Play Plus: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly // 3 Month User Review of Polyends Upgraded Groovebox
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- Опубликовано: 1 мар 2024
- After a controversial release, I take a closer look at Polyend´s Play Plus, an upgraded version of the original that offers new synths, stereo samples and more but that comes with a few missteps of its own. Hope you enjoy it!
Polyend Play + on Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/EK1q0e
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Teenage Engineering K.O. II: bit.ly/3sOVsE6
DSM Humboldt Simplifier MK II: bit.ly/3S0VPFN
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Synthstrom Audible sets a remarkable example in prioritizing user feedback, delivering what users want from their instruments, and steering the machine's evolution over time without incessantly introducing half-finished, functional products. Rethinking our approach to "consuming" technological devices, particularly considering ecological impact and CO2 emissions, is crucial. Synthstrom's innovative and respectful approach resonates with me, and I take pride in using the Deluge, confident it will remain a cutting-edge performer for years to come. Total respect.
THIS is why I LOVE Your Channel!!....BRAVO!!!!!!
I really appreciate that my friend!! Thanks for the love🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Great commentary. As a Play owner and enthusiast, I felt a little left behind with the announcement of the Play+. Rather than upgrade, I’ve paired a second-hand Roland S-1 with it.
I still own one, but as dust collector.
🫠
Definitely a great alternative. I’ve been lusting over the S-1 for a while and I can see it being a killer combo with Play👍🏼 thanks for watching my friend!
Who is that krazy wabbit channel? Strange cat 🤣
Seriously, thanks for the mention. Super cool.
In terms of the Play+, I borrow something you shared a while back. What is my objective? For me, the Play + is immediate and fun. Perform mode is severely underrated and I don’t find any issues not being able to use on the synth side. I did find one little quirk when Play is being controlled by another device. I can’t play both sample and synth simultaneously.
In terms of the controversy, it’s in the past. It’ll happen someplace else down the road. I can only control what I can. To play.
Stay safe. Keep jammin!
Jajaja just a wonderful person and fellow music gear junkie❤️
Love the comment my friend, shows wisdom and temperance, something I am in need of more and more. See you soon🙌🏻🙌🏻
They have said MIDI performance mode (including synths) is coming in a spring/summer update. Also while you can't sample external gear, you can export internal tracks to SD and then reload as samples.
I really hope they do that! I would LOVE to go performance mode on em synths❤️
Yeah. It does not excite me. They should fix the obvious missing features first or at least fix their website to not give false information like “live recording of automation”, “polyphonic midi tracks”…
@@ChristopheTornieri the MIDI tracks are polyphonic. Its when used as synth tracks that they are not. Doesn't excuse the fact that its a terrible decision to not work for synth tracks, but its not false information.
@@Geekraver Midi tracks are not polyphonic. You cannot record or enter several notes on the same track. You can enter one of the predefined chords but this is not the same. Because each of the note will last the same duration. I cannot record or enter several independent voices on the same track which is what polyphony is. So I still maintain that the information is false or at least extremely misleading. Same for the automation, if you change the filter frequency for instance during live recording, it will only record the value for the active trigger. So basically you cannot change the sound of a sustained sample because the samples are all basically one shot.
Really glad i upgraded to the Plus, and can't wait til midi/synth performance mode is available! But, def wish they had firmware updates on a more regular basis, lots of very minor fixes take 6mos to a year to get fixed. Look at how often Oxi pushes out updates, and their team is super small
Agree about locking a synth to a track. I think locking a track to a MIDI channel would be useful too, especially once MIDI performance mode comes.
It’s my bed partner for a month now (sounds awkward). Fixing synth or sample to a track I also need badly. Also option to impact track instrument across patterns. Multi sample to play Hung drum. Making it to work with DAW, sync and USB audio to Mac. Other bugs. That’s all I want, hopefully w/o shipping + $400 to fix all this 😂 when it all works $800 will be a right price
That’s effin beautiful man
❤️🙌🏻🙌🏻
I'm having Play+ since the release and just surprised that we are still under the first beta firmware with some bugs here and there going on.
