Buchla & Friends 2025: Polyend Step packs the features of a modern drum machine into a compact stompbox pedal for guitar players.
Electronic musicians love drum machines in all shapes and sizes. They are as firmly anchored in the setup as amps or cabinets are for guitarists. But what if the guitarist wants to use a drum machine in his setup?
The Polish developers at Polyend also asked themselves this question and developed a product that brings drum machine sounds to pedalboards. Ahead of Buchla & Friends 2025, Polyend has just launched the Step stompbox.
Polyend Step
Polyend’s new product release for the Buchla & Friends events takes a different approach: Step is a new four-track drum machine that incorporates a digital drum engine into a guitar pedal. Why a drum machine in a pedal? Polyend answers:
Step is purposefully designed for musicians seeking smooth and uncomplicated playback control over their rhythms while keeping their focus on playing their instrument. Designed as an accompaniment for live sets or practice sessions, this drum machine offers a fresh approach to
rhythm creation. Its compact pedal format ensures it fits seamlessly into any setup.
Each track offers a sample playback engine that uses 16-bit/44.1 kHz mono samples. Polyend ships the unit with over 1500 samples structured by drum kits in dedicated folders. Alternatively, you can load your own samples into the unit. These samples can be placed on each of the 16-step sequencers.
Step also comes with various tweakable parameters. Velocity control, step probability, micro-move, or instant humanization allow you to spice up your tracks with natural dynamics. You can also loop individual patterns or songs.
Effects
Then, Polyend Step offers over 50 punch-in effects that you can assign up to 16 in a 4-track song. You can choose between drum sample volume, filters, overdrive, chance, action, randomizers, step repeater, and more. There are also global FX, including drum sample reverb, delay, sound enhancer, limiter, saturator, and more.
Once your patterns or songs are programmed, you can easily save them into the internal memory of the Step hardware. According to Polyend, you can save and lock up to 1000 songs, ensuring your performance stays secure. That should be enough space for the next few years.
If you don’t feel like creating your own patterns, no problem. Polyend Step ships with over 350 ready-to-use preset rhythms, and drum mits.
The hardware offers six potentiometers, four track buttons, 16 buttons for the sequencer, and three footswitches. The latter allows you to switch patterns, adjust tempo, and activate the punch-in effects. All this can be done with a press on the stompswitches.
Connectivity
On the backside, you can find a power supply input (9-18VDC), a reset input, a USB-C port, a micro SD port for sample import, TRS-MIDI I/O, an expression pedal input, a 6.3mm stereo input, and stereo outputs (6.3mm L/R).
Polyend promises that you can seamlessly integrate Step in your MIDI-enabled gear and stomp-controllable performance.
First Impression
At first glance, the product is undoubtedly confusing for electronic musicians. “Why do you need a drum machine in the pedal when there are small portable drum machines, even from Polyend?”. The answer: electronic musicians are not the only ones in the world.
I think the product is aimed mainly at guitarists who want a versatile rhythm machine for their setup and don’t want to use a computer. They can easily integrate the pedal into their current pedalboard setup and create and launch rhythms directly from there.
From that perspective, it is a very intriguing product.
Polyend Step is available now for $499/499€.
More information here: Polyend
waste of money
Quite the contribution, Adrian. A slow clap for you.
So, a tepid recreation of the awful preset drum machines of the 70s and 80s, this time with footswitches.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE exercise a bit more editorial discernment, and stop pandering to every maker because you know them. Polyend is well known to abandon products half baked and never finished. This is purely a financial decision (yes, its a for profit company, we get it) yet this is cynical at this point.
Thanks for your feedback. Don’t panic Sarah, I always remain critical also with discontinuations.
It’s not panic Tom, I respect you however I think your close relationship with companies compromises you (and yes, we understand that gives your access) however your real clients are your readers and the traffic to this site, therefore it is more important than ever that your voice reminds readers of a pattern of behaviour from a company well known to abandon products if they do not meet some sales metric. Polyend is trying to be Teenage Engineering in so many ways yet whilst I am not a TE user or “fan”, they seem to support and actually finish what they start!
Every media in the world has a relationship with brands otherwise we can’t report so quick about new releases. As I said: Polyend also delivers updates, see the updates for their old Tracker and Play from Superbooth 24.
If we become bean counters then we’ll find skeletons in every company, even among those that are super supportive. No company is perfect.
How silly, I’m happy to be getting Tracker updates 5 years later!
Exactly this. Also, its not that they did something new with this one or improved on existing products on the market. They just build toys or OK-ish products at best.
I still feel very burned by how they abandoned SEQ with obvious features and fixes never addressed :/