Seven years is a long time to sit still. When the original blackbox shipped in 2019 for $649, it landed as one of the most capable compact samplers on the market — touchscreen, microSD streaming, surprisingly deep sequencing in a form factor you could tuck into a gig bag. Then 1010music spent the last couple of years building bento, their $899 flagship, and the blackbox community watched from the sidelines as that machine absorbed every feature request they’d ever filed. The 1010music blackbox 2, unveiled at Superbooth on May 7th, 2026, is the trickle-down. Priced at $649 — same as the original at launch — it inherits the bento’s workflow architecture and adds the one thing the original always lacked: a battery.
Same Price, Different Machine
The original blackbox held its ground for years because the fundamentals were solid. Sixteen pads, sample streaming, a loop engine, and enough MIDI flexibility to wire it into almost any setup. But the screen was small, the architecture was flat, and you needed a power outlet. The blackbox 2 keeps the compact form factor and the $649 price, then reworks almost everything else. The new 4-inch high-resolution color touchscreen is the most immediately visible change — but the deeper shift is structural. Where the original organized everything around 16 pads, the blackbox 2 uses a 4-Track system borrowed directly from bento, where each Track hosts a distinct instrument type: One-Shot, Loop, Slicer, Shredder, or Multisample.
That’s not just a UI reshuffle. One-Shot and Loop instruments now support 16 samples per Patch — which means layering, round-robins, and velocity switching are proper first-class citizens, not workarounds.
The Shredder Instrument
The new Shredder is 1010music’s most interesting addition. It’s not a granular synth in the classic sense — it doesn’t give you grain size, spray, and position controls in the way that, say, their own Lemondrop Eurorack module does. Instead, it combines granular scatter with slicing to produce fragmented, stuttering motion from any sample. Think of it less as a synthesis tool and more as a performance effect baked into the instrument layer: you load a sample, and the Shredder tears it apart in ways that stay rhythmically coherent. Whether this ends up as a genuine compositional tool or a novelty that wears thin after an hour will depend entirely on how much real-time control the XY interface allows — which we’ll know properly once units ship in July.
Loop Groups and Live Performance
The original blackbox could launch loops, but not multiple loops simultaneously in a organized way. Loop Groups fix that — you assign loops to a group, and they launch together with BPM sync. Combined with the new Launch, Scene, and Song screens (again, lifted from bento), the blackbox 2 now has a credible live performance architecture. Trigger scenes on the fly, build up arrangements in Song mode, or improvise with the DJ effects XY pad covering Filter, Delay, EQ, Gate, and Repeater. This is clearly aimed at the same producers who’ve been eyeing the SP-404 MK2’s scatter and filter tools — except the blackbox 2 integrates sequencing natively rather than bolting it on.
The Battery Question
FYI: the internal 3-hour battery is what makes the blackbox 2 genuinely portable rather than just compact. The original required mains power, which kept it desk-bound despite its size. Three hours is enough for a solid outdoor session or a full set without hunting for a socket. It’s also worth noting that 1010music is making no claims about extended use — 3 hours is 3 hours, so if you’re planning an all-day park session you’ll want a USB-C power bank in your bag alongside it.
Blackbox 2 vs. Bento: Which Track Are You On?
Both machines now share the same core workflow language. Here’s where they diverge:
| blackbox 2 | bento | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracks | 4 | 8 |
| Screen | 4″ color touch | 7″ color touch |
| Granular | Shredder (hybrid) | Full granular engine |
| Audio In | 1 stereo | 3 stereo |
| Audio Out | 3 stereo + headphone | 3 stereo + headphone |
| MIDI | USB-C host + device | USB-C + dual TRS MIDI |
| Battery | ~3 hours | ~3 hours |
| Price | $649 | $899 |
The bento’s three stereo inputs matter if you’re sampling external gear heavily or routing a modular. The blackbox 2’s single stereo input is fine for most workflows — and the automated multisample instrument creation (record a note, let it map itself) means external sampling is still part of the picture. For most DAWless producers who aren’t running a full studio rig, the blackbox 2 likely covers everything they need at $250 less.
Sequencing, Now With Choices
Step sequencer, grid/piano roll, and probability are all on board. The original blackbox had grid sequencing but lacked a traditional step sequencer, which pushed some users toward other boxes for sequencing and back to the blackbox for sampling. That gap is closed. You can finger-drum on one-shots via the touchscreen, play notes through the virtual keyboard with multisampled instruments like pianos, or draw notes directly into the Piano Roll. MIDI CC support for external controllers is described as “extensive” — the blackbox community will want to verify that in practice against the original’s sometimes frustrating CC mapping behavior.
Pricing and Availability
The 1010music blackbox 2 is available for preorder now through authorized dealers worldwide at $649 USD. Shipping is expected in July 2026.
- Product page: 1010music Blackbox 2
- Related reading: ANR: Compact sampler roundups
The blackbox 2 doesn’t try to replace bento — it just brings most of what made bento interesting down to a price and a size that more producers can actually work with. If you’ve been running the original since 2019 and wondering whether the upgrade is worth it, the battery and the Shredder alone are probably your answer. How about you — does the 4-track limit work for your sessions, or do you need bento’s headroom?
