That, plus the fact people were already poking into the closed firmware binary, plus the existence of an alternative firmware. By doing this, Polyend also kind of passes the responsibility of maintaining the Tracker devices to the community.
It's also worth mentioning that the release is not just a source code release, they added a lot of great features like sample streaming, and dedicated velocity and timing lanes. And they released APIs so that people can easily create new synth engines and effects.
Yes. Custom firmware for audio gear has been A Thing for a long time, as far back as the 1990s. I worked on a company that offered a general DSP platform back in 2003, but it didn't take off because it was too difficult for most people to program. JJOS became very popular among users of Akai's MPC line (of whom there are very many) in the mid-2000s.
The combinations of LLMs and agentic reverse-engineering skills have sent things into overdrive in recent months. As well as allowing people to repurpose cheap gear like the M-VAVE it has also revealed that a lot of larger vendors have been outright lying to their users about hardware limitations to more effectively segment their target market. In my the future is high quality controllers/converters with a generic SOC inside. Behringer is already going down this route and has the manufacturing heft to do it quickly and with a decent level of quality. Akai also seems to have jumped in on the trend.
For people afraid of bricking their units, I can't stress enough how groundbreaking it is that they're acknowledging that risk and still offering to repair your unit. You pay of course, because this is a risk you took, but at least they will have a look at it:
"Out-of-Warranty Repairs Available: In the unlikely event that something ever goes wrong with your hardware while using custom firmware, it is not covered under standard warranty. However, Polyend is always happy to help get your instrument back up and running through its official out-of-warranty repair service (standard service, parts, and shipping fees apply."
Hmm, out-of-warranty repairs for music hardware is pretty standard, at least here in Europe. I've done this with Elektron, Novation, Korg, Adam Audio, Yamaha and a bunch of other brands before as well, with everything from speakers to synths. Is it different in the US perhaps?
I've even sent gear running custom firmware in for out-of-warranty repairs, without any questions asked about it. AFAIK, even if you're within warranty with custom firmware, they would need to prove it's specifically the fault of the custom firmware in order to deny warranty claims, they couldn't refuse it outright just because of the firmware on the device.
Modwiggler is filling with reverse engineering mods, I think it is super smart to get out in front of that. Modding is nothing new and open source music firmware à la Mutable Instruments is a great example to learn from. Good move Polyend!
The avalanche of reverse engineered/custom firmwares is definitely changing the synth landscape. I'm wondering how many other companies will start open sourcing. It isn't always trivial since sometimes there's proprietary software components or toolchains that can't be open sourced. But it's hard to imagine it won't be more common.
There's a lot of mixed feelings in the community. A lot of musicians don't like AI, but they do want to have more features and bug fixes. A lot of synth makers are probably ambivalent too, especially if they have a stronger vision of what the synths should be that custom firmware ignore. Not to mention the commercial implications of adding features into existing synths, possibly making newer models less appealing. And of course people are copying UIs and workflows from other synths that took a lot of work to develop.
musicians do not want AI in what they believe is the product of human mind and soul but will not have so many problems with whatever they're not skilled at, or find tedious and boring.
Just like us, but with graphics or landing pages ;)
That’s cool. After M-vave's FM1 and TE's OP-1 revolution, going this path is almost mandatory for anyone with good hardware but a crappy interface. I'd love to love Polyend's software, but M8 is so far ahead in terms of power and intuitiveness.
I'm secretly wishing for Ableton to not become FOSS, even though I probably couldn't survive without Ableton, and I'm also into FOSS. But I fear if Ableton would become FOSS, they'd just eat the entire DAW market, and it'd be impossible for new entries to even get the slightest of attention.
At least this way there are still cause for eyeing in other directions than Ableton.
I think logic will stick around. A lot of people want to stay in the Apple ecosystem. And doesn’t Pro Tools still has a grip on the professional studio market?
Ableton is my DAW of choice. I haven’t regretted the purchase of a license for it a single day in my life. Even though much of what I use it for would be equally doable probably in the “Lite” version of Ableton that came with several of the pieces of hardware that I have. I was initially using the Lite version and eventually pulled the trigger on upgrading after having been on Lite for more than a while.
I'm glad! It makes sense though: the community has been reverse engineering it and building their own with LLM help lately. I love my Tracker+, such a neat bit of kit, and I'm excited to see what we can do now the firmware is open
That's not what the message says though. It implies using marketing cookies there, not externally. They could've said "Click to play from YouTube (may involve cookie tracking)" if it's actually for YouTube
This has to be related to MWAVE's FM-1 viral popularity, largely due to open firmware right?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/from-impulse-purchas...
https://github.com/aroum/fm1-custom-fw
see also:
> Reverse Engineering of the M-VAVE FM-1 Pocket Synthesizer Firmware
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49994065 (75 points - 50 comments)
That, plus the fact people were already poking into the closed firmware binary, plus the existence of an alternative firmware. By doing this, Polyend also kind of passes the responsibility of maintaining the Tracker devices to the community.
It's also worth mentioning that the release is not just a source code release, they added a lot of great features like sample streaming, and dedicated velocity and timing lanes. And they released APIs so that people can easily create new synth engines and effects.
Bring Roland VSynth capabilities to it.
Yes. Custom firmware for audio gear has been A Thing for a long time, as far back as the 1990s. I worked on a company that offered a general DSP platform back in 2003, but it didn't take off because it was too difficult for most people to program. JJOS became very popular among users of Akai's MPC line (of whom there are very many) in the mid-2000s.
