The Smallest Dawless Setup. 

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.

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 !

Whatever you spent on that camera was worth it. Nobody else doing synths on RU-vid has that video quality. Right on man.

I love the rawness of your videos... Keep them coming!

Love your relaxed and creative videos! I’m def getting my blackbox out for a spin 🎉

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

That BlackBox is such a wunderwaffe !

My first step into sequencing was sp404mk2.... Was utterly confused. Then got the black box, now I'm starting to see what's up.

Thanks for the inspiration. Gives me an idea to try loopy pro with microfreak.

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

Tnx for the video’s! Greetings from Holland

something weird with midi maybe, pad note-ons going out & coming back in, triggering the other pads?

Fantastic!

Ricky you should have put it in song mode it works pretty good

What an ending. Leaving the stage like a pro🎉✌️👍 share the love!

Smooth as hell.

That percussion at the end went wild

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

I'm on 3.0.10 but feels like forever waiting for the update to complete it!

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.

Love my BB!

You make that blackbox look VERY atractive, especially after living in OctaLand for awhile...

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.

holy shit thats groovy

The best part of Saturday mornings!

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.

I didn’t watch the video yet but mine is too. When I simply try to scroll through samples it’s goes bonkers

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 got the BB and I know it bugs some times exactly like yours

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.

Next idea. Novation mini Nova and the Novation launchpad dawless?

Hm, I’m still on blackbox 2.something so I take it I should stay there for a bit? Nice track though

I love my blackbox, it's my swiss army knife.

They should have call it MassiveFreak

Had that box. But was to damn buggy for me. No updates since 2019. Ehh

Rickyyyyy

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

Mini tracker

its not some kind of midi loop back problem is it?? Otherwise not the greatest ad for the blackbox XD

If Blackbox firmware is anything like Bluebox firmware, then yes, it will tend to be buggy as hell.

Ricky! you are so house 👍👍

NOOO too much filter😂😂 we’ve all felt that

MPC Key 37....

make a rufus du sol style track

Dude, you could sell that song to Lane Bryant and make a fortune! 😂

Minifreak a little big? 😂

Is there an inexpensive not as buggy alternative to the Blackbox? Doesn't have to be hardware.

I definitely will skip the BlackBox. Thanks for this clip

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.

doug lazy

black box n mini freak arent friends..blackbox like microfreak more. seriously though

I hated the blackbox!

Arturia sounds well, but... crappy hardware.

Your reactions and comments are funny, cracking me up. I swear you talk like me. Must be a Martinez thing 😂

The blackbox is awful, I sold it a long time ago and have never missed it.

Arturia gear is lifeless

Hah! time for a Blackbox MK2! And this thing will turn into a paperweight. Ooh, sorry to disappoint… 😢