Thank you @FreeBeat for this thorough and honest review, but also for the encouragement and sanity-checking the final product. As a solo dev, no matter how passionate you are, the human interaction factor is real, and doubt can set in for no reason at all. Having someone knowledgeable in the space telling you that you are on the right track, can make all the difference. Thank you!

@Sarahbuildsstepsequencers

10 ай бұрын

*WOOVEBOX,* is your device easier than a Pocket Operator to learn or more difficult? I am an absolute newbie and frankly, I couldn’t figure out the PO-33.

@woovebox

10 ай бұрын

@@Sarahbuildsstepsequencers The PO-33 (but also OP-Z) were one of the inspirations for the Woovebox. As @FreeBeat highlights in this video, the PO-33 is a fantastic device to get your feet wet with sampling and basic song/pattern construction. If you still own your PO-33, I would personally recommend giving the PO-33 another go before diving into the Woovebox. There is so much you can get out of the PO33 - it's a phenomenal little device. The Woovebox is a little bit like all of the PO's (except perhaps the Speak) rolled into one (and then some).

@inthefade

10 ай бұрын

@@Sarahbuildsstepsequencers As a general rule, the more complex something is, the more difficult it is to learn, especially as the interface gets more minimal. I've never bought a synth or drum machine that didn't pay off after I committed to fully learning the way it works. It's important to remember that every synth or drum machine is an entirely new instrument; You wouldn't expect to play a violin or guitar competently after only a week or two, so you have to commit and keep trying to learn, just like any other instrument.

@inthefade

10 ай бұрын

The feature list alone is amazing on this.

@ndguardian

10 ай бұрын

@woovebox - just placed an order for one an I'm excited to play with it. Seems like an awesome device to jam with on the go. Out of curiosity, do you know when they're going to be shipping out? Also...any chance we could get tempos to start at say 70BPM? I'm a fan of making music around the 75BPM range, personally.

If the dev is watching, wow! Im sold. Take my money. Massive fan of small devs who do big things at a price point that we all can have fun. Bigger companies need to pay attention.

@woovebox

10 ай бұрын

Your support is much, much appreciated!

It seems that this man is creating on his own the evolution of the pocket operators that Teenage Engineering should have made instead of just focusing on creating luxury gadgets for the wealthy or lager beer. Congratulations! This device is already on my list of upcoming purchases.

Just ordered one. Was thinking about the Polyend Tracker Mini just to have something I can use when sitting in the living room, but this is 1/3 the price and appears to do more. You can see the love and genius that has gone into it. Can't wait to get it. Thanks for the video and thanks for the WooveBox.

Thank you @freebeat for making this comprehensive first look video for the Woovebox. What a fantastic overview! And thank you @woovebox for making such an approachable, small groovebox device that can do so much. I've ordered one and I look forward to all it has to offer. I've listened to all the demo songs on your website and they sound incredible! Thanks for all your hard work and effort. I wish you much success!

Totally blown away by the features, ultimate kudos to the Dev, and yes, ordered within hours yesterday on this review upload. I have a feeling this could be rather popular on many levels.. 🙂

Soooo, this is the God of Pocket Operators...like all of them at once...plus more. Well this is amazing. I am very glad you shared this with us! Definitely will be ordering one. So glad to see you getting excited for the instruments that are the heart of this channel!

