Exactly.
I suspect that loopop may frequently be a beta tester on the models he reviews.
Versus many of the other YouTubers, they’re getting their model right before release with a release candidate firmware.
1 Like
Some odd omissions in general, but I’m enjoying the way it works and it certainly sounds great.
I think that is a perfect description of firmware 1.3
1010music seems to be really strict in keeping every aspect to the absolute minimum. It just feels like a bunch of engineers building MVPs without considering user experience, musicality, music theory or music production workflows or in fact any music making. It sounds great yes. They would really need to hire a UX designer.
Their tools are really that: tools with 1-dimensional usecases. There is never a 2nd dimension to anything.
People usually point to 1010Music being a small company, but it’s just not valid, since small companies can often build better and more revolutionary devices. If you compare this to a company like Squarp with their first product Pyramid, a first device from a tiny company… there is just no comparison in how much thought went into solid workflows and how much innovation they brought to the concept of a sequencer. They went on to sth like the Hapax as their second device.
That is actually what people expect. And this isn’t even the second or third device for 1010Music. I expect a device on this price level to impress me (at least in one way), not just barely suffice.
8 Likes
Agreed.
They forgot about the “fun” part.
There are no animations, no icons, the user interface is not really pleasant and the color palette is just not looking good.
I have high hopes that they will provide us in the future with a firmware that will drastically improve the UI/UX (complete overhaul) and make the device more visually stimulating.
I think this is the reason why there are almost no videos of Bento on YouTube. It is just not pleasant to look at and to play with.
They also need to rethink the usage of the ARROW pads (i dont see any use for them at the moment since there is no OK button?) and integrate the 16 pads in the embedded feature of the system.
The potential is there because this device is extremely powerful (i am a Bento owner since the beginning). Please make it happen 1010music team!
2 Likes
I agree with this. It didn’t bother me too much at the time, but playing with XY or TV now, in hindsight the Bento feels a little „soulless“ if you know what I mean.
2 Likes
personally I am completely satisfied with the ui/ux, I enjoy seeing it turn on and light up and I appreciate its straight forward nature.
I guess I don’t love the touch screen. never really liked them tho.
I think some parts actually look quite good. The instrument screens look nice. The browser also looks fine.
I do not mind a functional design. That would be totally fine. The problem is that it is not very functional. Many things exist but do not really work well. Even very basic features are missing or confusing.
Some strange omissions for example:
There is a browser, but it lacks delete or rename or any other functions you would expect. You can record hundreds of samples, but you cannot remove them…
Same with projects: you can create and name projects, but you cannot rename or delete them later. Bento also creates backup projects sometimes. This makes the project folder messy very quickly.
There are also many cases where things are just strange or badly named:
You cannot delete tracks, but you can cut them. After doing that, you notice there is no paste option for tracks. This means the track is gone. Another happy user that just delete hours of work, because with the tracks potentially 8 sequences are gone. Let’s hope you press that undo-button before you do anything else…
Song scenes can also be cut, but those can actually be pasted again…
This all feels very sloppy. It shows a major lack of attention to detail. It also misuses common industry terms like „cut“.
The hardware is limited. I am not sure more animations would even work well at this resolution. The instrument screen already uses a lot of processing power which cuts into audio.
The real issue is the mix of missing love to detail at every corner and missing functionality. That combination makes you wonder why this device even exists. It really does not feel like I am buying someone’s vision as to how to make music. It feels like a stale engineering project.
What is that hope based on?
I would not need a visual overhaul. What I need is better and more musical workflow.
They should pick one area and make it great. For example looping. Become the best looper! Or focus on arranging. Or focus on sequencing. Do one thing well instead of throwing features together and hoping it works.
I mean they have some unique capabilities that they could focus on… after all they are streaming audio, so long samples and loops are their super power. Yet their whole system destroys that very strength in various ways.
I agree. The arrow buttons are underused and confusing. It is often easier to ignore them.
Good user experience is hard. It needs consistency and attention to detail. If users cannot approximately predict what a button will do, pressing it feels risky or at the very least it’s mega annoying.
