Hi Ricky. Thanks for the coverage. Which version of the firmware are you running? It looks like something from last year. We get that your first instinct when creating a track is not to update your firmware. Our released version is 3.0.9. We just released a beta update, 3.0.10. The blessing and curse of firmware is that it is never done.
Hey! Thanks for tuning in, I was rocking 3.0.7 in this video which is 0.0.2 behind! I knew it had to be me doing something weird.. Let this be a lesson folks.. UPDATE YOUR GEAR!
@@witepa This could be a problem when recording the sample in one speed and replay it in another. If the sync is on then bb will "jitter" the playback. Switch sync off and it should be smooth (but of course shorter or longer). Hope this helps@witepa
Yes update is awesome, nice video by the way, Nice workflow, I also own a blackbox but I’m little bit concerned how to move from one project to another without having to stop the Blackbox, how you would perform for live? I’m interested to know
For shure it makes sense...these are one of the most versatille hardware available..i mean....digital ones....also based on lower budget. They delivers so much......Thanks Ricky !
Crazy, after long contemplation I had just narrowed down my search for new equipment to Blackbox AND Minifreak, and here comes a video on both together. Great workflow btw!
The combo of screen with 4 knobs and the indicator on what the knobs are controlling is surprisingly very well laid out. and, lets not forget, the resistance on the knobs is amazing.. its not that cheap plastic knob that almost spins freely haha
Yo Ricky! I love it when you use the Blackbox. I also have one, and it's definitely my favorite piece of gear. I've never experienced the same bugs you mentioned, but it's indeed quite buggy. But like you, I will never sell this thing, It's so fast and intuitive to create, damn
I like my BB too, it is exactly what I wanted in a sampler. A simple compact instrument for adding great things to my music. My music is orchestrated hardware synths; I use the BB for adding clips like a strumming acoustic guitar, or stabs from an analog synth, I play in all my samples from analog/acoustic sources. It is wonderful to have such extremely high quality samples to add to my music. The BB can be learned in one day, one hour for me. It is the perfect sampler for the musician, but for the non-musician, knob tweaker, they may find it doesn't have enough parameters for you. And that is what I like the best, the BB lets me be a musician playing in what I need. I don't need to spend hours diving into hundreds of menus to create on other samplers what I can simply play in on the BB, and in just a few minutes.
Nice video as usual The blackbox is an unbelievable little machine that is clearly underestimated It’s my main inspiration tool The last firmware update is not buggy at all Keep up the vibe!
Ricky, I came from a load of positive older reviews of this machine and was shocked to see the actual real life performance of this gear 3 years later. I couldn't work with those bugs and the OS should be mature by now. Thanks for doing these 'live' format videos - you're the only one in the synth community showing reality
Just look at Stimmings latest New Years Eve Jam where hes rocking 2 bkacboxes without a glitch. Bad ass performance. You will buy four of these after watching his video.
I've had a Blackbox for almost 2 years and I never had any issues with it aside from some missing features. I gig with it all the time but I never use the internal sequencer, instead opting to control it by the Pyramid. Great video as always!
It's gotten weird on me with Beta firmwares before. but other than that it's been solid. Which is why I was so surprised it did what it did today while jamming!
those sample pads trippin like that is the story of my workflow. in the process of almost every recording this seems to happen with one thing or another. aside from the total dead ends, this usually results in something i could not create with intention. trying to chase these happening with patience and mindful observation. keep pushin ricky!
The blackbox is great. It's at the center of my creative flow with constantly changing gear around it. I easily create works without touching a computer.
Here I don't think the Minifreak is important, the sampler is what does all the elegant things for house or whatever you want. I do these things with Koala sampler with my iPad Pro using a Waldorf blofeld keys. What I like most about the BlackBox is that it has dedicated audio outputs and that makes it great to control with a pad controller or an old MPC 2000 and so on. The only thing that scares me a little is the DSP and its ram memory and data transfer with SD cards. Thanks for the video.
