1010music Bento

my blackbox didnt have a shift button. im mostly comparing it to that i guess. i suppose it would be nice.

and im not sure what you mean by this:

I dont know if i have time at the moment to be a reliable reviewer. dont take my word for anything, just happy to finally own my dream piece of gear

i am running into some confusing aspects of loop recording, but im hoping they are user error. not sure yet


I have a stupid question if anyone can clarify:

What are the other methods for directly sampling audio into the bento aside from looping?

Can you record one shots from the inputs?

From what I’ve seen you use the looper to record in your samples but then you can use them in granular or one shot. It is a little weird not to be able to sample in directly to a pad like most samplers but live sampling isn’t a big thing for me that impacts performance so I’m not bothered personally. Would like the capability eventually but it isn’t a dealbreaker.

What is bugging me is not being able to figure out if/how parameter locks work on sequence step. I feel like it must be possible but I don’t know how.

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Just daydreaming again but wouldn’t it be cool if in the FX section you could turn the screen into a kaoss pad style thing to live input filters or effects on desired targets? Ooft would take this thing to another level for performance. I know they need to iron out the Bento first but in the future I’d love to see something like this

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They have that on the Lemondrop (and maybe other nanoboxes). So maybe it could happen.

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There’s no other option, unless they’ve implemented that in a recent update. Recording always has to be done in the looper, but once the sample is recorded, you can use it in every other machine (which didn’t work half of the time when I still had it because of bugs).

@jeffroman: I don’t think there’s anything you’re missing, it can’t plock (unless that came in a recent update). I think the way to go is to setup a bunch of variations of your sample via one shot or slice machine and then just play them in. Which is something I’d love to do on my Elektrons as easily, it’s way more playful while on Elektrons you’re programming the sequencer after you’ve recorded the trigs.

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im fine with using the loop track like i did with my blackbox, but not being able to save manually and rename is very strange. i guess i wouldnt mind going over to a loop track, recording audio in as a loop, then importing that in a one shot track, but maybe with my workflow i wont really be using one shot tracks. havent figured that out yet. at least there are workarounds for most things, but i can see why people are annoyed.

still, i have a lot of faith that this will become one of the most powerful boxes we have. its already pretty incredible and im having a lot of fun in my initial explorations

i did have little bursts of crackly noise at one point when trying to either adjust the flanger fx or dial in the send amount, i forget which. but that was just a temporary thing

also the reverbs and distortion on this thing are wild. i have never heard better sounding fx in a groovebox/sampler like this

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I found the range of the distortion way too narrow. As soon as you dial in a tiny bit, the signal becomes a lot louder and distorted. I did like the sound of it, but prefer the wider range of my Elektrons. The reverbs sounded great, but the selection of algorithms wasn’t exactly my taste, I missed something like a plate or an algorithm that resembles smaller spaces.

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I think the only one leaving me a little underwhelmed is the delay but it’s probably better to have delays too subtle than not subtle enough. I just have to dial in the right settings still I guess.

Overdrive definitely needs to come along with a level reduction but since I’m a guitarist that’s the standard I’m used to with gain anyway and I really like how much overdrive I can get. Together with the filter controls I am able to do a lot.

I think I’m OK with the idea of the sample variations like you’re describing but don’t see it as more efficient or powerful than the parameter locks I can do on most of my other synths with sequencers (Airas, Elektron, Sonicware…) because I really really like being able to choose just one step that has an individual probability and associate it with a crazy boost in delay send, that sort of thing. In general individual step probability locks is much better for fills so we at least have that but some way to group conditional steps to set the condition once for the group would be much better. I initially thought that modifying probability for a selected group of steps would lead to them all triggering together or not (probability evaluated for the full group just once rather than per-step) but that’s not how it seems to be working and that’s a little frustrating.

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You’re making good points. I think the way it is designed right now, Bento is encouraging you to use 256 steps (twice as much as Elektrons, also with resolutions) and play in the variation and stuff like conditions. On a Syntakt for example, I’d have to use conditions like 4:4 if I red the full resolution on a 64 step pattern. On Bento, I can just make it 256 steps and play the 4:4 step in on only one bar. And use a different one shot sample slot or slice. But yeah, that of course excludes a lot of things you could pluck that’s more dynamic (like delay send) or odd conditions (like 3:7).

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With a combination of conditional triggers, 1:4 etc. type conditions, parameter locked control of trigger length at resolution not related to the sequencer step length, parameter locked retriggers on conditional triggers(this is important…), and probability, the Syntakt’s 64 steps are presently able to generate a much more dynamic sequence quickly for me than the Bento’s 256 steps. I love the 256 steps but the elektron sequencer is way more useful to me at the moment since I am much more interested in creating very dynamic patterns that can loop without feeling repetitive than chaining a lot of similar patterns. I only like to make a new pattern if I want to change the tempo or underlying groove, go to half time, etc and even then a lot of the time I’ll just change the step divider in performance to go to half time. Syntakt’s retrigger macro keys are also something I wish every groovebox I owned had, one of the few things beat step pro can do that a lot of fancier sequencer’s just miss. Throwing in snare rolls with those macro keys in performance is so much better than trying to set a snare roll as an occasional thing with conditional triggers and much more flexible than elektron’s own fill triggers since you can drop them in anywhere you feel like as a one time thing while the music is playing. I’d really like to see some similar kinds of performance features on bento, since I use them heavily even for recording composed music to be able to capture energetic moments.

