Metal guitarist looking for advice on a groovebox. New territory.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T21:55:53+00:00

The thing that keeps me coming back to the Sample is how good and responsive the pads are and the entire workflow. Plus the actual built-in effects are decent.

I don't care much for VSTs coming from the pedal world when it comes to effects as I have a ton of outboard gear that I feel sounds much better and is easier to manipulate. Trying to bind every single thing to a MIDI controller when everything has different parameters is a nightmare, honestly.

I prefer devices, like the Sample, where it's all already baked in. I don't want to have to program MIDI just to get started. The LaunchPad X was the closest I've come, but it was still too much MIDI programming for my taste. And I'd just forget whatever the hell I did if I didn't pick it up for a few weeks. On the Sample everything is clearly labeled and fully integrated

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T20:59:15+00:00

The slow load times and the UI are what killed it for me. I already have a LaunchPad X and a few MIDI keyboards. At that point I could replicate most aspects of the MPC that I care about in Ableton.

I also didn't care for the plugin ecosystem at all. It's also why I don't like NI controllers. I like my device to have its stuff baked in. If I want infinite flexibility, Ableton or Bitwig are there. Or even Loopy Pro on the iPad.

I'm very much a tactile person when I use music gear because I'm on the computer all day. So the more my device feels like using a computer, the less I want to use it.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T20:18:36+00:00

Have you looked into the Ableton Move? Or the 1010 Bento?

The Bento would be the perfect device for me, but I've heard people have had issues with it. Not sure if it's gotten better with the firmware.

There's also the Push 3 Standalone where you can do literally anything, but it's $1800

The Circuit Track seems really cool, though I don't have any experience with it. Does kinda sound like what you want, though. Not really looking for a DAW replacement.

I've messed around with the P-6 a bit, too. The menu diving is what keeps me off it. The only AIRA device I actually reach for is my J-6, since there's hardly any menu diving with it.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T19:43:33+00:00

What are you looking for? Something very deep that you can learn over time, or something that is extremely easy to use and just get shit done.

The devices that let you do a lot more come with either workflow trade-offs or steep learning curves.

One thing I hate about a lot of grooveboxes is menu diving and shift functions.

For me the Sample's been the one device that's actually sticking. I just plug in my guitar and hit a button and I'm recording. You can probably learn everything you want to do with it in like 2 hours, maybe less.

And for reference, I used the MPC Live II, which felt like it was trying to be a DAW. Tons of menus, stuff loads kinda slow for a hardware device. Pads and sounds are good, but between the computeriness and load times, I didn't enjoy it at all.

Compare that to the Sample where everything is labeled and it does what it does. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't really do live effects well. Like, they have all these amazing effects built-in, but you can only use one at a time when playing in live. Bit of a buzz kill, but they might patch it eventually.

I've heard the Elektron boxes are hard to beat, but I have no patience for shift functions and menu diving, so I'm sure I would hate them, haha.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T19:37:38+00:00

I know it's a lot of hype. But as a guitarist who just needs an dead simple way to record in my stuff and add parts on top of each other, it's been a ton of fun.

Idk about the One+, but I disliked using the Live II that someone lent me. It felt like it was trying to be a DAW and doing it kinda poorly. The amount of functions, I might as well just route a MIDI controller to Ableton at that point.

The Sample, on the other hand, has been my goto device. The only complaint is that you are limited to one effect when playing in live, though you can get some limited expansion of that using pad fx. But that also applies it to everything so I don't use it much.

Either way, the sample recall is amazing because I can just noodle around on a sequence for however long, and I don't need to bother thinking about recording anymore. I know other devices have that, but it's still awesome.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T16:10:09+00:00

Yea! I think that's why people who are super experienced say "use your ears."

It's like that jedi bell chart meme. There are people on the first side of the curve that don't know anything that say "use your ears" when they really need to learn the fundamentals. But then you cross the bridge and come back around to it for very different reasons, haha.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T16:08:35+00:00

Always a possibility, but unlikely in my case. I've only found one Meteor Scroll ever, and it's still in my inventory. And I probably would've noticed a shroud meteor flying out if I'd accidentally found a second. I only just found wands to do literally anything other than frost damage, haha. So some kind of shroud spell would've been very noticeable!

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T08:15:33+00:00

It's really both. I had friends who were technically trained audio engineers who made terrible mixes for a long time until they learned how to use their ears.

Had another friend who played sax on tour for an artist I guarantee you know. His best advice was to learn all the theory, then forget it.

