Are you suggesting that the Woovebox has no bugs? I just figured it goes without saying that software has bugs. FreeBeat mentioned in his review that he spent a lot of time emailing back and forth with the developer, and that some of the changes resulted in bugs. I haven’t found any bugs, but when you consider how deep this thing is, how many possible combinations of settings there are, the likely complexity of the DSP throttling mechanisms, and the fact that few users have probably even “dug deep” into this new product…it just seems there are going to be bugs. Nothing against the developer. As far as I’m concerned, they might as well be the smartest person on the planet. But really, no need for updates, no need for connecting to the internet? I disagree.
Battery swap is cake. Two screws, peel off the back, unplug and replace. 5 minute job max once you source exact replacement part.
Got pics? I’m curious how it looks on the inside
yes please -
who knows, maybe woove might have an expanded back-case optional accessory in mind … containing a user DIY bigger battery bay, a speaker, a trs midi in port, case-back performance and utility buttons, gyro controllers, CV/sync port, extra memory, SD card, microphone, fx loop, usb midi host, audio IOS port …
even triple the depth of this device and it is still tiny
Making more music with less
That is the Woovebox motto.
I have spent quite a few hours with the wb the last few weeks, and it is deep. And I don’t mean in the Euclidean sense of the word. It is like chess. It doesn’t take long to explain the basic rules of chess, yet the game is so deep. Actually, the chess board is frequently very thin, but you know what I mean.
I made the mistake, about a week ago, of telling myself it was pointless devoting a lot of time to the wb until the BPM lower limit I whined about on this thread…was fixed. Luckily, I came to my senses and realized that I don’t know enough about the wb to make “finished” music in the first place, so my concern was moot. Since then I have continued playing with it and learning about the wb’s fascinating behavior.
It is so easy to dismiss a product because it doesn’t have certain features. Why put more than superficial time into something when it’s missing [insert your feature request here]? We are afraid of reaching a dead end on a product that doesn’t have the features we deem necessary.
The real danger is never experiencing its true depth.
Had $$ aside for when orders re-open, since I don’t have one yet - but just scored an Alesis Micron with psu manuals and a usb midi interface for the equivalent of $130 USD… which I really couldn’t pass up. Been after one for years, used to sell them 20 years ago. Anyway will have to shuffle funds and get ready again to order Woovebox 
You make some excellent points. Learn what the gear is capable of, and then you’ll think of new ways to incorporate it into your music. Lately I’m learning a lot which is unexpected from dabbling with an arp 2600 clone, and it’s really making me think about sound in a different way. I know it’s going to give me a different perspective on how to create sounds on other gear.
I’ve read all the Woovebox documentation but without the actual device it’s a bit hard to fully wrap my head around it. Looking forward to it though.
Amen, excellent point. I’ve been bringing my Woovebox with me to work every day so that I can get a 15-20 minute jam in and every day I am trying something new and being amazed at how many things it can do. Yesterday I finally dug into fragments a bit and… Woah.
It does feel like I am working out my brain, though. Arrangement of fragments without a visual overlay means keeping track of bar numbers and lengths of segments and sections all in my head and I find this both a plus and a minus, if that makes sense? It’s certainly more difficult than just being able to see what is going on but, like my Deluge, the limitations/methods of interacting with the device force me to feel closer to whatever I am creating.
It’s neat and it’s really a ton of fun once you get over the initial hurdle. I wish there was some way to record jams right on the device as I spend a lot of time in live mode just messing about 
I asked about the WB’s FLW.C feature on other synths in this thread. If Wooveboxers here have some too add, please post.
I just installed another update to the Woovebox. The developer is working very hard on updates. The list of fixes is staggering!
The first learning stage for me involved sequencing / songs. Lately I’ve been focusing on sound design. Figuring out how the LFOs work, learning about phase width modulation. I am still at the stage of stumbling upon crazy, interesting sounds, but not nearly at the stage of beings able to easily recreate them. Any sound on the WB is the result of the interaction of many different settings. There are multiple ways of achieving the same effect. A simple example would be controlling the prominence of the attack portion of a sound. It can be controlled with setting from the Amplitude (attack), Filter (low pass), Oscillator (phase) and Dynamics (I currently understand this page less well). And then, there are the combinations of all these pages!
One thing that threw me for a loop in the initial learning stages of the WB was the built-in settings associated with each track. The docs state, correctly, that any track can be used for any category of instrument. But some of those built-in settings may need to be changed to do that. I have not decided if this behavior is a good thing or not. On the positive side, it’s brought to my attention how certain settings work. When Init Patch is run, it only reverts the track back to its default state, with all the specific settings in place. Not so much of a problem any more.
Floyd Steinberg posted a little howto/mini review that goes through the basic steps of getting a groove going.
I’m not sure I saw anything in there I haven’t already figured out/read somewhere but for new users or people curious about the box I think it is a very helpful video.