Alright, so my Woovebox came in today and I can speak on a couple points. Much like Free Beat said, despite how the UI looks initially, it is a rather streamlined workflow. On most pages, if the button is lit up, that means there's a function there you can interact with, so the bulk of the common features you will use are a button away on whatever page you're on. Paired with the fact that the pages are (mostly) consistent between tracks, you build muscle memory pretty quickly. The workflow is surprisingly fast. Probably the most convoluted page is the chord page, but a quick skim of the chord page in the manual got me squared away. I've seen multiple people say you have to use the web interface to navigate around it. No, you don't. The only things that I can think of that you absolutely need it for is specifically for data transfer. Sending samples to it from your computer, exporting song stems, stuff like that. I'll try testing saving a cached copy of the page to see if you can run it completely offline to remove the reliance on internet. @Woovebox - might be beneficial to create native apps to help there. The buttons are pretty much what you would expect. I'm personally not a fan, but they don't get in the way and I can work with them. If you've worked with a Pocket Operator, you'll know if it's a deal breaker for you or not. The sound engine is awesome. Much like all the other features, typically a parameter is one button away. The big thing here is because there are multiple parts of the synth engines, you will generally have multiple pages, but these make sense. One page == one piece of the synth engine, and much like I said about pages between tracks before, they're all consistent across tracks. One workflow, easy muscle memory. The screen is very visible, but the segmented display can be a little difficult to parse at times. Not too often, but sometimes I have to look up what it's saying to understand it. I imagine with use this will become second nature. And some people are scoffing at the price vs the size, vs the materials, etc. Here's my $0.02 on the matter. You can buy one Pocket Operator, and it will get you maybe two tracks of audio (arguable depending on how you want to label a drum kit), generally with limited sound editing capabilities. Each track on this is SUBSTANTIALLY more capable than a track on a Pocket Operator, and there are 16. To get a setup that would be even remotely comparable in terms of Pocket Operators, you would need 8 if you are going solely by track count. One Pocket Operator is ~$100, so that comparable setup is ~$800, plus in a much more cumbersome package. Even comparing this to the OP-Z, which has 8 audio tracks and an overall even more esoteric workflow would still put this at a much greater value overall. The OP-Z does net you some benefits, such as longer overall patterns and some interesting synth engines, but overall I would say this still offers more bang for your buck by a long shot. I can't really compare to the other piece of gear being mentioned most often, that being the Nunomo Qun MK2, as I am not particularly familiar with it. Seems like it could be pretty sweet, but I don't even think the two are even competing with each other. Based off what I see though, the Woovebox seems to be much more effective as a 100% standalone (as in no other gear needed) groovebox, while the Qun seems to be more geared as a multitimbral synth with basic sequencer capabilities. Again - admittedly I had never heard of it until I had googled it like 10 minutes ago, so I very well could be wrong. That said, if we could get proper TRS MIDI out from the Woovebox, I would LOVE to see them used together. Anyway, all that to say I am very much enjoying mine and I'd love to see others play with it too. This seems like an excellent entry point into making music on a budget, or even just to be able to make music while out and about. When inspiration strikes, the best tool to use is the one you have with you already.

@vangoghsseveredear

6 ай бұрын

How do you like it now? Still solid or no?

@ndguardian

6 ай бұрын

@@vangoghsseveredear still definitely solid, and I would still highly recommend.

Such an insane product of love and knowledge, thank you for showcasing it FB. The developer is very smart and takes care of the actual user. I am getting too old to operate such a small device so the same feature set in a 4 times larger box would be great, but I understand this choice and wish him loads of luck chasing his dream project.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand...sold! Literally. Can't wait to play with it. Seems so cool!

I did not want to know about this device! Great channel. Keep it up!

@FreeBeat

11 күн бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Bought. Thank you for the in depth overview, look forward to seeing more

I'm blown away by this. I want it.

reminds me of a photoshop I made shrinking the deluge to a 4x4 grid with 1 knob and the display, very nice groovebox

@shobaaddai6004

10 ай бұрын

Yo tf haha that sounds so dope, can u send me a pic ?

Just incredible! Congratulations @woovebox for this miraculous machine that will most likely have the success it deserves. And thanks to @FreeBeat for the discovery and pretty solid covering of the features.

Dude, I think this is the sketchpad I was looking for. Synths, samples, songs AND stem export 🎉

After watching this I was sold! Placed my order minutes after watching this. Much Thanks!

Ordered one based on this fantastic review and just received it. Looking forward to getting to know it better. So far so good!

