1010music Bento

The Lounge Other Gear
671

I think it’s a fun pick up and play device. There are oddities, like the pan being in under instrument - albiet capable of being modulated but it not being under the mixer also. Or the looper track - if you click on load should default to the current projects folder.

But it’s very immediate. If you go into making a project with no expectations since at the minute you can’t audition…but as a hub there’s potential there. I’d like to see support for more then 8 tracks but at the same time maybe they need to do some tweaks to be even more CPU efficient.

It’s early days but honestly, it’s a fun.

672

Definitely. I do wonder at what point it will be a reliable tool and not a buggy mess though. And if that point will ever come. I’ve just jammed a bit for the first time with the new beta, and the pads have literally become unusable. They often don’t respond at all or they trigger another pad that I definitely didn’t hit. I’m also assuming (and hoping) it’s a pad issue since the ones I didn’t hit are lighting up, so it should work with an external keyboard. Edit: apparently, setting the pad threshold higher solves that issue. It’s still frustrating to have bugs like that which can only be worked around by consulting their forum.

Anyways, I’m really hoping that they’ll focus on making this thing stable and reliable for the next months. They gave me basically all the features I wished for with the beta. I just hope they don’t spend their time on coming up with more new ideas that will introduce more bugs instead of ironing out the jank.

4 Likes
673

I’ve submitted Ironing Out the Jank to my editor as the new title of my memoir. We now return to your regularly scheduled thread…

4 Likes
674

I would NOT suggest ironing out your junk.

** puts glasses on **

nevermind…

6 Likes
675

For the users out there… How fast is the losd time between sessions/projects?
I’d love to use one for live performance if I get it, but certainly 8 tracks are not enough to put all the music in, so I’m interested in knowing if loading time is elektron-patterns-fast enough .

676

1010 music boxes are quite fast on that department

3 Likes
677

It’s quite fast. If I was to use it for a live performance, I’d definitely add something like a looper or a way to throw a lot of delay and reverb on the master. You can forget about seamless transitions otherwise. If you’ll play more like a concert where it’s track after track with a pause for clapping in between, the load time will be fast enough for sure.

2 Likes
678

Wondering how much CPU the midi/audio tracks actually use. It would be awesome if they could give us another set of 8 tracks for midi usage freeing the initial 8 for internal usage. Kinda like the OG Digitakt had.

679

Might make a wishlist on 1010 for that

680

Isn’t that exactly what they said they are working on next?

681

Dear god, fix the damn thing first before doubling tracks. I hope they won’t do this. There’s already enough flexibility within the eight tracks available to do way more with them than you could on a DT.

5 Likes
682

There is the external track which merges midi and audio in onto a track. This is available in the beta, I believe, which is awesome. Can’t see a mention of ‘more tracks’ per say (as in increasing from 8 to 16). Not sure why you wouldn’t want more tracks. Not like you need to use them all if you’re happy with 8. It would be more flexible which is always nice. 8 is great internally but I just wonder if it’s really necessary to lose some of those just to control external gear. You could have 4 pieces of gear you want to control from the Bento which would leave you with 4 tracks of internal Bento fun. It’s just a thought.

I understand that increasing to 16 tracks (doesn’t even have to be that many) and allowing for all of the internal functions to be used would be way too CPU intensive. But is sequencing external gear really that CPU intensive that the midi/audio tracks couldn’t be separate?

1 Like
683

Oh your right sorry… when they listed this feature they listed it as external tracks, plural, so I figured more then one… I see they say at the bottom of the paragraph it is just one track… confusing.

684

Because the device is still in a close to broken state. Adding more tracks will certainly introduce a host of other bugs, even if they’re just MIDI tracks. They’d also have to spend a signigicant amount of time changing the UI, because right now, everything is based on eight tracks and eight encoders (mixer page especially). In any case, even if it didn’t introduce new bugs, they’d certainly need time to develop and test that, which is time they don’t have to spend on making the Bento a stable and reliable device with its current features. So I really hope they aren’t giving in to people asking for all kinds of stuff at least until they fixed the fundamental issues that are still there.

4 Likes
685

I believe it makes more sense to add more tracks first if the device can handle that, was designed for that, but if it wasn’t part of the early FW.

A pre-mature HW launch likely indicates an urgent business need for positive cash flow.

8 vs 16 tracks is a parameter that sells or not sells the device for many potential customers.

More tracks = more sales = better cash flow.

Then with good enough velocity of fixes & improvement, they can manage to keep those customers from selling their unit and keep inflow of new customers coming.

686

Well, I’m skeptical they’ll be able to deliver a “good enough velocity of fixes & improvement” if they keep adding features at the same time. I think they’ll have to decide whether they want a stable device that people will actually want to use and take to gigs or a wishlist of features that are half baked and will lead people to return these after a few weeks, letting others know it’s quite buggy and making people wait before buying.

