Polyend Tracker - Old School Joy Joy

[Shift Gorden]

Hey Pop-Pickers,

Some of you UK folks might get that reference if you're north of 40 years old...speaking of which....

After a year or so of umming and ahhhhhhing, I picked up a Polyend Tracker and I am absolutely pumped with it.

I started out my musical journey making music on an Amiga 500 using The Ultimate Soundtracker and OctaMED - and I always have looked back at those rave times fondly.

So, the Polyend has a lot of sentimental value to me. But, I must say, it took me all of 20 minutes to get back into the tracker workflow, and pump out more tracks over a few days than I have with Live in a few months. I'm not replacing Live at all - 8 tracks of mono samples ain't gonna do it - but I'm loving the fact I can take sketches from the Tracker and throw them into Live as stems for polish and further production.

The Tracker is ridiculous fun and is an absolute beast for anything that involves breakbeats. The fact it has an internal radio tuner to sample from is something that I would have ignored until I tried it - again, back to old-school sampling.

But, what I think I relish most of all is that my creative output has increased dramatically. Live is absolutely fantastic, but I'm one of those freaks who gets way too lost in the weeds from the outset. I'll make a beat, and then spend forever switching out compressors, amps, FX, etc - and then after ages of doing that my creative spark is gone.

The Tracker, on the other hand, has very few shiny light distractions which forces focus on the creative side. It's raw for sure, but not having a ton of options just let's me compose.

Now, I don't know how awesome of a tool this is for someone who doesn't know trackers - I can get how this might look weird and tricky. I mean, it kinda looks like a spreadheet! But, if you are a music person of the 80s/90s, then I swear this will be up your alley.