Internal Modulation?

[FreedomSeven]

If we don't see any modulation soon, Im sad to say Im going to have to sell my BB for a Digitakt
Even though the sampling engine doesn't have anything on the BB
Bt it has great modulations

[thatstreal]

Def +1 for internal modulation

[Manthos]

+1 here too. LETS GET SOME MOMENTUM HERE!

[Villainmedia]

So needed. Let’s keep this one at the top. Press that like button

[NoParades]

If we don't see any modulation soon, Im sad to say Im going to have to sell my BB for a Digitakt
Even though the sampling engine doesn't have anything on the BB
Bt it has great modulations

why not have both?!
but really, you should be buying things based on what they do now, not on what they could do in the future. BlackBox has already gained SO much since launch. If it doesn't suit your needs, by all means sell it and get something that does. User-requested feature creep is an unending pit for the dev team.

[Michal Ho]

why not have both?!
but really, you should be buying things based on what they do now, not on what they could do in the future. BlackBox has already gained SO much since launch. If it doesn't suit your needs, by all means sell it and get something that does. User-requested feature creep is an unending pit for the dev team.

I dislike this patronising "advice".

BlackBox has gained, yes but in the wrong departments!

Who needs unquantised sequencing? Not me! Only finger drummers and MPC-players who can't program beats properly.
Who needs auto-sampling? Not me! Only poly-synth players who are too lazy to carry their synth around.

I need internal modulation and I need it since October 2019. Everybody needs it!!!
I see lots of people selling their Blackboxes right now.

[Villainmedia]

I’m trying, reasonably priced on Kijiji for 3 weeks. 1 inquiry. It’s clunky in what it does and where it could excel as a compact sampling studio emphasis is put on midi functions, sequencing external gear. It is marketed as a compact sampling studio. Sampling functionality, fx and modulation is most needed.

[NoParades]

I dislike your general tone about a piece of gear you purchased, knowing the perceived limitations. If you needed internal modulation in October 2019, why did you buy something that doesn't have it? You have plenty of finger-pointing to do for everything you don't like and people's workflows, but I see very little ownership of your role in all this... you bought something that doesn't do what YOU need it to do. It's not up to you how 1010music designs or updates their products. If you don't like it, don't buy one. If it does what you "need" it to do someday, buy one of the used ones that you are seeing so many of.

For the record, there's plenty of things that I don't like about BB, and you'll see me posting agreements in wish list threads all over the place hoping for this and that (including modulation options) but the difference is I'm not holding the device or the development team to some standard I arbitrarily have decided it SHOULD have. I paid for it, I take the bad with the good.

[Villainmedia]

In the interim it sits and I’m having hella fun using all the new features regularly added to the stellar polyend tracker.

[FreedomSeven]

I contacted 1010 about adding modulations to the BB
Steve told me there are no current plans to add modulation to the BB
He said that doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but no current plans
He did say there is more coming, but they don’t know when or what or can’t say at this point

Can anyone recommend either a good sequencer with modulations, lfo etc to control the BB, but an inexpensive one ?
or
Something to replace my BB
It needs to have timestretching, granular, play long samples, actually be able to resample and record into the box
I was looking at the Deluge and used Octatrack 1, which are more expensive
Not ineterested in MPC line and the Digitakt doesn’t have what I’m looking for
So any other recommendations that I might not be aware of ?

Thanks guys

[Villainmedia]

The deluge is fantastic. Even in its infancy I had 0 complaints but the lack of screen is off putting to some it’s got a feature now where it draws a representation on a wave out on the grid to help edit but it’s still a little rudimentary for visual representation. It does everything fairly well, I’d say one of your best bang for your buck boxes around. Crazy time signatures. Everything is modulatable. Built in basic Va synth 2op fm. Can load two osc sample or VA waveform into a voice.. it can play crazy long samples from virtually any size SD card. A real looper etc. Etc. The company constantly releases groundbreaking new updates. Exciting new features. It’s their baby and it brings them great joy to push it to its absolute limits. The main issue I had with it was not having things visually represented on a screen. But with that being said I found it 5 times more intuitive and feature packed and able to take an idea from inception to completion than the boa box. It’s got extremely limited inputs and outputs which is unfortunate, it’s actually got a really decent little internal mic. It’s a beautifully thought out entirely portable workstation that works on an internal battery for hours. Modular connectivity and on and on.

I wouldn’t dismiss the Mpc One. It’s easy enough to use I never cracked a manual, had to do some digging and it’s a little menu driven but all in all I think it’s the most comprehensive sampler around. Will play and sequence long samples. Nice built in effects. Comprehensive midi sequencing.

remember the blackbox can play a super long sample and loop it but can only sequence a sample 256 steps long. I sincerely question the fact that people rave about the fact that it streams long long samples but effectively comes with a 256 step sequencer, I mean to sequence this thing you need an external sequencer for long long samples anyway. It’s a piss off, I’ve never once bought gear and felt so underwhelmed in 30 years. Bought it for features at time I bought it but evidently didn’t read fine print at how limited it is. Figured certain things would be givens and that it wouldn’t be so much screen to screen to screen to get things done. It apparently works for some so who am I?

