The time has come for me to push this button. Had a beatbuddy and used it greatly for 3 years plus now in UK. I have had this question for a long while:
How can I use my Digitech FS300 footswitch to be A) Main pedal B) Pause (when held, playing when unheld) C) Add accent
I want to be able to have the BB on a table up close to me so I can song select without bending down (dont fancy the “browse through folder with foot” option) and still have the option to use transitions. I recently updated the firmware from its original and have lost the ability to pause only whilst pause is held and play when un-held. This let me make quicker and tighter musical fills for the rest of the band.
Can these things be down and can someone on this lovely community help me??
Why not get a IPAD download OnSong and control your BB with the Onsong? It will speed your show up big time, no guessing on if the beat is wrong,(unless you program it wrong), and make things easier on yourself? You pull up song “Taking Care of Business” and the beatbuddy goes to “Taking Care of Business”, the Midi commands are easy to learn, and install, and it works great. Plus you will have the chords and words right in front of you, if you so choose.
OK
I already have an Ipad so this could work for me. As I’d be new to OnSong can you explain how ill do this, how ill connect it to my BB, can I program drum step sequences on it play them back straight away through the BB? Are there many help vids out there on this?
OnSong has help vids, and that is essentially how I learned to use it. OnSong organizes your chords and lyrics lead sheets. You program a midi command into the chords and lyrics sheet, and when you pull up the song on the iPad, OnSong pulls it up on the Beat Buddy. So no drum programming per se is done with OnSong. You’re going to need some kind of midi editor to do that. I use Logic Pro X, but there are plenty of other alternatives. And, of course, if you are happy with what’s available from the Forum, you never have to program the beats.
To get OnSong to “talk” to your Beat Buddy, you are going to need an interface of some sort. The easiest to use are the bluetooth midi connectors. I use the Yamaha MD-BT01. The is also the Puc+ and there are likely some others. These devices will plug into your Beat Buddy using the proprietary midi cable from Singular. OnSong then sends its command to the Beat Buddy, essentially find song #such and such in folder #such and so, and you then have the chord and lyrics in front of you from OnSong, and the song ready to go on your Beat Buddy.
Onsong is also great for helping you get consistent volume levels on the BB if you use different kits like I do. It’s so much easier setting the BB volume where I need it through Onsong rather than having to edit velocity levels on each song in a DAW like I used to. I only started playing with Quantiloop but so far I haven’t run into any problems.
I don’t have a bluetooth midi pedal yet so I can’t speak much to that but I’ve been using a hardwired setup with no problems, I just recently got a Behringer FCB1010 pedal. It’s a beast but I like that it has 2 expression pedals and 10 quick-access presets that I can assign to Onsong, BB, and Quantiloop. I’m still playing around with a lot of Onsong’s features but it looks like you can automate quite a bit with it. I also plan to control my guitar effects pedal through Onsong which…hopefully… will let me hide all my gear out of sight and just use the FCB1010 and my iPad on stage while letting Onsong control most everything. My harmonizer isn’t midi but hopefully that will change soon!
I’ve been using an old USB midi cable I had laying around and connect that to the iPad camera kit (I think that’s what it’s called). Anyway it worked perfectly the 1st time and I like that you can connect both the USB cable and a power source if you want.
Just fyi I did read somewhere that you might actually want a hardwired setup if you’re going to be transmitting a lot of data like note on/off, sync/timing signals, etc to any devices. Not that I know this for a fact but I read that latency can be an issue with bluetooth in certain situations although I don’t think I’ve heard anybody complaining about any problems syncing Quantiloop and BB over bluetooth. Maybe somebody could confirm this for us.
Well, have fun! I know I’m still like a kid at a toy store right now!
Hey Klink. Btw check you messages every one in a while so we don’t have to be chasing each other all over the forum. I responded on your original question but I would still need to know what you’re trying to do with each patch. I plan to use my FCB1010 in conjunction with Onsong so what we need from the foot controller are probably different things.