250 bucks for this seems steep ngl. Interesting feature set though.
you mean “cheap”! 
yeah it is a bit, but it’s a fair price considering the features and the fact that it’s one guy.
If you do factor in shipping + customs… well…
That’s the bummer with indie devs like him, Synthstrom… they don’t have access to big stores to sell their merch
Steep? Show me another device that does what the Woovebox does for less money. I don’t have much interest as I’ve got a m8 for portability but Woovebox is an incredible bargain for what you’re getting.
Is it mono sampling?
Do you feel that way because it looks like a pocket operator? It has more total sample time than a sampling pocket operator.
POs are $99. Buy a sampling one and a synth one. There’s $200 gone.
Woovebox does a lot more. Multisamples, ducking, side chaining, compression, effects, resampling…
The closer direct equivalent I’d say would be the OP-Z. OP-Z has a very different user interface, in some way better, in some ways worse. In Woovebox I can set a parameter to a value of 116… or n OP-Z I can’t be accurate like that without a paired smartphone.
Synthesis wise it goes far beyond the TE gear, lots of different filter types (10?) oscillator types, can put your own (multi!)samples into the synth engine, emulation of different types of oscillator generation eg analog, digital… 17 oscillator types I think. and dual oscillators for a sound. But we’re not talking boring Oscillator-> Filter -> Amp architecture here, not at all.
There are algorithms which determine how the oscillators are structured together. This behaviour does not exist in basic music gear:
Allow me to quote from the website:
The way your Woovebox combines the oscillators is determined by the algorithm selected (‘ALGo’/‘Syn ALGo’/3 on the ‘GLob’ page).
The following sixteen algorithms are available;
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‘Subt’; subtractive synthesis (aka “virtual analog”). The two oscillators are summed. This algorithm emulates the sound of classic analog synths from the 60s, 70s and early 80s.
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‘FM1’; frequency modulation 1. Oscillator 1 is frequency modulated by oscillator 2. This algorithm emulates classic FM/VPM synths from the 80s.
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‘FM2’; frequency modulation 2. Oscillator 1 is frequency modulated by oscillator 2. Oscillator 2 is added to the result.
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‘FM3’; frequency modulation 3. Oscillator 1 is frequency modulated by oscillator 2, after which the result is multiplied by standalone oscillator 1.
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‘FM.nS’; frequency modulation 1 with noise. Oscillator 1 is frequency modulated by oscillator 2. AEG1 controls both Oscillator 1 and 2, while AEG2 controls noise.
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‘FM.SC’; frequency modulated sign-conditional combine. Oscillator 1 is frequency modulated by oscillator 2, if the result is positive, oscillator 2’s absolute amplitude is subtracted, else oscillator 2’s absolute amplitude is added.
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‘FMEO’; frequency modulated exclusive bitwise OR. Oscillator 1 and 2 are exclusively OR’ed, after which the result is frequency modulated by oscillator 2.
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‘Eor’; exclusive bitwise OR. Oscillator 1 and 2 are exclusively OR’ed
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‘RMod’; ring modulation. Oscillator 1 is multiplied by Oscillator 2, aka “ring modulation”.
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‘AM1’; amplitude modulation 1. Oscillator 1 is amplitude modulated by oscillator 2’s unsigned amplitude.
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‘AM2’; amplitude modulation 2. Oscillator 1 is amplitude modulated by oscillator 2’s absolute amplitude.
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‘SCon’; sign-conditional combine. If oscillator 1 is positive, oscillator 2’s absolute amplitude is subtracted, else oscillator 2’s absolute amplitude is added.
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‘HSyn’; hard sync. as soon as oscillator 2 starts a new cycle, oscillator 1 is also forced to start a new cycle.
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‘RMNs’; ring modulation with noise. Oscillator 1 is multiplied by Oscillator 2 (aka “ring modulation”) and noise is added. AEG1 controls both Oscillator 1 and 2, while AEG2 controls noise.
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‘T.W.En’; thresholded wave ending. Oscillator 1 is muted (“ended”) if Oscillator 2’s waveform amplitude (before ALFO/AEG) exceeds Oscillator 2’s volume as determined by AEG/ALFO. As soon as oscillator 1 starts a new cycle, oscillator 2 is also forced to start a new cycle.
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'T.S.FL’; thresholded sign flipping. Oscillator 1’s phase is inverted 180 degrees (sign flipped) if Oscillator 2’s waveform amplitude (before ALFO/AEG) exceeds Oscillator 2’s volume as determined by AEG/ALFO. As soon as oscillator 1 starts a new cycle, oscillator 2 is also forced to start a new cycle and the phase (sign) reverts to normal behavior.
Using these algorithms a vast array of timbres and percussive elements can be created.