Reminds me a lot of the qun mk2. Which packs a lot of power into a tiny box at a cheap price from a solo friendly attentive Dev who knocks out firmware updates at a rapid pace. Features are eerily similar too. The polyphony and synth engine seem like a big step up from the qun's already impressive abilities... The i/o seems considerably more limited on this guy. Not sure how some of those features would work. Apart from its groovebox like features it can be used as a midi synced looper and granular effect for external signals. I highly encourage supporting both passionate Devs..Would love to see a head to head.

I love these sort of passion projects. I'm in! Polyend Play can wait a bit :D

10 minutes in, I ordered one. Can't wait, really awesome.

I had been thinking of getting the Arturia Microfreak as my first synth for a few weeks now, but decided to go for the Woovebox first instead (I just ordered one a couple of hours ago), and later get the Microfreak, and a PO 33; I believe those 3 pieces of gear should work quite well together. Great video, man! Thanks a lot for sharing, and keep up the great work.

This is an absolute powerhouse! I would love to get my hands on one and see how far I can push it!! I love that it’s similar to the PO and OP-Z workflow!

Thanks for the great review -ordered straight away ! Having owned many grooveboxes for over 25 years, I’m hoping this could finally be the one that I’ve been looking for ?

Although it may superficially resemble a TE product, the Woovebox can easily be set apart, by noting that the MSRP is below $3000.

After watching your videos I had to order one. Put my name on list and got the email to order one 4 days later. Excited to get it. Thank you for the videos.

That’s a pretty cool groovebox, er, woovebox. :). I’m not a big groovebox sort of musician (I tend to do ambient) but this thing has features I wish more devices had, like the chord follow. The Roland JD-Xi has something similar where the sequences can transpose to chords played on the keyboard, handy when I only have 2 hands and can’t play all the parts at once. I guess if I had a wish list for things to add to the Woovebox, it would be (1) a better display, like a OLED, (2) a small speaker, (3) a mic for sampling. This thing would make a great portable field sampler if it had a mic.

The feeling you described wirh your first PO33, i had with the Korg Kaossilator 2. It was my first electronic music device and although it hadn't that much features, i never feeled this overwhelming joy again with any device afterwards.❤

Ok, preordered. This looks like a fairly unique device!

Nice, that looks like a lot of fun.

I never did get into Pocket Operators but this “woovebox” sent me over the tipping point. Ordered today 😊 hope i got in time for first batch 😮

I can see the beast inside... thank you!

This is close enough to what I was looking for

Okay great gear. Im on the fence here. Im pretty fluent with the PO-33. Do you have any fx command like the POs ? I really like to create a sequence and after nuke it live with all 15 effects. Like many here I gravitate around portable stuff. The tracker mini is next on the list after the myriad of fun discovery with the Volca, Arturia, TE, Sonicware, Bastl gears but this one seem a good addition. Or am I in a MOFO loop ?

Definitely getting one!

This thing definitely has my attention!

Weeell, I know what my next gear purchase is gonna be.

Very neat little device!

Dope little groove box

Just the thumbnail of this video sent me to the website, and within the first half of the 6-ish minute introduction video I had placed my order. I've never been sold this fast on anything in my life. WHY'S THE PACKAGE NOT HERE YET?!

I'd love to see the sampling and slicing workflow on this thing, if I understand correctly that it can do that stuff. If it can do what the PO-33 does but with more precision on top of everything else, this might have to be a no brainer purchase.

Woovebox MKII dream: (1) a better display, like a OLED (2) a small speaker (3) a mic for sampling (4) SD card for recording

i love the passion and features and thought that went into making this. the amount of power placed inside of the woovebox is very impressive, hats off to the developer for everything that's crammed in here but i just cannot fathom learning everything that this device has with how small it is. there's just too much to use with the tiny barebone interface it has, even with the software helper. i can tolerate those raw buttons on a $99 PO-33, but not on a $249 device. make it twice the size with better buttons (with a slight price bump if needed,) and THEN the woovebox will make all the other groovebox users pay attention. that's all just my opinion though

Looks like a game changer for those of us who can RTFM.

