M-Audio Black Box

Very easy to use. There are two manuals (the second being in pdf format on one of the 2 CD-ROMs that come with the BB) which overlap in content, but omit some very important features. The 'knowledge' section of M-Auio's website is a good resource for additional information.

The large LED display and the four rotary knobs beneath make editing a breeze. The downside being that there are very few parameters that can acually be tweaked. For example, there's no mid control for the amp sims and the drum sounds cannot be edited at all.

Here's where it gets interesting. Reviews on the sound quality of this product have been generally negative, while the AdrenaLinn gets consistently high marks in this same category. Roger Linn's website has a page comparing the BB to the AdrenaLinn and many of the sounds are apparently identical. Could the people who've purchased the BB have higher expectations?

The noise gate is factory set at '3', which cuts the decay off of sustained notes in a very unmusical way. I'd rather deal with the noise which is inherent in high gain amp simulations. The amp sims themselves are more trebley than the original patches used in the AdrenaLinn. Some people may like this, but I find myself rolling off the highs on most of the presets. The chorus sounds are OK, but limited to depth & speed adjustment. The AdrenaLinn has aditional parameters (resonance, for example) which might explain why some are dissappointed with the sound quality.

The beat synched tremolo/filters/flangers are simply mind-blowing. There's nothing else out there (except the AdrenaLinn) that does this. The arpeggiators also have to be heard to be believed, but I don't know how useful they'll be in a musical context. The talk-box sims are very good and there's even a 2.8 second looper that, when synched to a beat, is a lot of fun to play with.

Considering that this is an amp simulator itself, it sounds best direct or thru' a PA. It was not meant to be plugged into a guitar amp and is really more of a recording device. I haven't had an opportunity to use the recording software included.

Seems sturdy enough. It comes with a bracket for mounting on a mic stand. Good idea, as this thing was not made to sit on the floor. It also gets very hot, and needs as much ventilation as possible.

Haven't used it live yet. It's more of a 'stand alone' device and doesn't really work well in my long signal chain of analog stompers.

The product comes with a standard manufacturers warranty, and customer suport has been excellent so far. An M-Audio rep has answered every question I've had very thoroughly and promptly.

I love this thing. They've packed alot of features into a small, inexpensive package. I'm using an Alesis CF1 combo foot controller to manipulate the sounds in real time. I've got the footswitches configured to stop/start and change the tempo of the drum machine and am using the expression pedal as a wah, tho' there are other options detailed on pages 14 and 15 of the pdf manual.

This box has been designed as an 'AdrenaLinn Lite' for dumb guitarists like me, but I've been having so much fun with it that I'll probably get an AdrenaLinn as well for the additional features and tweakability.

I am playing with a crappy guitar w/humbuckers and recording directly to the computer. Sounds pretty good... Some effects do sound quite digital but maybe that's because they are digital. I like the arpeggios. They are different than other effects pedals. That's the main reason I bouth it - the arpeggios...

Only had it about a week. Cannot comment on reliability.

As another reviewer noted, the LCD can only be viewed at extreme angles - like 45 degrees or more. It can't be viewed from straight on. I think this sucks. I emailed tech support and their only response was: the "LSD" cannot be adjusted. Apparently this thing's on acid or something... I emailed a second time to ask if the viewing angle thing was normal and got the same response as the first time. They did respond with a couple days, so I guess I'll give 'em a three.

The Black Box is what I have been looking for sound-wise. The performance of the display though, leads me to contemplate sending it back. It shouldn't be so hard to read.

Very easy to use.
M-Audio only includes a quick start guide in the box. The complete manual is on their website. Anyway I feel like these docs had been written independently or by different people. I mean that the downloadable manual doesn't actually seem an extension of the quick start guide or the quick start guide a summary of the complete manual.
Both docs are multilingual.

Amps are not very good. They tend to sound too digital.
Anyway, after some/many tweaking I managed to get some decent tones.
Effects are not that good either.

It seems somehow fragile for gigging though in the studio it is ok.
IMO the most unreliable thing is the 4 central knobs whereas the connectors are high quality.

I have always gotten good support through M-Audio website.

