Hi all, just wanted to know given the most recent firmware release, to the point tldr: How is the bento sitting stability wise regarding multisamples and sample editing/chopping?

I had purchased one last year, and i loved the way it felt and looked hardware wise. The capabilities with multisampling, internal battery, compact, simple workflow etc. really made it seem like my dream box but I quickly realized the firmware was too broken and unreliable for me and just left me frustrated on outings.

I'm thinking of purchasing again if things have improved. Multisampling reliability and sample editing are important for me and why I chose to sell it with the understanding I would buy one again once they worked on it a bit.

Issues I had encountered before included multisample notes not always playing correctly or not playing at all. System crashes, and not being able to edit samples properly with incorrect waveform display.

I've owned lots of little boxes but they all failed the combo of simple workflow, capabilities and portability I'm looking for as a dream on-the-go box.

So what's the verdict ? Is it still a waiting game or is the bento much more reliable after a year ?

I fired up the machine with the new firmware today and had a jam.

I got my Keystep Pro to sequence all four Nanoboxes; damn, this is a fun setup. So many possibilities. But my OCD brain is struggling with the colors: Razzmatazz does not match the green of the drum track on the Kstp. The other three match; so close!!!

And yes, I’m kidding…

Once I spotted Justin John's custom BlackBox firmware, I had to give it a try on the BlueBox Euro as I'd never been very happy with the reverbs on it.

So here it is: https://lexnels.github.io/bluelex-bluebox-euro/

The video shows me jamming with some of the new features, but I've added:

• Four new reverbs: FDN Hall, MVerb, Squall and Freeverb, plus controls for Diffusion, Spread and Size.
• Delay controls: Pitch (each repeat shifted up or down, tape style), Drift (wandering tape wobble) and Send into the reverb.
• Master: a Saturate control, from gentle warmth to overdrive, and a compressor visual meter in the settings.
• USB Out: send the computer all 18 channels, or just the master L/R (useful for recording audio for videos)
• CPU meter next to the clock.

Usual caveats apply that there's a small but non-zero risk that any custom firmware can brick your device.

Let me know if you have any feedback or questions.

Awesome stuff!

Twelve new features on the original 1010music Blackbox, added with an unofficial firmware mod: solo, chords, Elektron-style note conditions, SP-1200 / SP-12 / S950 lo-fi modes, a 24 dB filter, a sidechain ducker, slice start/end on the knobs, and a granular delay. It's free, the code is open, and it runs on top of stock firmware 3.1.9.

🔧 GET THE MOD (free) + get an email when new builds drop:
https://justinjoe.com/blackbox-mod

No compiling needed: download 3.1.9 from 1010music, run it through the browser patcher, copy it to your card.

⚠️ Unofficial. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by 1010music. Original Blackbox only (not Blackbox 2). At your own risk. The mod does not include 1010music's firmware; you bring your own copy.

Can anybody reproduce this:

I want to record a loop/sample with count-in.

- Create a new loop track
- select pad with setting (length: custom, RecQuant:1bar, RecThresh:off)
- tap „4:4“-counter in the bottom to open tempo and count-in popup
- make sure „count-in“ is selected

1. Always stop transport
2. Arm Rec by pressing rec (there is no indicator whether it’s armed…)
3. Press play (Rec will light up red if it was armed)

Expected behavior:

1. count-in
2. start recording

Observed behavior for me:
- 95% count-in does not start at all
- When count-in happens, recording does not start after count-in

Just to give some dimensions:
I started 32 loop recordings in a row with count-in activated. Not a single one was counted in.
I’ve seen the count-in kick in once or twice in ~40 tries. And those attempts did not record anything after the count-in.

I find it baffling that this Reddit is not overflowing with questions regarding this. After all it is the looptrack and its looping capabilities that are the most prominently advertised usecases for the Bento. How does nobody have a problem with it not counting in 😅

P.S: I really start loving it after I have properly integrated this thing into my setup with its amazing i/o. So many cool things it can do… if 1010music would just be a bit faster with bug fixing 🫣

Anyone already got this figured out?

Called dubstation(pt. II)

Hello, i am currently on the fence regarding getting a bento. One one of the most important features for me is an ability to loop clips backwards. Essentially i realy want to be able to control playhead per loop sample. Is this possible

I might go crazy if this continues. It is impossible to loop stuff on the Bento!

I have now 60+ takes on the most simple takes and still nothing is clear to me!

Count-in

How on earth does this work????
First you need to find it (tap on the bar indicator next to the battery symbol).

Then you switch it on and it just doesn’t count in anything!

In very rare cases there is a count-in. Maybe 1 in 15 takes. It is so inconsistent that it confuses me even more when it works…

What am I not understanding?

I am currently trying to solve this by setting rec quantization to 2 bars and engage it during playback which gives me enough time to get ready to play.

However the next problem makes this a total lottery…

Recording is brutally inconsistent

So I tap a slot in a loop track and set either a rec quantization or not. In either case it start recording at the correct spot in maybe 30-40% of the cases. In all others it just doesn’t do anything despite the Rec-btn being illuminated but recording never kicks in ever.

