😂 I'm engaged and you're a dreamboat, I'm sure. Keep up the good work my friend. Love your videos and glad you decided to be vulnerable and show your face. 👏🏻
Would love to see a live guitar riff chopped up on the DT and sequenced in a new unique pattern, sort of taking advantage of the DT's capabilities with the different machines. Then a lead guitar part on top of that would be way cool. Thanks for sharing your setup and workflow, its very inspiring!
I can't believe how much I'm fighting the GAS for the blackbox. Right now trying to see if I can accomplish similar with loopy pro on the iPad instead. Excellent video as always TJ, looking forward to more
I'm so glad I found this channel. I was always groove box/DAW-less curious, but never really pulled the trigger. For a few reasons. I used simple one button loopers in the past, but I never got into multitrack guitar loopers like RC300/600 etc. Instead, I quickly transitioned to Ableton/Bitwig live performance workflow, and as a result I don't think I can live without the ability to mix my recorded guitar parts on the fly (which most of the "regular guitar loopers" even the advanced ones, can't really do). I'm also a minimalist so, whenever I see a modular synth or multiple synths and groove boxes chained together, I immediately lose interest. Your channel hits my sensibilities perfectly because: You're primarily a guitar player (so am I), and DAWless folks often don't feature guitar in their workflow, so it's very hard to evaluate which groovebox suits the "live guitar performance" use case best. You keep your setups relatively minimalist. So, when it comes to ideas, the most logical niche you can try to hammer is "can you guitar loop with X + X". That's why I found your channel (the Circuit video), and given that a large percentage of DAWless jam enthusiasts focus on keys and electronic music, your heavy use of guitar is unique. P.S. Even though I spend 99.9% of my guitar time behind a computer these days, and Bitwig is so much more powerful than the BlackBox, after your videos I'm seriously considering getting it anyway...
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the channel!! As a fellow guitarist/groovebox enthusiast I’m so thrilled it’s helpful 🙌🙌 Haha I hear you.. I gave into the desire for the Blackbox pretty quickly 😅
You should totally get one. I'm a guitarist first also that got into the dawless world. The Blackbox has evolved firmware since I got it, so now is better at this than it first was. Definitely more fun that the standard looper pedals and less complicated than something like Loopy Pro on an iPad. I look at a screen all day, so love my boxes to play by ear and enjoy music. Having a secondary box (like the DT here or I have some Roland grooveboxes) is nice so that the drums don't take any pads away from looping. You get 16 pads for that on the Blackbox. There are creative ways to create slice samples to have a full kit over 1-3 pads, but it's easier to have a separate device.
😂 dude - I literally spit out my coffee when you said "sorry" - that's exactly why I don't want to show my face - I would feel sorry 😂 but come on man - you're absolutely ok in the "face"-area 😂 EDIT: your guitar playing is so clean and on point - so.. yeah... - for me personally the better choice as to have a nice face....right? guys? girls? anyone? 😂
This is great, thanks for these much needed looping+groove box insights for guitarists! As I use Ableton Live, recently got a Move and hoping to work out a way to use in this kind of way… if you ever got one would be a really appreciated and much needed video! The sampling method into the Move for guitar seems cumbersome and wondering if the black box might be a short term solution until some updates. Still hopefully it could be a future goer. Minus the audio track function (or lack of) the rest of its workflow is allot of fun!
banging video once again dude. haha and its silly but true, put your face in the video adds a level of "trust' from viewers. love seeing these set up videos and how you utilise a few pieces of gear very well. keep em coming, keeeeep them coming
A cool extension to this video might be a live performance breakdown of an arrangement with multiple parts (verse, chorus etc.), perhaps utilizing the song mode of the BlackBox (assuming that it can be conveniently used in a context of live performance which I'm not sure about, and that's why I'm even suggesting the video idea :) ).
Hmm, interesting idea, I don't think the song mode can be used with live looping on the BB, since the song mode arranges populated pads, and with live looping the pads are empty until you record into them. That said, it isn't something I've tried to do, so maybe there is a method that would work, like pre-populating all the pads with recordings of silence, then overwriting them with the live looping workflow.
