Polyend Tracker Mini Aluminum | Three songs in metal and glass

video upload by Jay Hosking

"Please support my work on Patreon: / jayhosking
Three drum & bass-ish songs performed live with the Polyend Tracker Mini Anniversary edition.

I've been a fan of Polyend's Tracker line for a while, and the newest iterations—with stereo samples and internal synths—have basically everything I want in one package. So when Polyend announced they were making a Tracker Mini out of metal and glass, with vastly improved buttons, I pre-ordered one for myself. The weakest part of the Mini was definitely the build quality, and I loved the idea of a premium portable Tracker.

A little later, Mitch from Polyend reached out and asked if I wanted to get my Tracker Mini Aluminum early, in hopes that I could show it to others. Seemed like a good excuse to create a bunch of music, and hopefully allow others to see what the device was like before launch.

So here are three songs on the Tracker Mini Aluminum. I started by making my own drum breaks and slicing them in the Mini. The drum one-shots and a lot of the melodic content came from Polyend's own Palettes storefront, which has some great sample food for writing. The rest of the melodic ideas came from a recent community sample pack we made for my Patreon, entitled "Loop Food". Altogether, I was up and writing songs very fast.

Once I had the Tracker Mini Aluminum, I started to figure out the arrangements. Song mode is another section where I really appreciate it over other devices; it's got quirks, but it's fast and powerful and helps me get to the finish line.

I could sort of say that about the Polyend Tracker line-up in general: it has quirks, it's occasionally fickle, but the firmware is relatively mature and it has a great combination of sound, power, and performability.

Thanks for listening.

Recorded multitrack via the Tracker Mini's USB output. Some additional sweetening on the internal synths (e.g. chorus on the pads, where noted). EQ, compression, and limiting on the master.

00:00 - Song 1
05:12 - Song 2
09:16 - Song 3

https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com"