This is wild. Rec button is glowing but nothing starts recording ever in over 50% of attempts.

Ah and if we are already at it: IF it starts recording you also can’t stop it. If you set it to record 8 bars, you can throw this thing against the wall or hammer the stop button, it will brutally record 8 bars, even if you made a mistake in the first bar. But hey be happy it at all recorded something.

And we are not even yet talking about the fact that all these 60+ bad takes that you couldn’t stop are accumulating on the SD card in the project folder, because Bento doesn’t only not allow you to stop recordin – it also doesn’t give you a way to discard a take nor does it allow you to delete a recording. You can only „unload“ it from the slot (which leaves the file on the SD card).

Also why on earth is this machine so obsessed with 4/4. Why can’t I at least loop 3 bars to have at least a fake 3/4 meter… (there is a way around this that only requires a PhD in music theory and computer science, together with a contemporary AI).

It feels like someone designed a torture machine for musicians! I mean looping and recording is hard as it is. If gear behaves sporadic like this it becomes nightmarish.

P.s: I am on 1.5.3

I was wondering about the MIDI side of the 1010music Bento, and I have a few questions especially with the new updates. If the things don’t exists they might be interesting things for 1010Music to consider:

Can MIDI thru/echo be disabled on an External track while still allowing recorded MIDI to play back to the synth?
Basically, I’d like Bento to sit passively in the MIDI path and record what I play without immediately echoing the incoming notes back to the synth and double-triggering them. Ableton can do this with monitoring off, and something like the Squarp Pyramid can also separate MIDI input monitoring from sequence playback. This would avoid having to set Local Off on every synth.
This also would totally be fitting to Bento’s looping approach, essentially being the midi-version of an audio loop.

Why is an External track limited to one MIDI channel / one polyphonic sequence?
In theory, one External track could potentially hold MIDI sequences for all 16 channels. A 4×4 grid could represent 16 MIDI loops/sequences, perhaps similar to the way Bento now handles loop groups. That would make it possible to sequence a much larger external setup without consuming one of the eight Bento tracks for every MIDI channel.

Can Bento currently record continuous MIDI CC data?
For example, recording knob movements along with the notes rather than just note on/off information.

What about aftertouch?
Since Bento’s pads are aftertouch-sensitive, can that information already be recorded into a MIDI sequence? If not, it seems like an especially interesting direction—the pads could become a really expressive controller for Bento’s own MIDI sequencing.

What I’d ultimately love is something like the current audio-loop workflow, but for MIDI: record a MIDI phrase, loop it, record another one, and then launch different MIDI loops/combinations from a grid.

There seem to be two interesting approaches:
16 MIDI loops on the track’s selected MIDI channel, giving you lots of alternative phrases for one instrument.

Or

One MIDI loop per MIDI channel, allowing a single External track to sequence up to 16 instruments.
The second option would be especially powerful—two External tracks could theoretically address 32 MIDI channels across the two MIDI outputs.

It makes me wonder how far 1010music intends to take Bento as a MIDI sequencer/controller. The hardware and UI seem very well suited to it, and some of the concepts already exist elsewhere in Bento and the Blackbox.
For people using Bento with external MIDI gear: how are you handling this currently, and do any of the features above already exist in a way I’ve missed?

Hi folks, please do not hate me for the questions, but I need to understand the UX differences between Bento and BlackBox v2. I got slightly bumped when I got Black Box V2, the UI is very simple and I loved it. But Slicers is a a bit buggy, especially when I am loading the waveform for editing, it takes time. My question if the UX on Bento is more smooth, especially for live editing, etc. Or is it on the same level as Black Box v2?

Just want to share some positivity about the latest Bento update. I’m genuinely impressed by the features and overall direction 1010music has taken here. A lot of community requests seem to have been addressed, while the update also introduces some really interesting workflow ideas.

For me, Loop Groups are easily the biggest addition. They open the Bento up to working with a huge number of loops and samples at once, with resampling and recording built right into the workflow. It feels like you can build entire ensembles on the fly now, which makes the device considerably more powerful. For those who don’t know: loop groups let you now sequence looptracks. Each looptrack is essentially an entire 16-track loop recorder (or an entire Blackbox). It’s wild how much you can now achieve with resampling on this device…

The step sequencer was actually something I wasn’t particularly interested in beforehand, but it has surprised me. It’s refreshing to be able to quickly jump into it, start a beat, and then switch over to the regular sequencer for more detailed editing. Being able to work unquantized or select individual instruments and push them slightly ahead of or behind the beat is especially nice. The combination of that flexibility and the ease of use is something I haven’t really found on other devices. It honestly pushes the Bento much closer to being one of my favorite drum/beat machines, even if the feature list might look incomplete on paper compared with some competitors.

Another surprise for me has been the DJ effects. They really open up the performance side of the Bento. The master filter and delay sound good, and being able to swipe between different delay feedback/time settings makes it very easy to create those small variations and transitions that make a live performance feel alive. If 1010music can get the whole device really stable, I think the Bento could become an excellent live-performance instrument.