I mainly purchased the Black Box because of its tempo synched effects and the built-in drum machine. Personally, I think it is worth having the Black Box just because of these two features.
I use it for practicing and getting some ideas. The tempo synched/drum patterns thing is quite inspiring for a guitarist/composer.
For serious recording and gigging I rely on the tones I get from another preamp and effects.

EASY TO USE,EDTING IS SIMPLE,HAS A MANUAL AND A CD NO NEED FOR EITHER VERY SIMPLE TO OPERATE.

ITS GOT A NICE SOUND VERY USUABLE PATCHES I PLAY DIRECT THRU COMPUTER OR HOME STEREO.

GREAT MACHINE FOR THE GUY THAT PLAYS AT HOME,AND WANTS TO JAM WITH A KILLER DRUM MACHINE, GIVES YOU ALOT OF DIFFERENT AMP MODELING AND EFFECTS FOR UNDER 300 DOLLARS NOT DESIGNED FOR AMP OR GIG'S,USE THIS THRU YOUR HOME STEREO FLAT EQ OR PC AND YOU WILL LOVE IT ANYTHING ELSE YOU WONT

Pretty simple interface really.
One thing that threw me was finding the 100 "user" presets. They're stacked up above the standard presets, and since they share all the same settings as the first 100 I kept thinking I was still on the standards. My "doh."

Editing patches is easy which is a good thing as imo, almost every one of them needed tweaking. It would be nice if the drum pattern settings would "stick" w/ the preset once it's edited - tempo and drum/delay settings all stick, but the basic drum pattern doesn't seem too. Hopefully they can fix this with a firmware upgrade?

The manual clears up a lot of the simple things, but I get the feeling that they've left a lot out too.

Once tweaked, the amps sound pretty good thru my Peavey Classic. I haven't noticed excessive any unit noise. But it does seem strange to me that the "heavier" amps (anything that isn't a Fender, iow) have a lot of "dirt" even when the gain is off. Hardly seems accurate, but I've got zippo in the way of experience w/ modelers so...

At first, it seemed like a "dry thru" signal would be a good thing, but then I figured out how to tweak and save a user preset to "close enough for Jazz" settings.

I've only ever owned one stomper, but compared to that (the Boss SC,) the chorus onboard the BB seems a bit limited, but I'm still learning so... The thing is that having never owned a Flanger, or a Delay, or an Appegiator, Autowah or Filter effect and other etc.s' to the nth degree, I am Having a Blast playing with this thing!

Beat-synched Tremelos alone are worth the price of admission, imo.

I can't really speak to the reliability, yet. It seems fairly robust. I would worry about toppling it off a mike stand in a gig setting, tho'.

I had a question wrt hooking the BB up to my XP and filed a RFI on the m-audio site. Two weeks later, LONG after I figured it out myself, I sent them a second email. I mentioned that I'd be mentioning their lameness in "my review." I got a response to that one within two hours... That get's 'em a "1".

Hopefully, they'll get their act together and sell a ton of these. Maybe even get their own forum going for us self helper types. There's already a yahoo group going, but it's still waiting for members.

For 30 years I've been mostly an acoustic folker, with one short stint in a punk band in the early 80s. I've done most of my playing on a 000-28, but I've also got a Squire tele, my Wurly piano, a really nice mandolin and most recently, an Eastman AR804CE (Wow, btw.) For amps there's the Peavey and a Roland Cube60.

I was to record mandolin onto the computer. At the same time I wanted a drum machine to make "metrognome-ing" more fun. Then, getting that beautiful AR804 made me really want to play more electric, but even with my small rep of "standards" I still enjoy playing Rock, Folk-rock and (what I'd have to confessedly call) Country more.

I was talking all of this over w/ my Brother (the REAL guitarist in the fambly) and he referred me to the m audio site. I listened to the demos, watched the video and bought the thing the next day, completely clueless as to what else was out there.

So far, I'm enjoying the heck out of it. It's a great tool for headphone practice and general rocking-out to the drum machine. While I'm looking forward to "jamming-out" w/ friends on it, so far I'm still in a "selfish-discovery" phase. Hooking it up to the XP and recording a few backing tracks was no problem whatsoever, but even more I've enjoyed playing it LOUD.