Also, had a lot of problems connecting it to my new Macbook Pro. They give you a cable because according to them "the device/cable are so picky" and won't work fine on any USB port/hub, but they don't provide a USB-C cable for mac users.
Price is high, can't understand why they don't include a USB-C cable that they know it will work for sure.
They should have offered a temporary discount to existing users for upgrading… simple as that. Glad I’ve bought the OG after the price drop, because it’s a great performance sequencer without botthering about the mono-sampler (like the Digitakt, making stereo results). Thanks for your honest review.
Thanks so much for watching and sharing my friend! Hope to see you again soon🤟🏻
They actually did but you had to contact them personally to receive it. I think when they personally heard from us OG users they felt sorry for what they did, and made this unannounced exception. Not sure if there's still doing it though. I opted to keep mine at the loss.
@@hillblocksview that’s at least an offering, but as it isn’t made public most customers do not know that… or hopefully they do.
@@hillblocksviewl did not know of this what was the discount?
@@mojodrum3215 50% off upgrade cost, so I would only be paying $200 for the upgrade
I’ll stick to my Tracker mini I love the workflow on it !
Tracker Mini Guy here myself! Cheers!!
So assuming that these synths will never make it to the Tracker (because the devs said that the chip in these devices can't do that); I don't understand what is the difference between these synths and the granular/wavetable ones in the Tracker. Aren't they working in the same way using samples?
Please take this with a grain of salt as I am not an engineer nor do I work for polyend so I might be way off. As far as I know, Polyend Plus and Mini tracker have a much more powerful chip than the original Play and Tracker. These synths are much higher quality and I would assume more powerhungry as well. The wavetable/granular are sample based, these are not. As such, original tracker and play can’t sustain them with their chips, but I would think it’s not too much of a stretch to hope that these synths make their way to tracker mini (which also has an upgraded chip vs original Tracker). Your guess is as good as mine though, we’ll have to wait and see.
Bought the original Play the first week it was out, it was fun, but I waited and waited for some fixes and features to be added. Then comes the Play +, I was super bummed! What they should have done was upgrade the OG Play firmware with perhaps a single dinky synth engine (even just a monosynth), said look at the features we're trying to add here! Then explained that it's not powerful enough to do all the things that they want it to do, and given a heads up about the Play +. As it was the early adopters just felt abandoned.
To every Reverb junkie here: Synths are not cars, fuck resale value.
I try to only buy gear i intend to keep for a LONG time, and not go for every latest and greatest fad that brands push onto us. Hell, even with cars i think this way (love you, Toyota)
All that said, very good take suggesting a initial price raise on the Play+. Wouldn’t have caused all that backlash.
The thing that keeps me from upgrading is that you can only have 1 patch per each of the 3 synths per project. How the heck are you supposed to put a whole set’s worth of songs in one project with only 3 patches? I just don’t get it.
The original op1 was out for years - and te let a rumor distort the market to up the price. Synthstrom are a class act. Polyend did the dirty. I know what you're saying and it would be nice to be ethical but look at Te as an example. They let a rumor spread - said nothing and when people were tricked to buy at higher prices, the TE price went up. At no point did they look to quieten the rumor and they used it. Polyend could have done many things. In truth, many things but they didn't.
bought one returned it still felt beta and missing basic sequencer settings. Cool device not for me in its current state.
I got a used original Play for 350 EUR because of that.
There’s always a silver lining ❤️
just a quick thought; I think everyone approves that a follow up, post-honeymoon review is more than worthy and needed, I think you could cut that time down to under two months (or less) if possible. My reasoning is that initial reviews are pretty much product fluffing. Three months later there will have been many, many more purchases, and some based on YTer's OG vids. A straight to camera thoughts video, just to address real-world niggles or so. Just so floating voting voters have more information from someone they trust. Besos.
Thanks so much for saying I’m someone you trust ❤️ That’s my highest priority always, to deliver truthful info, and that’s why a do these long term reviews, cause you really get to know a device after a bit of mileage. I think you make a great point and I’ll definitely start documenting the process earlier on so I can give some “initial” 2 month thoughts as well. Thanks for watching!
