Recently I’ve become interested in either the M8 or one of Polyend’s trackers. My use case is for a mobile device to make techno on and the ultimate goal is to use it for live performance.
Do any users have any thoughts as to which might be best suited for me?
I say m8. There’s a live mode to launch phrases independently, ableton Live style, many synth engines etc… lots for live techno IMHO.
I also vote for the M8. It’s incredible value for the price. You won’t be disappointed.
I prefer the Tracker’s Performance mode and large screen+keyboard for doing stuff live. But the Tracker is samples-only and the M8 is almost impossibly capable as a synth and sample beast. Nothing touches it for mobile use, full stop. And it handles external midi controllers really well, too, which further offsets some of the Tracker’s advantages.
Unless you’re all-in on specifically sample-based performance, M8 is the clear winner.
Having had an M8 (screen too small for) and still having a PT my overall conclusion is that I want a really good tracker to come out for the iPad- they could easily run M8 or PT as software on an an iPAD with the same sized display or bigger and touch buttons, I would happily pay a premium price for this…Obviously Renoise would also be great on iOS but I enjoy using that on my PC.
Tim is working on a bigger font on m8, looks promising! My old eyes are happy.
I love the physical aspect of the m8, the buttons become an extension of the hands with no need to look at them. I wouldn’t like a touch screen experience for that. To each their own!
I get it, the buttons are cool and clicky, but they aren’t velocity sensitive or anything (and they are actually quite noisy). Touch buttons can have exactly the same size and layout (or be customised) and you can use the same muscle memory with on screen buttons- plenty of iPad gamers can testify to that! If I am honest however I could of used a few more buttons a few less ‘shifts’ on the M8, I prefer the PT (which is why I kept that one) with more dedicated buttons.
PS- If Tim put the M8 on an ipad/phone as an App for £50 I would buy it, it did love his work, just not the hardware form factor!
I whiled away a few hours reading the big M8 thread on here, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bit of gear get a reaction like that, people just absolutely falling in love with it all over the thread. I don’t have one yet but i definitely will.
The M8 can do a lot of stuff, IMO often better than most grooveboxes or standalone workstations I’ve used. I have some esoteric requirements like microtuning and unusual rhythms, and there is enough power in the M8 to realize a broad range of such technical possibilities fairly elegantly. It’s by far the best sequencer-type sketchbook (vs simple audio recording) that I’ve found for my ideas
The danger with Renoise is once you learn it, you won’t want to use anything else.
YES - Proposed Renoise iOS on the Renoise forum . . . Didn’t go well 
OK, so I’ve preordered an M8.
In anticipation of it arriving in a few months, would you recommend having a go with another tracker to get a feel for the workflow?
I’d recommande getting a Teensy 4.1 and learning on headless m8. Helped me a great deal.
The latest build of Renoise can run on Raspberry Pi, which is pretty cool.
I love renoise but wish it had keyboard shortcuts for opening, selecting & entering fx. having to hop from keyboard to mouse kills the flow for me.
the only alternative to the mouse I could find was memorising all the fx commands n entering them manually, values n all.
that’s one area where m8 shines imo. opening the fx list n entering em is like playing street fighter. ultra quick n smooth.
I could totally have missed there being a shortcut for this action in renoise tho. I’ve not mastered it by any stretch, I couldn’t find one tho.
I am quite surprised no one has made a Pi based tracker with some nice dedicated knobs and buttons running Renoise…
Someone did one based on Sunvox. Can’t remember what it was called to search it up though.
Renoise rocks!
I have a 120 euro cheap laptop, it runs smooth on it!
Having ordered an M8 I decided to read through the manual. It’s far more straightforward than I imagined! Lots of button combos to remember but I have a feeling they will be quite intuitive. Can’t wait.
Shortcuts and key combinations are absolutely consistent through and through, very considerate.