If it broke tomorrow, I'd look into Pods and Adrenalynns, but whatever I got would HAVE to have beats and beat-synched effects.

I've got a small list of improvements and additions that I'd like to see happen, but all in all, and considering what it cost, I wouldn't recommend against getting one.

The noise gate is adjustable.
There is an FAQ on the M-Audio website explaining how to use it.
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.faq&ID=db4a134ffef4845f56c24a5fd19a1ed0

It's certainly easy to use. I have no complaints about that. The controls and knobs are clearly marked and function as advertised. I would say the ergomics are excellent.

The "Sound Quality" is poor to fair. Being that it's advertised with such a wide variety of amps and effects, you soon learn that there's little variation in tone between the amp models and effects are very limited. Why no reverb ??????? This is the first box I've ever owned that didn't come with reverb? The drum sounds seem to have little variety and there's no Latin sounds. The "lo-fi" to me are basically useless. It seems to clip and distort rather easily even though the clip LED doesn't light.

I'm guessing it's pretty reliable. It seems to be well built.

This is the clincher. I noticed that my LCD could not be viewed at a 90 deg. angle and I could find no mention of a angle or contrast adjustment in the 300 page manual they give you (ha ha). I e-mailed Tech support and got the usual " We will respond within 24 to 36 hours". Well a week later and no response !!!!! Why even bother with advertised e-mail support if you blow the customer off??

Is this the same support that Linn provides? If so, I wouldn't consider buying any other of his products.

I bought the unit because I wanted drum sounds in addition to effects for my downstairs studio - which consists of a XP computer next to my Lazy Boy. I guess it does offer that , but the fact that I can't view the screen at all from where I'm sitting , it's conmpletely useless. Maybe my LCD is bad or there is an "angle" or "contrast adjustment". Either way, Tech support should have had the decency to answer my e-mail.

This unit was very easy to use right out of the box, plug in the power cord, guitar input, and headphones and you're off to the races. As someone who's just getting back into music, after taking the last 5-8 years off, the sound is much better than my previous effects unit, the Yamaha FX500, but that's to be expected. I haven't tried editing patches yet, I was more distracted by getting it to properly interface with the computer, recording software, and getting sound out of my monitors. The manual was a pretty easy read, described what the unit does pretty well, specifically in bold print - "Operation of the Blzck Box is primarily accomplished by changing presets and drumbeats". The software, Ableton's "Live Lite 4 GTR" installed easily, and after reading about 5 pages of the 298 page pdf file manual, I was able to record drums and processed guitar within 5 minutes. I'm actually looking forward to reading more of the manual and learning more about how it all works.

I am using a fairly simple setup. I put my previous effects unit away, and use my Schecter C-1 Floyd Rose into the unit. I'm using it with my Dell 4600 PC, Windows XP Media Center edition, integrated sound card (so I'm following the directions on the unit, and using it's sound card), with Dell A425 speakers (2 satellites w/a subwoofer) and achieve fair quality sound, it's certainly not loud (If you want huge sound, buy a powerful amp!). I only need it to play at home, and be able to take the next step of recording directly into the computer - I won't be playing in a band, nor live. For me, it's a very useful toy/distraction, so basic sound is all I need.

I've primarily played bass in the past, with my 89 Fender Jazz Special, thru the Yamaha FX500, a BOSS wireless unit thru a Hartke Systems 350 watt 210 combo. I was playing with others, recording and in live situations, so it's hard to compare. Sound quality thru the headphones is fine, more than what I need.

Some of the presets are pretty cool. In addition to the amp models, it has settings named "Queen", "Who", and a nice clean "Hendrix" patch. I've also found what sounds a lot like the Edge's sound from "Achtung, Baby". Drum beats sound pretty dry, but you can sweeten them up (I think) when recording.

I've had it for less than a week so far, no problems reliability-wise. I'll follow up if I have any issues with it.

Since I was attempting to not follow it's directions (which say to plug in your powered speakers to the unit's outputs), I was having great difficulty plugging the USB into the computer, and getting sound from the line-out from the CPU. I emailed the company with the form on their website, then got impatient and called them the next day. I received different answers from each contact, but they were responsive, courteous (despite my not following directions, and only skimming the manual) and it ended up the emailed response actually worked, and helped my out a good deal.