Have you updated to latest stable release? There were a lot of beta releases over the last year while they worked on the revamped song mode. I kinda gave up on the Blackbox when the new firmware made it so I had to resequence all my old tracks :( Wish I could love the blackbox, but it's been a long 3 years with it.
Hey Ricky, love the video. Im also a Blackbox-enthusiast. To me it looks like the filter thing is not a bug - in order for BlackBox filter to work properly i always have to turn the resonance all the way down, this way the cutoff is clearly audible. The controls are a bit weird, this also goes to cc mapping them.
I never updated my BB, I have never had a problem. The only "buggy" thing I found was not a bug, but a strange way to write a song in song mode. Seems we need to write our songs one song segment at a time, which can be up to 16 measures per segment, and then when played back will advance automatically from segment to segment. And before using the song mode, make sure your sequences are off when playing back, or when pressing play the song AND the sequences turned on will all play.
Black box definitely needs a update .that’s seriously buggy and I wouldn’t trust it doing a live set it also looks frustrating too use. But still great vid as always Ricky
1010 stopped supporting their ToolBox Eurorack module and I still feel ripped off. It had so much potential: eight trigger outputs and eight cv outputs that could also play back audio or sampled CV. It was mainly a decent sequencer but had so much potential for more... like an Ornament And Crimes on steroids.
Questions (considering a blackbox to record guitar, and replace my DAW). 1 boot time? 2 in sequencer, can you drag the notes you enter so that they aren't lined up with the grid (offset)? 3 When you play a midi piano into it, does it automatically quantize? or is it actually natural to how you play? 4 plug in a battery/portable options? 5 Have you tested maxing it out? Ie having lots of long samples until it cracks? 6 Can you record stereo samples? I have a guitar pedal that has 2 outs, R and L, and each sends its half of the overall stereo sound. Usually, I plug both into an interface and then record each on a track on Bitwig DAW. Can I do something similar with BlackBox ie record each half of my effects audio to a track?
Nice video, could you possibly give a brief description of how you have the blackbox and minifreak wired up to each other? Trying to do the same setup, but I'm a total beginner. Thanks!
I have the Blackbox and have messed around with it here and there, but I have yet to incorporate it into my workflow. Something about it just kinda intimidates me a bit, since I've always been a DAW only user. Its just been sitting in my closet for the most part.
I had the same problem. It turned out it was a "bad" SD card. The card loaded up samples and interfaced with my computer without issue. It seemed fine. But after a lot of troubleshooting I switched to a new card and now it works just fine.
Aah, Blackbox. I love it and I hate it. Amazing hardware and form factor. Terrible software. Lots of firmware updates but never addressing any of the glaring mistakes in the design or necessary missing features. Works quite well as a live looper, or playing back pre-made loops, or as a one-shot machine sequenced externally. But as a serious instrument? Which is its job? Forget it. Unacceptable: * You can’t set start or end in Clip mode! Wtf? * You can’t set start or end points of multi-sampled instruments! Wtf? * You can’t set playhead position in granular mode! Wtf? * It clicks and pops often. Loop fade only works if the loop is shorter than the full sample. Need an option for a micro fade-in and fade-out in milliseconds, as well as setting loop points by zero-crossings. * You can’t easily adjust start and end or loop points on long samples, because the scroll cursor only has one speed. * You can’t zoom out to see the whole sample if it’s a long one. * You can’t turn off “follow” in the sample view, which means setting start and end points on long samples a nightmare if you’re currently playing. * Terrible aliasing artefacts when pitching up or down. * The piano roll is practically unusable. Consider a 4x4 grid like MPC or Machine. * Ability to stop a playing sample in Trigger mode. * The way you scroll