Hi! i'm gonna engage then! you inspired me to do this kind of Solo impro thing. I have a EP133, a loop pedal and a guitar amp simulator (soon the HX stomp thanks to you, sorry I can't use affiliate link because i'm not in the US...) and i do exactly the same kind of stuff you're doing. I added a Roland S1 synth to the setup controlled by the EP133, it's a lot of fun! i just have to set the key and the scale on the EP 133 and then Synth it is! it's really cool, With the EP-133 pounch in Effect on the drums, my guitar, and the synth, there is a lot i can do. I actually did my first solo show in Paris last week that's thanks to you! Try to add a synth, i'm pretty sure you can set key and scale on the digitakt too. And remember, when in doubt, use the arpeggiator
Thanks so much!!! Ahhh I always neglect the arpeggiator 😅 But that’s so cool about your show!! Congrats!! The EP-133 plus a loop pedal is an EXCELLENT combo!
Great stuff as usual. I've thought of starting a channel to record my own meanderings, though all I have is an iPhone camera at the moment. I just got the Zoom L-6 mixer, so curious how well it could record the audio. It's funny, but there's a void of content out there of people just showing their creative workflow outside of a few styles and people are hungry for it. Plenty of polished jams shown, but people like to know how to make the sausage. :)
I hear that!! I love watching ppl create from start to finish (or at least start to 4 bar loop 😅) I actually use iPhone as my top-down camera and as long as you give it plenty of light to work with it does really well!
Hey, love your videos! May I ask what framerate you used to record and export your video? Seems like you've got the flicker issue with the Blackbox buttons sorted. As for suggestions, since I also like to use the BB and elektron together (syntakt in my case), I've found the Retrokits RK-TRS-X adapter and a short TRS cable makes the cabling much neater and nicer, more portable too. I also really like using a midi controller to control the looping on the BB, which could be drum pads, or could even be a MIDI track on the DT2. You seem to do just fine with the BB interface, so certainly not necessary, but I find it really enjoyable. You could even use a foot controller!
Thanks so much, right back at you!! I record at 30fps and I still get a little flicker but I use a program called Flicker Free inside of Premiere that *mostly* works if it gets really bad. It’s weird though, sometimes it just doesn’t flicker! Oooh I’m ordering that Retrokits cable right now 😅
I always find it funny when people who demonstrate anything with an Elektron box, they have to smash the stop button or any other button multiple multiple times, ha.
You can play pads on the Blackbox by sending it MIDI notes. I don't have a Digitakt, so not sure if parts on the song mode there can send note values or not. If it could, then it should be able to. However, there is also another way to do it. The Blackbox has a song mode as well, so you can manually set up the song mode on that to match the length of parts on the DT to sync them that way, so long as the DT is sending clock over. I've done that with my Roland Verselab and it worked well.
emulating your setup. bought everything used on reverb otherwise would have used your links. could you help me out with which cables i need to purchase to get everything plugged up and running? much appreciated
Wow that’s awesome!! Thanks so much for watching :) They come with most cables you need! Use the included MIDI adaptor with the Blackbox and then go MIDI into Digitakt, other than that a 1/8 TRS to dual mono 1/4” TS and you’re ready!
@tjguardino my comment was kinda irrelevant to ur vid wasnt it... its just i had ot but was annoyed with workflow and fx sound. dt2 fixes that but lacks so little to be do it all. elektron purposefuly cuts out features so they arent getting anymore of my money heh. i will just get two blackboxes
@@itsemurha0 haha all good it was a fair question :) I've considered swapping out these two for Octatrack myself but I think the BB fills a lot of gaps the Digi has
😂 I'm engaged and you're a dreamboat, I'm sure. Keep up the good work my friend. Love your videos and glad you decided to be vulnerable and show your face. 👏🏻
Ahhh Steph you're too kind 🙌 Hope you’re well man!! 😄
@@tjguardino all is well ... I'll be in your area ... just passing by in my new school bus next week!
Would love to see a live guitar riff chopped up on the DT and sequenced in a new unique pattern, sort of taking advantage of the DT's capabilities with the different machines. Then a lead guitar part on top of that would be way cool. Thanks for sharing your setup and workflow, its very inspiring!
That’s a very creative thing to do 👍
For sure!! I want to get more into chopping, and my own guitar noodling would be a fun place to start!
I can't believe how much I'm fighting the GAS for the blackbox. Right now trying to see if I can accomplish similar with loopy pro on the iPad instead. Excellent video as always TJ, looking forward to more
I want it too, but Ableton keeps knocking sense into me
Hahaha I hear that 😅😅😅 But I will say… I’ve been hearing GREAT things about loopy pro I might have to get it myself!!
