I use the 1010music Blackbox to control the Rk8 for both click track and timing, that one is most rock-solid. Rk8’s clock is good enough though but when I want to print to audio, Blackbox needs to be in charge, so Blackbox stays in charge during the whole process.
2 Likes
How is 1010 for arranging full songs? Trying to figure out if it’s any better than the usual Groovebox pattern chaining
Writing full songs with the Blackbox usually only works up to a certain point, beyond which you will need another machine (eg a second BB), several presets with a consolidating preset (which is pretty convoluted) or a DAW. The point varies with the complexity of the piece of music - sometimes everything can be done within the BB.
I use BB for sketching out ideas (with sequencer and song mode) and recording final versions of material as clips, both tasks at which BB excels. For the last five years, I have recorded everything through Blackbox.
At some point, and latest when I hit the 16 pads limit, it is time to move into the box, usually Loopy Pro, which is similar to the BB and where I can then experiment with the various parts and song sections to bring the song into form. After this point I move into a DAW.
I’d be interested to know more about your split between drums, groove and percussion.
I’m very happy with the system of polyend tracker. It’s very very basic, but I’ve never done more songs in my life. You can’t mute tracks in one pattern to copy/paste and unmute, but you have plenty of patterns to use (256). And the ability to name that patterns works great, I use it to take notes of things that I need to change, etc… It’s an archaic method but works. You have visual clue where you are and you can see the overall song easily.
Such a brilliant feature…
1 Like
I’ve been using Erik’s Rapid Flow template in my DAW workflow (have it in both Bitwig & Live) to speed up track production. It has 8 primary channels corresponding to the eight groups I mention and everything routes to these 8. It feels constraining, but for me it is a good discipline so whenever I use hardware, my end goal is to end up with material that fits one of these 8 channels. So the Maschine+ fits this really well because I now have 8 primary groups. If I need more than 8 groups I can route audio to one of these 8, but my end goal is to end up with no more than 8 stems to bring into my DAW for the final mix & render. Here’s the video about the template; you’ll see the template right around second 23:
For me, who is very disorganized & messy, it’s just a good discipline I got myself into keep track and stay on point. This approach with other gear too, like MC707, M8, Digitakt.
Thank you. But I’m still not getting the distinction between ‘groove’ and the others. What would lead you to put something into ‘groove’ that wouldn’t fit into drums, percussion, or indeed one of the other channels ?
1 Like
Oh! Yes, I agree, probably not the best naming convention. I just adopted the template naming, but it’s where i place additional percussion loops. So the Drums/percussion is for single shots, where I control MIDI, and groove is for percussive sampled loops like shaker/tambourine/break beat either from library or sampled from drum boxes. Might be overkill to have it’s own group, but I like to filter/treat these differently for additional movement/variation.
1 Like
Are you referring to live recording pattern changes into a song, or to grouping them into a new sequence that you can then reuse?
I wish the Cirklon was able to combine patterns like that, you can of course do this with copy and paste between patterns, but simply recording it is more elegant and immediate for sure.
Also I wonder, is that Akai thing in the video still a groovebox, or is it more like a computer that has a rather weird keyboard and can only run one DAW?
Like this, minus the cows 
2 Likes
I use my hapax, and my band mate uses his mpc, once a session he has to reboot his mpc with all the drums stopping then. The hapax never failed during our 1.5 years project we are currently running.
Also the workflow is really thought out - if push behaved like it, i would probably still use push to sequence abelton, but hapax is miles ahead. The automation stuff is really fast, and fun compared to abelton live. Painting the automation is actually fun. Its easy to record sequences, or build them in the step sequencer or live mode. Never seen a more fun sequencer to use.
I control Rytm and Digitone with It, its pretty good.
He is on OS 3 of the mpc.
I don’t know. I just make music with it.
1 Like
No worries, I was just looking for an excuse to post that picture I found when searching for an obsolete music computer I could not remember the name of.
it was the Movement Systems Drum Computer or a Nascom
1 Like