through a menu of filter shapes in the global EQ makes it unusable when you're playing live unless you set it up before * Sequencer only works in quantised mode! No "off grid" or micro timing. Quality of life: * Save/load individual pad presets, not just whole kits * Folders in project manager instead of just one long scrolly list * AIFF support * Clip warp modes: Re-pitch * Fix glitchy/jittery sample waveform follow view in Clip mode when pitch is changed * Rename FX1 and FX2 to REV and DEL * Tabs to be able to switch from REV to DEL view with one tap, not two. * Change colours of the GUI or monochromatic mode (please!) * MIDI feedback crash when using with Launchpad Would be cool: * Touch fader mixer view with playback level meters like Bluebox? At least an indicator on the mix page of which channels are sounding. * More LFOs? * LFO or Velocity to loop start point without noise or clicking * Allow HP output to be used as a unique separate output * Reload current saved preset shortcut like Roland, Elektron, etc. * Smaller font option (more screen real estate)? * Perhaps a visual way to tell which mode is used on each pad, some tiny icon? * Compressor controls * Global MIDI option: Sequential input channels per pad * Option to have fixed MIDI CC controls for the Pad options like filter, etc. “Learn” is annoying if you have set mappings on a separate sequencer, be it hardware or Ableton. * Fix the scrolldown text menus to some sensible interface. For example if you have Trigger/Gate/Toggle as three options for a sample, make it three in-line buttons like a toggle, on that row, instead of a scroll-menu where you only see one of them at a time and can’t see how many options you have. Text-only menus is a lazy design choice. Elektron do this the right way.
Yeah its too bad, if it worked it'd be a great piece of gear, but I have a friend that owns one and I've borrowed it many times and I can attest its always been a glitchy mess. They did add a lot of features it was sorely missing in the firmware updates and I was starting to think I might kinda like it, but it didnt take long for me to start running into bugs again :(
Hi Ricky. Thanks for the coverage. Which version of the firmware are you running? It looks like something from last year. We get that your first instinct when creating a track is not to update your firmware. Our released version is 3.0.9. We just released a beta update, 3.0.10. The blessing and curse of firmware is that it is never done.
Hey! Thanks for tuning in, I was rocking 3.0.7 in this video which is 0.0.2 behind! I knew it had to be me doing something weird.. Let this be a lesson folks.. UPDATE YOUR GEAR!
3.0.9 is still really buggy@@RickyTinez
I keep getting artefacts in clip mode when using an external midi clock. It sometimes goes away after rebooting the blackbox.
@@witepa This could be a problem when recording the sample in one speed and replay it in another. If the sync is on then bb will "jitter" the playback. Switch sync off and it should be smooth (but of course shorter or longer). Hope this helps@witepa
Yes update is awesome, nice video by the way, Nice workflow, I also own a blackbox but I’m little bit concerned how to move from one project to another without having to stop the Blackbox, how you would perform for live? I’m interested to know
Blackbox rules. Seriously underrated
Whatever you spent on that camera was worth it. Nobody else doing synths on RUclips has that video quality. Right on man.
yeah - RIcky, what is your camera kit? I was just thinking the same thing - as I'm shopping for video gear at the moment!
oh - just answered my question by reading your description :) thank you!
I love the rawness of your videos... Keep them coming!
For shure it makes sense...these are one of the most versatille hardware available..i mean....digital ones....also based on lower budget. They delivers so much......Thanks Ricky !
Crazy, after long contemplation I had just narrowed down my search for new equipment to Blackbox AND Minifreak, and here comes a video on both together. Great workflow btw!
haha! It's so powerful. The Minifreak is capable of basically any sound you'd want from the digital analog realm
I saw this little machine in a review and then totally forgot about it. I love that half of its real estate is a screen. Looks like a lot of fun.