Hi Raymond, not had any messages from you but thanks for the response. I want to use the FCB1010 to hit a switch to play main pattern, hit another one for a fill, hit another for 2nd main pattern etc. using CC numbers.
Hi Klink, that’s exactly how I have my FCB1010 & BB setup now without even programming the footswitch. @tomd100 also posted a reply to your original post in the Technical Support part of the forum if that’s what you want to do.
There are many options to control everything. Sounds like you prefer to use the Behringer but that is different than how I control everything. Currently I’m using the FCB1010 to control Onsong and use Onsong to control the BB. For example, I’m using control 6 to Start BB) & 10/0 to Play Outro/Stop. I use controls 8 & 9 to change the song in Onsong, 8=Previous Song and 9=Next Song. So when I tap, say, control 9 (Next Song in Onsong), the song changes in Onsong then Onsong sends the CC to call up that song on the BB. I use one of the expression pedals to scroll through the song in Onsong if I haven’t set the correct auto-scroll yet. When the song is changes, Onsong also sends the appropriate volume level I want to the BB. It could also send tempo and quite a few other things.
I’m using controls 1 & 2 to play my BB transitions (I only use 2 parts max for any song). I’m using control 3 for my accent hit, control 4 for my pause/unpause, and control 5 for the fill.
What I like about using Onsong rather than programming the FCB1010 to control the BB is that it was the easiest way to do it.There are a few cheat sheets out there but the easiest way to program the Behringer is what @tomd100 suggested. Just click on the link for the PC version of [PC Editor FCB1010[/URL], it might work for you. If you’re using a Mac just search for it, I found it once but since I don’t have my Mac laptop yet I didn’t save the search. Here’s another link that might help, it’s more for people like me… the [URL='http://host.mtnsys.com:81/faq-fcb/IdiotsGuide.htm’]Idiot’s Guide](‘http://PC Editor FCB1010 http://host.mtnsys.com:81/faq-fcb/PCEditorBeta.htm’).
The Behringer straight out of the box will send a program change midi message for each control so control 1 sends a Program Change 0 (on channel 1) and zero’s as values. Control 2 sends 2,0,0 etc. So… I just set up Onsong to respond to these messages. When Onsong receives, for example, Program Change 5 when I tap control 6 on the Behringer, Onsong sends the appropriate CC command to the BB. In my case, CC114,0,127 to start the BB.
Remember that for transitions, you’ll have to send 2 CC’s. The first one tells BB to start the transition and what transition you’re going to (1, 2, 3, etc). So for that it’ll be CC113 and the value of the transition you want to go to, 1, 2, 3, etc. The 2nd CC command is the same CC113 but with a value of 0. Otherwise the transition will just loop without ever going to the part you want. That’s another reason I like Onsong, although you can send 2 CC’s with the Behringer, you can stack more than that with Onsong. For example you can put a delay between the Transition CC and the CC to actually go to the part. I think I used like 400ms to give me just less than a half-second delay.
LADIES&GENTLEMEN thanks all the responses have been great I am now going to be using OnSong set up permanently with my live set up. I have of course got the latest firmware on the beatbuddy. Does anyone know where there is an OPTION to let you TURN ON the original PAUSE/PLAY right pedal on footswitch so the pause play when your foot is HOLDING DOWN the pedal.
I want to switch this old style feature on but don’t seem able to.
Can I still do this?
Probably not with the current version. I’m not sure which older version of the f/w would allow you to do so. Perhaps some of our users could suggest a workaround.
Also do not forget about UnrealBook - I find it far easier to use a setup than Onsong tbh…its’ MIDI operations and the extermely valuable “hotspots” , which can be set to be MIDI commands and can be placed anywhere in a song, are very good! AND easy to use
The hotspot is a “tappable” box that sends MIDI commands when it is touched. This allows way mroe MIDI operations than simply send a MIDI message at song load (which Unrealbook can do as well btw)
Just saw this post. Onsong is pretty flixible, you just have to tell it what to do with the midi information it receives or sends out just like you do with the BB. As long as you’re sending the correct midi commands on the correct channel it should work. Are you just having problems getting BB and Onsong to talk to each other?
