Fieldtone Box Of Uncertainty

A brilliant concept beautifully designed and realised.
Pure sonic happenstance with no presets or memory.
Ive been waiting for this box for about 35 years.
*stands on chair applauding*

A true noiz warper with absolute uncertainty.
A performance beast of a thing...it just hungers for constant random bits of sounds and manipulates them into a lost cavern of noiz. It's the granular sonic equivalent of taking a ride on Albert Hoffman's bicycle. Chaos Magick in a box to manifest your noiz desires.

This is an extraordinary machine that offers a very different sound palette and means of manipulating sound to composers/musicians. Thoroughly enjoyed my journey with it so far and it is likely to become an essential part of my live music set up.
The music world needs more devices like this to enable musicians to develop their own musical voice and means of expression.

The Box of Uncertainty is exactly what its name implies:

you can learn what each of the knobs do, and in doing so you’ll be able to control what happens to a degree, but there are still arcane and mysterious powers at play here, and depending on the settings of each knob and the type of sound you have recorded into the buffer, certain parameters may behave differently. It reminds me of the Cocoquantus by Ciat - Lonbarde, which I had in my possession for a period of time a few years ago. Since that’s the only other device I am aware of that bears more than a passing similarity to the Box of Uncertainty, I will compare the two a bit more:

I would say that the BOU could be an alternative to the Cocoquantus, albeit a less flexible one as it lacks any kind of CV inputs. Both devices have two channels of audio. On the Cocoquantus both channels are more or less the same, while the BOU has only one channel that offers pitch control, and the other has a reverb effect (which sounds very nice I might add). The BOU also has a control called “occult emanation”, which to the best of my understanding is some sort of ring mod with an additional shimmer effect that kicks in every once in a while. It makes sounds that remind me of the Earthquaker Devices Rainbow Machine. The Cocoquantus does not have any built-in effects, although its recording buffer can be held open, and recording new audio does not erase what was previously recorded, so it can be used as a stereo delay or looper. The recording buffer on the BOU cannot be held open like the one in the Coco can, so it cannot be used as a delay / looper in the same way. Pressing the capture button replaces the current sample with a new recording.

I do enjoy the clicky, rough-hewn quality of the loop points. Some might find it “crude” or undesirable, but if you pitch down the sample and unused just a hint occult emanation (which to the best of my understanding is some type of ring mod with a tuneable carrier oscillator and a shimmer effect), some deep bass drum tones can be achieved. The physical controls of the BOU are much more playable than the ones on the Cocoquantus: the large knobs feel very much in favor of fun and live performance, inviting the user to twist and turn to their heart’s content.

The “capture” button is an exception here: the control panel around the button is not mounted to any part of the wooden case, so the panel yields under the pressure of your finger when you press the button and the metal corner scrapes the side of the wooden case as it dips inward. If you’re using the built-in mic, this is a problem, because it will pick up that sound and drown out whatever it was you were trying to record in favor of metal scraping wood. I have been able to train myself to press the capture button very lightly in order to avoid this sound, but that doesn’t always work and it would be nice if the panel had been mounted more securely to the wooden case. I would also have appreciated having the ability to alter the pitch of both channels of audio, and having pitch controls with higher resolution. I find it difficult (sometimes impossible) to tune the pitch of the “particle” channel to the fixed pitch of the “fragment” channel, as it seems to skip over pitches that would be in harmony with the original sample in favor of more dissonant intervals. This might simply be part of the nature of the hardware that is used here, but I’m not sure.

The built in microphone is quite sensitive, and I think it excels at picking up room ambience and quiet sounds. The preamp will break up if the incoming sound is louder than a normal speaking voice, but the line input on the back has more headroom than the built in mic does so that can be used if the sound you want to capture is louder than what the mic can handle. It’s nice to have options.

Overall I think the BOU is a beautifully designed piece of art that can produce some very fascinating and sometimes beautiful results, though perhaps not the most versatile sampler in the world. In the week that I’ve had the BOU, I have found it a useful soundscape tool that fits snugly in the empty spaces: when I’m working on something and it just feels like something is missing, pulling out the BOU and twiddling the knobs often results in something that does the trick and rounds everything out, and gives the track a dash of something unexpected.

Short demo of the BOU chewing up some Moog sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-vE9L0n2eA

What a fun and idiosyncratic device. There is nothing like the Box of Uncertainty out there. For one thing, the operation manual is only one page long, which makes for instant playability right out of the box. The sound quality is also quite rich. I haven’t yet found the need to process it through FX pedals.
The BOU even looks magical. Rather than having a typical manufactured feel, it’s nestled in a lovely wooden enclosure with fancy joinery, with whimsical names and artwork.
All I can say is that if my music studio ever caught fire, the BOU is what I’d rescue first. Hugh Jones, who manufactures each unit by hand, is a fantastic guy, who’s made himself available to cheerfully answer any questions I’ve had. Plus you get Soundgas as an additional resource. I live in the U.S. and they’re more responsive and knowledgeable than anywhere on these shores.
An excellent and wonderful machine, backed by a store that definitely goes the extra mile, especially when you live thousands of miles away.
You can’t go wrong with Tony or Sandy. The store is kind of like a strange museum, packed with one-of-a-kind products.