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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

For the folks that want to make music in that amiga tracker style- check out the Polyend Tracker. It’s a usb(a phone charger battery will run this thing for hours) powered self contained groovebox/synth/sampler with an 8 track tracker style sequencer. I just got mine a week ago and it’s already one of my favorite pieces of kit. I can go outside, lay in bed/on the couch and make music that I would have to be at a desk with my other gear and Mac to make otherwise. It’s small enough to throw in your laptop bag but large enough to feel like real gear. Highly recommend!!

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Main product URL:

https://polyend.com/tracker/

(it's out of stock directly from Polyend, but check with music stores, local and otherwise)

Just got one too and still learning about it (and really really like it). Have you seen this great video? It's a good high level tutorial of most features (it's a tiny bit dated when compared to the latest firmware, but it's still mostly the same UI)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQufJBVvAtY

Also... the Tracker supports .mod files..!

https://help.polyend.com/944600-Is-the-Tracker-able-to-impor...

The Loopop video definitely had me interested at the time but I think I kind of just got busy and forgot about it. Then happened to have a conversation with one of the guys at Sound on sound and he sold me on it. Right now there is great kit out there for samplers. Also check out the Isla s2400 if a more 1980s sp-12/1200 workflow interests you. Both are essential gear for me now.

Thanks for pointing me to the Isla S2400! Just wanted to make sure, when you say "Right now there is great kit out there for samplers", I'm not sure what you mean? Are you referring to the Tracker, the S2400, or something else?

Both the Tracker and the 2400. :) They do things differently, but each is great and produce results that the other would not.

And honestly the new MPCs are pretty good too, just not my preferred way of working.

I bought one a few weeks ago and I really like it as well.

That said, if there's one beef then for me it's the hard limit of 8 channels. That limit makes it very hard to do anything with chords, somewhat limiting the kinds of genres it's suitable for. Growing up with FastTracker 2, it feels a bit like a needless limitation. If my 486DX computer could do 32 channels why can't a modern piece of kit?

Even with that, though, it's a very well thought out piece of gear. I'm impressed with the software UX, they clearly spent a lot of man-hours iterating on that. Once you figure out the button combos and shortcuts it's really quite productive.

I've been thinking about getting one since they first came out because while I enjoy the tracker workflow, I don't enjoy making music at the computer these days, especially since working from home during the pandemic.

Like you though, I worry about the channel limit. While 8 channels would be plenty for sequencing monophonic parts, as soon as you start throwing chords in there, or even just mono parts where you want the notes to overlap and decay naturally, 8 channels seems a drastic limitation. The hardware in there must surely be able to handle 32 channels? An internal battery would also have been a useful feature.

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