I haven’t seen or read much content about this box since it became available, but one of the things that really piqued my interest was its groove box capabilities. Do you use the drum tracks much, if at all? If so, how are you finding using/programming them?
I don’t really need a chord machine, but I am drawn to it as a potential commute groovebox.
My problem (recording sequencer from external MIDI controller) is unsolved for now, here is the answer I just got from AlphaTheta technician:
"The engineers in Japan apologize for the delay and have provided the following information:
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to either record sound or save MIDI input from external device such as MIDI keyboard.
It has been added to feature request."
So, I’ll part with this box for now, and maybe later, when they update it, will think about getting it again.
The drum tracks/presets get the job done but the UI actually prevents you from augmenting drum tracks as chords which kinda sucks, but I get why they did it. Given the 16 drum kits are non editable in any way I imagine there’d be much better grooveboxes suited for what you want. Maybe the Lofi-12? (it also accepts 6x batteries)
With all of that said though if you can find one for under $300 I don’t think you’d be disappointed (assuming you like the stock drum sounds) The 808 and 909 kits are pretty good
You can apply delay and arpeggios to the drum tracks and do all of the weird pattern modulation to them. You can also record filter modulation, assign velocity and gating per step which gives you plenty of tools to make detailed drum loops. The built in reverb is nice, but the chorus is kind bland.
Let me know if you have other questions, I’d be happy to answer them.
@sm7x7 Did you ever figure out how to get this thing to sync with midi? I’ve been trying to get it to start when I click play on Ableton but it only seems to do it if I press the green arrow before I press play on Ableton. Very frustrating as none of my other gear does this.
I put the AlphaTheta answer for my question above in my previous post. In general, the answer was “no”. Maybe in future.
I didn’t realize that was what your question was referring to in that by “recording” you also meant automatic & remote starting! Thanks for clarifying & very strange that’s not a default functionality. I’ll be a happy camper once they add it but am good with its features for the time being. If you really wanted to, you could use it as the central midi clock/hub to a setup until they add the feature. Given how feature packed the first major update was & its success in Japan, I’m hopeful it gets more updates for a few years. A master transpose function would be killer!