1010music Blackbox Studio - Compact Sampling Studio Reviews

I am still unlocking the capabilities of this thing, but it seems ideal for the ways I want to make music.

First of all, it's small enough that I can either bring it with me easily, or leave it out on my desk without it being in the way—having a tool within reach is huge for me.

I can create some nice drum tracks. Since it's a sampler, the quality of sounds are as good as your searching ability. It also has some nice envelope and wavetable controls that help you to massage sounds into the mix. I get the feeling the SP404 has a little more effecting and sound shaping out of the box, but there are workarounds, and I think the black box is worth the trade off.

One amazing capability is multisampling, which means you can clone synths, or build up virtual instruments from a library of one-note samples. There are a couple of ways to view your midi data, and on the piano roll you can go back for some per-note editing and effecting.

With the line in you can also recorded line level instruments (and guitars or mics with the right interface). For me that means that every way I want to achieve sounds could be achieved in this little box. I'm very excited.

Have not stopped using this thing, it's incredible. I take it with me in a little pouch that I saw online that I bought and has a battery I bought and it's just a lot of fun, I hook it to my mixing board. I can record all the sounds. I create the music I create mixs together. This thing is absolutely awesome. You can buy a little adapter and a battery and you're off and running. I have never had a thing like this before. I'm enjoying it all the time. I can't put it down. I think my wife's jealous.The sampling is on point and easy

...just got it a month ago - takes some getting used to but really fun - the online forum is fantastic for assistance - updating OS is easy - super solid build quality and feel - a joy to use and inspiring

This magic little box is awesome. I think of it as an empty drum machine. It can do looping/clip launching and all that but I mainly use it as a chameleon of a drum machine with Pyro Audio samples. I put a Pyro skin on it too, so it looks like my (now) vintage SP-202. Its sound quality is terrific...very clean with so much headroom. The build quality rocks and the knobs have the most satisfying resistance. Just pop in a microSD card with your sounds and boom, you're making grooves.

I looked at this product for a year, watched a bunch of reviews and tutorials, and I do not regret this purchase.

Its so fun & compact, it begs to be turned on and played with. It's a pretty straightforward 16 track sampler/sequencer, as in it's only going to play whatever you put into it, obviously. It definitely has its place in my studio set-up, and combined with the Elektron digitakt, I can honestly create anything I want with these two instruments. Very powerful setup. I'm also a filmmaker and the 1010 Blackbox is a pivotal tool when scoring my own music for my projects. Additionally, because it's so compact, I frequently take it with me everywhere. I'll pull up splice.com on my phone, run the input into the Blackbox, and I make some dope stuff on the fly at work/in my car/at my girlfriends.

Although I am a loyal Elektron Digitakt/Octatrack/RYTM user...the 1010 Blackbox won me over. HARD.

Very nice piece of equipment, the sound fidelity is beautiful. This box does so much as simple as it seems. Playing back samples polyphonicly is gorgeous, especially stacking sounds when using the sequencer. If you're into experimental sounds and music, this box goes a long way. The granular mode is instant ambient heaven, and is a blast to play around with, you won't believe what results you end up with. File management is smartly implemented and the machine is beautifully built, it's a sleek, modern design that feels great to interact with. The included sounds are quality, and plenty to get started. All in all fantastic sampler that has greatly impressed me!

I've been working with this amazing machine for a quite now. I've just scratched the surface of this amazing instrument, it's very very useful. It's sequencer it's not that advanced but it's amazing for almost anything if you are patient.
The additional outputs are a very useful tool, you are going to find yourself using them a lot.
The sound it's great, the recording capabilities are fantastic and the screen feels awesome. Beautiful instrument. Oh, it's very very small by the way. It even fits on my hand.
Amazing service from Sweetwater as well!

There's something about it, that's my synopsis.

I've gone through most samplers.. The Elektron Octatrack (twice), Elektron Digitakt, Roland MC-707, Synthstrom Deluge (runner up), but the combination of interface, style, hardware and sound quality make this the most enjoyable sampler I've ever used. This sampler is based upon intention, whereas many others, especially those like Elektron that rely on trig conditions and essentially happy accidents, might feel opposite on the spectrum.

