Just to close the loop on this, tried a bunch of different SD cards off the recommended list, and kept having this issue.
Then replaced the USB cable (that Iām pretty sure it came with) with a Chroma Cable (also from the recommended list). Everything worked!
rant hidden to preserve your sunny sunday good moods
Iām so peeved right now. Maybe I mixed the cables up when routing them under the desk? Or it got damaged or something? But I really tried to keep them together, and regardless what other device is this finicky about its connections?
USB power on the BB just feels like a huge mistake at this point. It doesnāt stream audio or midi over the power USB, right? And they have to use that weird āextra tight, feels like Iām going to break all the solder jointsā port to keep it from accidentally falling out because USB cables are too thick to use one of those brackets every other synth uses to hold power in place. And thereās no power switch, of course, so Iām pulling on it 3ā4 times a day. Maybe thatās what happened to the cable?
I dare not plug it into any hub or chain it from another host device or it goes into a reboot loop. I have to use one specific power adapter and one specific cable or I lose recordings. How would an old school DC wall wart not be better than this in every way? Easily half the posts on the support forums are people having problems with power. And now it turns out maybe the the cable they keep telling everyone to use wonāt always work either?
If you can work comfortably within 5V @ 100ā500mA, go to town. USB is super convenient! Battery packs are plentiful! People will thank you for it!
But if you canāt, it borders on irresponsible to design a device that looks like it can. And the more recent Bluebox is the same. So no lessons learned here.
Anyway, as @vegeta897, @papertiger and others pointed out already, I shouldāve made sure swapping cables and wall adapters were part of my troubleshooting steps, whether I think everything is original or not. Thank you all, (and Chroma Cables!) for being smart and awesome, as always!
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Hmmā¦extra tight sockets and no switch. That sounds like funā¦can you pull it out on the other end (so you avoid stress on the socket inside the BB)? Or maybe get an extension cable? Much easier this way. Thereās probaply none on that list of compatible usb cables, but maybe you can find something that works for other users?
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That sounds horrible. And it nullifies the suggestion I was going to make about a powered USB hub with switches to save wearānātear on the USB socket.
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Yeah, pulling the āAā side of the cable to toggle power is a good idea. Itās under the desk, but thatās not the worst.
And Iām sure some kind of extension (maybe even with built-in switch?) would work ā itās just, how do I disprove a negative to myself, you know? If it crashed or didnāt power on, Iād be āCool. That didnāt work.ā But now thereās this third category of āAppears to work but sometimes corrupts recordingsā that has me shook.
I probably just need to get comfortable with it working for a week or two, build up some trust. Then start experimenting with cabling solutions.
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And thereās no power switch, of course, so Iām pulling on it 3ā4 times a day.
In case you didnāt see, 1010music believes you can just leave the thing on 24/7. 
Iāve never personally liked leaving my gear on all the timeā¦ but with my Blackbox and Bluebox it doesnāt really bug me. In any case, I have a separate power strip that is just for my synths. Anything with itās own power switch, I switch off, and stuff like the Blackbox I just use the switch on the power strip. I canāt stomach the idea of yanking a plug (especially the Type B USB on 1010 stuff!) out multiple times a day! My synth power strip is mounted to the bottom of my desk, so I can reach under from my chair and switch it on and off whenever I want.
I use the Bluebox mixer as a 6 device mixer with my synths taking up 4 stereo lanes, my turnable on the 5th, and my PC on the 6thā¦ so itās truly a full time, dedicated, desktop mixer and it always stays on for that reason. Has been running pretty much nonstop since February, no issues. I would assume the Blackbox has the same amount of resilience.
Speaking directly to USB for powerā¦ eh. Lots of devices in itās class use USB just for the ease of taking it portable with a powerbank. Polyend Tracker (Type C), Deluge (Type B), OP-Z (Type C), etc. etc. all rely on USB power. When I had the Black/Blue boxes plugged into the USB ports on my power strip I got the awful hum, but going USB into the wall warts and then into the power strip was totally fine (and, as of now, the Bluebox is on a different strip entirely because like I said beforeā¦ I use it even when all my synths are off!).
