1010music Blackbox

I’m not a BB owner, but this is amongst the kind of things I’m interested in. The answer appears to be in the manual (I took a look at the 1.7 version of the manual)

( LINK to manual )

Ohh I must of not read that bit properly! Got stuck on the LFO bit. That looks like just what I’m after tbh, use the blackbox to trigger breaks and longer samples/loops! Thanks

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The manual is quite extensive but I really miss a complete list of midi mappable controls. Maybe someone can help me answer this question?

Is it possible to set up a selection of pads (clip pad mode) to play wave files where it’s easy to load in a new waveform to such a pad. Something like ‘load next wavefile from folder onto this pad’.
The only way to do this would be to have the folder browser open when loading a wavefile and to ‘preview’ within a sequence. But i doubt this would be midi mappable somehow.

Any help is appreciated. :slight_smile:

You’d have to load the next file manually I think. Open the pad options, tap file names, scroll to next sample and press load. Some pad settings may reset to default when you do this but I’m not 100% about this.

Thinking outside the box a little, you could use the slicer for this. BB streams direct from SD card and samples can be any length. So you could chain your samples, assign slice point and either change to the next sample within black box, by MIDI CC, or by sequencing the next slice using external midi (slices automap to midi notes)

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Slices seem to be the way. From what I remember, clip mode understands slices? 1.4.3 I think…

EDIT: Clip mode does not understand slices for playback. Just for Sync (beats)

Been a while since I’ve used the Blackbox beyond prepared loops now that I use Bitwig a lot more.

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Nope. Clip mode is its own thing.

Slices are very powerful in blackbox, tho. But you can’t map them to individual channels. You can map them to keys, though, and since they’re polyphonic, that’s a way to work around the individual slice request.

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There we go. Thank you for that. That’s good to know on the polyphony. Can play back a drum/bass all in one go

Now I know why I remember Clip/Slice in the same sentence…

From 1.4.3 (unless they changed the behavior)

“”"
To Use Slices to Synchronize Playback of Clip Pads:
“”"

Not what we want… but explains my confusion!

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Thanks for the input everyone!
Slices seem to be the way then. I think I can manage this by programming one midi button to increase the note value of another. :white_check_mark:

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What’s the use case here? What do you want to accomplish? The blackbox does a lot of things differently, especially when you come from the world of Elektron, so it could be that there are even more refined ways to reach what you want to do.

Slices are extremely powerful.

For endless regenerative ambient -
Sample a loop of awesome texture and grand reverb-ness from your favourite Chase Bliss pedal. Make it long. Minutes, at least.

Copy this sample to at least one more pad.

Slice one pad up into say 64 pieces.

Slice one up into, oh, I don’t know, 32 or 16 pieces?

Set the slices to play randomly.

Set them to Playthru and Polyphone to at least 2.

Create one pattern in the sequencer per sample.

Set slices to Toggle.

Assign each pattern to toggle these samples on and off, with various clip lengths.

Set the patterns to different step lengths and time divisions.

And some LFO magic on both samples.

And press Play.

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That’s more or less how I made all my three blackbox EP:s, kind of :slight_smile:

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Well your example is awesome by the way.

Basically I want to use it for that. Ambiences, textures etc.
Also wanted to play some created modular like loops and stab sequences etc. Maybe some drum loops. So for this I’d probably need to go another route. I’ll have a more thorough look into each of the pad modes as well. Not a huge fan of the way the manual was written. I like my manuals to be more focussed and function based :stuck_out_tongue: not a bad manual by any means though

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Slicer, another almost-great feature of Blackbox that could be perfect if it were 5% more customizable. at least as i’ve experienced in Slice mode, each slice is only able to be triggered by ascending MIDI note values on a per-pad basis, e.g., all the slices on Pad 1 (MIDI Ch. 1) will start at C2 and rise by a half note for each number of slices.

but the consequence of this is you have to eat more pads/MIDI channels if you want to Slice and externally trigger more than one loop – if you try to set all your Slice pads to the same MIDI channel, each one is always going to map the slices starting at C2, so you’ll be triggering multiple slices on the same notes across multiple pads. no bueno!

why not just go the extra step and allow each slice to have an independent root note, or if multiple Slice pads are set to the same MIDI channel, pick up MIDI note values after an existing pad’s last used note?

it’s been frustrating to realize that Blackbox is about 95% of what i need a sampler to be in the compact form factor but that missing 5% is probably enough to make me upgrade to MPC One

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Maybe. Time stretching’s really good on the blackbox, as is the pitch algoritm. You can easily assign a batch of loops to multiple pads and either set them to Clip, which makes them Ableton-ish in launch and stop functionality, or Sample which just triggers them as loops or one shots whenever you launch them. Pitch them up or down for perfect sync if the BMP isn’t off the charts. Using the sequencer to launch non-timestretched loops also makes them start and stop like clips, so you’re not confined to the free form nature of a non-time stretched sample.

The blackbox has great character and its filter and four band eq is lovely for smooth textures and ambience, and the pitch algoritm really adds a tape like character. For your music, which you know I really appreciate and respect, I think the blackbox could be just the ticket.

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Thanks bud :pray:sounds like I’ll be happy with it.
Can’t wait to get my hands on it. Will share the setup I’ll be using it in which I’m currently planning. It’s going to be quite something if it works the way I imagine.

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This is a nice combo, super convenient!

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If I may ask, how do you route the audio + effects in this setup? Synth into Bliss into BB or Synth into BB and Bliss into BB?

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The blackbox does some wonky things when I have the j6 hooked up. A lot of it works no problem. I’ve always had some trouble with any external controller I’ve tried with it. Random behaviors, I can’t seem to have much consistency.

There’s probably some setting up I have wrong and some settings that need changing. And maybe I’m not using the right usb cable to power it.

Still this is an amazing combo with what works so far, and if I can smooth it out it’ll be my go to!

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seconded. i’ve tried to explain my issues syncing Clips to Pyramid’s external clock in the 1010 forum and mostly the response is “well it works fine for us” so i’m resigned to just selling it and moving on to MPC One. but it’s also just as likely i’m just missing something in the setup or connections, though that also speaks to a kind of friction generally in the workflow and documentation that the some very useful functions remain too opaque