The 1010music Blackbox accepts WAV at any sample rate, 16/24/32-bit depth, mono or stereo. Format is rarely the obstacle when samples don’t behave the way you expect. The part that needs more attention is the preset model: how samples are referenced by path inside preset.xml, why reorganizing your card after building presets can break them, and how Pack Preset makes a preset fully self-contained for sharing or archiving.
Format in brief
The Blackbox streams audio directly off the microSD card. There’s no onboard conversion step where your file gets rejected. WAV is the only container it reads, and within that, it accepts a wide range of specs. 48 kHz is the preferred sample rate for internal playback quality; other rates load without complaint but get resampled on the fly. 16, 24, and 32-bit all work. Mono and stereo both work.
The card itself can be FAT32 or exFAT, and 1010music has tested it up to 512 GB. Any current microSD card in the 64–256 GB range is fine.
For comparison, this makes the Blackbox considerably more relaxed than samplers like the Elektron Octatrack MKII (44.1 kHz only, 16 or 24-bit, WAV only) or the Make Noise Morphagene (32-bit float, 48 kHz, stereo, strict). On the Blackbox, format is rarely the reason something doesn’t load.
How the card is organized
Samples can live anywhere on the card. There’s no mandatory folder layout, no naming convention for your audio files. You can organize by instrument type, by project, by genre, or however else works for how you think. The Blackbox’s touchscreen browser walks the folder tree from the root, so whatever structure you build is directly navigable on the device.
A typical layout might look like this:
microSD Root/
├── Presets/
│ ├── HouseKit/
│ │ ├── preset.xml
│ │ └── RC000001.wav
│ └── Textures/
│ └── preset.xml
├── Drums/
│ ├── kicks/
│ │ ├── kick_hard.wav
│ │ └── kick_soft.wav
│ ├── snares/
│ └── hats/
└── Synths/
├── pads/
└── leads/The key thing here: the Presets/ folder is where preset folders live. Your sample folders (Drums/, Synths/, etc.) sit alongside them. Presets reference samples by their path on the card; they don’t contain the audio files themselves.
The preset model
Each preset is a folder containing a preset.xml file. That file is the entire preset: which sample is loaded on which pad, and all the settings for each pad (playback mode, start/end points, tuning, envelope, effects, loop settings). The Blackbox reads preset.xml when you load the preset and rebuilds your configuration from it.
Samples are referenced by path. The XML for a kick drum pad might point to /Drums/kicks/kick_hard.wav. When you load the preset, the Blackbox goes to that path on the card and starts streaming. If the file is there, the pad works. If it’s been moved or renamed since the preset was created, the pad loads silently.
This path-based reference system is what makes the Blackbox flexible for organizing large libraries: many presets can point to the same source file without duplicating it. A kick you use across a dozen presets lives in one place on the card. It also means that reorganizing your card after building presets will break those presets unless you update the paths inside preset.xml or rebuild the pad assignments on the device.
Loading a sample to a pad
On the Blackbox, assigning a sample to a pad is done directly from the touchscreen. Press and hold any of the 16 pads until the pad settings panel appears, then tap the waveform or file icon to open the browser. Navigate to a WAV file on the card and confirm the selection. The pad immediately displays the waveform and is ready to play.
Each preset has 16 pads. Pads can be set to different playback modes: one-shot, gated, looping, clip, or granular. The mode is a pad-level setting and changes how the Blackbox handles the audio during playback.
You can also chain multiple samples on one pad using layers, though that’s more of an advanced use case. For straightforward kit building, one sample per pad is the common approach.
Multi-sample folder loading
A more efficient way to load a kit is multi-sample folder loading. Instead of pointing a pad at a single WAV file, you point it at a folder. The Blackbox reads all the WAV files in that folder, sorts them alphabetically by filename, and maps them to consecutive MIDI notes starting at C2. One pad, multiple samples, selectable by MIDI note.
If you have a kicks folder organized like this:
kicks/
├── kick_soft.wav
├── kick_mid.wav
├── kick_hard.wavThe alphabetical sort maps kick_hard.wav to C2, kick_mid.wav to C#2, and kick_soft.wav to D2. Trigger the pad with different MIDI notes to select which sample plays.
Filename sort order controls the chromatic mapping, so naming conventions matter here. If you want your softest kick at C2 and hardest at the top, prefix the filenames with numbers or letters that sort in the right order: 1_kick_soft.wav, 2_kick_mid.wav, 3_kick_hard.wav.
Multi-sample loading is also the workflow for melodic instruments. A folder of piano samples recorded at different pitches, named in chromatic order, maps across the keyboard when assigned to one pad. Combine with MIDI control and you have a playable multi-sampled instrument in a single pad slot.
Recording audio on the Blackbox
The Blackbox records from its rear stereo input directly into the active preset’s folder. Press the record button, play your source, and the Blackbox saves the result as RC000001.wav inside the current preset folder. Subsequent recordings increment: RC000002.wav, RC000003.wav, and so on.
Presets/
└── HouseKit/
├── preset.xml
├── RC000001.wav ← first recording
├── RC000002.wav ← second recording
└── RC000003.wavThe recording appears as a sample on the pad you recorded into, already assigned and ready to play. The auto-naming means you don’t have to think about filenames while you’re working.