Bento also cannot decide between using physical buttons and on screen controls as their interaction paradigm. Each screen does something different. The interaction design feels chaotic and immature. The only reason it still works is that the screen is so large that it actually stays quite manageable.
This is the result of everything above.
Basic things are missing. There is no visible love to details or to music. There is no clear workflow. It feels like a collection of features instead of anything made for creating music.
In that sense, Bento is similar to other 1010Music devices. It is like a Swiss army knife. It can do many things a bit, but it really isn‘t great at any of them. It is only useful in very specific cases where you specifically need feature 1 and feature 5.
Funny enough that was exactly what made it really great for me and my setup!
Because I needed exactly that: a slightly better Blackbox with great I/O and in combination with the pads/portability.
4 Likes
They could always go with a lighter “pixellized” UI similar to… all synths and music hardware on the market; see ex:
And as we can see with much smaller screens of other music toys, it does NOT prevent to have nice icons and cool animations.
100% aligned on this. I’m truly loving the fact that they are trying to make it super functional but by doing this they remove all the fun factor.
1 Like
A lot of thought and design went into creating these beautiful low-res information visualizations. There is love and attention to every detail. There is appreciation and vision for how things should be.
With 1010Music everything feels like working with a lazy developer who will answer to everything: „It wasn’t in the specifications, so I didn’t do it…“
2 Likes
What device is that from?
You can see the animation on the page
Can anyone recommend a carry case for a bento?
My theory on this is that it was rushed out ahead of MPC 3.
4 Likes
Be that as it may, at this point, it is available to the public and 1010music is visibly working on improving the firmware.
Just got a bento 4 days ago - so far, regretting it, although I LOVE the form factor. One question - how does one swap the instrument on a track? It seems there is no way. The web is completely wrong in that double tapping the track (or pressing the “INST” button) does NOT return you to the browser to select a different instrument, but rather sends you to the tweak settings for the currently loaded instrument or sample. I have struggled with this for 3 days, scoured the manual, scoured the web, watched videos, and have found NOTHING about swapping the instrument on an existing track. This is BASIC. Please tell me I’m missing something. This thing is just on the verge of going back to Perfect Circuit, and my new motto is about to be: “1010: NEVER AGAIN.”
What do you mean by “swapping the instrument on a track”? Changing a preset (“patch”) within a track? Ever pressed the hamburger button?
If you want to change the track type (like slice instead of looper), press the three dots on the menu with the overview of the 8 tracks (instrument?) and there you should be able to choose. At least that’s how it was handled on an early firmware. I think it unfortunately deleted sequencer data, but that might have been fixed.
I returned mine. Had too many pops and cpu overloads when I didnt really push it. Got myself a Tonverk and it’s superb.
1 Like
Thanks. Yes, the menu you described does allow that. I was thrown off by that answer not appearing anywhere I looked, or in any of the numerous tutorials I watched. I appreciate the help!
1 Like
Glad I could help. I remember having trouble with that exact same thing shortly after launch. There wasn’t even a manual out yet though, so I assumed basic functions like this are explained now.
I believe you may’ve given me the best suggestion here. I badly wanted to like this device, and I love the form factor, large display, pads, etc. However, I’m experiencing pops, crackles and other little glitches which are concerning me. The other thing is the battery - using the provided cable and a recommended power source (and I’ve tried 3 different ones) my unit is requiring over 18 hours to get to a full charge, despite the manual saying it’s generally 4-5 hours, with up to 3 hours battery life (depending). I’m getting more like 70 minutes of battery life, which is short of what I had hoped for. As I said, I badly wanted to love this thing, but it just seems as though what I have in my hands is an unfinished product with a couple of bad decisions (such as the battery function) holding it back. I think Loopop gets it right by dividing gripes into firmware and hardware (firmware being changeable in the future) - and, while I could probably ride out the firmware (with some concerns), I’m thinking the battery and processor/memory used in this device are going to be problematic issues which will only compound in the future as the device ages. I believe I’m going to send it back, with a fair amount of sadness for what I can see could have been a pretty great and unique piece of kit.
Question about your Tonwerk - is it something you could see yourself sitting on the sofa noodling with, or is it less of a “groove box” in that regard compared with the Bento? The form factor is the same as Octatrack, right?