It can produce decent "full length" tracks but it is by no means a fully-fledged kit for production. I got this for straightforward sampling/sample playback of acoustic instruments such as guitar, piano, foley, etc... If that's what you want this is the one because it does it perfectly.

There is no "sample mangling", this is for excellent quality sampling with a lovely interface, which is exactly what I needed to accompany my other Elektron gear and hardware synths. With that being said it has plenty of features to keep you occupied, be it MIDI sequencing, filters, 2 FX, ASDR, song-mode, a step sequencer, multi-samples, sample polyphony, portability and using it with a battery pack for production on the go or in nature, lengthy sample playback.

It's simply so much fun, no other device has let me create the styles that I love so quickly and sound so good, from jazz to EDM, this seems to be suited for it all, except for glitchy sample mangling. But, if you sample some of that from elsewhere and load it in, I guess it could...

I'm gonna make this simple for you - you NEED this thing.

This one little box does SO much for fitting in the palm of one hand, yet somehow manages to be incredibly easy to use! It's like having all the essenial pieces of gear in one. It does to a music studio what smartphones did to desktop computers.

It is an audio recording, sequencing, multisamping DJ deck and playable MIDI sound module with 4 stereo outputs, 16 note polyphony, 16 tracks, a 16-track mixer, fliters and effects and it accepts 1 terabyte micro SD cards. Did I mention that it fits in the palm of your hand? INSANE, right?

It's truly all I need to make and perform music live and it puts other samplers, laptops and DJ systems to shame in so many ways.

It beats a laptop in being smaller, lighter, more reliable, more focused, more responsive, faster, has built in knobs, and runs longer on a battery.

It beats other samplers in being smaller, lighter, more responsive, capable of running many hours on a battery, being easier to use and capable of recording or streaming samples that are hours in length.

It beats DJ decks by being smaller, lighter, more responsive, able to record internally, and able to create music from scratch, not just perform it.

It's workflow is incredibly streamlined, which cuts out the fat from your work and allows you to actually focus getting stuff done. In the last 4 days, I have created more original music on this thing than I have in the last year on my computer. It's so fast and easy to use that hours can fly by without ever getting stuck or frustrated with it.

You can connect it to any synth via MIDI and audio and with a couple button presses automatically multisample a synth patch into a playable multisampled instrument. This allows you to essentially take all your synth patches with you in a device that fits in your pocket and plug any MIDI keyboard into it to play them.

Or record whole songs if you prefer.

For sound designers and owners of synths that don't have patch memories, this thing is a godsend. You can use it to build a highly portable and playable polyphonic instrument out of anything that makes noise.

You can record samples that are hours in length, making it a fantastic portable recorder.

You can stream samples of any length from the micro SD card, allowing you to DJ with this thing and mix the 16 tracks into 4 stereo outputs together in a nice 4-channel DJ mixer, making it like having 16 CDJs and a 16-channel mixer in one tiny device 1/16th the size of any CDJ which is just STUPID.

It will time stretch loops to tempo, sync them up and allow you trigger them in a grid like Ableton Live.

You can map and control its parameters to portable external MIDI controller.

Pair it with a CME XKey over USB for an incredibly portable songwriting and production system.

Pair it with a Korg NanoControl and have the tiniest 16-deck DJ system complete with mixer and multiple outputs pairs for cueing.

Or do both and play drum pads and keyboard live, while you're DJing at the same time! You will blow people's minds!

Pair it with a battery-powered shotgun mic and record acoustic material, foley sounds, or build multisampled virtual instruments from all your acoustic instruments.

Pair it to anything with a 1/8" audio output and make new pitched or rhythm instruments. I've sampled my cell phone, Nintendo Switch, laptop, you name it.

It's so small that you'll end up sampling and recording things you'd never sample or record with a larger box.

It still has some limitiations and I still LOVE my Elektron boxes for their depth, but this thing really does take the cake because it's as light and small as a cell phone and can be used with your thumbs like a portable video game console.

