I’ve used mine with an H9 Max in the loop, and it was pretty flawless. The gain wasn’t QUITE what I would expect feeding the H9, but it wasn’t that far off.
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For those with a Bluebox and a Six, is anyone able to post a side-by-side for scale?
Thank you!
I don’t own an Octatrack anymore and don’t use the Bluebox much these days. Sorry I couldn’t help.
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Can’t help you much here, but I’d feel rude not replying. I have a Blackbox at the moment, not a Bluebox, so even less use… and I tend not to mix samplers, I’ll try to pick the one that fits my current mood / goal best. But I think my use case for mixing the OT & BB would be the same for Black or Blue - an easier way of recording long samples or stems to integrate with shorter patterns, e.g. for capturing scene & fader performances on the OT. I am wondering if a Bluebox would suit me better than a Blackbox, as the mixer elements of the Blue would probably be more beneficial to me than the sampler elements of the Black.
Anyway, I hope you have better luck with your other responses.
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I’m using bluebox with OT and I think they fit together pretty nicely. I mainly bought the bb because the 4 inputs of the OT were a bit too little and I had to chain stuff. Right now, how my setup works is that the OT is still the brain that sends out midi to my synths/drum machine, however, every audio is routed to the BB instead of the OT. The BB has 3 stereo outs, 1 of them goes to my master out and 2 go back into the OT’s 4 inputs, so I can send anything that is connected to the BB back to either of the OT’s inputs for sampling/mangling duties. This means that my setup can basically do the same as before and more. So, BB definitely adds value to an OT-based setup, because whatever you did with only the OT you can simply route every audio to the BB and then back to OT and have the same options, plus additional inputs/effects/filters/recording possibility. Also, the BB profits a lot from OT because you can freely map incoming midi in the BB and control it via the OT. Remember the Elektron mixer everyone is dreaming about? The one with the Elektron sequencer? Well, with the BB-OT combination you have essentially a mixer with LFO’s, Trig-locks, trig conditions, and all that jazz Elektron sequencers offer (of course not as polished as an actual Elektron mixer would be). I’ve used that effectively for creating build-up automation on the OT.
The only downsides of the BB are for me that due to the small form factor the audio ins are pretty cramped if you don’t get the right cables and the control options with the blue box alone are not enough in my opinion. You only get 4 knobs essentially and a touch screen (which works ok, but is also a little too small to use effectively for control in my opinion) and the rest is menu diving, which really isn’t ideal for a mixer where you want hands-on control. I recently added an AKAI Midi-Mix controller via the USB port of the BB and have now more than enough knobs to control the BB (although I still need to replace the knobs on the AKAI - the stock ones are shit, because too small). So far I’m pretty happy with the BB, even though I must say I haven’t fully explored it yet. Especially the recording function and the newly added Punch-In recording I didn’t use so far but seem very useful. The reason for that is also that the overall software of the BB is pretty unintuitive to me and I frequently have to look up things in the manual, which could be another down side.
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Fantastic breakdown @ande thank you.
Ive spent more time looking for cables than reading reviews and watching tutorials hehe.
Do you have specific recommendations?
Im wanting:
1/8 trs Y to xlr females for mics
1/8 trs Y to 1/4 TS
EDIT: 1010 has a link that lists a few they say work well.
And @Affectionate-Bee-781, thx for showing your setup with the SiX.
- Are you doing same routing as described in that thread?
- im concerned about missing out on SiX compressor and clarity compared to bluebox and/thru bluebox. Any thoughts there?
Thank you!
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I think there are a lot of recommendations in the thread already. What also works great are the Amazon headphone extension cables, if you realize that your cables are a bit too thick.
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True! Didnt think to use search on that one…… I just did a search of “cables” in this thread and came up with a zillion hits haha.
These are perfect for stereo synths to BB. I use them with 5 synths and nice fit, not tight.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZKM3S4S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Yep, I’m routing the Bluebox outs into the SiX.
As to your second question, not sure if you’re considering using the Bluebox instead of the SiX or as a companion. The Bluebox audio quality is pretty solid, the EQs are great, I think the DACs are going to pass through audio as good as it came in. I have no concerns about passing audio through it before getting to the SiX.
I’m sure the SiX adds some analog warmth/magic but to be honest I don’t have the ears or monitoring setup to claim anything here. If I had to give up the SiX, I would definitely miss the physical interface and multiple outs (phones, mains, monitors, 2 cues, bus b).
With the BB EQ I think you have a pretty nice option to add clarity and depth to any and all your inputs. Hope that answers the question 
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Yeah very nice 781! I am definitely keeping SiX but was interested in both adding mixer i/o versatility and the recording aspects.
I drew a routing diagram with my SiX and didnt see it (EDIT: bluebox) helping me a ton but i will look at it from the way you are doing it to see if it makes more sense that way.
Thank you!
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thank you all for mentioning the “have you tried pushing the plug in all the way” for following clock from TRS midi back in march or so, i’ve spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out what has been going on here
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I’m looking into getting one of these to replace my analog mixer (lighten the size and weight of my case). I was reading the manual last night and the MIDI section is pretty basic so I’m hoping they just didn’t include the fine details. So, I’m wondering if a current user could help me with the following:
-
When assigning/learning MIDI controls, can you “invert” the response (assuming also that you can assign one midi controller cc to multiple functions)? To explain, I want to use the two outputs like A/B sub groups, as in track 1 is either going out of Out 1 or Out 2 via the push of a single MIDI button, effectively turning on Out 1 while simultaneously turning off Out 2 (either fader control or mutes).
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If the above is possible, is there any gap/pop/artifacts when doing so?
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to give up there time and help.
Cheers
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No inversion right now, you’d have to do it with an external processor — a midihub or whatever. Also no separate send mute, so you’ll have to have something remember what the gain was at. No pops when changing the levels, though.
Well dang, so close but yet so far.
Thank you!
Really enjoying using the Bluebox lately as a dedicated drum mixer for the Analog Rytm MK2.
8 individual outputs each get their own 4 band parametric EQ and then route the main output of the Bluebox back into the External inputs on the Analog Rytm.
This way I can still run everything through the Analog Compressor on the AR after getting a nice mix of the drum parts! The Bluebox outputs are pretty hot too, so it’s easy to hit the compressor hard enough (something I’ve heard people complain about using the external inputs on the AR).
I still have 2 stereo channels left. I was thinking that the Octatrack could mangle some live drum loops and maybe bring the TR8 back in for some classic xox drums. All going through the AR compressor for 2 track recording.
The other nice thing is that I can record all of the individual channels on the Bluebox and export those as stems if I need a different mix for the DAW in the end!
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Ah that is brilliant! I have both and have not thought of this on my own. I can’t wait to give it a go :0)
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