I'm so glad I found this channel. I was always groove box/DAW-less curious, but never really pulled the trigger. For a few reasons. I used simple one button loopers in the past, but I never got into multitrack guitar loopers like RC300/600 etc. Instead, I quickly transitioned to Ableton/Bitwig live performance workflow, and as a result I don't think I can live without the ability to mix my recorded guitar parts on the fly (which most of the "regular guitar loopers" even the advanced ones, can't really do).
I'm also a minimalist so, whenever I see a modular synth or multiple synths and groove boxes chained together, I immediately lose interest.
Your channel hits my sensibilities perfectly because:
You're primarily a guitar player (so am I), and DAWless folks often don't feature guitar in their workflow, so it's very hard to evaluate which groovebox suits the "live guitar performance" use case best.
You keep your setups relatively minimalist.
So, when it comes to ideas, the most logical niche you can try to hammer is "can you guitar loop with X + X". That's why I found your channel (the Circuit video), and given that a large percentage of DAWless jam enthusiasts focus on keys and electronic music, your heavy use of guitar is unique.
P.S. Even though I spend 99.9% of my guitar time behind a computer these days, and Bitwig is so much more powerful than the BlackBox, after your videos I'm seriously considering getting it anyway...
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the channel!! As a fellow guitarist/groovebox enthusiast I’m so thrilled it’s helpful 🙌🙌 Haha I hear you.. I gave into the desire for the Blackbox pretty quickly 😅
You should totally get one. I'm a guitarist first also that got into the dawless world. The Blackbox has evolved firmware since I got it, so now is better at this than it first was. Definitely more fun that the standard looper pedals and less complicated than something like Loopy Pro on an iPad. I look at a screen all day, so love my boxes to play by ear and enjoy music. Having a secondary box (like the DT here or I have some Roland grooveboxes) is nice so that the drums don't take any pads away from looping. You get 16 pads for that on the Blackbox. There are creative ways to create slice samples to have a full kit over 1-3 pads, but it's easier to have a separate device.
😂 dude - I literally spit out my coffee when you said "sorry" - that's exactly why I don't want to show my face - I would feel sorry 😂 but come on man - you're absolutely ok in the "face"-area 😂
EDIT: your guitar playing is so clean and on point - so.. yeah... - for me personally the better choice as to have a nice face....right? guys? girls? anyone? 😂
Hahaha I’m counting on guitar playing to carry me over my face card 😂😂 thanks so much for watching, much appreciated!!
You're a stud. Your channel will skyrocket now. Awesome video buddy! The digitakt is very tempting. I own a blackbox and love it
Ahh you’re too kind thanks so much for watching 🙌🙌
You have no need to worry about the ”face” when you have one of the coolest voices on youtube
Ahhhh you’re too kind!! Thanks so much for watching, much appreciated my friend 🙌
This is great, thanks for these much needed looping+groove box insights for guitarists! As I use Ableton Live, recently got a Move and hoping to work out a way to use in this kind of way… if you ever got one would be a really appreciated and much needed video! The sampling method into the Move for guitar seems cumbersome and wondering if the black box might be a short term solution until some updates. Still hopefully it could be a future goer. Minus the audio track function (or lack of) the rest of its workflow is allot of fun!
Ooooh I’ve been meaning to try Move!! But for sure, I bet paired with the Blackbox it would be a pretty stellar combo 👀
banging video once again dude. haha and its silly but true, put your face in the video adds a level of "trust' from viewers.
love seeing these set up videos and how you utilise a few pieces of gear very well. keep em coming, keeeeep them coming
You’re the man thanks so much for watching as always 🙌
the black box is grey
This is true
Cool 🎉
🙌⚡️ thank you!!
Very nice tune... maybe you can create a second part to it. Like a chorus?
For sure!! I’ll be coming back to this one definitely :)
A cool extension to this video might be a live performance breakdown of an arrangement with multiple parts (verse, chorus etc.), perhaps utilizing the song mode of the BlackBox (assuming that it can be conveniently used in a context of live performance which I'm not sure about, and that's why I'm even suggesting the video idea :) ).
Hmm, interesting idea, I don't think the song mode can be used with live looping on the BB, since the song mode arranges populated pads, and with live looping the pads are empty until you record into them. That said, it isn't something I've tried to do, so maybe there is a method that would work, like pre-populating all the pads with recordings of silence, then overwriting them with the live looping workflow.
Sounds like a pretty good video idea to me!!!