The best thing of all is how portable it is and how much run time you can get off of it with a cell phone battery. You easily can go all day with plenty of time to spare. You could use it the whole time on an international plane trip.

1 terabyte of samples gets your pretry far.

It sounds fantastic despite only having 1/8" audio jacks.

I am seriously considering getting a second one because this is the most perfect piece of gear ever concieved and I want to be sure I'm never without one.

I just can't say enough good things about this little box.

1010music Updates according to demand for a feature.
The multisampling feature wasn't very hot at first, then firmware 1.6.4 was released. And the gates of heaven were bestowed upon us synth and sequencer owners.
Small, very well laid out.
While I have had success with pads, keys, tools,PSET and multisampling functions. I have not yet had the chance to dive into FX, MIX, SONGS, Granular, or Slicer functions.
I look forward to experimenting more.

This was my third beatbox; tried the Electribe and found it limiting; tried the MC101 and found it fun to use but lacking some essential functionalities for me, so I was about to get an Akai and give up on the idea of a simple and small beatbox with sampling capabilities, until I found the blackbox.

The box is tiny; but it is a tank. Everything feel sturdy and even the touchscreen feel like you won't scratch or damage it easily. It is not a resistive touch screen, like the cheap ones you find on old computer or even modern synths, but it looks like a capacitive one, like the one found on iphones and Galaxy phones. The response is super fast and precise; and you don't get that weird feeling when tapping on it, that you are tapping a layer that tap on the actual screen, since this is capacitive.

Screen aside, it is the simplest device I have ever used. 4 knobs and 2 buttons allow you do to everything from sampling to changing parameters to chain patterns together to browse. Really big kudos to 1010music for creating an interface that does 1 thing and one thing only, and as such, it does it right.

Each section is handled by a different button; and all the parameters are in the section itself, so you don't have to dive in various menu for changing things around. You switch to a section, you push the selection button to go in the parameters and page through them, changing values as you go.

It also has a song mode, so you can create quite large patterns, and then chain them together in songs. This goes beyond chaining patterns, you can make pretty complex parts just using this box.
Then being portable, means you can use it anywhere. You need a pair of headphones and a 20 dollars power bank (the ones used for phones), and off you go. It is small enough to fit in a pocket, although the knobs may bother :) It is a full stand-alone device, that while does not cover you as much as a MPC for example, is still able to let you do most of what you need on the go.

Once done you can plug this device to your studio setup, to the point you can drive midi too, or you can plug a USB compliant device like a keyboard and play the samples in that way. Really a well thought design.

There is no onboard memory, so you need a SD card for your samples; but there are no other requirements; so it is not much of a problem. Get a nice fast card and you will have plenty to play with.

Overall this is a great device for me; small, portable and standalone, but if needed can fit in a studio setup. Super easy to use, solid and well thought. Looking forward for more products from this company (although the bulk of their production is eurorack, so I am not sure if the blackbox was a one off thing or if they are planning to expand on other areas).

It looked ridiculous to me. Then I saw a renowned YouTuber (LOOPOP) demonstrate how it works.

I never would have thought that sampling and quick, basic editing could be achieved in a unit this small. It is soooo simple to use. Build quality is phenomenal.

Mind blown POOF!

Have only had this a few days, but very easy to use. Not much in the way of menu diving and streams like a dream. This and Model:Samples makes a fun team.

Was looking at different sampler options and initially dismissed this product. Luckily, I revisited this and investigated the forums/reviews/videos. SOOOO glad I went with the BlackBox. Great support at 1010 Music’s forum. I am up and running off the bat with minimal manual referencing. Logical navigation & workflow...everything makes sense quickly once the motions are committed to memory (give it about one session to get the flow).
The people behind the BlackBox have proactively implemented pertinent suggestions offered by their registered users and they have immensely improved upon a killer product.
So thankful I choose this over all the competition...it is a welcome addition to the mothership.