The combo of screen with 4 knobs and the indicator on what the knobs are controlling is surprisingly very well laid out. and, lets not forget, the resistance on the knobs is amazing.. its not that cheap plastic knob that almost spins freely haha
Love your relaxed and creative videos! I’m def getting my blackbox out for a spin 🎉
Yo Ricky! I love it when you use the Blackbox. I also have one, and it's definitely my favorite piece of gear. I've never experienced the same bugs you mentioned, but it's indeed quite buggy. But like you, I will never sell this thing, It's so fast and intuitive to create, damn
yes! all I want in an MK2 is an internal battery.. then I can really go full gameboy mode with it
I like my BB too, it is exactly what I wanted in a sampler. A simple compact instrument for adding great things to my music. My music is orchestrated hardware synths; I use the BB for adding clips like a strumming acoustic guitar, or stabs from an analog synth, I play in all my samples from analog/acoustic sources. It is wonderful to have such extremely high quality samples to add to my music. The BB can be learned in one day, one hour for me. It is the perfect sampler for the musician, but for the non-musician, knob tweaker, they may find it doesn't have enough parameters for you. And that is what I like the best, the BB lets me be a musician playing in what I need. I don't need to spend hours diving into hundreds of menus to create on other samplers what I can simply play in on the BB, and in just a few minutes.
Nice video as usual
The blackbox is an unbelievable little machine that is clearly underestimated
It’s my main inspiration tool
The last firmware update is not buggy at all
Keep up the vibe!
I have been going back and forth on what sampler i wanna buy/ would buy if I could afford it. This video tipped the scale waaay towards the Blackbox.
Ricky, I came from a load of positive older reviews of this machine and was shocked to see the actual real life performance of this gear 3 years later. I couldn't work with those bugs and the OS should be mature by now. Thanks for doing these 'live' format videos - you're the only one in the synth community showing reality
Just look at Stimmings latest New Years Eve Jam where hes rocking 2 bkacboxes without a glitch. Bad ass performance. You will buy four of these after watching his video.
My first step into sequencing was sp404mk2.... Was utterly confused.
Then got the black box, now I'm starting to see what's up.
I've had a Blackbox for almost 2 years and I never had any issues with it aside from some missing features. I gig with it all the time but I never use the internal sequencer, instead opting to control it by the Pyramid. Great video as always!
It's gotten weird on me with Beta firmwares before. but other than that it's been solid. Which is why I was so surprised it did what it did today while jamming!
those sample pads trippin like that is the story of my workflow. in the process of almost every recording this seems to happen with one thing or another. aside from the total dead ends, this usually results in something i could not create with intention. trying to chase these happening with patience and mindful observation. keep pushin ricky!
"wait bring the kick back bring the kick back!!" ( arms stretched out in desperation ) great moment there...
That BlackBox is such a wunderwaffe !
Tnx for the video’s! Greetings from Holland
Thanks for the inspiration. Gives me an idea to try loopy pro with microfreak.
Ricky you should have put it in song mode it works pretty good
something weird with midi maybe, pad note-ons going out & coming back in, triggering the other pads?
What an ending. Leaving the stage like a pro🎉✌️👍 share the love!
You make that blackbox look VERY atractive, especially after living in OctaLand for awhile...
That percussion at the end went wild
haha! Thanks for tuning in Dashansel
The blackbox is great. It's at the center of my creative flow with constantly changing gear around it. I easily create works without touching a computer.
Here I don't think the Minifreak is important, the sampler is what does all the elegant things for house or whatever you want.
I do these things with Koala sampler with my iPad Pro using a Waldorf blofeld keys.
What I like most about the BlackBox is that it has dedicated audio outputs and that makes it great to control with a pad controller or an old MPC 2000 and so on.
The only thing that scares me a little is the DSP and its ram memory and data transfer with SD cards.
Thanks for the video.
The best part of Saturday mornings!
Olspicenw Thanks for coming through! and Good morning :)
Or Saturday nights, in Europe...
Have you updated to latest stable release? There were a lot of beta releases over the last year while they worked on the revamped song mode. I kinda gave up on the Blackbox when the new firmware made it so I had to resequence all my old tracks :( Wish I could love the blackbox, but it's been a long 3 years with it.
I was on 3.0.7 which is I think just behind the latest! I'm going to update it ASAP.
Fantastic!
Love my BB!