I first started piano lessons at age 5, have played flute, saxaphone and bassoon in band/orchestra while in high school, learned how to play bass and guitar in college in the late 80's, and even played with a couple live bands here in Los Angeles, and put out a CD in the late 90's, but that's as far as it went. I hadn't even picked up the bass nor guitar between 99 and 03, the got the musical itch, and scrathed it by buying my Schecter, but after the initial novelty, it started collecting dust.

I'm not sure what sparked it, but I got the itch again. I was thinking of just getting a practice amp when I came across this unit. I just wanted to be able to hear myself play without headphones, but I know myself, and I know I'd want to do some recording the more I get into it. Due to time constraints of being a husband and father with a full time job, I don't anticipate playing live, nor in a band, so I wanted something that I could entertain myself with, and this really fits the bill.

Once I did get it working with the computer, I can now not only record, but I can very easily play along with CD's - the unit has a know that mixes the processed guitar signal with CD playback, a very nice convenience. I had my 3 year old dancing within seconds of starting the drum beat. It does what I want and need it to, other than amplify the sound, but then again, for $250, I'll deal with hearing it thru my monitors. If it were lost or stolen, I'd definitely buy another. I'm still learning the recording software, but the unit itself is fun to play around with.

Mine is the first edition, 5.10.0.0018.
Fairly intuitive interface. There are a lot more knobs and a lot less scroll screens than something like a Pandora PRX4. Editing patches is reminiscent of the Zoom 505 days. Yes, it's that easy. The manual is very strait forward.

First off, you have to understand this;
I believe that people are way to critical of units like this (and most everything else for that matter) on Harmony Central. People write reviews of $150 units and say things like "It's not an Eventide". That much is obvious. If you want an Eventide, buy an Eventide. You have to review a product for what it is. For what category it falls into. This falls into the ranks of products like the aforementioned Pandora PRX4, PODS, Digitech RPX400 and so on. So that's what i'll be reviewing it as. A budget priced way to get your guitar into a computer sounding decent. So with that out of the way...
I haven't been exceedingly impressed with the sounds. It has models of some good sounding amps, and the models do sound decent, but it has a few problems. For example; on the higher gain models there's a noise gate that you can't control at all. It is simply on. And if you do any kind of quick palm muting then stopping (like Fear Factory-ish for example) there's an audible few milliseconds of hiss then dead silence. And even with the hottest of inputs, you can hit a chord and it will be cut off in ten seconds. I just wish you could turn it off when you wanted it off.
There are only a few amp models to choose from and i've found myself sticking with just a few of them. The effects aren't very good. Which is strange considering this is an effects driven unit. The whole "Roger Linn time based effects" thing. True, you can set the tempo of the effects very effectively, but they still don't sound so hot. They're either grainy and digital, or they're so "out there" that they're un-useable. Sure a randomized filter combined with an arpeggiatior combined with an auto wah sounds kind of interesting, but try using it in a song.

It has a hard plastic casing. And believe it or not, the pots are very good quality. Smooth and linear. The input looks a little flimsy so if you step on it with a cable plugged in, i could see it breaking. Other than that, seems fine.

I've only had this unit around 2 weeks, so this is a "first impression" review. Maybe later on i'll post another.
I play modern Black Metal in the vein of Old Man's Child, Dimmu Borgir etc. I've been playing for 9 years.
For those interested in using it to record demos and such, i've yet to make the software work. It installed just fine and it recognizes the unit but i haven't played with it enough to figure out how to record with it. I'm not a huge software buff but i know my way around the popular stuff. This software is not user friendly in my opinion. Maybe it's just because i've never played with Ableton's stuff before, who knows.
The thing about this unit is that it's one of the very few products that has modeling and connectivity. I bought it because it's built better than the Pandora and it sounds better than the digitech. It doesn't sound great. But it does it's job. Which is to serve as a scratch pad. An "all in one wonder" to get my ideas out and into my computer. I wish that there was something out there that's better for the price range, but as far as i know there isn't.