Copped that 1010 Blackbox

Other Gear
#1

Not sure who’s had their eye on this unbelievable little sampler, but I saw it on YT about 3 weeks ago, and promptly dropped a bundle. This was GAS to the nth degree.

It’s basically super strong in 2 areas that the OP-1 was falling short for me; sample time and sequencing.

Anyway, instead of rendering the OP-1 obsolete, I discovered a whole new use for my trusty OP; mastering tool.

I do my sampling and sequencing on the Blackbox, then audio out the arrangement to an empty track on the OP. Then I pepper in a few boings and clanks into the remaining tracks, and play back while adjusting EQ, filter (Nitro please!) and compressor. Once it sounds great, I render to album, and just apply some tape tricks and M1 / M2 during the process.

What I end up with sounds pretty great to my ear.

Please have a peek.

6 Likes
#2

The Blackbox looks super interesting.

#3

It’s dope to have a studio in a bag the size of big calzone.

1 Like
#4

Is there a way to record unquantized beats with the blackbox? In all videos it seems recorded sequences get automatically quantized to the grid. Could’t find anything in the manual…

#5

I ordered one direct but it’s taking forever to arrive. Not super happy with that, should have gone to a retailer instead of direct.

Pretty jazzed for this thing… if only it had a tape mode (or at least resampling) I wouldn’t need my OP-1.

#6

It has resampling. Works great.

#7

Ah, well that’s a big plus then. I sort of assumed it didn’t because nobody mentioned it and it’s kind of a big fat deal IMO.

#8

Could you tell me about the quantisation? Is there a way to record sequences that are off-grid?

#9

Not sure. I stick w/ quantize and a little swing.

#10

No sure if this answers your question:

can different samples be different lengths not quantized to any bars or rhythmic structure?

Yes, if you turn off the quantize settings, samples run in a freeform manner.

Source: http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=215553&start=all&postdays=0&postorder=asc&sid=4e23f90f899940ed093e6d74f3f08f8d

#11

What I mean is, can you play e.g. drums like really loose (dilla style…)? Or is everything quantized to the grid, because pictures of the sequencer always show notes sticking to the grid. (English is not my mother tongue…)

#12

You can set the quantize increments to something like 64, but I don’t believe you can turn them off completely.

#13

That‘s too bad, but thank you anyways. I really like the Blackbox, but that‘s kind of a dealbreaker for me

#14

hope you’re not getting caught up in semantics
i mean 64ths is pretty darn close to unquantized
u can def get that unquantized feel w/ 64ths

not to mention that every sequencer has a resolution of some sort
96ths seems to be a common one

#15

Yes you are probably right. Thinking about getting a Blackbox, it kinda looks as fun and easy as the koala sampler I use on my iPhone a lot lately, just with midi options for external gear.

#16

Ok, mine arrived and… how is this supposed to work exactly? If I’m reading the manual right, I’d have to loop an output into the input and then route everything I wanted to record to that output…seems like much ado when it could all be done in the box? Ideally I’d like to avoid any amp stages in the process.

Unless you meant the clip feature that adjusts the playback rate. It’s a great feature but not what I’m after.

#17

Update to 1.3 firmware.

Once you’ve done that, and you’re in the sample record page, select “resample” under the input selection @ the top of the screen. Now, when you hit “play / record”, you can jump over to the sequence screen, and do a performance, and when you hit “stop”, everything will be sampled into a file on the sample slot. It will record metronome clicks, too, so keep that in mind.

#18

Hey, now that you’ve had this device for a while, how do you like it?

#19

It’s great. Here’s a playlist on YT… most of the stuff involves BB, handling all sampling & sequencing.

#20

Awesome, thanks. I’m still looking for my card reader so I haven’t updated yet. (I even checked the forum and didn’t see anyone talking about it or even mention in the fw notes.)

I gotta say, this thing is quite the beast. I’m in love with the clip (and sequence) quant feature. Such a simple thing saves so much work.