Anyways, really, I think you can just leave it on in the worst case.
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I have all my music stuff plugged into 2 of those standing power strips with USBs. I turn them on when I want to use my equipment and that turns on all my gearā¦no need to plug and unplug anythingā¦works perfect.
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Back on gear debating againā¦
Iāve been thinking about adding vocals to my āmusicā for a long time. Not just phrases, but proper singing, verse chorus that kind of jazz.
I donāt really want to do it live I want to sample longer vocal phrases and then enhance it with my other gear.
The Roland MV-1 looked at first as a great thing for vocalists but upon further inspection it looks like a pain to useā¦
The Black box however looks dead simple and has a lot of usability.
Is there anyone here that uses it as a sample playback machine for longer samples?
How is that process with the blackbox?
Would it be overkill to use it for just this scenario?
Thoughts are much appreciated
It would be very easy with the Blackbox to record , say, separate long samples for verse and chorus etc, and then bring them into a playing project (or sequence them). You could certainly also record a single long take and do the same with that. The limitations you might run into are the number of sample slots / tracks and the fairly sparse onboard processing options, if thatās a factor. Although with the slots, there are a number of onboard preset demos that are based around 16 tracks of longer samples and loops, and if youāre working generally with recorded stems rather than sequencing stuff in the Blackbox itself, itās unlikely to cause problems. The onboard processing you can always work around using the separate outputs.
I havenāt really looked at the MV-1, but it might be worth noting that the current MPC line will let you record samples up to 20 minutes long, as well as shorter dedicated audio tracks (either five or six minutes each, Iām not sure), and has a clip launching mode not too dissimilar to the Blackbox, as well as a much wider selection of onboard effects, processing and dynamics tools. But the Blackbox is certainly very capable here.
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Yeah I had Live a cpl of years ago. Itās a great machine but itās a bit overkill for what I want in both physical size and functionā¦
I see one set up for live use would be for meā¦
Using Octatrack as main performance deviceā¦ route audio of black to Octa, have Octa sequence and manipulate the audio of blackboxā¦ one song would equal 16 stems on the black box and during the transition from song to song I switch preset on the black boxā¦
In all honesty I see only Pros with this device:
Sync to eurorack
Multiple I/o (resample with send return functionality)
USB host (sync with OP-1)
Disk streaming
Long sample length
I already have the equipment to record the vocals so the main functionality would be to sample longer samples and sync all my devicesā¦
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Yeah, it sounds like a good pairing, though not one Iāve tried myself. Certainly in that scenario youād work around the areas where the Blackbox isnāt so fully featured, and itās much less hassle than messing around with the memory allocation on the OT to record long samples. Simple Eurorack sync is also definitely one of its charms!
Yes exactly, Iāve tried using the Octatrack but itās rather a big pain to sample longer files and then switch around to using themā¦ I love the Octatrack but not for this reasonā¦ so the Black box ticks a lot of boxes for me
I use it to playback really long samples, all the time. And Iām abusing them, too. Slicing them up. Reversing them back and forth. Granulating, pitching, filtering. Works like a charm.
Itās like a sixteen layer looper where each layer just goes on and on.
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Your songs are awesome! I hope, that you will make a youtube tutorial one day!
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Iāve seen that youāve talked about this before but I couldnāt remember at what capacity you used it.
Have you used it to resample your recordings as well with your chase bliss pedals? I wonder how it acts with send and return. Live resampling and so on.
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Thank you <3 @DelayDude
I wonāt, though. Iām not YouTube material. But Iām happy to share in this context, whenever it works.
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Yep, I do a lot of resampling through the individual outs, and selected monitoring on the recording input only. Since the outputs are hot as hell, it works really well.
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Really selling it! This might solve a lot of problems for me workflow vise.
Thanks!
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It doesnāt have any pre-amps though, so if youāre recording song from say a microphone, youāre probably gonna need something in between. The outputs are hot but the inputs are line level stuff.
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I already have a tc helicon perform VE which I can stick in betweenā¦ but good to know!
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