If Polyend’s follower was a bit esoteric to you, then Play – the company’s new sample- and MIDI-based groovebox – might be more to your taste.
This promises an ‘open sandbox’ approach to playing, performing and sequencing, including over 30 sample kits for instant jamming, and offers eight audio tracks and eight polyphonic MIDI tracks. So it is not only a stand-alone groovebox, but can also serve as a controller for other equipment.
Start Play mode, pick a sample – there are over 3,000 of them – and you can simply place it on the 16×8 step sequencing grid and start creating a track. You get familiar controls for your samples and for each track you can choose one of 35 different playback modes.
The Smart Fill option fills any area you choose with an entire beat, random placement of steps, or a Euclidean spread, while making steps, tracks, track pages, variations, and patterns easy to copy and paste. There is also scale filtering, so only notes within a specific scale are output.
In the meantime, Perform mode allows you to make non-destructive changes to your tracks with some performance effects. You can record live automation or change individual step values on the fly and record MIDI from an external controller. Patterns can be saved and recalled instantly, and customizable pattern chains allow you to map entire sequences onto the grid and perform them live.
Since each song in Play can have an independent length, BPM rate, play mode, and swing values, it should be easy to create polymetric and polyrhythmic sequences. Plus, you have over 30,000 track variations; each of the 128 patterns can contain up to 16 tracks, with each track containing 16 variations.
In addition to the sequencing grid, Play also features a 4×8 control grid for mute, solo, variation, select, and keyboard note input. It has a split screen with 15 touch-sensitive buttons and can be powered via USB-C (including via a power bank). In addition to MIDI I/O, you also have a microSD card slot. Users can also expect regular firmware updates.
Play is available to pre-order now for $799 / €799 and will ship in July. Read more on the polyend website.
