So I get this is supposed to work, but I can’t seem to make it happen. I’m trying to have the BB play along with comping loops I create for some work on some jazz standards. So my loops would generally be 8, 12, 16, or maybe 32 bars in general, depending on the song and whether I’m doing sections or the complete form.
When hooking up the BB and picking the appropriate (I think) midi out setting, the start and stop functionality seem to work ok (that is, recording starts and playback stops as directed by BB). But when I stop a loop recording, it reverts to playing only the first measure over and over (and over and over…), not the full 16 bars, as it should have been on my first attempt.
I thought this might have had something to do with using the count-in to get started, so I disabled it with the same result. If I record without the BB on at all, the looper works as one would expect, but I really couldn’t get tempos to sync after that (the Aeros was always behind the beat as delivered by the BB). I think this latter problem might be related to the fact the Aeros doesn’t allow you to change song settings once a loop has been saved. I do also note that the tempo doesn’t appear to be changeable once a recording has been made (that is, changing tempo on the beat buddy doesn’t affect the tempo on Aeros during playback).
I understand that documentation and firmware changes may be forthcoming, but from what little is out there to guide me, I couldn’t get this to work. Any ideas on what I’m doing wrong?
Like I said, I never did either. I’d imagine it’s probably on its way to you. I only really had a chance to mess with it last night for a bit, so I’m just scratching the surface. And I haven’t really used BB too much until now (I’ve been using drum genius loops a lot with Ableton, but am trying to utilize Aeros to separate my rig from the computer, hopefully)- so I have a learning curve with both.
I’m wondering if the drum loop I’m using is only a single measure, and that is somehow affecting what the Aeros is capturing. I would think they would have to be longer than that in order to sound “human”, though. I’m also pretty sure I’ve tried more than one preset, but I don’t know that I’d bet my left arm on that. I think the middle up tempo swing from the regular jazz set is what I tried, and the 1st part is a pretty simple hi hat ride, I think. I’ll try with another genre altogether when I get back home and see if that has any effect, as well as opening the main drum part in the midi editor to see how long it actually is.
Again, it works fine if I don’t sync to the BB. So this is some sort of midi-sync issue, I would suppose.
Ok, so I think I figured out what the problem was. If you are recording a loop, everything seems to work ok as long as you stop the recording with the Aeros RPO button. It seems I was stopping recording by double-tapping the beat buddy main switch. When I do that, the Aeros just loops the first bar of what was recorded, rather than the entire loop.
As far as settings, I’ve tried several different combinations (mainly from the midi menu of beat buddy, with and without an intro, count in, etc). I can’t seem to find a way to access the “advanced settings” on the Aeros itself, so just have the basic settings available through the song menu- with a two bar count in enabled. That seems to be the way to give me a “lead in” from BB to get the tempo in my head before the loop recording starts. I love that fact that the display makes that so obvious. Anyway, I’ve only been tinkering with 2x2 at this point, so maybe the advanced settings are just available in 6x6?
I do get the same behavior with the tempo, though. If I record a loop and save it at 120, but then increase to 140 on BB, the BB plays at 140 but the Aeros loop stays at 120. Midi sync on the BB is set to “always”.
For the looping the first bar after stopping with the BeatBuddy, that’s behavior that we should be able to change in a future update. I’m passing the info along to the developers now.
Regarding the tempo, because the Aeros doesn’t currently have time stretching capabilities for the loops, it has to remain the same tempo as the first loop laid down. If intelligent time stretching is added a later date, you would be able to change tempo on the BB and see that reflected on the Aeros.
JBinFW - This is why they SHOULD have included a detailed setup/quick start guide for those who already own the Beat Buddy and need to be able to now sync/setup the Aeros so it works seamlessly w/ the BB. Shipping a product without proper documentation or at least having it available online or an HTML searchable manual that goes over these key things that a brand new user who is LOST and has no clue, is KEY.
I might respectively disagree with you, only in that I accept the fact that- when purchasing a brand new product coming out of initial production- I am a bit of a beta tester here. If I wanted a flawless product, I’d wait until it had been out for a few months and had some kinks worked out. So I am willing to accept that there are areas where this might feel…unfinished. There is a video on Youtube describing the settings to hook up to beat buddy, so that was pretty easy, actually. But clearly I was doing things in a way the developers didn’t expect, and that is why it wasn’t working for me. Which is ok with me, because that is the risk you take as an early adopter.
