Bad Gear - Play Plus

welcome to B gear the show about the world's most hated audio tools music technology is a cruel and shallow money trench a long plastic hallway where thieves and Maniacs run free and good people die like dogs there's also a negative side today we are going to talk about poly and play plus and given the strange events surrounding its release it might come as a surprise that it was only the second biggest Gear controversy of winter 2023 at the first glance it might seem suspicious that this play plus was sent over by po and as a long-term loan but rest assured it will be roasted like any other piece of gear an enclosure most mostly identical to the original play houses an upgraded chip in charge of managing a stereo [Music] take on the eight track sampler sequencer combo plus three synth [Music] slots capable of loading one of four engines we will have a closer look at in a minute before we take a deep dive into the Grove box itself we will have to deal with the aforementioned controversy which might have a negative impact on your cardiac health especially if you own an original play brought to the market in Spring 2022 the first version received critical Acclaim and promised some of the quirky goodness of the tracker without the need to learn its Arcane ATS Daw d while adding much requested Hands-On controls it did come with a few limitations like mono sample playback and lack of real sound synthesis presumably due to ongoing supply chain issues on the chip Market only around 1 and a half years later poan released the machine they seemingly had wanted to release in the first place ironing out these drawbacks and adding features like multirack USB audio this is not a firmware update but requires early adopter to send their beloved play to Poland at their own cost and hand over $399 or see the resale value taking a hit due to the reduced price of the non plus pushing total cost for an upgraded model over 1,000 bucks Ben Jordan publicly stated that he was okay with this which resulted in a backlash that made him announce the end of his career as a gear reviewer heightened blood pressure levels aside this video is still about a groof box the play plus workflow is mostly based on samples loaded from a Micro SD card into a minuscule Ram capable of holding around 3 minutes of stereo samples but hey it's all about creative sequencing anyway you can assign different samples and tonal attributes to each step including a non-real Time resonant DJ style filter There's A Primitive ad envelope overdrive and bit Crush Reverb delay and Staples like volume panning pitch and Sample start and I didn't find a way to set loop points within a sample door maximum pattern length of the eight tracks is 64 steps so poan included plenty of sequencer gimmicks to work around this limitation there's micro timing versus [Music] ratchets chance goes beyond simple probability randomize can be assigned to Basics like sample selection and active but also let you call in the [Music] Duke pattern length can easily be adjusted for each track independently which turns play into a polymeter Powerhouse especially when exploring the unorthodox play modes where it makes sense these features are mirrored to the eight monophonic midi tracks with a chord functionality they can be used to trigger external hardware and so software instruments are the internal synthesizers speaking of which Maximum total polyphony of all Sims in a play plus session is eight and they come in the flavors AET 2 VA poly varieties and two op FM there is no labeling for the synth parameters on the front panel physical controls are limited to macros and you will have to go on a Roland worthy menu dive if you want to program your own sound bummer as we are talking of controls the knobs are smooth but I messed up a few jams because of the double tap switch mechanics and prefer the stepped main encoder for more precise edits in addition to the aforementioned effects there are Master sound destruction facilities quite similar to to the ones I didn't like on the tracker plays are built to well being played yet I was struggling to make real time recording of notes [Music] work and performance mode which is Awesome by itself didn't really help me with my style of jamming I do appreciate the pattern mute solo and variation concept but it might take a while to get used to the buil-in keyboard and piano roll the stem export feature is super useful build quality is great I like the overall design but the minimalist connectivity is probably not to everyone's taste the play plus release certainly angered substantial numbers of th hard polyend fans is the final product worth all the drama you have already heard the new Sims in today's intro tune definitely gets the job done but I didn't find any daddy rock drum machine samples in a factory library now I want to [Music] play [Music] nice after an initial phase of confusion the workflow gets self-explanatory quickly and a few quirks and occasional bugs aside making music on Play is a pleasurable experience the sins are refreshingly dirty switching between sample and MIDI mode isn't always practical In the Heat of a live performance let's create a real life dollar setup to work around [Music] this [Music] that's a mixed bag although I was missing some Classics the factory samples are abundant and topnotch but polyphonic midi recording is something you have to get used to time to combine them with a few jams of the stock library and add some Daw Sheen and Children of the Night what music they make if they try to squeeze lowii downbeat Berlin school and pseudo orchestral Shenanigans into one bad gear [Music] [Music] finale verdict let's get this out of the way first yes I would have been disappointed as an early adopter of the original play having to choose between either shedding out a significant amount of money or accepting diminished resale value is hard to swallow however when we take all this out of the equation play plus is a powerful and Innovative Groove box it's not as Quirky as its tracker siblings but keep in mind that it comes with many idiosyncrasies that are certainly not everyone's cup of tea all this being said I would be more than willing to pay a few hundred bucks to have stereo sampling and a handful of Sims on my digy tuck hopefully I don't have to end my sim reviewing career because of saying this thanks for watching and see you next time hey guys I hope you enjoyed the episode feel free to like subscribe become a patron and leave a comment what other kind of gear you would like to see and hear on the show

Channel: AudioPilz

Views: 55,891

Keywords: bad gear, play plus, polyend play, polyend play plus, groovebox, synthesizers, synths, updated version, upgrade, $399, controversy, early adopters, DnB, House, Audiopilz, most-hated audio tools

Id: Ip05BY3ub_U

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024