Wick, please don’t misunderstand us and that post.
The Bluebox EQ parameters can be controlled by CC, but you have to set the EQ type manually.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear from my earlier posts.
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I know that no worries
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Alright, sorry for the charge. I am starting to see how we have been misunderstanding one another.
no worries mate.
I can also see the Bluebox fitting in great at the start of the chain, that is as a mixer, with Blackbox at the end. With 1010’s boxes, I’ve learned that it is best not to assume or force any predefined workflow but just to try it out and work around it, if necessary.
My BlueBox is a tiny, expensive, glorified sub mixer. Until they make it a cool looper with more FX it will live its dull life as a novelty. Nothing special, mediocre.
It’s the NanoBox Fireball of mixers.
In my mind mixers are pretty close to the end of the chain, pretty much by definition. Though which end is which I suppose is up for interpretation, I’m thinking sound is generated at the start.
Of course you could use it as a tape machine. I don’t need it for that. Either way, the problem I’m trying to solve comes is what comes after the blackbox and other stuff. The objective is to sculpt the final mix, with an opportunity to get the post-processing type tasks completed.
There are musicians who use the doubly expensive, albeit more portable, TX-6 for this task 
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I’d probably get one if I had the spare cash.
‘Is that a mixer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me!?’
Obviously, sound generators are at the very start of any chain. Naturally, it still depends on which chain we are talking about. There doesn’t have to be a single chain.
Bluebox may not be ready yet for your ultimate plan. Meanwhile, it can be flexibly used for other, sometimes less prominent, tasks.
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I use the TX-6 on everything. It’s not a sub mixer for me, it’s the end all output station.
and why not the bluebox? autonomy? audio interface? I’m curious because I’ve been considering the TX-9 exactly because of those points.
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Onboard fx, while very simple, are just better. The tremolo, freeze and tape in the second slot are actually quite effective. It’s battery powered. For me, a quicker and faster workflow. Routings just feel more direct on this one. And it has plenty of headroom. Mixes sound great on it.
Then there’s USB recording and a secret wish from me that it’ll multitrack from the Field in the future.
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I’ve been thinking about one of these for use in a live rig. The size and number of inputs looks perfect for what I’m hoping to do. I’m a ways out from putting something like that together (need to write more material, have to put together a case, no idea how to get gigs, etc.), but I’m curious about anyone using one as more of a “set it and forget it”-type of application. The recording bit would be fantastic, but I’m thinking of it mostly as a mixer that can be used to easily make volume and EQ adjustments depending on the venue, then mostly leave it be while I focus on the performance with my Elektron boxes (in this case: AR, A4, OT, AH, and a Roland GR-300 guitar synth rig).
It also looks like the additional outputs (output 2, and the headphone out) could be used for submixing – in my home setup I have an A&H ZED 18 with my Analog Heat on two of the Aux buses, then coming back into one of the stereo input channels for mixing it in parallel with the instrument inputs. Is anyone using their Blue Box this way with an external effects processor?
I see there’s been a lot of discussion recently about the MIDI implementation – one thing I’ve thought of doing is taking my Michigan Synth Works F8R fader bank, which can be wired for MIDI output, and putting it in a 4MS Pod or something and using the faders to control the volume of each channel. Besides the aforementioned frustration with MIDI control over EQ settings, how does the Blue Box do with something like an external fader for volume control?
This is the direction I am heading. By the time I am ready to play a show there should be little that I’ll need to tweak on the Bluebox aside of tuning to the room and adjusting volumes as needed.
This is a residual behavior from working with analog mixing desks. The process of rehearsal and re-working material to better fit together at volume can easily trend towards minimial actions needed on the board at go time.
This also results in a pretty solid starting point to record the same material with more “seasoning” in the mix than you might want to flex during a performance.
I can say having multi-track snapshots of my rehearsals has helped tidy things up quite a bit compared to just listening back to stereo masters.
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I use fader control with a Faderfox UC4, and for faders it’s working but really not practical due to the linear scaling: 2/3 of the fader route do mostly nothing, and you have to be very precise with the remaining 1/3 so for live manipulation it’s really not good.
I also have some midi mapped main EQ settings and it have issues:
- I mapped a fader on a high pass filter, and on fast movements you can clearly hear some latency (smoothing out?), so not really suited for fast sweeps.
- I also mapped 3 toggle buttons to act like frequency kill switches on low / mid / high (toggling between 0db and -18db), and there’s audible pop when you activate one.
So yeah it works, but with some great limitations.
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Ah yes, I recall now reading something about this earlier in the thread. Offering logarithmic scaling is a feature request that’s been made to 1010, correct? That would make a lot of sense for a firmware update, so here’s hoping they do it. Again, I’m imagining there won’t be a lot of live manipulation in my particular case, but it does seem like it would make it a lot more versatile and easy to use with scaling options.
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Hi all, new to the Bluebox (and music making in general), I can hear my Digitone through it and I hit record and then stop, but when I hit play I hear nothing through my headphones which are in Output 1, any ideas?
I use Output 2 to send to my Microcosm pedal and Cue to the Digitakt to so I can sample from other gear.
This is my setup, I think I have totally confused myself now trying stuff.
you will have to assign the recorded audio to a track in your bluebox. I think it’s under the edit page. better check the manual though.