Do samples imported via Bluetooth retain their stereo nature? Like, I think the line-in is mono-only, but if I transferred a binaural stereo (with hrtf) file onto this, to then sequence it, would it still retain its HRTF binaural phenomenon or does Woovebox force it to mono (or somehow keep it stereo but destroy the HRTF phenomenon)?

Great overview. Thx!

Nice vid. Thanks

Two days later and I bought one…sounds good, looks like fun

What are the effects that can be played live? And how do you apply filter, is it through the knob, even though it seems it doesn't turn freely?

I can see how you’re knowledge of actual theory and time signatures would be a huge asset to a beginning developer! I’m writing this pretty early in video, so I’m hoping you say it has MIDI! Other than the POs I’ve pretty much given away anything that doesn’t have MIDI. I don’t need another percussion machine, or synth for that matter! I’m getting ready to pull the trigger on an Osmose, and you know what it’s greatest feature is to me? 12 lbs! So this interests me because of that! My DR 880 is best drum machine ever made (IMHO) but it’s big and a hybrid, so full analog with digital samples as well. Peace! Yes MIDI! This will go great with my Behringer JT-4000, two pockets and a Bose speaker! I love this thing! I’m great job on the video! I just went out to check the mail and my Function Junction was there! Woohoo! This little fella is next! It will make a great complement to the modular set up!

10sec in and I'm almost sold! I'll watch the rest..

I have to confess that 5:15 into watching this. I stopped watching, headed to the website spent 2 minutes there and I’m now excitedly waiting for my Woovebox delivery. Massive respect to the developer for creating this. I can’t wait to see what it can do. Now back to watching the FreeBeat video😂

Super cool product

@FreeBeat

7 күн бұрын

It definitely is!

Hi great video - it inspired me to invest in one. I cant get my external midi instruments to respond to the Woovebox hardware midi output Does the Woovebox continually transmit midi data when patterns/songs are playing? Or do you need to enable the hardware midi out somewhere? Cheers Fra99nk

WARNING! Super awesome device that is impossible to understand stoned! ;) All jokes aside, the capabilities are quite amazing. The sounds are much much better quality than you would expect at a glance. Its... hard to nail down. Studio in a box maybe. Would love to see what it could do connected to some budget hardware synths and DAWs. Man, would love to see MORE!!! Very Impressive.

Love the channel. You started with OG PO33 but didn’t get the KO2?? I’ve had no trouble with mine and it is So much fun

Okay I'm wowed. I can clearly see a lot of love went into this. I hope it will be easily accessible to European stores (more specifically France) as international shipping and customs can be costly D: Can it send a sync signal along with a mono output from the line out ? That would be terrific as a PO and midi brain device ! Cheers and really looking forward to more videos about it! Also maybe a interview with the creator get a bit of their insight and thought process?

@woovebox

10 ай бұрын

Thank you! We're trying to keep shipping costs as low as possible by keeping the weight as low as possible (~160g). Depending on your country, VAT will likely be payable on the declared value (slightly lower) or nominal 249USD invoice value. Indeed, the device was made (and tested) for acting as the brains for a PO's/Volca setup. You can see a short bit of such a setup in the video on the website. Sync out goes to the PO16 in that video, and midi out goes to the Volca Drum. Audio from both devices is then returned to the Woovebox for processing and incorporating in its mix.

@TrickmanTerry

10 ай бұрын

Oh! That's wonderful! I'll look forward to hooking it up with my PO's and Volcas.

Wow! The sound is incredible! This is really going to give the Dirtywave M8 a run for its money (which I still can't afford). At $249 that's a complete bargain.The only thing I worry about is how quickly these will sell out, unless they are mass-produced. I like thousands of others, are still patiently waiting for a Plinky from Thonk. It's been over two years now. :(

This looks crazy. Can’t lie

I’d be curious to know how well the Bluetooth MIDI in works since this is multi-timbral.