Italo Forever

This is the easiest to use sampler with the best workflow currently available (under $1000 anyway). Record and play stereo samples of indefinite length stored on an SD card that can be as large as you want (256gb tested)

Samples are freely organized in any folder structure you want. They can be WAVs of any bitrate and sample rate and you don't need a special program to load them. Browsing them on the device is easy because of the large touch screen.

Using the touch screen is surprisingly easy and very responsive for playing pads or keys, but you could also use a controller via TRS MIDI or USB because it has a USB host port. It has its own sequencer that is quite flexible for a step sequencer. Samples can be time stretched and beat synced, played polyphonically, or even played as granular synths.

The device is so smartly designed, you can even hold it on your hands like a gameboy and use your thumbs to touch the screen and move the knobs.

It's consistently receiving updates with new functionality and improvements. The company listens and responds to posts on their forum.

This unit is amazing for it's size and portability. Like with all the groove boxes the manuals have to be read a bunch of time's to get the workflow. Once you get it, things happen quick.
You can run this with a phone battery. Much easier to use than an Akai or Elektron.

I am a traveling doctor and need to make all my stuff portable. This 1010 product is flexible, fairly straight forward to use and sounds great

My new fave for recording loops and noodles

Super, super fun to play! Hardware samplers have been missing the mark for years, this one checks off more boxes than most. It"s easy to use, has massive storage, portable, responsive touchscreen, well built. The software is surprisingly intuitive, hitting a sweet spot of immediate playability and features. Love it!

Whoever these guys are at 1010 Music? They have made a great first impression on me! This Blackbox is amazing! It has so many surprises in a small package! Hence, the title of this review. Once you open it, like Pandoras Box there is no turning back! Sequencing, Sampling, Recording, Mixing, and Editing. Its all at your fingertips! This thing is a music powerhouse. You can record almost anything with it. From live instruments to anything with an audio output ( CD Players, Synths, Turntables, TV's, iPads, etc.) You get the point! It has a lot of cool sounds included like drum kits, basses, one shots, and a lot more. I'm loving the possibilities. You can take the Blackbox anywhere the musical inspiration may hit you. At home, The Studio, or even on the bus. Create and capture music ideas and save them for later whenever you want. It even has FX. Bottom line. The BLACKBOX IS A BEAST! I'm loving it! A virtual studio in the palm of your hands! Thanks Joel Helton and my folks at Sweetwater! Get one if you don't have one. This is so dope!

It does exactly what I expected it to do, just as with all my other gear, I won't buy it wishing it did this or that. It's a multitrack sequencer sampler that can make a mean loop machine and I can sync all my custom break beats together for a bit of this and that, the touch screen is a plus along with being able to slice up samples and zooming, I have touched renoise in a while now that I have this beast. I use it alongside a squarp pyramid, so I can make some interesting polyrythm or meters and resample and then resample some more. Really great groove box.

Two factors played into my disappointment with this machine. First, the small size of the unit is great...until you try to edit a sequence. Difficult at best due to its very small size. I have normal size hands and had to expand the screen view to make any step edits whatsoever (without expanding the screen, the touch screen interface was just impossible to select a given note for removal, or accurately move or add one). If I expanded it to get a better view, the whole screen orientation and note I was after would be lost. VERY frustrating. Second, I had all kinds of odd dropouts and behaviors with samples due to settings that were not at all obvious or well-covered in the user manual. I spent the first week with the machine on their user forums day and night, where it seemed like their experts were either overworked or not enthused about sharing their insight. I liked enough about this machine to see how and why it would gain its very devoted cult following, but for me, the sequencer UX was unusable. Thanks to Sweetwater for being gracious about the return.

On paper, the features and workflow are nice, and the compact form factor makes up for the fact that you'll always need a bunch of adapters with you to use this thing. The physical build quality is excellent and the touch screen is great. However, in reality, the MIDI functionality is not really there and what is there is not very intuitive. On top of that, the 1010 music staff I interacted with were dismissive and unresponsive after I went out of my way to thoroughly document a couple issues I was experiencing in detail. Then eventually they became downright condescending. They may be excellent Eurorack engineers but the 40+ year-old standard of MIDI is beyond them, and their attitude towards their customers is a bit insulting.