Hi! i'm gonna engage then! you inspired me to do this kind of Solo impro thing. I have a EP133, a loop pedal and a guitar amp simulator (soon the HX stomp thanks to you, sorry I can't use affiliate link because i'm not in the US...) and i do exactly the same kind of stuff you're doing. I added a Roland S1 synth to the setup controlled by the EP133, it's a lot of fun! i just have to set the key and the scale on the EP 133 and then Synth it is! it's really cool, With the EP-133 pounch in Effect on the drums, my guitar, and the synth, there is a lot i can do. I actually did my first solo show in Paris last week that's thanks to you! Try to add a synth, i'm pretty sure you can set key and scale on the digitakt too. And remember, when in doubt, use the arpeggiator
Thanks so much!!! Ahhh I always neglect the arpeggiator 😅 But that’s so cool about your show!! Congrats!! The EP-133 plus a loop pedal is an EXCELLENT combo!
Great stuff as usual. I've thought of starting a channel to record my own meanderings, though all I have is an iPhone camera at the moment. I just got the Zoom L-6 mixer, so curious how well it could record the audio. It's funny, but there's a void of content out there of people just showing their creative workflow outside of a few styles and people are hungry for it. Plenty of polished jams shown, but people like to know how to make the sausage. :)
I hear that!! I love watching ppl create from start to finish (or at least start to 4 bar loop 😅) I actually use iPhone as my top-down camera and as long as you give it plenty of light to work with it does really well!
never knew you could do that thing where you press key 9-16 to define the rate of the retrig!
It’s suuuuuch a clutch feature 🙌
Hey, love your videos! May I ask what framerate you used to record and export your video? Seems like you've got the flicker issue with the Blackbox buttons sorted.
As for suggestions, since I also like to use the BB and elektron together (syntakt in my case), I've found the Retrokits RK-TRS-X adapter and a short TRS cable makes the cabling much neater and nicer, more portable too. I also really like using a midi controller to control the looping on the BB, which could be drum pads, or could even be a MIDI track on the DT2. You seem to do just fine with the BB interface, so certainly not necessary, but I find it really enjoyable. You could even use a foot controller!
Thanks so much, right back at you!! I record at 30fps and I still get a little flicker but I use a program called Flicker Free inside of Premiere that *mostly* works if it gets really bad. It’s weird though, sometimes it just doesn’t flicker! Oooh I’m ordering that Retrokits cable right now 😅
@@tjguardino Thanks!
I always find it funny when people who demonstrate anything with an Elektron box, they have to smash the stop button or any other button multiple multiple times, ha.
Lolol you have to hit stop at LEAST 5 times that’s the rule 😂😂😂
do u have a way to use song mode w the digitakt to change which pad on the blackbox is playing when the pattern changes?
Ooooh I don’t know actually but that would be awesome!! I should try that out!
You can play pads on the Blackbox by sending it MIDI notes. I don't have a Digitakt, so not sure if parts on the song mode there can send note values or not. If it could, then it should be able to. However, there is also another way to do it. The Blackbox has a song mode as well, so you can manually set up the song mode on that to match the length of parts on the DT to sync them that way, so long as the DT is sending clock over. I've done that with my Roland Verselab and it worked well.
just annoys me that the digitak 2 has no live looping function. how they didnt add that into the latest digitakt is beyond me :(
I wish it could sooooo bad maybe in a firmware update 🤔
emulating your setup. bought everything used on reverb otherwise would have used your links.
could you help me out with which cables i need to purchase to get everything plugged up and running? much appreciated
Wow that’s awesome!! Thanks so much for watching :) They come with most cables you need! Use the included MIDI adaptor with the Blackbox and then go MIDI into Digitakt, other than that a 1/8 TRS to dual mono 1/4” TS and you’re ready!
lack of looping capabilities on digitakt sucks so much. sure i could pair it with an octatrack but i am not jeff bezos
Lolll maybe try this combo it’s about $1000 bucks cheaper than pairing with octatrack 😅
@tjguardino my comment was kinda irrelevant to ur vid wasnt it... its just i had ot but was annoyed with workflow and fx sound. dt2 fixes that but lacks so little to be do it all. elektron purposefuly cuts out features so they arent getting anymore of my money heh. i will just get two blackboxes
@@itsemurha0 haha all good it was a fair question :) I've considered swapping out these two for Octatrack myself but I think the BB fills a lot of gaps the Digi has