hardware with gamepad controls is coming (nanoloop guy made one too)…this could be so excellent, im surprised yamaha, casio, akai havent made this kind of thing yet…
about TE - yes / about Elektron - no. long-term support with the expansion of functionality, this is the price of an Elektron.
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Fair enough. TBH i’m just salty at the price monomachines and machinedrums go for now. I used to go on the elektron website and listen to the demos all the time circa 2005. They’re the ones i always wanted, but never had enough money to buy when they were still being manufactured. And there’s no way i would pay £500 second-hand for a groovebox without song mode like the ‘digi’ twins.
Try elektron model cycle! Monomachine my favourite elektron weapon
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