Just to throw in my two cents here, I have been using this instrument for a couple months and grown accustomed to its workflow. Therefore, I do not fully agree with one of the feature suggestions, that being fader catch up value.
Now I know how valuable that would be for live situations, but at home it would be a pain to work with imo. However, a workaround would be to maybe boot into this mode such as disabling or enabling safe envelope ranges.
I also made some feature requests and Alex responded very affirmatively. So be prepared for the bend to spin back up from next update, when holding function + bend. As well as choosing what tracks are affected by the spin-down
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I totally agree, we should have the choice to enable/disable this catch-up mode (should it ever comes true)
Same goes for the “exclusive output in routing mode”, probably you don’t want that all the time. Still it could be crucial in a live situation.
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Did anyone get to the bottom of how kits work? Specifically are there ten or one hundred? I spent a while experimenting but it made my head hurt.
100, 10 banks with 10 kits each. When a kit is selected, hold kit/patt and press a top10 button to switch the bank for the selected kit
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Just got mine. Took me a while to understand the approach to the sequencer, esp. double click, step record, copy/paste and save.
The great:
- the sound, haven’t gotten my soundblaster to these great basses and drums, even with Adlibtracker and tables
- the xox-style
- each other influencing sounds
- real step sequencer input when at rest!!!
- 64 steps possible
- arbitrary pattern length
- full midi control (so the workaround for all below could be an electron sequencer like in digitakt)
The almost there
- should be easier to enter note values for a synth step (maybe hold and use some dedated slider)
- detune should be possible between all 4 synths, not only between 2 voices for synth 4
- 1 PPQ sync like in the newer Volcas which would make very complex rhythms easy with external clock logic
- some minor bugs regarding playback, kit 7 doesn’t play the basedrum (after update 2.1)
The dearly missed
- individual track length (i mean - it just is pure UR/Axis/Tresor) - we just need 3, 5, 7 FM 16th loops over a 4/4 beat and a single clap in 5/4 so that it moves every cycle.
- transpose of synth tracks in semitones (for easy power-chords using several synth tracks)
- copy track steps and pitch to neighbor track (or I haven’t found it)
- transpose of synth parts (all 4) of patterns in song mode (or more than 16 patterns per song) for easy EBM or synth-pop (like Alesis MMT-8)
- or live transpose (hold some button combo in kit/patt or function mode and then press any of the pattern buttons to transpose - like in editor mode, normally one would only need +/- 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12 - so one could make +/- in one page and would even have space left for another interval (or 2 if there was another option for center like pressing 8+9 at once)
- auto save when sequencer is stopped
- free tuning of voices and/or operators
The disappointed tracker user misses:
- glide
- arp (at least 047 and 037)
- tables (loadable from txt files on SD)
For mkii propably
- LFOs
- Arpeggiator
- sequencable chord machines
- poly-mode (6 synth voices one patch polyphonically)
- uni-mode (all 4 synths with different patches play the same notes)
Anyway. Great machine. Hope the polymeter will be implemented sometime. But with a second Electron unit it is very very usable right now. Thanx Alex
Does anyone know how to
- copy a kit to a different bank?
Thanks a lot!
Not sure not, as I’m not in front of mine, but I think you need to move files around in the file structure on the SD card (i.e. from a computer)
It took me a while to get acquainted with this, though - and I’m not sure I’m fully comfortable yet.
+1 for basically everything you write 
The sound, in particular, has something on its own, I’d say.
Regarding the lack of arpeggiator, well you can somehow mimic one - in a limited way - by using the vibrato on a synth tracks, depending of the algorithm.
Quote from the manual: “Depending on the algorithm, the second vibrato will either affect the pitch ( as expected from a vibrato) or the multiple (for arpeggiator effects) of the operator”
About the lack of LFO, I’ve been asking Alex if he could add functionality to the “Wiggle” and enable it to use the same waveforms as the vibrato/tremolo - instead of being totally random. Let’s see if he makes it happen!
(he hasn’t sent me any info suggesting he would so far, though)
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How to copy kits to a different bank with Twisted Electrons BlastBeats
I found out how. 
It is based on the fact that the 10 kit-slots in a “song” can contain a selection of kits from different banks. These can be swapped on the fly. So you can have kit bank_1/_kit_1 on slot 1 (bd) and bank_2/kit_2 (kit 22) on slot 2 (sd).
