1010music nanobox tangerine

It's fairly capable, rather easy to use and sounds great. The user interface is rather intuitive, once you mess around with it for a bit you can put down the manual. I wanted something to play samples off of, such as some mellotron tapes and what not and this makes it incredibly simple, it will record the samples for you with no trouble. It's great for bringing a variety of sounds to play live or at rehearsals without having to carry a laptop with you and it's certainly a lot more stable, not a single crash or error so far. Multiple velocity layers work great, no complaints on that side.

I would have appreciated a way an input for an expression pedal, as playing stuff like piano is rather hopeless without pedals, but perhaps a MIDI capable pedal could be put to use. Tiny inputs and outputs are a bit annoying, but given the size, I suppose it makes sense.

Bought this as I wanted to try a simple sampler for a few things. I wanted to be able to play sampled instruments from a keyboard, and also mess around with vocals. Sampling is quite a complex business and no sampler is going to be super simple to use, but this is certainly no worse than an Akai S1000 for those who remember. It works; despite being tiny and without professional connectors (uses 3.5mm plugs for audio out and midi and USB C power) the sound quality is ok and it's held up in the months I've used it. For me there is a great advantage of this unit however, in how samples and OS updates can be loaded on an SD card from any external computer, without the need for a proprietary editor or midi sysex. I still have other gear that not just requires Windows but Windows XP due to proprietary editing software - a ridiculous situation that the simple approach of 1010Music here overcomes. The other thing worth mentioning is there is a very active and supportive online forum for any queries or problems. I had a very specific issue to do with midi global channels and prog change messages and the way the unit handles them, and was able to get good advice and suggestions from other users. Seems expensive given the size and physicals, but does fill a gap in the lower end sampler market very well, at least for me. Starting "Girls on Film" live with the motorised camera shutter sound is a great touch for a band.