1010music Bluebox

Been waiting for something like this, surprised nobody has come out with a mixer that caters to tabletop music makers who aren’t interested in pre amps etc…

Just made a pre order from a local shop here. Looking forward to December

2 Likes

very interesting. but in 2020 I want usb file transfer and built in audio interface functionality in a device like this.

2 Likes

Blofeld anyone?

i definitely want this device at gigs.
but i don’t like to be early adopter, and i’m very suspicious about touchscreen reliability.
so will continue using my LiveTrak L-8 and see how Bluebox works for people.

I don’t quite if this has synced recording, starting and stopping at midi clock. It would seem that it has, but I haven’t seen it clearly stated anywhere yet. It’d be almost absurd if it didn’t have synced recording, considering the context.

with audio interface functionality, Bluebox would have to compete with other popular audio interfaces, including higher tier gear from big corporations.
so it would make development more expensive, Bluebox itself would be more expensive too, but it’s still a question how would it meet users expectations.

so i completely understand why they decided not to implement this functionality (at least in current version).

that’s not a new product hardware-wise. there’s plenty of feedback from bitbox and blackbox owners about the screen. positive feedback that is.

3 Likes

I was looking for a mixer with stereo inputs for live performance. This looks ace.
It doesn’t seem to be usable as a soundcard, though. Am I mistaken ?

Interesting that it is $100 cheaper than Blackbox, I assumed it would be the same price.

I think they’ll do very well with this, they deserve to, not sure if it is for me yet, but sure does pack a lot of features into its tiny footprint.

I think a 3.5mm breakout box/snake would be essential for studio use, and a midi controller for mix levels etc.

Main sticking point for me is 44.1khz if they add that I’d find it hard to resist. The main reason I got rid of Blackbox was it could not be set to 44.1khz.

1 Like

with 5 to 10 volts mono its a diffrent game, but unsemetrical line signals are more delicate

1 Like

I always liked whatever fx were on board the Blackbox. The filter really worked more as an EQ anyway, the compressor was subtle but efficient and the delay and reverb, while basic, sounded good. And the converters were great, the headroom you could get in the Blackbox was quite impressive.

If the Bluebox is an extension of the Blackbox quality as far as audio processing goes, this is a killer product. I can’t imagine it won’t be, given that I’m pretty sure it was mainly because of CPU reasons the Blackbox didn’t have more nuanced mixing options.

you convinced me.
also, having a spare unit (L-8) for critical task is always a good idea.

1 Like

Actually the L8 was on my radar. I used to have a R16 which was nice but the lack of midi sync kinda defeats the purpose of multitracking in my use case (all electronic instruments, no voice or acoustic thing).

yes, MIDI is HUGE advantage of Bluebox.
for some obscure reasons, manufacturers of modern mixer/multitrack recorder gear omitted it.

2 Likes

It used to be a common feature in multitrack recorders back then… Why it disappeared ? I don’t know. There’s even two versions of the DP24 from Tascam. The older one has midi, not the new one:


I don’t understand these regression in functionality, just like I don’t understand regressions in samplers.

4 Likes

The midi on those was frankly shite, probably why they dropped it, I had one which I bought for exactly the same reasons as you, I wanted to record midi synced parts, but it could only sync from MTC not midi clock (for reasons unknown) but worse than this it could be a midi clock master, but the clock send had a random offset each time you started it, so anything you tried to record would not line up correctly. To make matters worse the editing did not give fine enough resolution to correct the offset. I returned it.

3 Likes

Not sure which thread to post this in, but since this one is already hopping…

Christine Higgins of 1010music quote from Facebook:

We plan to port some of the Bluebox features to blackbox. For example, we have a much improved reverb that we will bring over for starters. We also have plans for a new firmware update for blackbox. We try to balance new firmware updates with new hardware so we can continue to fund our development. We always say buy our products for what they do today and not for what they might do in the future.

4 Likes

They’re going to sell a shitload of these. And if they manage to add USB Class Compliant Audio (even if only for macOS) they’ll sell even more.

4 Likes

Just to second that feedback on the touchscreen. It is really a very good touchscreen. I have the blackbox and it’s super quick and responsive. If all devices with touchscreens were like this then I wouldn’t mind so many things having them… looking at you mpc live :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

2 Likes

I wonder if it will be possible to operate the internal mixer controls with MIDI CC coming from an external device, i.e. in my case, use a MonoMachine LFO to control, say, the filter or pan or whatever.

1 Like