Anecdotally, most Elektronauts who bought one have already returned it or are trying to sell it. Does that make you want to get one right now if they add eight tracks?

2 Likes
687

Could any Bento owners who have also owned a Blackbox help me out here:

i dont think this has been covered yet, but before i sell my blackbox to buy the bento; does the Bento fully cover what the blackbox can do, in terms of just quickly grabbing a custom length clip (rectoplay, Rec Quant 1 bar, Rec Mon Auto, metronome enabled during recording but stops on playback), then quickly crank up the mix level, add some effects, Save and name that audio clip, then immediately start recording the next loop?

I imagine it functions in the same way as the blackbox when using the Loop track or whatever its called. I just wanted to make sure that there werent any glaring or detrimental changes/differences between them. or maybe the workflow is a little less smooth?

if you want to change the length (truncate) a clip in the blackbox, you have to change it to a sample pad, set start and end points, trim, then set it back to a “clip”. i imagine that type of functionality is a little different, considering how the track modes are set up on the bento. But for the most part, i think i feel comfortable letting go of the blackbox for the bento. ideally, i would keep both but i cant financially justify buying the bento without letting go of this

i always said i would never sell the blackbox because of the purpose it serves for me. when im away from home, its very easy to take with me in my analog cases case w/usb power cable, quickly connect to my launchpad midi and my synth so i can send midi through the launchpad to my synth, and capture the audio from the synth as clips. but also when im home, any time i get a nice patch that i want to preserve, or a nice sequenced pattern or even a drum loop on the rytm, i know i can just quickly grab it with the blackbox because its always receiving audio from my mixer’s alt out and clock from my octa via midi. and since i have a 256gig sd card in there, even though i record something like sixteen 32bar clips every day, it never fills up. and if it does, i can very quickly pop the sd card into my pc via sd adapter and copy/paste the whole card as a backup

its the perfect time machine for every sound i ever made that i wanted to preserve forever. ive never had a sampler that i didnt have to worry about filling up and offloading at least once a month, if not every two weeks or so

i am just a little nervous about letting it go. but i think the bento can do all of this and more. and it will eliminate the need for me to always bring my launchpad with me when im making music away from home, even though its not as compact as the blackbox. i also just really love the sound of the compressor, the filter, the pitch algorithm, the fx. but im pretty sure all of that is still very high quality in the bento. i just know that i love the way everything works just perfectly on the blackbox and im slightly afraid to swap it for the bento. but unfortunately its looking like i’ll have to

it does seem redundant though, having both. is that true?

1 Like
688

What you’re suggesting sounds uncomfortably like the Anyma business plan!

To be clear – I’m not speculating on 1010s finances or plans re: the Bento.

1 Like
689

Assuming you mean Bento “loops” (audio tracks you record at a defined or custom length) when you talk about clips (clips on Bento are the sequences of MIDI notes), the things I’ve quoted aren’t currently possible on Bento afaik.

If the metronome is on, it’s on (I don’t even know if you can turn it off, default volume is extremely loud but can be adjusted). It will only be on when recording, so as soon as you press rec again and let it play, the metronome should be gone.

All of the loops you record will be named REC1, REC2 etc. and I haven’t found any option to change this yet. They’re saved in the project folder on the SD card, so I guess you could rename them on a computer later.

There’s quite a lot of options for loop lengths when recording them. But once they’re recorded, you can’t change anything about their start and end point or length. You could import them into a one shot or slice machine and record them into the sequencer, these machines have settings for start and end point and the sequencer allows you to set step lengths.

I’d definitely wait before I sold a Blackbox and getting a Bento to replace it. While Bento’s looper is already quite powerful, it has a lot of quirks and limitations as well (which is true for all types of tracks).

1 Like
690

thank you for your input

yes, i meant “clips” on the BB. i suppose those are loops on the bento. the Loops track, right?

damn, that’s unfortunate. i’ve developed so much muscle memory with this thing too. everything seems so well thought out. like if you tap a new clip pad on the bb, it wont play until the next quantized bar is finished, but if you hit the play button again while the box is already playing, it will cause that clip to start playing on the next beat, almost immediately. just so quick and seamless an intuitive

i guess maybe the bento isn’t fully there yet

i also don’t even know if it’s meant to have all of the features of a blackbox, but i kind of just assumed it would. it seems like it would be strange not to at least be capable of those things

*EDIT:

all of these sound pretty close to the blackbox functionality, except the fact that you cant open a recorded loop, “SAVE AS” and rename them. but maybe there’s another feature that replaces that type of workflow i use currently. i think i maybe just didn’t articulate those things accurately

have you owned a Blackbox? if so, do you think it has some features or methods that the bento lacks especially