It’s this sort of attention to deep details that make Woovebox highly unique, and unique at that price point. Sure there are global master effects with sends per track, but each track has its own saturation distortion and bit crushing effects. You can even do things on the Woovebox like vinyl emulation of the clips and pops, repeating every so often as the record turns past a scratch.
It has a depth I’m sure many won’t get to fully explore.
So I don’t consider it overpriced.
Disclaimer: I don’t yet own one, can’t order! 
Holy smokes that’s one elaborate reply my guy. Interesting read and like I said, it does have a nice feature set. Not sure how convenient it is to use in that micro format though.
Floyd Steinberg mentions the 16-step pattern limit as a potential downside. Patterns, however, can be chained together. And these chains adhere to all the settings made on for their corresponding track.
The Digitone is my frame of reference for the Woovebox, as it is the only piece of audio equipment I am reasonably fluid on. The Digitone has a 64 step pattern limit. Like the Woovebox, I can chain patterns together (using pattern chains or in song mode) on the Digitone. But to create continuity for steps 65+ on the DN, I have to copy/paste/modify the old pattern or copy/paste the old pattern’s menu settings.
The Woovebox is different. The settings are not pattern settings. Rather they are track settings. And a track can be much more than 64 steps long.
I haven’t done enough sequencing on the WB to know if there are other issues with the 16-step limitation. I was initally put-off by it in the product description, but my misgiving was based on a faulty understanding of how the Woovebox works. Particularly that a pattern means something fundamentally different on the WB and DN.
Edit: Responding to whether or not $249 is a good deal. Please don’t forget that we want this project to succeed. We want the developer to keep refining the firmware. If they make a profit, then there is more chance the product will be supported into the future. Think about all the time the developer spent working on this project. Put a value on their time. If the project succeeds in a major way, maybe sometime down the road the units will drop in place. This will only take place in an economy of scale, with many more people buying the unit.
I am fortunate to have an upper middle class lifestyle. I was sitting on my couch drinking a beer when the Woovebox announcement hit the internet, and I jumped on it. $249 is hard earned money for a lot of people, however!
Edit: I spent some time this afternoon exploring a few of the synthesis algorithms. The AM1 (amplitude modulation) algorithm is interesting. By setting the relative level of Osc1 and Osc2 to a particular ratio, an articulation effect is created in the sound. The behavior of this articulation can further be tweaked by setting the Osc Style. I am amazed at how many ways there are to change the articulation of notes that are not on the AMPL (ADSR) page.
Supposedly, the pianist Glenn Gould had 22 distinct articulations he used while playing piano. Differences in articulation help the ear distinguish the different voices in contrapuntal music. Gould used the different articulations to distinguish the different parts of fugues. The WB’s abilities to vary the articulation of notes…encourages me to keep learning it.
I also want to say that the sounds of the Woovebox are more “natural” than my beloved Digitone. That is not a value judgement. Just comparing the two, the wb produces sounds that remind me of other musical sounds. The Digitone’s sounds are very useful and delightful, just more artificial sounding. I guess the Woovebox is my first real experience with a more “analog” method of synthesis.
I’ve made a couple hacks on my Woovebox. First, I used a tiny bit of clear tape to join the display frame and the top edge of the unit. I noticed, a few days into using the thing…that the display frame can be removed with minimal effort. I would hate to lose it.
Second, I bought a right-angle adapter. My headphone cable used to stick straight out of the unit to the right. Now it comes downward, flush with the side of the wb. This change improved ergonomics. Previously, I had to change my hand position (the headphone cable was in the way) to operate the Play button. I also wrapped some masking tape around the headphone jack to keep it flush with edge of the unit, in order to minimize any stress on the wb’s headphone adapter.
@DrConflict asked about the convenience of the micro format. I find the most possibly-stress-inducing motion on the wb to be holding down a button (for more than a couple seconds) while turning the knob. My solution to this problem is to press the button with the underside of the knuckle of my thumb, rather than with the tip of the thumb. I don’t have very bendy thumbs, and using the tips of the thumbs repetitively causes me some stress in the tendons of my wrists. I hold the wb in my hands while using it. I use my thumbs exclusively (except when turning the knob between my thumb and index finger). We will probably see a lot of finger-pushing in demonstration videos (where the unit is placed on the table), but IMO pushing buttons with the fingers feels really fiddly, and it just feels like the unit was designed to hold in the hands and operate with the thumbs. YMMV.
I think this framework has huge potential; however in its current physical state, the machine in my view is:
- undersized - more space for buttons
would be available with a small size
change, and still meet the micro
segment - The display needs more segments to
match the architecture capabilities - missing buttons which would solve
the frustration holding short/long
knob press combo inputs - reduce
mental gymnastics - better mode
detection - 2-3 octave “key” buttons for live play
- Physical midi in
I encourage the developer to expand his creation into a few physical formats to lure in more users with varying styles/skills/attention spans to be comfortable picking up the unit and fleshing out full tracks.