Hardware quirks and limitations

Your Woovebox was designed to - literally - punch well above its weight in terms of bang-for-buck and features, but there are some hardware quirks and limitations owing to its portability and low power consumption.

Battery charging speed

Battery charging can take up to 4h from empty to for a full charge. This slightly longer than strictly necessary, however was implemented to extend battery longevity, allowing for more charging cycles than you will find in typical consumer electronics. This extends the service life of your Woovebox and ultimately reduces e-waste. Being a perfect device for on-the-go, lower charging current requirements also allow for usage of low current energy sources, such as older USB outlets, small solar panels and small power banks.

LED Screen and keypad controller

Pressing multiple 1-16 keys at the same time may cause some screen "corruption". This is an inherent limitation of the low power integrated screen and keypad controller. It is perfectly harmless.

DSP resources

Your Woovebox has a finite amount of digital signal processing (DSP) resources for real-time synthesis and sample playback. In general you should be able to play moderately complex sounds and effects simultaneously on Track Cd through to A5 without running into serious limitations. Please refer to "Understanding DSP load" for further information and optimization strategies.

Stable MIDI over BLE connection required for data transfer

Your host device needs to be able to establish a stable MIDI over BLE connection in able to perform data transfers (via Wooveconnect or a SysEx manager) such as firmware updates, sample upload/download, song upload/download and patch upload/download . See also here for requirements.

Sync pulse voltage

Though rare, some sync pulse inputs from other manufacturers require a higher voltage than the Woovebox hardware can provide. Woovebox sync pulses may work unreliably or not at all with such hardware. Sync compatibility has been tested successfully with the Teenage Enginering Pocket Operator series, and the KORG Vocla series.

USB-C port used for charging only

The USB-C port on your Woovebox is used for charging only. It does not output or accept MIDI, nor outputs or accepts audio. Please use MIDI over Bluetooth or the physical Type-A MIDI out port to connect to external MIDI devices. Please use Wooveconnect to import and export .WAV audio.

1-16 key appearance with use

The switches are rated for 500K+ presses each, however some harmless cosmetic "dulling" of the metal around the circular part of the micro switches may occur with use over time. This is does not affect operation, is considered normal and does not require cleaning.

USB ground loop noise

This is not so much a limitation of the Woovebox, but rather a potential limitation of the device charging your Woovebox. Depending on how (and to what) your Woovebox is connected via USB, ground noise may be prevalent on the analog output. This is unfortunately a common issue with many types USB hosts (such as computers and laptops) and can happen with any connected audio gear, not just your Woovebox. If the issue is problematic, disconnect your Woovebox from the problematic USB device, or use a USB Isolator device. Similarly, very cheap MIDI interfaces without optical isolator circuits may also not work reliably while your Woovebox is simultaneously connected to some USB hosts.

Low weight

Your Woovebox can often weigh less than the cables it is attached to. As such, it does not take much to overcome any surface friction, causing your Woovebox to move and potentially slide off of the surface you placed it on. Please be careful to route any cabling in a way that does not tug on your Woovebox. While being a portable device, your Woovebox is not impact resistant or drop-tested. Please be careful with your Woovebox.

Touch button calibration

The write and play touch button sensitivity is re-calibrated on every power-on event. Please do not touch these buttons while switching on the device, as this may cause the touch buttons to not register properly. You may start using the buttons once the wake-up animation and boot sequence starts. If you find the device starts, for example, playing by itself, calibration may have failed during power on. Simply turn off and on the device to re-calibrate the touch buttons again.

If you find the touch buttons are not sensitive enough (for example if you have very dry or callused hands), a special boot mode is available to temporarily increase the sensitivity.

Value knob play/"looseness"

The Value knob is a Bourns Pro Audio, high-rotational life mechanical encoder + push switch combo, with relative far-spaced out notches. This means that there is a slight looseness of the knob and it can be "wiggled" the smallest amount. This is perfectly normal and is present on all Wooveboxes.

Sample transfer speeds

Your Woovebox relies on a low energy Bluetooth protocol that affords only limited bandwidth. As such, bulk data transfer speeds (e.g. sample transfer) are impacted and may take some time. In practice this is really only most noticeable during sample transfers and firmware updates.