Hey Ricky, love the video. Im also a Blackbox-enthusiast. To me it looks like the filter thing is not a bug - in order for BlackBox filter to work properly i always have to turn the resonance all the way down, this way the cutoff is clearly audible. The controls are a bit weird, this also goes to cc mapping them.
Smooth as hell.
I never updated my BB, I have never had a problem. The only "buggy" thing I found was not a bug, but a strange way to write a song in song mode. Seems we need to write our songs one song segment at a time, which can be up to 16 measures per segment, and then when played back will advance automatically from segment to segment. And before using the song mode, make sure your sequences are off when playing back, or when pressing play the song AND the sequences turned on will all play.
Black box definitely needs a update .that’s seriously buggy and I wouldn’t trust it doing a live set it also looks frustrating too use.
But still great vid as always Ricky
I love my blackbox, it's my swiss army knife.
MPC Key 37....
I'm on 3.0.10 but feels like forever waiting for the update to complete it!
1010 stopped supporting their ToolBox Eurorack module and I still feel ripped off. It had so much potential: eight trigger outputs and eight cv outputs that could also play back audio or sampled CV. It was mainly a decent sequencer but had so much potential for more... like an Ornament And Crimes on steroids.
I can see that the headphones are wireless. Do you experience any latency worth mentioning and is it connected to the BB or Freak?
Questions (considering a blackbox to record guitar, and replace my DAW).
1 boot time?
2 in sequencer, can you drag the notes you enter so that they aren't lined up with the grid (offset)?
3 When you play a midi piano into it, does it automatically quantize? or is it actually natural to how you play?
4 plug in a battery/portable options?
5 Have you tested maxing it out? Ie having lots of long samples until it cracks?
6 Can you record stereo samples? I have a guitar pedal that has 2 outs, R and L, and each sends its half of the overall stereo sound. Usually, I plug both into an interface and then record each on a track on Bitwig DAW. Can I do something similar with BlackBox ie record each half of my effects audio to a track?
Nice video, could you possibly give a brief description of how you have the blackbox and minifreak wired up to each other? Trying to do the same setup, but I'm a total beginner.
Thanks!
holy shit thats groovy
I have the Blackbox and have messed around with it here and there, but I have yet to incorporate it into my workflow. Something about it just kinda intimidates me a bit, since I've always been a DAW only user. Its just been sitting in my closet for the most part.
They should have call it MassiveFreak
Next idea. Novation mini Nova and the Novation launchpad dawless?
Dude, you could sell that song to Lane Bryant and make a fortune! 😂
Had that box. But was to damn buggy for me. No updates since 2019. Ehh
NOOO too much filter😂😂 we’ve all felt that
hahah! you think you got it right then it comes back and kills the vibe 🗿
I didn’t watch the video yet but mine is too. When I simply try to scroll through samples it’s goes bonkers
I had the same problem. It turned out it was a "bad" SD card. The card loaded up samples and interfaced with my computer without issue. It seemed fine. But after a lot of troubleshooting I switched to a new card and now it works just fine.
@@chrischervin9329 dude, I will definitely try out a new one tomorrow. Thanks, hope it solves that annoying problem
Hah! time for a Blackbox MK2! And this thing will turn into a paperweight.
Ooh, sorry to disappoint… 😢
If Blackbox firmware is anything like Bluebox firmware, then yes, it will tend to be buggy as hell.
Rickyyyyy
Early Bird special! Thanks for the support homie
I got the BB and I know it bugs some times exactly like yours
Hm, I’m still on blackbox 2.something so I take it I should stay there for a bit? Nice track though
Ricky! you are so house 👍👍
Mini tracker
Between the lack of effects it sorely needs and the song mode being horrible I sold the BB but the clip launch mode was decent
Newer updates revamped the song mode and pattern sequencer. It broke compatibility with earlier firmwares unless you want to resequence your tracks.
its not some kind of midi loop back problem is it?? Otherwise not the greatest ad for the blackbox XD
make a rufus du sol style track
Minifreak a little big? 😂
Aah, Blackbox. I love it and I hate it. Amazing hardware and form factor. Terrible software. Lots of firmware updates but never addressing any of the glaring mistakes in the design or necessary missing features. Works quite well as a live looper, or playing back pre-made loops, or as a one-shot machine sequenced externally. But as a serious instrument? Which is its job? Forget it.
