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I’m user of the Blackbox since it’s release. It’s been a very inspiring product and one of the aspects I most love about it is its “instant gratification” production workflow. How many grooveboxes have tons of features but have a head-ache of a workflow ! That’s an industry drama.
I’ve grown using it and I’ve learned working inside or around its limits, keeping in mind it will never be a full fledged DAW.
So now, what is that I still believe makes sense if a V2 firmware was to be released someday ?
- A bit of modulation ! : be it LFOs or automation (or both), they would definitely allow us to get movement in our sounds. So far the trick I found to emulate this through resampling (as shared in a couple of posts), does kill a big part of this immediacy that the product is loved for.
- FX & MIX : even if we shouldn’t expect all FXbox or Bluebox feature-set inside the Blackbox, a minimum of per pad EQing, compressing/limiting, ability to tweak filter resonance and a couple of more FX (bit-crusher+stutter?) would bring the features the dedicated FX and MIX screens and associated workflow phases deserve.
If CPU is a problem for FX, probably destructive FX inside the sample editor (like what we can see on the Polyend Tracker), would be not only acceptable but actually fun and fitting well with a “sampler” type workflow and spirit.
Side-chaining would also be a great addition if a limiter or compressor was available for a given pad. Even if that was limited to only one source or one affected pad (because of CPU limitations).
- SONG (workflow) : the SONG section needs some ability to arrange the track in a programmatic way alternatively to the current live-oriented song recorder workflow which should be kept available. Ability to select the pad sequences, the number of iterations they loop in a section, as well as the follow-up action of the section, would perfectly do the job.
- SONG (stem export) : last but certainly not least, the SONG screen should let us export the audio (and why not MIDI) stems. I know the Bluebox brings the audio stems feature already, but still even if you own a Bluebox, the Blackbox needs to have this immediacy of getting something done and exporting either to hand to the ones you created the track/beat for, to the friends you made the track together with during a session, or simply for yourself, to actually go polish and master in the DAW or on your iPad. It’s again all about the “standalone and immediate” aspect of the product.
- SEQ (bonus
) : the programmatic approach described in the SONG workflow, could also be broadened to the SEQ/note editor, giving it an optional "tracker type" note and event editing screen ! \o/ \O/ \o/ That’s an « extra » idea I believe would be killer and would open the product to another « growing niche » market or extend its lifecycle and could also solve some questions on how to implement modulation and randomness on the UI. You can be sure that I’ll develop it fully in a specific thread.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally know what product I purchased, I love it since day one and I appreciate all the development efforts already made on the products, many of which were among my requests. It just believe these features would unlock the Blackbox' full potential while keeping the initial « simple and instant » spirit.
I’ve grown using it and I’ve learned working inside or around its limits, keeping in mind it will never be a full fledged DAW.
So now, what is that I still believe makes sense if a V2 firmware was to be released someday ?
- A bit of modulation ! : be it LFOs or automation (or both), they would definitely allow us to get movement in our sounds. So far the trick I found to emulate this through resampling (as shared in a couple of posts), does kill a big part of this immediacy that the product is loved for.
- FX & MIX : even if we shouldn’t expect all FXbox or Bluebox feature-set inside the Blackbox, a minimum of per pad EQing, compressing/limiting, ability to tweak filter resonance and a couple of more FX (bit-crusher+stutter?) would bring the features the dedicated FX and MIX screens and associated workflow phases deserve.
If CPU is a problem for FX, probably destructive FX inside the sample editor (like what we can see on the Polyend Tracker), would be not only acceptable but actually fun and fitting well with a “sampler” type workflow and spirit.
Side-chaining would also be a great addition if a limiter or compressor was available for a given pad. Even if that was limited to only one source or one affected pad (because of CPU limitations).
- SONG (workflow) : the SONG section needs some ability to arrange the track in a programmatic way alternatively to the current live-oriented song recorder workflow which should be kept available. Ability to select the pad sequences, the number of iterations they loop in a section, as well as the follow-up action of the section, would perfectly do the job.
- SONG (stem export) : last but certainly not least, the SONG screen should let us export the audio (and why not MIDI) stems. I know the Bluebox brings the audio stems feature already, but still even if you own a Bluebox, the Blackbox needs to have this immediacy of getting something done and exporting either to hand to the ones you created the track/beat for, to the friends you made the track together with during a session, or simply for yourself, to actually go polish and master in the DAW or on your iPad. It’s again all about the “standalone and immediate” aspect of the product.
- SEQ (bonus
) : the programmatic approach described in the SONG workflow, could also be broadened to the SEQ/note editor, giving it an optional "tracker type" note and event editing screen ! \o/ \O/ \o/ That’s an « extra » idea I believe would be killer and would open the product to another « growing niche » market or extend its lifecycle and could also solve some questions on how to implement modulation and randomness on the UI. You can be sure that I’ll develop it fully in a specific thread.Don’t get me wrong, I totally know what product I purchased, I love it since day one and I appreciate all the development efforts already made on the products, many of which were among my requests. It just believe these features would unlock the Blackbox' full potential while keeping the initial « simple and instant » spirit.
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