Another component that many are missing is who and what is behind this. One person providing an experience. Vs many people just putting out incremental drips to make a profit with little to no passion. We have BIG companies in this space that will never reply to your question. Go years between firmware updates. The focus on what something looks like or form factor, while a natural reaction, is often followed by the comparison game. No, not every small company gets it. Many never make it out of Eureka park (CES reference) Yet they all have one thing in common. Passion. We hear KZreadrs, excuse me, Synth Tubers talk about passion, experience, fun. Then when a device hits us in the face, we revert to our two year old ways. This device will be a learning curve for me. If I am honest, when I heard $249, I was like, huh? Because I was conditioned with the PO. Then, instead of clicking away, I thought, nope. Let's ride this out. I chose well. The choice is yours.

Man, I might have to get this before the Tracker mini finally arrives from backorder. :( I really want something small to just walk around with every day. Also, Check out the Roland S-1 tweak synth if you haven't already.

the sequencer of this have feature like elektron? specific like chance and trigger conditions/ratchet

I ordered one because of this, is there an onboard speaker or do you have to line-out/headphone only? Not a biggie, just nothing on their site covers that.

On the mailing list, patiently wait for the restock. Yes… patiently 😬😅

@FreeBeat

10 ай бұрын

Hang in there!

Can you stack the conditionals on a step? i.e. how insecure should my OP-Z be feeling?

@ruffark

10 ай бұрын

Would love to know this too

Would love to see a sound design video on this

Cool device. The sampling is point to pretty low-fi having effectively 12 but dynamic resolution, though it has a good sampling rate.

Can you have multiple when/do locks on a single step?

I had an impact on the Nunomo Qun mk2. This is definitely fuller featured than the Qun mk2

How do you think someone will like this for non beat based music and more sample based sound collage?

Most intriguing device I've seen in a long time. It seems like the Song Mode fragments (if there are up to 100) would help overcome the pattern chaining limitation that annoys me with the OP-Z. I can chain up to 128 patterns for playback on the second and third gen POs, but I can only chain up to 32 patterns for playback on the OP-Z. It looks like the Woovebox offers far more flexibility for longer song chains....?

Is it possible to connect this guy to teenage engineering gear like PO-33/32 or OP-Z? Is the sampling stereo or mono? How much does it cost? Thanks for answering!

Woah I’m definitely getting one of these! They look amazing WTH! Only gripe (for me) is the knob - it’s too protruded from the rest of the kit (for such a beautiful size it’s kind of a shame you can’t simply put it in your pocket since you might just ruin the encoder by doing so). I’d prefer a very short encoder instead, so it doesn’t go above the screen’s extrusion height - tbh.

We want one!

*Free,* I wasn’t able to catch on to the PO-33. In your *honest* opinion, would this be easier or not difficult to learn for a complete newbie?

@wallegamecube

10 ай бұрын

start with the PO-33

Deep review, cool af gadget, tx

I honestly want one , regardless of the storm that the red one is starting 😂

I wish the woovebox had a Midi in. it would make it super cool to connect it to a simple midi controller, to control the sequencer easyer, or to live jam with your pattern. i love eerything about this groophebox but the 16buttons as a note interface is kind of sad not to see.

Ordered a few days ago! - If this is as good as this demo - this will be a game changer - The developer @woovebox will need to hire a lot of employees to keep up with the demand :)

Have your checked out the Qun mk2? It is mental what the creator does with it.

When can i buy it? Sigh, everytime i wanna buy something, it's never available,nor i couldn't find a price for it on the website.

can't wait to use this as a launchpad micro

Would love to see an ipad app for the import/export stuff. There are a lot of musicians who make music on iPads exclusively.

What about the DIY Microdexed Touch Groovebox? It has similar size and you can build it for around 100€. It is a very impressive and powerful little machine very worth to try.

@makemistakestv

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for the reminder about that device. I want to investigate how to make one.

@lumm71

10 ай бұрын

@@makemistakestv It is clearly described on the project page and also much help available via discourse.

