1010music blackbox

this thing is easy to use, right out of the box.... load one of the factory presets & it brings with it a load of samples, sequences & even a song structure. getting your head round the architecture is a breeze, even with convoluted workflows. the "keys" screen is useable, bit smaller than most you'd find on ipads, but the box will 'host' a usb keyboard, so no real worries there. there's piano roll editing for triggers & polyphonic note playback. it will drive external synths &c at the expense of one or more of the pads.... there are sixteen pads available in each "preset" (which are sets of samples & sequences that can be regarded as a high-level 'state' of the machine); each pad can be loaded with a single-hit sample that can be played with the keys or triggered from the pad or the sequencer, or with a 'clip', which can be automatically time-stretched to fit your master tempo. there are many options within the setup for each pad... looping, pitch shift, basic filtering, adsr... so it's possible to get a useable range out of (say) a single piano sample. no multisample support, but you could spread an instrument over two or more pads if you badly needed to use the box this way. delay (syncable) & reverb, basic but useful. many outputs, & these are dc coupled so you can use them as controllers or audio. I could go on.... you can run up to 16 sequences at once, or chain groups of sequences into songs, with loopable sections.... essentially what we have here is a baby octatrack, & then some. if I could change one thing, I would give it an internal battery. maybe make the audio looping a bit more like an electrix repeater, with an overdub/undo mode. but I'm very impressed. will use this for playing long background loops, for midi looping, for running basic midi sequences, for grabbing audio & looping it.....

It's tiny but/and great. Built like a tank. Very easy to use. And the team behind it is great: they listen to the customers and keep adding features with new firmware updates.

I switched from the Electribe 2 Sampler to the blackbox and I'm glad I did. Yes, the Electribe has more features, but the blackbox has no gaps between patterns and no sample time limit. And it's sequencer is so much faster to work with.

I'll get my sounds and effects from other gear/sources. All I want my sampler to do is record and play samples in a fast and easy way without limitations. And that's exactly what blackbox does best.

It is built beautifully, it is incredibly versatile and it sounds great but unfortunately after about two weeks I just didn't feel compelled to use it anymore.

**** see thoughts after 3 months below ****

**** initial review ****
For me the main issue is the sequencer. While the screen is good (as far as screens go), I don't like tapping in sequences as I have to manually adjust the velocities afterwards to add dynamism. The step sequencing screen is very fiddly and I find editing to be a pain, especially as the sequencing lanes are so small and the different shades of grey are hard to see.

While it can be sequenced externally, this is not why I bought it. It also has a looper function but I have other devices for that too. I bought this as a portable groovebox (with a powerbank) and because of the interface, I don't find it inspiring.

Another issue for me was that it momentarily paused when saving.

*** update after three months ***
I decided to try this as an alternative to my Akai Z8 sampler and my Pigtronix Infinity looper pedal.

My thoughts on it when sequenced externally - - - - - - -
Loading samples is easy enough and and I have had good results sequencing with Cirklon. I still find editing samples a bit fiddly but everyone else seems to think editing is easy so maybe it is just me.

However, even following a brief test, I decided immediately that is much quicker to use than the older Akai so I sold the Z8.

My thoughts on it as a looper - - - - - - - -
I tried this just before the window to return it expired and this is where is shines for me.

When playing my modular, I send copy of my master signal to this and I can easily grab a loop and then cross-fade to this loop before changing what is going on in my modular. The sound quality is much better than the Pigtronix pedal and the loop customisation is easier.
I now have 16 loop slots so it's very easy to fade back to an earlier part of my set. As soon as I figured out this feature, I put my Pigtronix looper up for sale.

Final thoughts - - - - - -
I still don't think it is great as a standalone groovebox, mainly due to the touch-screen. If the 8 tiny pads were velocity sensitive and could be repurposed for adding beats or notes, it could be a winner.

Even though I bought it as a groovebox (and almost returned it), its other strengths are why I kept it. I have got some decent grooves going with it but it doesn't inspire me as a standalone device. Considering how versatile this is and how easily it can do different things, it really should be worth considering.

As someone who wanted to stop using my laptop for live gigs, but wanted to keep some of the workflow I'm used to in Ableton, this was the perfect solution.

The blackbox has powerful sequencer and song mode AND the possibility to route three different output, so I can have the synth sounds go to the mixing console, the metronome to the drummer and a third track with reminders go into my in ear monitoring.

It is also wonderful at automatically sampling instruments. You can set the amount of notes you want to sample, the levels of velocity and customize the amount of polyphony you need (and turn your monosynth sounds into full polyphonic instruments). I love the sounds some of my instruments, but taking then to gigs is a bit too much work. However, now I just sampled most of the sounds I like into the blackbox.

The only part I am not fully happy with is the effects. It has a built-in delay and reverb, however, they feel a bit lacking in options and sound.

Also, it is so small and USB powered that I feel it is easy to use on flights or bus rides.

Overall, it is packed with features, built well and quite intuitive to use!

This is could have been a great IDEA but at the moment it is just a missed opportunity .

it is not a groove box because is not performative like a groove box and the step sequencer is a disaster far more primitive even compared to the groove boxes of the 90s

you can not record live unquantised sequences ,
you can not perform basic features like note repeat ,
there is no swing ,
there are massive bugs on time stratching, launching clips is a total disaster only clips that are perfectly 1 bar l, 2 bar etc long will play in time ,
Black Box will not detect automatically the pitch of a sample and everything that is not in C will be distributed wrongly through the octave of the keyboard , so you will need to put only samples that are in C differently it will be a nightmare tuning everything in than saving on a PC than bringing it back to the blackbox , the company doesn't have a customer service , the customer service is managed by avarage users of the forum that very often answer without having tested the issues .

to reassume at the moment with so many bugs and the lack of basic features this is just another amateur bedroom fun device not a professional one, may be a firmware upgrade can fix the issues but I m not sure the company behind is interested to do that!

This is a genius little thing that makes my life so much easier. Very inspirational device that helps me create stuff I wouldn't otherwise think of making in a traditional DAW environment. I even use it with my post-rock band (where I mostly focus on the guitar) to trigger sequences and samples and send click to all bandmates. Thanks to this I've been able to completely remove laptop and audio interface from my stage setup. It's built like a tank and survived some falls on stage without any damage and with nearly no scratches. The OS is being updated quite regularly and new features are being implemented based on fans suggestions. Very intuitive and easy to use. The touch screen is very reactive and a surprisingly great way to control the machine.

I use in two ways - one as a portable standalone unit to make full tracks fast and two, as the centre of my set up with all my other synths and equipment and acting as a sampler and sequencer.

Pro's
Very fast and clear workflow to get tracks down quickly.
Great sample manipulation
Practically unlimited memory (i use a 128g sd card)
Excellent online community (1010 forum)
Great sampling capability
Enough presets to get you going
responsive touch screen
So portable (plug in to a battery via usb), take anywhere
Good connectivity options
Everything just works as it should

Cons...
Exporting stems not yet optimal (doable but just could be faster), but expect to be fixed in next firmware update