@@MidlifeSynthesist That would be great, cheers x
I just want an upgraded OG tracker. Talk to them about that. Please….
It’s unfortunate. I like the idea of more brands offering upgrades, à la synthstrom. I believe, like you, that polyend had good intentions. But they really bungled it, and perhaps discouraged other brands who might otherwise have considered an upgrade that it’d blow up in their face and to stick to business as usual. And I certainly am turned off from ever buying anything polyend
I love the Play +, but it for me has some issues consistently reading touch on the grid buttons under what I would call normal pressure. Not a real problem, just annoying and makes me wish it had a different style buttons on the grid that gave a better feeling when interacting.
Owner of the Play+ here and need to say that I ended removing the touch sensitivity from the knobs because it was an awful experience. They keep turning on at any touch 😅
@@RenoFriends I dont mean the knobs, those work for me even though they are a tad sensitive. My problem are the white buttons in the 8x20 grid. Need to use a lot more force than I expected to activate them.
I hope you remember your video on polyend tracker mini. You said at 6:55 that it has 8 minutes sample length recording capabilities. I was so hyped about that that I bought it immediately. Guess what, it doesn't t. It does only 44 secs.
I think this is a good opportunity to go against them for deceptive advertising, because I contact them and nothing. A guy, Martin, told me to look for future updates, still waiting
I just looked up the video and you are absolutely right, I messed up the caption. The SAMPLE POOL is 8 minutes, not max recording. You have no idea how sorry I am that I gave you bad information, it´s literally my greatest fear as a reviewer, to make mistakes such as that one. I can assure you most of my editing time is double checking the information I give and it´s only happened one other time that I know of, on the Novation Circuit video (which was edited and reuploaded correctly).
Thank you for taking the time to correct me with a time stamp. Thanks to you I was able to cut that bit out of the video and now the pinned comment reads as follows:
ERRATAS: Previously at minute 6:55 of this video, a caption read "Samples up to 8 Minutes in MONO", referring to Mini Trackers sampling capability. This was a mistake on my part. The SAMPLE POOL is 8 minutes in MONO, not the maximum recording time. I apologize greatly for the confusion. I try my best to provide the best information possible and am constantly double checking my videos before uploading, but being a one man team, once in a while a mistake can slip through the cracks. I have since edited that bit out so to avoid further confusion. Thank you for understanding, see you soon!
Once again, I hope you can forgive me for the slip up. I really appreciate and respect every single one of my viewers and I hope it doesn´t sour your opinion on my person or my channel. Wish you all the best!
come on man. not that serious . I just thought we might have fun f ing with companies. don't worry, I knew where I was stepping into. But I d still love to be able to record longer. At that time I was looking for a zoom but I got greedy. nevertheless, a good sounding machine thou@@MidlifeSynthesist
one other thing, is that you are not the only one that gave me that impression. I watched some other videos too@@MidlifeSynthesist
This has been a super thoughtful thread on both your parts @midlifesynthesist @chambre466 this was a really nice exchange to see!
They should just had the new chip sent over the mail, just like the old day of upgrading firmware on old hardware. I am pretty sure they knew they would use a new chip later given the great chips shortage at that time. Still on the fence on that one. Over bridge sound like a way better alternative than ASIO4ALL, for not that much more.
Doesn’t work like this, unfortunately. A firmware, generally speaking, was stored in ROM chips during the 90’s. Those are then read by the CPU so it can execute the code contained in the ROM, aka the firmware. So, wanna change the code? Change the chip and thats it. It is only a way for instructions to be stored in a non-volatile manner.
We are talking about a whole new CPU for the Polyend Play. That means (almost aways) different number and placement of electrical connections, physical dimensions, power requirements, clock speed, changes to the instruction set, and quite a few other things.
Not to mention ROM chips are WAY easier to replace, specially considering today’s predominance of BGA packaging in CPU designs.
If deluge offered an inexpensive upgrade then polyend could have done better than $400 upgrade.