Unacceptable:
* You can’t set start or end in Clip mode! Wtf?
* You can’t set start or end points of multi-sampled instruments! Wtf?
* You can’t set playhead position in granular mode! Wtf?
* It clicks and pops often. Loop fade only works if the loop is shorter than the full sample. Need an option for a micro fade-in and fade-out in milliseconds, as well as setting loop points by zero-crossings.
* You can’t easily adjust start and end or loop points on long samples, because the scroll cursor only has one speed.
* You can’t zoom out to see the whole sample if it’s a long one.
* You can’t turn off “follow” in the sample view, which means setting start and end points on long samples a nightmare if you’re currently playing.
* Terrible aliasing artefacts when pitching up or down.
* The piano roll is practically unusable. Consider a 4x4 grid like MPC or Machine.
* Ability to stop a playing sample in Trigger mode.
* The way you scroll through a menu of filter shapes in the global EQ makes it unusable when you're playing live unless you set it up before
* Sequencer only works in quantised mode! No "off grid" or micro timing.
Quality of life:
* Save/load individual pad presets, not just whole kits
* Folders in project manager instead of just one long scrolly list
* AIFF support
* Clip warp modes: Re-pitch
* Fix glitchy/jittery sample waveform follow view in Clip mode when pitch is changed
* Rename FX1 and FX2 to REV and DEL
* Tabs to be able to switch from REV to DEL view with one tap, not two.
* Change colours of the GUI or monochromatic mode (please!)
* MIDI feedback crash when using with Launchpad
Would be cool:
* Touch fader mixer view with playback level meters like Bluebox? At least an indicator on the mix page of which channels are sounding.
* More LFOs?
* LFO or Velocity to loop start point without noise or clicking
* Allow HP output to be used as a unique separate output
* Reload current saved preset shortcut like Roland, Elektron, etc.
* Smaller font option (more screen real estate)?
* Perhaps a visual way to tell which mode is used on each pad, some tiny icon?
* Compressor controls
* Global MIDI option: Sequential input channels per pad
* Option to have fixed MIDI CC controls for the Pad options like filter, etc. “Learn” is annoying if you have set mappings on a separate sequencer, be it hardware or Ableton.
* Fix the scrolldown text menus to some sensible interface. For example if you have Trigger/Gate/Toggle as three options for a sample, make it three in-line buttons like a toggle, on that row, instead of a scroll-menu where you only see one of them at a time and can’t see how many options you have. Text-only menus is a lazy design choice. Elektron do this the right way.
Did you sent this to 1010music? You should.
Is there an inexpensive not as buggy alternative to the Blackbox? Doesn't have to be hardware.
Any DAW
Koala
What's good Ian, thanks for checking out the video!
black box n mini freak arent friends..blackbox like microfreak more. seriously though
I definitely will skip the BlackBox. Thanks for this clip
Yeah its too bad, if it worked it'd be a great piece of gear, but I have a friend that owns one and I've borrowed it many times and I can attest its always been a glitchy mess. They did add a lot of features it was sorely missing in the firmware updates and I was starting to think I might kinda like it, but it didnt take long for me to start running into bugs again :(
I'm using it almost daily for years and it is solid. I'm confident that Ricky experienced midi loop issues.
doug lazy
I hated the blackbox!
Arturia sounds well, but... crappy hardware.
The blackbox is awful, I sold it a long time ago and have never missed it.
that's a shame, i really like mine a lot
If I would be allowed to keep only one piece of the heap of gear that I own it would be the BB.
Your reactions and comments are funny, cracking me up. I swear you talk like me. Must be a Martinez thing 😂
Arturia gear is lifeless