Yeah, that’s what’s holding me back. It’s like, shouldn’t I have learned from my mistake? 
But it’s also a matter of perception. One can just decide to not make it a problem, and most of the time, it then stops being one.
I only tried the 707, I thought it was alright at being an updated Roland groovebox but lacking in the recording memory - 62 seconds actual recording but 6 minutes sample playback memory, so the Roland specs are a little misleading and could have saved me the trouble of trying one. I wanted it for its audio clip functions and it is seriously crippled in that regard, in that whilst it is possible to put audio clips on a few tracks, you will only actually have enough memory for a few loops, as of the current OS at least.
That aside the synth engine was ok, not ACB standards though, so analog emulation wasn’t as good, but the PCM stuff sounded great, as you’d expect from Roland.
The one I bought had a fault, not sure if it was hardware or software related, but it kept crackling and occasional loud digital noise (5x the level of the output!) so I returned it, though even if it didn’t have the fault I still would have returned it.
Might try a 101 at some point, just for those nice PCM sounds.
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Still on the fence here. And still got the BBox, tho it’s up for sale 
but no one’s biting
So with that in mind, I brought it out today and recorded a few clips into a Chase Bliss Blooper, came up with something totally awesome which I then recorded straight back into the BBox. So the workflow was like this -
Blackbox Out into Blooper
Blooper Out into Blackbox In
Due to the Blackbox being able to route its different outs and monitorings, I can do this without feedback. Which I was reminded now, is a pretty powerful feature I’m using all the time. I’ve gotten so used to it, I forgot that many samplers can’t do this without feedbacking (the OT can, if you route through the Cue outputs). When I had the Heat, I used it like this all the time as well, just resampling straight back into the BBox, live as I was tweaking it.
How’s the Deluge in this department? I know it doesn’t have the physical outs for this, but it’s such a clever device, I figure maybe it has a way around it?
Ah, what the hell. I’ll just stick with the Blackbox. It does too many things too well, not to keep it.
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Still reviewing the Dellie, tho 
can you give all the grooveboxes such cute nicknames like the dellie? 
Not all of them deserve it
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Woohoo, my Deluge arrived today. It looks so cool. Can’t wait to get into it.
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Let us know how you get on! This is a good primer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBeeDwukpTs&t=1s
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Thanks for that. I was wondering where to start. I’ll be coming back to that primer a few times coz there plenty in there.
So mine’s arrived now. A couple of notes, my impressions this time around compared to last time I had it -
I always felt the build quality was solid on the Deluge. But it does feel like they’ve upped their game. Material just feels better, buttons more reliable, knobs just feel overall more quality. I could be wrong, though. But it’s like a refinement of something that was good to begin with, and is now approaching great.
The new prints on the panel go a long way to navigate around the abstract interface. The Deluge received undo, slicing, resampling and stuff while I was still on it, so it wasn’t labelled accordingly. Now it is, and it goes some way to make it easier to work with.
Synth engine’s bettter than I remembered it, but it also has completely different presents except for the very first ones, than before. In fact, when I hook it up to a solid keybed and play some of the later patches, I’d say it’s on par with any decent VA out there. I can’t compare it to high end stuff like Virus or Nord, I have little to no experience with those, but it easily compares to anything from Novation, Roland or Korg as far as VA goes.
Same goes with the sample engine. There’s just more presence to it than I recalled. I realise this must be nonsense, I’m sure it’s the same as it always has been. But my memory of the Deluge’s sound engine overall was that it was good but lacked some body and space to it. I don’t feel this now. And the same goes with the fx. For mixing and adding depth, they’re pretty solid.
I did some googling and it seems substantial improvements on the general platform has been made together with other updates, increasing performance substantially over time. I wonder if this has anything to do with it. Or if I’m just imagining things
Also, I’m on the Boards of Deluge soundpack vol1, which clearly orbits around some very specific parts of the sound engine to bring out the best from the Deluge. It could be that the sweet spots have always been there and now they’re better brought to light as skilled sounds designers have put some time into it.
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It was nice to revisit the Deluge after some time off. It gets a lot of things right (super high voice/synth/polyphony count, super reliable and strong battery, high portability) even if there are some things I still struggle with (essentially, it’s hard to “perform” on, and zero fun to design synth patches on, for me). I can totally understand why many performers create whole sets on the Deluge, as it transitions between songs really well, and had basically all the voices you’d need for a song.
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Yeah, I feel I’m gonna have to retract a few of my statements on the Deluge. I’m on a review unit and it has developed in a remarkably strong way, since I was last on it.
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@circuitghost can’t wait for reading your Deluge review! Just got this jewel a few days ago, amazed by its possibilities
Why does every product always seen to have one major flaw? Deluge seems like an absolute beast … saddled with a display from 1985. If it had even an Elektron-level display, it would be lights out good.
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Thanks it’s a tricky one. Haven’t quite
found the angle yet. It’s there, tho. I can feel
it.
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I’m torn on the display. The grid is where the action is. Except when you need to be utilitarian, at which point the led screen shows its weakness. And yet, it’s not stopped me from getting to where I wanna go, yet.
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I worry I would feel lost like I did trying to remember the button combinations on the OP-Z. A nightmare.
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Oh, yeah. I feel the OP-Z didn’t quite nail it. The Deluge did and it’s more a matter of, yeah but do I like how they nailed it? It’s an abstract interface done right, but that doesn’t mean we want an abstract interface to begin with, done right or not.
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