I completely agree that more thorough documentation would be great and super helpful… but the blurb that was included in the box states they have further upgrades and updates planned in the short term, and may be waiting for those before coming out with a full manual. Just a supposition. And I’d have rather had the Aeros a week earlier rather than waiting for them to finish and print new manuals, if I was to be completely honest. I only read the manuals when things go wrong, anyway.
I was disappointed to see the full “manual” show up online, just to find it really has very little new information compared with the “quick start”. It does list what some of the advanced settings are, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how I am supposed to access those. They aren’t in either the main settings screen or the song settings screen, as far as I can tell.
We do have some tutorials and documentation online, but as JB mentioned above me there are ways to use the Aeros which we didn’t expect and additionally, some aspects of the manual are still in progress as they’re dependent on future updates to the pedal.
@JBinFW We should have another revision to the manual up (Hopefully) before the end of the week, and in general there are going to be constant updates. Feel free to check back frequently or send me an email or DM if you’re curious whether it’s updated and/or what’s new.
In regards to the advanced settings, what settings specifically are you looking for?
So the settings mentioned in the manual (the version I had from the website earlier this week, anyway) are the click track output- right now there is no way to route that to the mains, as far as I can tell. The manual mentions this could be sent to aux out, main out, or both. It would be helpful to have that available (especially when using away from BB) when putting down a track. But there is no click track setting in global or song-specific setting menus I can find.
The other settings mentioned in the manual have to do with changing parts or recording next track- whether that should start at the end of the bar or at the end of the loop. I don’t see those settings in the Aeros, either. Similarly the backing track feature mentioned in the manual is missing, but not something that I would use at this point, anyway. (When we can add tracks to different song parts it will be a different story, I’m sure. I know that’s planned for a future update).
I’ll definitely look forward to having time stretching available in the future. Right now I just have to make sure the tempo on BB matches that shown for the song. Which is working fine, as long as I remember! I understand completely this is still a work in progress, but really I’m loving it already. Can’t wait for it to get even better in the future!
I left the Aux Out Routing on Click. Then ran a cable from the Aux out to an unused channel on my keyboard amp. This give me the click track while I record, and it works quite well.
I understand it’s in the aux out. I was just answering Anthony’s question about the missing setting options. In the manual online, it says there is an option to route the click to the main out, aux out, or both.
In practice, if not using the BB, it would definitely be nice to hear that click track while getting started laying down a track. The aux out would allow you to route that to monitors rather than front of house, so it makes sense that is the default. Using it in the practice room, though, I don’t have a spare input to send the aux, so I’d have to actually plug up a separate amp. So it’s not practical in that setting for me.
So I’m not sure if the settings mentioned in the manual just haven’t been implemented in the firmware yet, or whether there is a missing “advanced settings” menu that I’m either unable to find or access. But what I’ve been able to do with it so far, I’m otherwise happy with.
Ah - looking at it you’re right that setting is not there. Interestingly enough, I’m not seeing it on the development timeline as either a bug or missing feature.
Most likely, what happened is that when we switched over from an older ux to the current ux (previously, all screens had a similar look to the songs screen) the setting was forgotten/not carried over to the new design. This means the functionality is likely there we just need to re-add it to the design of the settings page.
I’m adding to the development list now as one of the higher priority items, and we should hopefully have it good to go soon!
I think having a 1 page insert in the physical box and showing the link to the ONLINE html manual is best as its easier to have 1 place to access it, for SS to update it and keep it updated so that everyone has the same version available to them and it cuts downon printing $$ and shipping weight to print a physical manual that adds weight which means more $$ to ship. A change log of the known bugs as well as what they are working on would be idea. Take a look at the users bug reporting structure that Adobe uses for their products like Lightroom, Photoshop, etc where users can report bugs or quesitons and experts can verify and open tickets and track IN PROGRESS, COMPLETED, VERIFIED, etc status of each issue. I realize SS is not even close to the size of Adobe but just a thought as SS adds more products and gets more issues on a daily basis and grows their customer base. Thinking outside the box and running a product thru things that users dont normally do or should do but MIGHT do is a typical test/sandbox most companies do to work out the bugs at the shop. Give the product to a non company employee to see what they can do or cant do with it and where they stumble or have questions…thats the real test
