Only a DAW is the only other MIDI editors I have used. I use Cubase but there are free ones available online that could do it. Other users may have more experience with those ones than I do.
Which version of Cubase do you use and does it use a drum grid or a piano roll?
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I’m using Elements 8. Getting on a bit now but does everything I need it to. I have Elements 9 on a laptop but that is on our laptop which runs our digital mixer. I can record our shows mutichannel straight to Cubase on the laptop.
And yeah you can do a drum grid or a piano roll.
Cool, thanks.
I think Avid is offering their Pro Tools First DAW free of charge. 16 tracks, some virtual instruments, some basic effects, etc. I use Logic Pro X so I don’t know how steep the learning curve would be for Pro Tools but, hey, it’s the industry standard DAW.
For some unknown reason I cannot paste the link here 
so just Google Avid Pro Tools First free.
PS: Cakewalk (windows only) by Bandlab is also free
Pro tools is hard! That’s a whole field of study, but if you’re willing to invest time to learn it, it is an excellent tool (this is my DAW of choice).
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Does anyone know if Ableton Live will do this, too? I had the free Lite version, but just got the paid Intro version with a piece of gear I bought. I, too, am interested in editing some of the BB songs. I’ve done this in BB MGR, but it’s labor intensive!
Ableton live will work fine.
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I recently purchased a scarlet solo audio interface which came with free Ableton live. I’ve gotten some of the basics down as far as messing with the drum sets in the software, but I’m struggling with how to connect the dots as far as using a Ableton in place of beatbuddy manager to create my own beats. Where can I find some guidance on how to load my beatbuddy’s drum sets into Ableton, and properly map everything so that it transfers back to the pedal correctly?
I was ok with your question until the last sentence. I recall there being some way to set up velocity zones in a drum rack, but I’d have to do more research than I have time for at present. Essentially, you need to do a couple steps. 1] Look at your kit in the BB Manager drum kit editor screen, and make a list of drum tones, midi note locations, and velocity levels. Essentially, make a written map of your kit. 2] Consult the Ableton manual for assistance with the Drum Rack instrument. I believe there may be a 16 tone limit for each rack, but I do believe you can map the notes to midi locations as you see fit. If your kit has more than 16 tones, you may need multiple Ableton drum racks. 3] Find the location of the wav files used in the BB drum kit on your HD. Copy it to a new work folder on your HD that you will use to build the drum rack(s) in Ableton. 4] Build your racks, program you tracks. When done, if you have more than one track, merge the multiple tracks into one. This file can then be exported as a midi file and brought into BB manager as part of a BB song.
Note - I would never do it this way. It’s a backward approach. Rather, I would program a track in Ableton using a drum rack up to 16 pieces, then build a BB drum kit with those 16 pieces in the locations I mapped in Ableton.
I knew my question would be confusing, since I wasn’t really sure how to go about doing what I want to do… Either way I think I get what you are saying and will probably try starting in Ableton as you suggest. If I can figure this out, I expect it to open a lot of doors. Do you know offhand if it is possible to create a single drum track with changes in tempo that can be used on the beatbuddy? Other than going to halftime (rarely useful), that has always been a big limitation on song selection.
Beat buddy won’t as yet recognize a tempo change within a song. When I run into the need to do it, I use a complicated time stretching process. I’ve posted a couple tutorials on it. Search for “ritardando”
To see the application of this process, take a listen to this:
Thanks, I’ve “stretched” a song on the BBM once by ear and it was tedious. First things first, I’ve made progress with your method of creating a Drum Rack in Ableton to make a basic beat with some of the .wavs from BeatBuddy’s standard Rock kit. I exported the midi file and added it to the Main Loop of a track and see where I need to map it. I created a copy of the Rock kit, but can’t find how to configure the loctions of each component of the kit so that it plays correctly
Configure in the drum rack, or in the BBM drum kit editor?
In BBM
When you add the wav files to BBM for an instrument, you can select it’s midi number. Zero equates to C -2 (negative 2). C1 is 36, which is where a kick drum is normally found. If you have the kit configured in the drum rack, just set the number in the BBM drum set editor window to match the midi location number in the drum rack. I am going to send you links to a tutorial and a chart.
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See my link in post #2.
Thanks as always, Phil!