Woovebox, a tiny but ridiculously powerful sampling and synthesis groovebox

Woovebox is a new portable groovebox that squeezes a heck of synthesis and sampling features in a tiny cardbox groovebox.

With the Novation Circuit, a new era of groove boxes began in 2015. Small, affordable, and many options. Many other grooveboxes followed, packed with synthesis, sampling, etc. Thanks to modern technology, these are becoming smaller and more compact.

The all-new Woovebox, a new groovebox with a card box-style design, shows how far it can go with the size.

Woovebox

At first glance, the design is reminiscent of a shrunken Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator. Circuit board look, sixteen tactile microswitches, two additional buttons on the left/right, a big knob, and two 4-letter old-school screens.

Don’t let the size fool you. The Woovebox has an impressive set of features. Both synthesis and sampling are on board.

Synthesis Meets Sampling

The synth engine is 16-part multi-timbral and consists of 16 tracks with 1 track with four voices of polyphony and 15 tracks with 4-voice paraphonic or mono tracks.

On the synthesis side, you can work with 16 versatile synthesis algorithms and 17 low-aliasing oscillator models. You can choose two oscillator models per voice, and they range from classic virtual analog, FM, super saw, AM, ringmod, x0x percussion, and more.

Besides the oscillator models, you can also work with samples. It hosts up to 256 user samples (16 user kits x 16 samples) with up to 62 seconds (44.1kHz 8-bit mu-law compressed) in total. You can also sample in the unit via the dedicated 3.5mm line input.

Samples can also be mangled, sliced, chopped, and re-arranged right in the unit. There is also an option to re-sample the internal Synthesizer engine. And via Bluetooth, you can also import your own samples in the unit. It also supports multi-sampled instruments.

Once the sound generators have been chosen, the signals go into a multimode filter per voice with 10 filter types. Modulation side, you get two amp envelopes, a filter envelope, and multiple LFOs per voice.

It hosts both FX and dynamic effects per voice and global multi-FX to refine your sounds. You can find:

• global multi-FX: reverb, stereo chorus, and two stereo delays
• per-voice FX: distortion, saturation, bit crushing, resampling, global multi-FX sends
• per-voice dynamics: compressor/limiter, 4-bus side-chaining, gating

Plus, there is a master compressor/limiter, vinyl, and noise effects. Impressive. One really wonders where the developers put all these features. The groovebox is tiny but packed with features like a flagship instrument

Sequencer

Woovebox is a groovebox and a groovebox needs a sequencer. Otherwise, it isn’t. The unit has space for up to 16 songs, each with 16 tracks. Then, each track has 16 patterns, and each pattern has 16 steps. The step amount is a bit small. I hope this will be expanded in the future.

There are polyrhythmic and generative options, you can program in arpeggios, and it supports xox-style patterns. It also offers per-step conditionals, 100+ step modifier types, and probability. User scales, modes, chord types, and inversions are also onboard.

Woovebox’s internal sequencer feature list isn’t finished yet: You also get pattern chaining, pattern muting conditions, micro-timing + swing, and a song mode with per-fragment transformation and automation. This is called a huge feature set.

Connectivity & Battery

On the connection side, you get a stereo line input for sampling, a line output, a type-A MIDI output, and a sync out. The latter is, for example, compatible with the Pocket Operators. There is also onboard Bluetooth for transferring sounds and MIDI in/out. And thanks to the stereo line input, you can route up to two devices into the synth engine of the Woovebox.

Woovebox also has an internal battery giving you up to 10 hours of wireless music production. And lastly, you can export your songs as WAV (song, stems, and dry & wet).

First Impression

Hat for the feature set of this tiny groovebox. Wild what you can find here. Woovebox actually has everything you like to see: a lot of synthesis power, sampling, re-sampling, a large sequencer, and portable thanks to the internal battery. Too small for me to make music with, but there are many musicians who like small, portable instruments. For them, the device is highly exciting and also very affordable.

Woovebox is available now for $249 and includes a custom-made hard case.

More information here: WB

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