I liked the tracker, used it a lot. I bought a play & waited patiently for proper bi-directional integration, a consolidated workflow. it never happened- using the tracker to expand the play's polyphony was not what I had in mind. then they announced that I'd have to pay half as much again just to get my play up to date, turn it into a play+. killed the resale market for it.
the kiwis have kicked their arse. I have two deluges now, while the tracker & the unupdated play sit in their boxes. sorry, polyend, but for me.... no.
The Play (original one) has been a Huge disappointment for me. And also the company itself. A lot of misleading info on their website. A huge denial of the issues, wrong info etc from the team itself.
Thank you for the thoughtful video. I’m really enjoying my Play+ even with the bugs and instability. It is just fun (until it crashes LOL). I wanted to add another major criticism to your list: It can’t read long filenames so you can only read what fits in the small screen and only the first letters of the sample name. So if the files are named as a family you often can’t see the end of the file name which might tell you the bps or the type of sample such as kick/snare/etc. The solution is to edit all sample names before you transfer them to the Play but this kind of sucks. I hope Polyend will give users a more standard file system where we can read long filenames and delete files or projects from the sd card. I’m sure they are working hard but they’ve made some decisions that tether the user to computers. I hope they reevaluate their devices to give users more freedom from the desktop computer. According to Polyend’s notes, one of the bugs. They are addressing is that long filenames causes crashes. I hope implementing a robust file system will address the problem.
Thanks so much for watching and adding to the conversation! Polyend have released lots of firmware updates and new additions for their older gear, I have faith they will follow suit here🙌🏻
As an owner of pretty much every polyend device, halving the price of the og play made me stop buying from them, period. The $400 upgrade path is also a joke. I'm better off buying a play plus and have two devices rather than one that has been messed with. I don't expect these things to hold value, but over 50% loss after one year is crazy. I wish them good luck with that strategy
I feel the same way after my purchase of the OG play l just can’t trust them anymore l feel cheated.
Same. Next time a product is announced I'll be staying away, knowing that in 18 months or so (based on the Tracker and the Play) they will be announcing the "proper" version. Bridges: burned.
Based on this logic, you should also never buy any new phone again, because that the exact same thing as what phone manufacturers do each year of release. You gear heads are just entitled and spoiled, man
@@buckycore that would be comparable if every year Polyend released a new version of the hardware, such that the expectation was always there for it to be constantly superseded. However most music hardware doesn't follow that logic. I'm still using an Octatrack that's over 10 years old now. Same with the Arturia Microfreak; I've had it for years and am delighted with it. I think most people buy kit expecting to be using it for some time - hence the annoyance when both the Play and the Tracker were superseded so quickly.
@@buckycore how can you say we’re spoiled? phones don’t drop 50% in one year all my gear holds it’s value in that time span.
Does the poly plus sou’ds better than the pl1y??
Ask and ye shall receive... LOL!
😂😂🤘🏻🤘🏻
@9:14 at launch the OP1 Field was $600 more than the OG OP1 and TE boasted 100 new features. So do the math and your paying only $6 per new feature (some features definitely worth it, others may be not) but at the end of the day this is how you justify the price hike of the OP-1 field. The OG OP1 owners were cool with that because they weren't loosing in the end; the math justified the price hike.
Remind me again how Polyend justified what they did to the OG users?
They didn’t do anything to OG users. Buy the product you want to use for the features it has. Not for features you hope it will get or for resale value.
My original Play works just fine. Maybe I’ll upgrade if the + gets more features that I want but until then, I’m happy with the product that I bought because I researched to make sure it had what I needed, like a responsible adult.
@@harveytherobot "The pricing model was done with consideration to the user base, but without serious consideration of the frustration original Play users may feel." That's a direct quote from my communication with Polyend, so my point remains, even so, I was offered a significant discount for the upgrade, but I too did my research (as a responsible adult) and declined the discount and opted to keep the OG Play instead. I was told not to worry, but they couldn't say more, so there is hope they may make good on their bad, and yes, they do realize their consideration was lacking for us OG owners.
"Nothing"😂😂😂
😂🤭
honest gear review and PPP... oxymoron right there
Did you watch the video before commenting? Genuinely curious
polylend is trash. stop pumping out new gear and fix your equipment.