The combinations of LLMs and agentic reverse-engineering skills have sent things into overdrive in recent months. As well as allowing people to repurpose cheap gear like the M-VAVE it has also revealed that a lot of larger vendors have been outright lying to their users about hardware limitations to more effectively segment their target market. In my the future is high quality controllers/converters with a generic SOC inside. Behringer is already going down this route and has the manufacturing heft to do it quickly and with a decent level of quality. Akai also seems to have jumped in on the trend.
For people afraid of bricking their units, I can't stress enough how groundbreaking it is that they're acknowledging that risk and still offering to repair your unit. You pay of course, because this is a risk you took, but at least they will have a look at it:
> groundbreaking it is that
Hmm, out-of-warranty repairs for music hardware is pretty standard, at least here in Europe. I've done this with Elektron, Novation, Korg, Adam Audio, Yamaha and a bunch of other brands before as well, with everything from speakers to synths. Is it different in the US perhaps?
I've even sent gear running custom firmware in for out-of-warranty repairs, without any questions asked about it. AFAIK, even if you're within warranty with custom firmware, they would need to prove it's specifically the fault of the custom firmware in order to deny warranty claims, they couldn't refuse it outright just because of the firmware on the device.
Does the board come with a jtag interface to unbrick the device?
Modwiggler is filling with reverse engineering mods, I think it is super smart to get out in front of that. Modding is nothing new and open source music firmware à la Mutable Instruments is a great example to learn from. Good move Polyend!
Relatedly, Erika Synths released the source code of the LXR-02 very recently as well: https://www.ericasynths.lv/news/post/lxropen
(I/AI had fun porting it to wasm/web! I don't want to seem too self-link'y, so if anyone asks, happy to share the link)
I also have a Polyend Tracker for sale if anyone's in the market..! It's a great device, I'm just trying to focus on having less right now.
Share the link!
https://lxr02-recomp.greg.technology/ :)
The avalanche of reverse engineered/custom firmwares is definitely changing the synth landscape. I'm wondering how many other companies will start open sourcing. It isn't always trivial since sometimes there's proprietary software components or toolchains that can't be open sourced. But it's hard to imagine it won't be more common. There's a lot of mixed feelings in the community. A lot of musicians don't like AI, but they do want to have more features and bug fixes. A lot of synth makers are probably ambivalent too, especially if they have a stronger vision of what the synths should be that custom firmware ignore. Not to mention the commercial implications of adding features into existing synths, possibly making newer models less appealing. And of course people are copying UIs and workflows from other synths that took a lot of work to develop.
musicians do not want AI in what they believe is the product of human mind and soul but will not have so many problems with whatever they're not skilled at, or find tedious and boring.
Just like us, but with graphics or landing pages ;)
Very smart move. Open-source your project. Get more nerds invested in your gear and its legacy, and crowd-source feature development.
Well done, Polyend! Godspeed, and looking forward to seeing how this develops.
It makes sense as Polyend's competitor, Synthstrom, has been open source for a while already.
I thought their competitor was M8 tracker, so nice to hear about Synthstrom, thanks! Glad we have a growing space for making things that make music!
That’s cool. After M-vave's FM1 and TE's OP-1 revolution, going this path is almost mandatory for anyone with good hardware but a crappy interface. I'd love to love Polyend's software, but M8 is so far ahead in terms of power and intuitiveness.
Came here to look for M8 mentions. That firmware is just pure magic.
And, for those who missed it, Dirtywave M8 has recently been made available on iOS as a $30 app.
The interface for the original FM-1 firmware is pretty damn good.
The important thing about the alt firmwares is adding alternative and/or add new features.
But if you want to do FM synthesis, the other interfaces are just an opinion that is less integrated with the actual hardware side of the interface.
What excites me most about this, is alternative hardware running this firmware.
I love the idea of the polyend stuff but they're too pricy when there are perfectly usable trackers with more possibilities like renoise.
The novelty of a handheld tracker wears off quick once you start plugging things in.
Awesome! I don’t use any of their gear but still great news.
If only Ableton and Max would follow. Maybe that’s a weekend project.
I'm secretly wishing for Ableton to not become FOSS, even though I probably couldn't survive without Ableton, and I'm also into FOSS. But I fear if Ableton would become FOSS, they'd just eat the entire DAW market, and it'd be impossible for new entries to even get the slightest of attention.
At least this way there are still cause for eyeing in other directions than Ableton.
I think logic will stick around. A lot of people want to stay in the Apple ecosystem. And doesn’t Pro Tools still has a grip on the professional studio market?
Ableton is an overpriced piece of shmoo that will soon go away. It has over extended its welcome.
Ableton is my DAW of choice. I haven’t regretted the purchase of a license for it a single day in my life. Even though much of what I use it for would be equally doable probably in the “Lite” version of Ableton that came with several of the pieces of hardware that I have. I was initially using the Lite version and eventually pulled the trigger on upgrading after having been on Lite for more than a while.
Exciting! I have a Tracker I need to update. I've also been seen stuff about Doom OS for the SP404 MK2, need to update that too.
I'm glad! It makes sense though: the community has been reverse engineering it and building their own with LLM help lately. I love my Tracker+, such a neat bit of kit, and I'm excited to see what we can do now the firmware is open
"Click to accept marketing cookies and enable this content" on a video? Have some shame, developers...
Note that this is a youtube embed. Polyend is at least transparent about youtube tracking.
That's not what the message says though. It implies using marketing cookies there, not externally. They could've said "Click to play from YouTube (may involve cookie tracking)" if it's actually for YouTube
Looks like my Tracker is getting promoted from drawer jockey to the main jamspot in my music setup, and I've got a weekend project to take on.
I love to see this new trend in the electrical musical implement industrial complex.