A few practical notes:
Recordings accumulate in the preset folder as you work. Old takes don’t get overwritten, they just stack up numerically. If you record a lot of material during a session, the folder will grow. This isn’t a problem for loading or playback, but worth tidying before sharing a preset.
Recording to the Blackbox is a good workflow for field sampling and live capturing. Load a preset as your workspace, record into it, and by the end of the session everything is already organized inside the preset folder. Pack Preset (covered next) then makes that self-contained for archiving or sharing.
Pack Preset
Pack Preset is the command that makes a preset portable. Without it, a Blackbox preset is a lightweight XML file pointing to audio files scattered across your card. With it, the preset folder contains everything it needs.
To run it: hold the preset name in the preset browser, or access it from the preset options menu on the device. The Blackbox copies every referenced sample into the preset folder and rewrites the preset.xml paths to point to those local copies.
Before Pack Preset:
Presets/
└── HouseKit/
└── preset.xml ← references /Drums/kicks/kick_hard.wav, etc.
Drums/
└── kicks/
└── kick_hard.wav ← the actual fileAfter Pack Preset:
Presets/
└── HouseKit/
├── preset.xml ← now references ./kick_hard.wav
└── kick_hard.wav ← copied here from /Drums/kicks/The preset is now self-contained. Zip the folder, hand it off, and the recipient drops it onto their SD card inside their Presets folder. Everything loads.
Pack Preset duplicates files rather than moving them. Your originals stay in their source folders; the preset just gets its own copies. If you use the same kicks across many presets and pack all of them, you’ll have multiple copies of those files on the card. On a 256 GB card that’s rarely a problem, but on smaller cards it’s worth accounting for.
Pack Preset also only copies what it can find. If a pad was assigned to a file that has since been moved or deleted, that pad won’t get packed. The preset still loads, but that pad will be silent. Before sharing, play back the preset on the device and confirm every pad sounds correct.
Sharing presets between users
Pack Preset is the setup step. The sharing workflow from there is straightforward:
- Run Pack Preset on the device.
- Pull the microSD card and connect it to your computer.
- Navigate to
Presets/and copy the preset folder. - Compress it and send it, or transfer it directly.
The recipient places the folder inside Presets/ on their card. When they load the Blackbox and open the preset browser, the preset appears. All samples play correctly because they’re inside the preset folder with relative paths.
One thing that sometimes surprises people: the presets from a Bitbox mk2 and from the Blackbox are compatible. Both units use the same preset.xml model. A packed preset from a Blackbox loads on a Bitbox mk2, and vice versa, as long as sample paths in the XML resolve correctly on the destination card. For packed presets with self-contained samples, that condition is already satisfied.
Common problems
Pads are silent after loading. The most common cause is a path mismatch. The sample was moved or renamed after the preset was created. On the device, go to the pad settings, open the file browser, and reassign the pad to the file at its current path. Then re-save the preset.
Shared preset loads but some pads are empty. You shared without running Pack Preset, so the preset.xml references paths that don’t exist on the recipient’s card. Run Pack Preset on your end, re-share the folder.
Pack Preset ran, but some pads are still empty on the other device. A pad was pointing to a missing or deleted file before packing. Pack copies what it finds at the time it runs. Fix the pad assignment on the source device, then repack.
Multi-sample mapping isn’t what I expected. Files map alphabetically, starting at C2. Check the sort order of your filenames: mixed case, leading numbers vs. letters, and whether your OS sorts the same way the Blackbox does (it uses standard ASCII sort order). Rename to control the order.
Recordings aren’t showing up in the browser. Recordings go into the preset’s folder, named RC000001.wav etc. They appear when you browse for samples within that preset’s context. If you’re browsing from a different preset or have reloaded the preset without the recordings being assigned, you may need to navigate to the preset folder explicitly.
The card isn’t being recognized. Check that it’s properly seated. If it’s exFAT and was formatted on a computer, confirm that the Blackbox firmware version supports exFAT (it does on current firmware). If in doubt, FAT32 works across all firmware versions.
What the preset model means for library management
Because samples can live anywhere on the card and be referenced from multiple presets, you can maintain a master sample library in one set of folders and build as many presets on top of it as you want. Changes to the source files (adding samples, organizing subfolders) don’t break existing presets unless you move files that are already assigned.
This works well when you’re building out a library over time. Add samples to your folders, build new presets that reference them, and leave existing presets pointing at their existing paths. The card grows; presets stay stable.
When you want to archive or export a finished preset for long-term storage or sharing, that’s when you Pack it. The packed folder is a complete snapshot of the preset as it existed when you ran the command. Your master library on the card keeps the originals.
For format validation and batch conversion before samples go onto the card, SampleStack reads WAV, AIFF, and FLAC from any source, normalizes to whatever spec you set (48 kHz, 24-bit WAV, for example), and writes a clean folder to your card. For the Blackbox specifically, the format flexibility means this step is optional rather than mandatory, but it keeps your library consistent across hardware that is less forgiving.