The biggest strength of the bento sequencer’s for me is the ability to set crazy slow sequences, really long notes, etc, but a lot of the missing features related to retriggers, trigger length, etc make it hard to take full advantage.

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Just got a Bento because I own and love the Blackbox. The Bento is quite nice, hardware-wise.
As for the user experience, it just feels clunky.

I’m heavy into sampling and the Bento’s “sampling workflow” just doesn’t cut it. It’s slow and limited.
I should be able to sample and trim, then save a file.
I should be able to make 16 slices and assign to 16 corresponding slots on a one-shot track.

I really hoped to like it as much as the Blackbox, but it certainly needs refinement. I made a sketch on the Bento that took too long and I was not pleased with it. Turned on the Blackbox and whipped up something interesting in a fraction of the time.

The Bento still may become a lot better, but if improving the sampling workflow is not made a priority, it seems like it’s not for me.

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Having never used the black box I didn’t really know what the target might be as far as a “good” version of the bento sampling and sequencing experience but it’s actually reassuring that people like blackbox a lot more for this stuff just because the next batch of fw updates promised is focused on usability features supposedly so it’s good to know that they do have a north star already for what a good sample based workflow is to build from.

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Well, there’s the slice track for that and it’s great. Do you need to adjust parameters like amp or FX per slice or why does it have to be the one shot?

I agree though that the way sampling works right now is pretty weird, being limited to the looper, not being able to name samples etc. It definitely takes you out of the flow and gets you more into a computer browsing experience.

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I want to be able to modify a “drum kit” and adjust parameters individually. I definitely use the slice track for anything like a drum break and melodic samples I want to cut up. I can work around this, but the sampling method is a bummer.

I also feel that in the Launch screen, after the first push of a pad starts a sequence, the subsequent press of that same pad should stop the sequence.
That’s pretty huge for how I like to play stuff live.
Should be super simple to pull that off in firmware and makes such logical sense that I can’t believe it was not done that way right out of the gate.

Again, love the hardware, but Bento is making me enjoy the Blackbox even more. So that’s good I guess.

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Those are good ideas. I made a thread in their wishlist forum for sampling directly into the one-shot or granular rather than being limited to the looper. Would suggest you do the same things, squeaky wheel and all. They have a pretty small set of users posting about things in that forum but actively monitor and respond to it, so a request someone makes here or on reddit without communicating it to them isn’t going to lead to anything but on there it might lead to them directly confirming if that feature is planned or if they like the idea and will consider adding it.

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ive done this too. good call

I agree, its a narrow range, and i need to simultaneously pull down the loop level, but its very nice sounding. it feels like a slightly dirtier or more “organic” type of saturation than the elektrons to me? not that i think one is better than the other, i actually like the sort of digital nature of the dt od and octa filter overdrive (and i really love the overdrive in the fx page of the DN2). i think the bento od reminds me more of the A4 mk2 saturation a little

i also feel you on the reverb algos. i typically do the most “realistic” room or plate i can find on a reverb pedal/unit and then try to make it as airy and “light” with natural reflections as i can. like balancing ethereal and vaporous with translucent and natural. but the gravitas and clouds here sound very very nice when you get into the higher “Hi C” values (which is weird, because i think thats a high cut filter, but it feels more like a freq gain or maybe a depth thing?) and when you push the reverb send past 70% on it


one thing i found really cool, despite the irritating fact that you cant just record a sample, truncate it, save it, name it, edit it easily in one place is that if you think of this as kind of a sound design lab in sort of a modular way, like its all connected, then you can still accomplish pretty much anything

like, now im thinking of the granular engine as more of just my sample editor. i record my sample as a loop, then import to granular synth, turn of internal osc, ill take a synth note from my roland s-1, set position to fixed, and just have it loop with lower density and low window, so it just kind of makes a kind of “unison” thick almost reese sounding timbre. if you set a slight play position and window lfo on it, just a tiny bit it just feels like more of a resonator or something. very powerful tool to have in a sampler like this

then resample that and throw it into a one shot slot. i still havent actually figured out how to load and play my recorded samples chromatically polyphonically via the onboard pads though. can you do that in one shot tracks? i see poly modes but it doesnt behaveas i expected and definitely not how blackbox does

i really with they at least added all the blackbox features by now

but im wondering if maybe the multisampler could be a better tool for this? without actually multisampling? i dont think it works that way though. i just want to play my sampled tones polyphonically, like a custom synth voice/wave


̶i̶m̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶s̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶c̶o̶u̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶n̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶a̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶b̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶c̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶a̶m̶p̶l̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶?̶ ̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶r̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶
*(i’m just gonna use my P-6 built-in mic and the Mix out w/a 3.5mm trs)

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They have tiny little mics that connect to the input on phones, I would get that so you don’t mess with cords.

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Lol! Was ever their problem …

So no plocks per step then?

You could do all that on Elektron .this thing’s never going to be, say, a machinedrum. That’s even if they bother to finish it, which I’m sure they won’t based on their history.

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I think this is pretty much the idea of Bento. You could expand it by incorporating FX pedals using the multiple outputs and inputs, but I think it’s meant to be used so that you bounce around audio using the different machines.

Yes, to play samples chromatically, you need to use the multi engine with one sample.

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