Yes, the DT’s input is also for line-level signals.
Its a fun creative box. I took it on holidays to Bali this past month and made a couple of tunes on it…Here is a ‘finished’ track on the deep house tip with just the Blackbox -
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Nice work for a holiday beat!
I’m finding the BB the easiest box to reach for, particularly as a portable device, when I think I might have 30 minutes to spare on a trip.
It is ‘cheating’ I feel to a degree, as it is very easy to use; with a card filled with a smorgasbord of hits and loops it reminds me of using Acid in the old days (though not a similar Lane-based workflow) and jamming away with experiments that can sound great very quickly.
Definitely a ‘start something’ box, if not a lot more besides.
Hi all,
I’ve read that the BB has issues receiving Midi from the Digitakt due to the fact that the DT sends PLock info before the sample trigger message. Has anyone found this an issue when sequencing the BB with the DT?
If I were to get the BB that would be one of my uses - to use some of the DT’s midi tracks to sequence/randomise samples within each pad, etc.
Cheers!
Bill
That’s a good question and I‘d like to hear about some experiences with the Digitakt as well…
And how do you guys like the Granular Mode? Didn’t really find anything that shows that feature a little more detailed since that’s also something I‘m very interested in.
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For texture, tearing shit up and just going bonkers with a sample, granular is great. It’s quite limited in what you can do, but for what it is, it’s very cool.
How exactly does quantization of sample loops of different bpms work if you can’t specify a sample bpm?
Any update on unquantized recording?
You can specify the sample length in bars which is essentially the same thing but with less precision.
Also requires you to know the sample length ahead of time right?
Yes but for samples with unknown tempo it’s easier to count beats than bpm 
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Would any BB owners be willing to make a quick video of sample mangling ability of the BB? I’ve seen tons of videos showing sample triggering and sequencing but none showing the extent that a sample can be manipulated. That would be VERY useful in helping me make a decision.
Cheers!
Bill
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I guess I’m trying to figure out what to do with long foley and atmosphere samples - use them as clips rather than loops, I guess?
When I’ve got non-rhythmic samples I want to just loop at the native rate, I keep them in Sample mode, enable looping, and change the launch mode to Toggle so I can turn it on or off like a clip.
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Cheers. Hopefully done figuring out which of my gigs of samples to load on, now for fun! I realized that the BB and Digitone would actually make a pretty awesome portable live setup. I should cart that around at some point.
I’m interested in adding the Blackbox to my DT + DN setup. My Digitakt currently is the master and sends clock + program change to the Digitone. I’d like to keep it that way.
My question is: Is the Blackbox in it’s current form stable as a midi slave and will i be able to trigger scene (/preset) changes via the DT?
Thanks!
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It’s stable as a midi slave, but you can’t trigger scene or preset changes via midi. I usually keep it as the slave when I sample loops into it. However, a set is a set and you need to load a new one manually, for now, so for sessions where you want more than whatever the sixteen slots offer, you have to be creative with your transitions.
There’s an audioable glitch as you load a new set, if the timing’s tight between the sets, but it’s fast, so it wouldn’t surprise me if buffered loading, Synthstrom Deluge style, is happening at some point. Sequencer keeps running, so it does seem like the foundation is there.
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Thanks for your answer. I am currently aiming towards a liveset that’s about 1-2 hours long using multiple Patterns and many different variations in sounds. So that might be a pretty important downside of the BB for me. Damn. For a minute there I thought it might have been all I needed as a buddy for my DT.
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The Blackbox does respond to program change messages and will load presets corresponding alphabetically with the PC number (see page 40). As circuitghost said though, it does not load seamlessly.
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I don’t see why this can’t still happen though. You can always resample a loop of your DT into BB, loop that, cut out the DT, and switch to a different pattern on the DT.