My procedure is this one:
- when found a great new patch (usually evolved from a prior one)
Copy the kit with the new patch to another slot, possibility to make destination from another bank
- go from step mode to kit/patt mode
- copy kit with new patch to another slot (like from 1bd to 2sd)
- you can listen to the stuff you want to overwrite by just selecting the possible destination and come back to your new sound/kit by selecting the kit where it is now (it stays in RAM)
- to dial in a saving slot from another bank, go to the destination slot and press kit/patt, hold it, and press one of slots 1(bd) to 10 (synth4) simultaneously to load it into the song’s collection of kits - so you can load for example bank_3/kit_2 (kit 32) into the 2 (sd) slot
- after that
- go back to your kit with the new patch and
- clone/copy it
- by holding the slot button (like 1 bd) and then
- press the destination button (while still holding the source button) at the same time
Now you are on the destination slot with your new patch (and all other sounds from that kit because BB only works with whole kits)
Reload old version (before altering that lead to new patch to original slot
(else you will lose the old patch when saving)
- in kit/patt mode
- select the slot where you just copied the kit with the new patch from
- press and hold kit/pattern
- the original bank of your kit will blink
- if you select it again (hold kit/patt and press the blinking button),
- it will reload your last saving point before making the changes that had lead to your new patch
- it will reload your last saving point before making the changes that had lead to your new patch
Results
- now your kit with the old patch (“ancestor”) should be (in this example) on slot1 (bd) and
- the new patch on 2 (sd)
- and this would be bank_1/kit_1 and bank_3/kit_2 in this example
Save it!
- now hit function,
- then press save (pattern 1 button) and
- then kits/patt
- it saves as soon as the sequencer is stopped,
- you might as well stop the sequencer first and then make the save procedure
- all lights make a wave pattern from left to right and you are back in kit/patt mode
Attention
- since
- kits are shared between all songs and
- the 10 slots contain the selection of kits used by the loaded song
- it would be good to reload the right kits, else things maybe messed up
- (I haven’t tried to load an empty song before the procedure, might work and it preserves the uses patches because of the reload step)
Bottom line
- it is possible to copy new patches (i.e. the whole kit) to different banks with the device alone
- it sounds complicated, but isn’t,
- just needs a little focus
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Thanks for this detailed procedure! That can be helpful.
(I thought you meant copying whole kits at once, sorry)
Yes I meant that. Copy new kits to different banks because there are only 10 slots for easy cloning (9). And I have some standards like drums which I don’t want to change all the time and I find so many great synth patches that evolve and I want that in my tracks, too, stepwise escalation.
The procedure copies whole kits, not single sounds.
10 banks a 10 kits.
And each song can contain 10 kits from different banks. The way it is now kit XY can be loaded only into slot Y. There, the selecting approach as with saving/loading songs would be easier.
I like that kit approach in general. Although some copy/paste function for single sounds would be great, too - or just an offline tool, since it is all on the SD card.
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OK, then I probably need to read through the procedure once again 
(like, a patch for me was a single synth sound, but you use it for the whole collection of sounds in a kit?)
Yes, that was not clearly written, sorry. Copying single sounds is not possible IMO. Guess it cones from my habit to evolve one sound/patch and then save the whole kit on a new place, like in digitakt. So the fact that one could not save single sounds in the BB didn’t bother me at all. I just ran out of space for copying new stuff without destroying working structures.
I updated the text.
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Is the Blast Beats 9V power supply positive or negative polarity?
Some fun with the BlastBeats being sequenced by the Tracker right here.
I have to say the sequencer is not my favorite part of the BB (apart from the live tweaks you can do with it), so I guessed the Tracker would pair very well with it, it’s a sort of hardware version of Deflemask hehehe.
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Yeah, same experience here. As much as I love the sound of the BlastBeats, the sequencer is really tedious to use :-/
So I paired it with my BlackBox, whose sequencer was drastically enhanced lately!
I e-mailed Alex about any possible improvements (my #1 request being the ability to change pitch of sequencer steps after they were recorded) but haven’t got any reply yet.
Hi!, Thinking about purchase a BB… Can I have different kits in the same song or different patterns, I mean, when change from pattern 1 to 2 change to another kit? Can I change the kit on the fly while the sequencer is running? Is as noisy as the megaFM? Thanks!
Regarding its noisiness as compared to the MegaFM, I cannot tell.
Regarding the other points, it’s yes to all.
Kit change is very flexible with the BlastBeats. That’s actually one of its majors strengths. You can even record kit changes live (and output routing as well).
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I love the sound if this thing, but it’s very peculiar, so it’s probably not for everyone.
The sequencer is, at the moment, IMHO, a pain in the back. I have submitted feature requests to Alex in this respect, still waiting for his reply. He usually replies and implement some feature requests, but it can take a while.
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I returned mine after a month. Great lo fi and noisy sound but I really didn’t like the workflow. I agree that the seq is not great, too much features without screen and everything become very confusing I think.
For me, the weakest point of this machine is the sound editing. 56 faders seemed to be a good idea on paper but mostly are shared between different parts and there is neither catch value or screen to see how your parameters are set. So, editing a previously sound will quickly become fastidious and frustrating… (and now, I understand why Elektron choosed the endless encoder + screen workflow, not very fun but far more clear and usable)
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