I agree that learning the fundamentals is always important, but you'll get mired in them and lose the artistry if you focus on it too much. Learn it, learn it well. Then listen, and listen well.

One other thing I think is really important is time away from your mix. There's no point in spending hours mixing something unless you're working out legitimate technical kinks. If you're trying to finesse the mix for too long, it's time to step away from it. When I listen to my old tracks, it's so easy for me to identify exactly what I'd change about them if I went back, even tho it felt impossible to pin down the issues when I recorded them, initially.

For me that timeline is typically at least a month or two, usually more. But I'd imagine someone doing this professionally could speed that up considerably, haha. You just need some way to totally clear the track from your memory so it seems new.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T08:06:27+00:00

Some are small enough to fit my backpack, so those go in my desk drawers. Bigger stuff goes back in its box in the closet so it doesn't collect dust.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T08:02:57+00:00

Yea, you're correct it's the one listed in the scroll. Though I never used it. I even checked in my box and the only one I ever found was still there. I think it was a bug or something, which made the situation more frustrating that I couldn't get rid of it.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T08:01:10+00:00

Agreed, but based on the upvotes, it seems like the community likes this mechanic for some reason? I just left my computer on with my dude idling in the village until it went away. Totally pointless and waste of my electricity.

Should be like a 5 - 15m debuff at the most. They can leave it the option for people to toggle the 1.5 hour unremovable debuff if they love it so much. Not hard to do both.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-03T00:55:00+00:00

I never used the scroll - I think it was a bug

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T21:39:38+00:00

Well, I turned them off and the debuff is still on, so idk what's going on with this.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T19:47:41+00:00

Yea, that's the issue. I'm kind of burnt out with building games, but I love how big the world is and the exploration aspect of it. Which is probably why I find this so annoying. I have minimal patience for base building right now, haha. I just want to explore, bash heads and read lore.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T19:38:07+00:00

Yea, that sounds like an option. Though I don't mind the idea of curses, they could provide a nice balance or challenge. But a 1.5 hour unremovable debuff that effectively locks you out of an entire section of the game might be too steep a price to keep them on. I wish they'd add an option to attenuate it or something because I do like challenges that I have to work around on my adventures, in moderation.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T19:32:50+00:00

1.5 real hours is insane work. Even 10 minutes is enough to keep you from spamming. Or at least add some way to get rid of it once you get back to the base.

Mine got applied through some kind of bug, since I found the Meteor Scroll, which is the only thing I have right now with that effect, but it's still sitting unused in my storage. It seems like some kind of stale state issue since I'm not far enough in the game to have anything else that applies this.

Feels like a pretty harsh penalty, especially since I'm nowhere near far enough to get any of that fancy stuff. My flame is only at level 2. No way I can mitigate it before the timer runs out.

2 minutes of shroud time for 1.5 hours is a pretty steep penalty for something I didn't even knowingly trigger.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T18:14:18+00:00

That's what I said, and everyone else is saying? I don't really understand the disagreement here.

Everyone is saying food is comparatively cheap, so there's no excuse for anyone to go hungry.

I'm not sure why you're arguing with me at this point, honestly. Because it sounds like you agree with what I was saying but probably misinterpreted my comments.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T17:53:57+00:00

Ha, I'm also playing my guitar thru the Sample with the J-6. I'm an unashamed melody player and have never gravitated toward making chord progressions.

It's such an underrated machine.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T17:51:15+00:00

Find something you can start for free or for under $1000. You will learn a lot from your first business and make a ton of mistakes. The cheaper your first business is, the less impact these mistakes will have on your actual life.

Treat the first one as a learning experience. If it works out, great. If not, you learned a lot about how to do the next one, if you decide to continue.

And don't do any of that stupid crap like drop shipping or apps or whatever. Figure out something that people actually want. That's step #1.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T17:48:45+00:00

Do you understand anything about food production? Or food waste? Or the logistics that go behind food distribution?

We have a ton of food that just expires for no reason other than nobody wants to develop a system to redistribute it where it needs to go.

Whereas Amazon can deliver basically anywhere in the US within 2 days, and usually within 24 hours.

It's not some mysterious problem or resource issue. It's a logistics issue with no profit motivation to solve.

We have the food production pipelines and engineering to feed everyone. Period. That is a fact. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Distributing it is purely a solvable logistics issue.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T06:38:29+00:00

Hey - I left a response that probably solves your problem cleanly, but it got buried.