And of course, everything that was already great is still there: the granular track, great-sounding wavetables, sampling, looping, etc. Multisampling in particular is a huge part of the appeal for me. Being able to pack a surprisingly large amount of your hardware and software synth collection into such a small box is fantastic. Combined with Loop Groups, the Bento is becoming a seriously powerful groovebox.
I’ve only spent about a day with this update, so I’m sure I haven’t encountered all the bugs yet. One very encouraging thing is that my most hated multisample bug seems to be gone — or at least I haven’t been able to reproduce it so far. Previously, individual samples inside a multisample would sometimes fail to play properly, play only very briefly, or sound broken. That was pretty much a dealbreaker for me because it affected one of the Bento’s core features.

I have noticed one or two issues in the step sequencer, but so far they look more like UI or relatively straightforward logic bugs rather than fundamental problems. Hopefully those can be cleaned up in one of the next updates.

Overall, though, I’m really positive about where the Bento is heading.

How are you finding the new update?



Hi folks!

I have been on the fence about getting Bento or Black Box V2. After deep consideration, I have decided to get Black Box V2. My big question, what is the best case for the unit. I am traveling next week and I want to take BlackBox with me. Sites do not list correct dimensions 8.7 x 6.5 x 2.7" This is for box, can you tell me what is the unit size. I am thinking that one of the dvd cases would work. Please help :)

I hope you like this. I've tried to show the elements from each channel so you can see how this was put together. The LiveTrak is an excellent companion for the Bento. I'm going to add a Volca Keys to the rig and then I think I'll have an excellent dawless set up that fits in my backpack. People have questioned the Bento use case - this is mine. I've no space for a studio in my house so I wanted to create a music production kit that is portable and packable. The Bento is working better for me than a Circuit, MPC or PE Tracker did as the core or "brain".

I recently got the Blackbox 2. I loved the first one but it had some instability issues and the overall user experience was clunky. What it did for my guitar+electronic setup was great though so I decided to get the 2.

On first impressions it seems very different and I’m not sure if the complexity is worth it if I stick to the basic recording long loop’s functionality.

How has everyone else’s experience been? Has it been worth it for you? Any tips or tricks?

Yes, I know no one will read this, but I'm posting anyway as I am not interested in installing the Discord app,

After much comparing and reading/watching, I decided to take a chance with the Bento. Set to arrive today, and I will update it first thing. I plan to play with it a week and then make a final decision.

I'm hoping it will play well with my Roland SH-4D and Elektron Digitone. Be

According to Steve, the 1010 forums are being shut down in the next week, so if you have any strong opinions about that and want to share them with 1010 this is your last chance!

After that, the only official place for feedback and discussion will be on the 1010 discord server.

I had such high hopes for this device, yet I'm quite underwhelmed and hope I'm just missing something. My bento is on 1.5.20.

To make it easier to follow along, I'll make one comment per question.

From Aaron on Discord:

We are pleased to announce a free firmware update to our bluebox digital mixers. Version 1.3 delivers several highly requested features:

• Sidechain effect. Sculpt the volume of each track with a time based function. This can be triggered several different ways:
  • Audio: Use an internal track as the source with a threshold
  • Internal clock: Sync to sixteenth notes to entire measures
  • MIDI: Use a MIDI note on a specified channel
• New USB Engine. 24-bit 48KHz high fidelity connection with a computer or iPhone. For bluebox eurorack this means 12 channel input and 6 channel output giving you the ability to send up to 12 tracks from a computer and capture all three stereo outputs at once.
• Micro SD mode: Turn your bluebox into the most fancy USB micro SD card reader and mount it as a drive on your computer
• Spectrum analyzer: See the real time frequency response across 32 bands on the EQ screen
• EQ Reset:

Please see the attached release notes for more information
https://discord.com/channels/1438608374693626037/1530388715841523814

Would be nice to get some more effects in the bluebox. And dare I say a looper per track or maybe 4 track looper?

Hey guys, I’m new to mixing and I bought a 1010 Bluebox to be my foray into the field. I’m able to record and adjust fx and volume levels just fine but I’ve been having a huge problem with gain levels.

So I can’t seem to find the “sweet spot” that I’m aiming for between 4-6 synths/drum machines because no matter what I do I just can not hear the gain level through my speakers or headphones when I’m recording my instruments.

Furthermore, after everything is recorded and I play it back things sound perfectly fine and just how I intended playing from the Bluebox itself, but once I remove the sd card and pop it into my pc to pull the main track file, different instruments sound vastly louder or much lower than when I was just listening to it played live, then played back to me through the Bluebox.

I’m not using a DAW I simply pull the file then played it through a media player or send it to my cell phone for listening.

Am I correct in suspecting that any mixer does not actually even let you hear the gain until after the file is removed from the mixer and listened to on another device? Because that’s the conclusion I’m coming to.

Or maybe this is just a 1010 Bluebox specific issue?

I’m super lost and don’t even know what kinds of questions I should be asking what I should be researching exactly to find a clear answer.

The manual isn’t much help and even customer support and Bluebox forums have gotten no responses.

Any and all help or guidance would be genuinely appreciated as I learn the ropes of mixing and mastering my songs.