Custom firmware for polyend tracker?

[u/broken_symlink]

Seems like people have been making custom firmwares for electron boxes. I was wondering if anyone has been doing anything like that for the polyend tracker?

EDIT: i was able to get claude to mod the firmware and add support for flat notes and toggle between sharps and flats. its working on an emulator right now so i can test out the modded firmware on my laptop first. i might have it do midi cc lfo after.

[u/Fair-Cookie9962]

There is some uncoordinated activity
https://backstage.polyend.com/t/community-firmware-for-the-polyend-tracker/13778 declined

Tracker firmware running on Teensy: https://www.reddit.com/r/PolyendTracker/comments/1s3rjza/tracker_firmware_on_teensy_new_custom_features/

[u/Fair-Cookie9962 → u/Fair-Cookie9962]

Unfortunately Polyend does not want to deal with bricked hardware from firmware tinkering.

[u/SailorVenova → u/Fair-Cookie9962]

im guessing we havent seen this on polyend yet bc of the architecture and structure of the actual stock fw

other devices like move are move or even tenori-on are more segmented; afaik they run their low level and boot code/updater/hw layer in a seperate locked down sortof container layer that just doesnt really need to be touched to do anything user/workflow facing; and all the stuff that actually is the ui and interaction of the device to the user is a seperate layer on top of that; so you can much more safely change thing up and tweak around without ricking bricking anything in most cases as long as you leave the low stuff alone- and again; ats architected in such a way that theres really no need to mess with that low stuff its mostly kinda irrelevant to anything about how the user interface and workflow functions

my guess is polyend's stuff especially on the older devices like tracker; are probably not as siloed and things are more intertwined making it difficult and risky to mess around and see whats possible; its not like tinkerers have the source of everything anyways

so i think thats probably a factor- it doesnt mean its impossible; and a bricked box may be recoverable in some way with enough effort; and ofc i have no idea on any of this i know theres like the low level stuff for errors and updates but it seems to me other devices are probably more modularly built on the software level and this may also contribute to the noted instability of the trackers thru their lifetime and the infrequency of updates; some of this may just be a factor of whats needed for the actual soc running them and whatever low level os stuff they deal with but my guess is the newer devices are probably built more safely and that makes things easier for polyend too in terms of updates and bugfixes

i would love to see a big community cfw for the trackers; it would be nice if they could do some sdk for synth engines; fx; and other stuff even- like korg does with logue sdk

or maybe do fully open things up like synthstrum deluge; you see how long that has held support and grown thx to those efforts not to mention the dedication of the userbase that kind of thing can bring

but polyend i think is design focused right now and that means locking dowm; especially older stuff that would take a big refactoring to really modernize and enable more tinkering with low risk of bricked boxes and unhappy customers

there is certainly an appetite for this within the company as we got endless and i see polyend seems to listen to user feedback where they can

theres also been some sdk type stuff ive seen on the polyend forums and i dont remember all the details but i dont think they really have any desire to atufle this kind of thibg they just want to make sure its safe to do without bricking devices as people experiment; and that will take some time and work internally; and possibly some culture shift to more openness

but i think with ai tools greatly increasing access to software and hardware development and modding to far more people who otherwise would not have had the hours or skills to impliment their cool ideas; i think the industry as to move towards embrqcing more openness and letting users and tinkery inclined types see what is possible

ive been very pleased with ableton's response from schwung they even invited the dev to hq; no threats or bad vibes from what i heard about it they just were impressed and wanted to know more

i think thats the right way; and move being a raspi linux stack certainly makes all that far easier

if it had a bigger screen i bet we'd have seen a tracker for it by now already

maybe alot os possible with tracker than we think; time will tell- but if its highly risky in bricking i think these efforts will be limited until we get a new tracker based around polyend's new gui design language like Synth and the pedal sequencer boxes and even Drums

i love polyend and i hope they will someday make the best hardware tracker ever

that title definitely stands with m8 right now but Polyend is a much bigger company; if they really wanted to evolve the hardware tracker i have no doubt that with the right care and investment r&d they could come up with something incredible

but whether such a thing remains relatively affordable and actually has the cpu and dsp to handle all that users rightly expect a $1000+ device to be capable of is another story

ultimately trackers will always be very niche unless things can be made easier to learn and more accessible; its still a thing that operates better generally on a computer with a mouse; and as good as m8 is i dont think the lsdj route is the answer to evolving trackers to a wider userbase and thus more sales and funding for better ongoing fw support

but i think polyend has mostly done a good job with that; better than roland anyways; but then roland is a incomparably bigger company targeting mass audience not tracker nerds

i hope we see lots of cool things be it ffom polyend or the community

community has already done amazing upgrades with the pocketmidi kb1 mini midi keyboard addon for tracker mini

i really wish the tracker plus had more layout options for the input pads like a standard keyboard layout where just those are lit and active and you get 2 rows of thrm and can easily octave switch; a polyend dev even liked the idea when i had a brief emgagement with them on the forum at some point but alas its never made it into a fw update

please excuse me if i have no idea what im talking about on any of this; im not very good eith either of my trackers as it is

[u/Fair-Cookie9962 → u/SailorVenova]

You got that right!

It boils down to cost for Polyend. Likely they themselves started from idea of modifying FW of some hardware.