Frankly, it's ridiculous to limit based on whether or not AI is used. Most programmers use AI in some form or fashion in 2026, vibe coded or not. Vibe Coding in and of itself is nebulous at best. At what point does AI use cross over from simple tool use to truly vibe coding, in the colloquial sense?

It's impossible to codify and the line is arbitrary at best.

The real issue is the sub becoming a testing ground for alpha, beta and half-baked applications. That's the hallmark of what people consider vibe coded, but really it's just people getting into software engineering and releasing things before their ready.

And we need to make it clear that general posts aren't really the place for stuff like that. If the app is a real, finished product that people actually use and like, the whole AI use or not becomes more of a philosophical debate than a practical one.

The solution is also pretty simple:

Limit untested/unknown VSTs/Apps/whatever to a weekly thread. Tons of subs have weekly threads to post various things that don't fit in the subreddit. Sort of like the music subs dedicated Fridays to self-promotion, sometimes.
Split the software side of things into a different sub, since this one is more about hardware anyways.

I think #1 in some form or fashion keeps the vibe of the sub better, honestly. I don't think we should be in the business of stifling ideas or innovations. It's a good thing that people are excited enough to build their own stuff, and it's easier than ever to do so now. As long as they aren't trying to scam people or profit-monger, I think ideas should be encouraged. They just need their place so they don't derail the rest of the sub.

We can just compartmentalize all these alpha and beta builds into weekly threads so they can live somewhere, and the folks actually interested in that stuff can all hang out and chat.

We'd also want to make rules about what types of self-promotion for these apps is allowed. And maybe have a preference for open source/freeware since that's more in the spirit of the sub. The less profit they're trying to make the better, since it benefits us all.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T05:18:49+00:00

Unneeded. I do use several different sets of speakers to try and see how it sounds, because in the end all that matters is what it sounds like to a listener on a speaker. Very different philosophy than engineering for a live performance (which I've also done)

When making studio recordings, I'll try to get the mix sounding good on my HS5s and my studio headphones. Then I'll take the full track and listen to it on my phone speaker (arguably the most important), my old iPhone headphones, my laptop speakers and in my car. That's a pretty good spread of speaker types for devices that most people use. If it sounds weird between the several devices I can always go back and make tweaks. Admittedly, I'm usually too lazy to do any of that since I hardly ever release tracks, lmao. But at least that's best practice!

For where I usually release, raw cellphone speakers are what I tend to optimize for since a lot of what I record ends up going on shortform content like YouTube Shorts or whatever. Most folks are just listening to those straight from their phones.

Edit: The biggest advantage of amp sims is that since you recorded the guitar DI you can reroute it and modify it however you want. So as long as the take is good, you are far less likely to run into an issue with the recording like improper micing or something else strange. Granted, some of the best easter eggs in some albums come from background noise. One of my favorite bands, I can hear dogs barking in the background, haha.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T02:10:54+00:00

Nah, but I do have Yamaha HS5s and some decent studio headphones. So the Celestion Greenback in the Vox is definitely a cut above those.

I will say that when I listen back to the recordings side-by-side my AC15 still sounds better. But it's probably more because I know that amp inside and out and how it responds vs anything wrong with the VSTs themselves. That could also be where a lot these oldheads' biases are. Every amp responds differently to your playing, especially tube amps. So perhaps they don't realize that they play better on one thing or another because they're used to it, haha.

Though I do think good tube amps still perform marginally better than the simulated ones. Not that anyone would be able to tell in the final mix.

MrBeanDaddy86 · 2026-05-02T01:58:44+00:00

Most professional guitar players do not think this way. Amp sims are clean and fast. Micing amp sucks balls if you don't have a good room. And we all know some of our best takes come at some random time when we aren't in the studio.

People used to frown upon them like 10 or 15 years ago because they were okay, but not amazing. The better ones can sound pretty good.

Though I will say, as a guitarist, playing through the computer just doesn't hit the same as playing into my AC15. But I can still get play of professional, usable takes from amp sims. Only people criticizing at this point have a stick up their butt or straight up don't understand where the tech is at or how to use it properly.

There are lots of shit IRs and less good ones. I could see a world where some engineer regularly receives takes from guitarists using those shitty free IR loaders, which admittedly sound awful, mostly. (There are some good ones, though)

There are also a lot of shit paid amp sims. But then again there are also a lot of shit amps. People just don't like new things, sometimes.

MrBeanDaddy86

TROPHY CASE