Shouldn't it have some (wired) midi-in possibility thoug?

@ItsWesSmithYo

10 ай бұрын

Looks like a mini MIDI port? Never used that type. Maybe it has MIDI over Bluetooth, which I’ve used on my IPAD with My Mac and works fine, so maybe solid option.

@hallvardpaulsen

10 ай бұрын

@@ItsWesSmithYo I think it has MIDI in over BT, but latency may be an issue. Also you need a controller that supports it, or some kind of adapter.

Can this sample via mic or line in ? Please let me know .

(btw - you'd get the similar feeling from Deluge! a more maximal sized machine with similar "do everything" ideas that keep getting expanded!)

@FreeBeat

10 ай бұрын

I actually have a deluge and have done quite a few videos with it!

Checked the website, sold out until October. I'll order one then.

I am in. I secured one. How would you say does it compare against the M8 and polyend mini besides the great price?

@elvisminerva

10 ай бұрын

Seems like it's pretty similar to the m8 in functionality. Except the m8 has 8 tracks but no sample time limit and no load times on projects

Hopefully there will a UK distributor soon, unfortunately we would have 20% plus import tax on top, looks great!!

This thing is awesome. One thing that needs to be done is an app for IOS and Android that reflects user interface, just like an OP-Z, so you can connect your phone via Bluetooth and see UI on the screen. For sure it will cost a lot of effort, but taking into consideration all the skills of the creator of this amazing box, I think this will boost the interest to this awesome little machine, seriously...

Be sure to check out the Woovebox website! www.woovebox.com/

How can i buy one of these little beautiful machines??

Is there a way to do midi in? Like through the usb port?

@jmichell1880

10 ай бұрын

It looks like it has midi in over wifi. Not ideal, but it's such a great feature list that it's not a deal breaker. I can use my Korg Nanostudio over wifi with it.

It does a lot, but it's not for me. That display for a product at this price was the first hurdle. No SD card storage? No hardware MIDI input? No data over USB-C? But it does have data over Bluetooth, but an Internet connection is required for that basic feature??? I'm not sure which one is the deal breaker, but (again) I think it isn't for me. I applaud the dev, and hope you all enjoy it a lot. I hope it's a big enough success to warrant a MKII version, and I would love to see it with the above features - and velocity sensitivity would be great to have too, if it doesn't do that already. It does look pretty cool, and I couldn't even approach the level of quality it shows. So, I hope my criticisms taken in the spirit in which they were intended.

Incredible device! I'd like to see an update or option where the page changing animation is omitted. That's the only thing that was buged me instant whe I saw it. Also the LED screen is not my favorite, i think a simple four wire OLED screen would be better and wouldn't hurt the essence of the device, just easier to read. Also i'd like to see a "poer mode" if it's makes sense, I read about DSP limitations, and maybe it isn't a big deal for most times, it would be good to have a 'pover mode' when the device is plugged in to a power source. :)

Add $250 worth of wired midi in a real screen a hard shell with buttons sd card reader and I am in! Love the feature set but need some improvement in usability. It’s powerful enough but would be so much more with with more I/O would gladly pay $500 with a few upgrades to this box

@chrisward000

10 ай бұрын

Kind of how I feel about it. Seems like they wanted to hit a low price, but maybe made a cut too far, if only in terms of the display which is hard to read. I realise you can still learn it, but while it has great internals, seems to me that it’s kind of like keyhole surgery getting at it through that minimal interface. Even so, at $250 it’s priced (for me anyway) just above the impulse buy level even though I like the look of it. That said, I don’t need the portability this offers, so for me the small size and stripped back controls are more limitation than feature, but I understand the appeal.

cool as hell

44.1 hz quite high. by comparison 193 mp3 formated audio 5 min long is real clost to 5mb in size. if it was recorded at 44.1 hz it would be more than 10 times larger... like 60mb. 44.1 is pretty high sample rate. considerong the gove you a minite of time at that rate. can the sample quality be changed to extend the bank size?