1010music Blackbox

I know, right? :slight_smile:

And I agree, I generally donā€™t time stretch at all. I commit to a BPM and then take (suffer) the consequences.

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Oh, actually @AdamJay one thing that really might matter to you - the Blackbox is quite fiddly as a live act instrument. You can play it on its own on stage, but you donā€™t wanna. It responds well to external midi control, but you canā€™t map everything. This is not an Elektron when it comes to jamming it out on stage.

Perhaps I get a little compulsive :man_student: :crazy_face: when thereā€™s a question I think I should be able to answer, but canā€™t. This is what happens.

verdict is that the blackbox holds its own with the 'takt when it comes to looped sample playback.

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Good to know. Iā€™d mostly be inclined to assign the filters, levels, and fx sends to my MF Twister. Thatā€™s basically how I have it set up to control the OT.

Itā€™s so small that sometimes I canā€™t find it! Ha take that Blackbox, you little stinker!

Actually, my screen arrived not quite straight too! Double whammy!

Okay I think weā€™re even now Blackbox.
Yes, Iā€™m talking to my Blackbox. Time for bed, gnight nauts.

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Oh oh and one more thing, itā€™s power hungry - portable power sources arenā€™t always reliable. BBox can shut down when shit gets intense.

Hah. Got one.

Now Iā€™m out of steam, tho.

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Something I donā€™t see the fellas mentioning here re: timestretch is the ability to adjust sample speed in granular mode.
This is different than pitch adjust.
I typically use it as a tweak effect, while playing.
Iā€™ve never tried to use it as a means to re-timing a loop.
but it might be possible, if you donā€™t mind a few grainsā€¦

It lacks an assignable envelope and an assignable LFO. This is the reason why I also got a bitbox micro, so I can use the sampler with external modulations from my eurorack. Also entering notes in the sequencer grid can be difficult for big fingers. I use a stylus for this.

And thatā€™s about it. Great piece of gear, really.

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Oh, another one which should be easy to implement but for some reason has not been done: I would like the file preview to go through the headphones out, not the output configured for the current pad.

And now Iā€™m out of steam too.

Wellā€¦ I do entire sets with just the bboxā€¦ but itā€™s more like clips lauching. I usually have a drum machine besides it for some live TR-style action: TR-8S, Digitakt, Model:Cyclesā€¦

I dislike:

  • lack of internal modulation sources (only note velocity automation).
  • beat count restrictions (this affects the way samples longer than 128 bars are synced)
  • lack of modulation targets: FX send 1&2 and ADSR.
  • the slice looping bug. (in short: one of the most useful sample playback modes is partially broken)

But there are workarounds and most of us have OT or Ableton in case we get stuckā€¦ :slightly_smiling_face:

The DT and M:S easily beat the BB in terms of modulation/automation, but they are stuck in the 90s, in terms of sampling time. The separate outs make the BB more flexible, also in live settings.
I found playing live with the BB very easy and more intuitive than with an OT, although Iā€™d recommend a MIDI controller if itā€™s a sweaty night.

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whatā€™s the slice looping bug?

  • I donā€™t like the touchscreen.
  • I donā€™t like the UI
  • I donā€™t like the random bugs / behaviours I have experienced. Crackling and noises. Midi cutting out. Some related to power supply issues, some to firmware etc.

I was hoping to use it as a nice poly-sampler partner to my Digitakt - but for me it was too much of a hassle.

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Could you elaborate on that? Letā€™s say I load in a 4 minute long wav that goes beyond the 128 bars. How is it going to be synced differently than a 2 minute long (64-ish bars) long wav?

Clips longer than 128 bars (512 beats) will be auto-synced, you canā€™t set a higher beat count.
The autosync works with 2^n bars.
So the samples should be 256 bars, 512 bars, 1024 bars, etc. to be synced ā€œstraightā€.
Values in between are hard to get in sync, leading to workarounds like adding silence or filler loops to get the clip to the right length.

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If you grid-slice a sample and loop any slice (triple press KEYS to get to the slice matrix), this loop will drift out of sync.
This is a bit of a shame, as it would be a really nice application of the slice mode in jam/live situations.
The workaround is to use SEQS for slice triggering, so the restart of the loop is given by the sequencer, not by the loop length.

Did you report this at 1010music? I experimented to the best of my understanding of your description but I donā€™t think I can reproduce it. do you have a video?

Thatā€™s not a bug, is it? Slices just arenā€™t time stretched. The effect is as you describe it but for better or worse, itā€™s by design, I believe.

I actually used it to effect on my all Blackbox EP. Polyphonic, random slice triggering with long releases make for some interesting overlapping effects.

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There already is a video in the thread linked below.
I can replicate this.
What firmware version are you on now?

If you slice manually or by threshold: not a bug.
If you slice by grid: unnecessary bug due to rounding errors.

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