M:Audio Black Box - interesting-looking guitar thingy

I'm usually down on M:Audio for their boring, ugly boxes, but now they've come with a interesting (if slightly ugly) box. The Black Box (great name!) is a neat little guitar amp modeller/effects box/sound card. The interesting thing is that it includes technology from Roger Linn's everybody-says-it's-brilliant Adrenalinn guitar effects box. $299.95 seems reasonable, considering the Adrenalinn itself is $499.

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

This thing has half the Amp presets, half the beats, and lacks the delay time and envelope filters of the Adrenalinn. I can only assume that it also lacks the same quality pre-amps, and is made with 2 cent per thousand chineese capacitors. One of the "killer features" of the Adrenalinn is its intuitive layout and ease of use which may well be compromised in this form factor. So really, you get the beat synched effects (which aren't all that great, trust me) and in exchange M-Audio gets to sell a cheapie version of the Adrenalinn. Save the money, get the real thing.

The confusing part is why Roger Linn decided to bless this Borg with his name....

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:53 pm

If you take a look at the Black Box, I think you'll find that it is actually MUCH easier to use then the AdrenaLinn. While it does not have all of the AdrenaLinn features, it does have a good portion of them. It also has many features that the AdrenaLinn does not have. A chromatic tuner, a connection for use with an expression pedal, a large LCD, an XLR input and USB audio interface. Not to mention that it comes with Ableton Live software and a bunch of drum loops.
Roger Linn posted a document that explains the differences between the two products:
http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/products/blackbox.shtml
For $299, the Black Box is a great product.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10:09 pm