[Villainmedia]

Listen to full tracks being made on the various boxes you’re considering. I think the tracker is steering electronic in new directions it’s limited but vast in its limitations. Per step effects. Many to choose from. 8 tracks fill up fairly quickly but listen to the tracks people are making on it. Some mind blowing stuff. Follow it up with the tracks people are making with the blackbox. It’s frustrating because it has so much potential to be a cool little mini sampling studio but is trying to accomplish too much and cutting important corners while not focusing on what’s important in an integrated little sample box in 2021 it’s falling behind. Too many exciting alternatives

[arteom]

I dislike this patronising "advice".

BlackBox has gained, yes but in the wrong departments!

Who needs unquantised sequencing? Not me! Only finger drummers and MPC-players who can't program beats properly.
Who needs auto-sampling? Not me! Only poly-synth players who are too lazy to carry their synth around.

I need internal modulation and I need it since October 2019. Everybody needs it!!!
I see lots of people selling their Blackboxes right now.

It's the same thing that Aaron has said multiple times, buy the device for what it does now, not what it might do in the future.

I hope the dev team spends their time and resources on fixing a few odd bugs that come with new releases and expanding on the blackboxes current feature set. What I would love to see is an expanded/improved song screen. A better optimized front end that more efficiently work with the hardware. I often build tracks where I start to get artifacts in phones output when getting near all 16 pads playing at the same time. So if the underlying hardware is having a hard time keeping up with all we can do now I say forget all these gimmicks. Use external gear for that noise. If what you want to do you're unable to do because no internal modulation on bb, you might take a moment to reassess where you are and how it is exactly that you got there.

So yeah, not everybody needs it, some are fine without it.

[jayneural]

I think there must be time spent for both fixes & features as this box has a lot of potential to remain competitive through software (don't forget it's a $600 box, it must have some arguments against similarly priced grooveboxes to keep selling units and bring revenue to 1010music).

Still you are right bug fixing must remain the priority. I believe the approach taken lately declaring stable versions (like they recently did with v1.7.4) is great. It means if they release a v1.8 or v2 with new features, a user who wants stability because he has live gigs, can stay or revert to the latest stable, while the early adopter user who's practicing/producing @ home, will be happy to test and maybe help debugging a bit the new features.

[Michal Ho]

Why don't you get a laptop if you're maxing the CPU?
Internal modulation is not a gimmick to the majority of the users in this thread.

[arteom]

michael it's something that I am considering. But want to be careful with an investment like that. I do like working within the confines of the blackbox, it has worked well for me. I wouldn't mind some sort of modulation in the blackbox, honestly. That said, I think where many grooveboxes fail is because manufacturers pack them with all these features so it's a sort of jack of all trades, has all these fun features like a long list of FX and whatever. They end up as equipment that do many things ok, at best. Rather than a focused piece of gear that does what it is does very well. I think right now the blackbox is in the latter category, I just would hate to see it become the former.

[Michal Ho]

It's the same thing that Aaron has said multiple times, buy the device for what it does now, not what it might do in the future.

I hope the dev team spends their time and resources on fixing a few odd bugs that come with new releases and expanding on the blackboxes current feature set. What I would love to see is an expanded/improved song screen. A better optimized front end that more efficiently work with the hardware. I often build tracks where I start to get artifacts in phones output when getting near all 16 pads playing at the same time. So if the underlying hardware is having a hard time keeping up with all we can do now I say forget all these gimmicks. Use external gear for that noise. If what you want to do you're unable to do because no internal modulation on bb, you might take a moment to reassess where you are and how it is exactly that you got there.

So yeah, not everybody needs it, some are fine without it.

As I have said before, I disagree with your view on the dev/user relationship in general and you are actively working against a legitimate wishlist request.
While your points on bugginess are valid, I kindly ask you to not spam this wishlist thread and “be fine with it” somewhere else.
What you’re saying again has been said before and it is wrong. Open up a “anti-modulation” thread.

[Michal Ho]

NoParades Ok, fine. Discuss. Your opinion is just as valid as mine, but it's destructive. Therefore I consider you a troll until you prove otherwise.

[NoParades]

how is my opinion, which is clearly saying that anyone has a right to voice their thoughts on an issue that clearly lots of us are passionate about, troll behavior? I'm not being dismissive of how other people work, telling anyone they are wrong or even disagreeing with anyone's viewpoint on what modulation is. My suggestion is that more voices in this discussion can only lead to a clearer consensus on how the whole user base can benefit the widest. I'm sorry if that is counter to you getting exactly what you want at the expense of others you casually insult with no hesitation.

[Michal Ho]

NoParades The consensus is that 95% of users in this thread would like to see some kind of internal modulation. Your posts are detrimental to the discussion of how to achieve this. I mean no offense to you personally.

[Aaron]

Internal modulation is a complex topic and can mean a lot of different things. What exactly does it mean to you? What exactly do you want to control?

