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.