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
Sorry, Bento is my first 1010 device. From what you’re writing, I’d definitely keep the BB for now and watch how Bento develops.
The problem is that they haven’t even released a manual yet, so you can’t even find out what it can and can’t do without owning it, and even if you do own it, you can’t be sure if there’s an option hidden somewhere to do what you’re missing.
But it’s definitely rather basic and buggy right now. It still offers a lot already, but compared to the Blackbox, its features sound more limited.
There’s a video on Youtube of a guy demoing the looper a bit more that was posted here. It gives you an idea of how it works, although he’s way too hyped for functions that can be found on a lot of devices. That being said, the looper is the biggest draw for me and combined with the other track types already makes it a cool machine.
It feels so sad that this really seems like the perfect sampler for me, but I can’t trust the current state of it nor the bugs improvements.
The DTII comes close second to me, but (besides the price) not having polyphony kills a part of my workflow. All the rest of the features I’m interested in can be found on Bento + polyphony, but DTII is already more reliable for live performance.
For me, if the DT2 allowed us to adjust Start Times on the grid slicer we’d be good. This omission totally kills the workflow for me on the DT2 and it’s one of the reasons i opted for the Bento —early stage and all.
I’m submitting bugs/feature requests to the 1010 Team and they are quite responsive so i am hopeful of how it will evolve. But right now, as a Sampler and One Shot player it does a good job to cover my workflow needs more than the DT2 does.
It’s crazy that such a simple thing like Start time adjustments could be such a workflow killer.
Anyhoo this thread is about Bento so here’s some Bento:
Totally fair points. I imagine if they were to add 8 more tracks they could line up to the knobs as well. Either by selecting the upper or lower column of tracks by tapping or using arrows to scroll to the lower bank of 8. Hey, it’s just speculation and I don’t understand the logistics of these things. Just over here dreaming and thinking out loud. If I think of a feature that could be neat and appeal to others I’ll likely suggest it. 8 tracks was quite hotly criticised by people and I’m sure it’d be welcome (eventually). I completely agree that the current state of things needs to be sorted before adding new features. It’s not like they’ll get to it right away or “give in”. They can decide what’s best and when the time is right there’s definitely a lot to enjoy in there already!
Totally fair. I‘m just skeptic, seing they’ve removed the possibility to trigger clips with the touch screen when they doubled the amount of clips. Beefing it up to eight clips was actually really important and I‘m glad they delivered that so soon, but I‘m baffled they removed the ability to trigger them via touch screen by adding the option to use the pads for that (why not both?). It’s these kinds of things that make me hesitant to wish for new features, besides the obvious bugs.
And if they are d shaft or not? I’d like to buy 8 of the rubber BB style knobs for this rather than use the plastic ones but in trying to order them before it arrives
None. I don’t know if this is an honest question or trolling.
If you compare it 1:1 with a Digitakt or other Elektrons, it will obliterate them in some aspects and embarrass itself in others.
The way I use it so far, the difference boils down to this: on an Elektron, you have a rather limited amount of what a track can sound like when you press a trig. You’ll therefore program in variations, use plocks and conditions as well as LFOs to make things more interesting.
On Bento, you can prepare tracks in a way that you have a lot of variation at your finger tip, and you will then play that it. You will then record that into the looper, maybe with an external FX unit in between. You can then play around with these loops or load the loops into a slicer and play in the slices. You could also bring external gear into the mix and record longer loops that you can fire off at a button press. And all the while, you‘ll flexibly jump around between clips to see what kinds of combinations you have and what works well together.
I have seen absolutely nothing in terms of serious reviews of the granular machine and I am mostly attracted as a version of lemondrop with more powerful hardware UI and some added tricks that would let me replace the sampler/sequencer slot in my rig (currently it’s a Digitakt i). How comprehensive is the lemondrop implementation? Can it do live granulation yet? Can it mix wet and dry?
My ultimate use case is for stereo samples, MIDI sequencing, and primarily granular synthesis. What makes this the thing I go buy immediately is these capabilities:
-live granulation control over an input stream
(really preferred) stereo or at least mono wet/dry of granulated and original input audio. If this is an FX loop hack that’s fine but I want it to eliminate mults and mixer hardware from my intended setup and a wet-only granular doesn’t get me there.
able to granulate looping audio
MIDI auto channel to forward note/CC data and/or sequence other synths based on track selected
Dumb question but it resamples right?
Does it have any kind of stochastic/generative/algo sequencing?
I know not everything is there and 1010 themselves aren’t too eager to volunteer precise details of what’s coming down the road but if the granular implementation is already good and has nice user controls I think the MIDI sequencing stuff and sampling stuff is just a waiting game because those are so standard.
Same pots as all other 1010 products, D shaft. But the way the new plastic knobs fit into the faceplate won’t align the same with the older knobs. The new knobs are also deliberately skinnier allowing more room between the knobs for control without bumping a neighbor knob.
Not possible. You have two sample slots in the granular machine plus a VA oscillator. You can load any sample into these sample slots. You could record something from input 1-3 or route tracks to output 1-3 and record that via looper, then load these recordings into the granular sample slots. But it will require a bit of work and definitely isn’t live.
I can’t say too much about the rest as I don’t use the granular machine much. You only have one of these per track. And MIDI implementation is really basic so far. I‘d suggest you wait till the manual is available so you can see for yourself what it offers and what it doesn’t.
This! When people look up this box in a couple of years and find Loopop’s video of an unfinished product, it’s gonna put off a lot of potential buyers. The YouTubers who chase the new stuff (not a comment about Loopop) are unlikely to return.
It’s disheartening that they didn’t get that in place yet but I think there’s a reasonable chance of it happening, just how soon it happens dictates if I buy that or Tempera/TextureLab/Lemondrop/GR1/S-4 instead since all of those do it. I say that because the lemondrop definitely can use live input as granular source and just fills a 30s rotating buffer for granulation and I’ve read 1010 themselves saying that the “full” lemondrop engine is in Bento. To me that means all of its functionality, but I guess the granular capabilities are mostly an added value for people interested in Bento rather than the main attraction, while I see it as potentially a good balance of the granular capabilities I want and being able to replace other parts of my setup instead of adding to it. I’d just buy a lemondrop but I want more encoders and the bigger screen for granular controls.
@Craig I’m actually kind of hoping that if the functions I want get into it, this effect works to my advantage and I can pick one up before it’s feature complete for cheap from someone who left disappointed that it doesn’t do some other stuff that matters less to me. For instance, I have so many sequencers that I don’t actually care very much if it’s good at sequencing outboard gear but others might have wanted it as a brain.
Anything goes and you‘ll never know. But like I‘ve mentioned on this thread several times: the Bento is still in a state where they have to get basic stuff working reliably. I hope they‘ll do that before they visit the tons of wishes for additional stuff they‘ll receive. If you want a more dedicated granular synth, my guess is that you should get something else, as it might stay more of a nice bonus on Bento as a groovebox rather than a fleshed out function.
there’s definitely a lot to enjoy in there already!