This topic in particular is hard to pin down. You have a better chance of getting what you want with a specific request. For example, are you talking about one or more of these items:

• An automation sequence
• A sequence level LFO
• A pad level LFO
• A note level LFO
• Note level envelope
• Something else

I hear lots of agreement above on the idea of Internal Modulation. I'm betting you each have a slightly different idea of what that means. Keep in mind we are talking about musical instruments and there is no one right answer.

We look forward to your thoughts.

[thatstreal]

As long as i've been making music i'm still poorly versed on exactly what terms are used for certain tasks, so please forgive me if my respoinse is vague.
My internal modulation request would be similar to to how my old Digitakt handled modulation, where as they had an LFO page that gave you control over the (depth, rate and destination) over specific parameters located throughout the interface. Not sure if how that works on the code side, but in my ideal scenario, A couple of LFO's with the ability to modulate granular speed, adsr settings, filters per pad, pitch/ velocity per pad, possibly fx parameters?

If we could have an LFO per pad that modulates 1 thing, the filter would be my first choice

[Michal Ho]

An easy alternative to the solutions proposed is to give the VEL slider an option to send CC, with the ability to record the CC data into the sequence.
A small icon or pixel would indicate there is modulation on the sequence.
Editing of the CC data would be great, but deleting and re-recording automation would also work fine.

The advantages are obvious:
a) you have total freedom when applying modulation, you just need to work the slider.
b) It's simpler than adding and implementing an LFO library or visual automation lanes with touch screen editing.

My emphasis is on continuous control, as opposed to per-note locks.
Per-note is already possible with velocity as a modulation source.
The applications of CC automation are endless, but two come to mind immediately: step-less pitch modulation and filter sweeps (and in theory, FX sends and ADSR).

As to the solutions already proposed, I believe the easiest solution would be a shapeable LFO at pad level, with options to sync the LFO, as well as retrigger the LFO when the pad is triggered.

And thank you for listening, Aaron!

[pieter3d]

My first idea would be to have a bunch of LFO's that can be freely assigned to all modulation destinations (in the same way that CC's can be assigned to modulation destinations). For each LFO you then have to be able to set the shape and frequency. The modulation depth can be set at the modulation destination, just like how CC's now work.

Making the adsr of a pad a modulation source also seems logical and simple to me. That would also allow for easy side chaining: modulate the amplitude of one pad with the inverted adsr of another pad. Modulating the filter cut-off with the adsr is another obvious application.

You could do all of this with CC's (as in, make the envelopes and LFO's midi CC's). That would also allow the BB to modulate external gear. The downside is that the resolution of CC's is a bit limited, although some smoothing could take care of that perhaps.

I would personally like to see as many modulation destinations as possible.

Thanks for taking our opinions into consideration

[Christine]

Can we step back for a minute from the specifics of the implementation, and get to the heart of what you want to be able to do?

If I hear what you all are saying, what you want to be able to do is have some way to automate how a parameter changes over time. Is that the heart of it? This could be done by defining an LFO shape to apply to the parameter, or by recording a specific change in modulation as it is played either on screen with the VEL slider or with an external MIDI controller. With the recording option you would need a way to at least clear the recording and re-record it.

You would like to be able to do this wherever we currently have modulation, and with as many more parameters as we would be willing to add.

Does that sum it up?

[Michal Ho]

Yes, this sums it up neatly!

[shankiphonic]

I'm curious if we're all on the same page here.

are we talking about recording a snapshot of the state of the parameter being modulated at the time the event was recorded (how the velocity slider approach seems to work today)
OR
are we talking about realtime modulation?
Neither, both, something else?

If I'm not mistaken, the velocity slider approach is currently subject to the limitation of one pad per project at any time, OR several pads simultaneously subject to the same modulation. With resampling, obviously the effect can be captured into a new pad, and the the slider can be reassigned and reused elsewhere.

If the blackbox can handle it, I'd hope to have independent configurable* LFOs that work in real time.
e.g. LFOs #1-#n, and these become modulation sources.
Other systems offer a limited number of LFO's per channel. and they can only be used on that channel. That's one way to do it on the blackbox, but I don't know that you're willing to enable 16 LFO's (one per pad (channel)). That's why I'm suggesting a limited number of "independent" LFOs that can be assigned wherever.

*rate, waveform, depth, etc...

[Christine]

Thank you all for the feedback.

[Michal Ho]

Here is a working prototype for an external LFO page for Blackbox, made in PureData.
(Tested with: Blackbox 1.7.D, PdParty for iOs, Apple CCK & ESI MIDImateX)

This is a global LFO with a few options.
Just 1 LFO will take you very far with the Blackbox.
Personally, I would still prefer recording CC automation with the VEL slider to having a LFO, but both would be nice.

[shankiphonic]

this is interesting -
I noted you said just one lfo will take you far - is that max number of LFO's this program can do right now?

[Michal Ho]

Yes, 1 LFO, as this is a prototype.
You can easily clone it and give it a new CC number, so theoretically, you can have 127 LFOs.