It’s been an interesting conversation to follow. It’s great to see so many people wanting to use the Beat Buddy for different things and I can see the challenge from Singular to figure out how to make everyone happy or even content!
The issue I have is the amount of inaccurate information that is coming out. While it’s great to keep us all posted, the date promises of when things are going to be released and then it not happening time after time is what frustrates me. Oh well…the good news is that everything works for me and it’s just enhancements that I’m looking for!
One update I’d like to see on BB Manager is an easy way to change volume on tracks. I wanted to make the bass line louder on a song but it was way too much work for me. I really don’t want to learn another software program due to time but that might be something I need to do to accomplish a better volume mix and my other goal of transposing bass lines. Oh yeah - I’d also like to chop up OPB stuff into verse/chorus/bridge.
Long post- love the product, I’m excited about the enhancement and possibilities but could do without the over promising dates that takes months/years to deliver.
Hello Bootsy,
I may be able to help you in one point. I have all my drums on the left. and put my bass on the right channel. Thus, the drums and bass on the mixer can be regulated separately. To put the drums in the drum set on the left channel, I have made a mono track from the stereo track. This is very fast via batch with the program Soundforge Pro. Of course you have to add the basses as an instrument in the drumsets, but you only do that once per drumset. If you are interested I can send you a drum set and a song. I am very happy with it.
I will remain cautiously optimistic, as they were talking about the updated BB Manager being out shortly, way back over 2 years ago (Sept 2017) LOL:
My Beatbuddy does not get used much - Fun for practice, but too much of a pain for custom song arrangements, which even for the best of them can take about 2 hours or so for a song with the current manager. I can understand those that have a pretty static setlist from gig to gig being okay with this, but I play at church (like many of us) where there are different songs from week to week, with a rotation of well over 100 songs with new ones being added and old ones being dropped off, so anything to streamline song creation process would be very welcome.
Understand the need for new revenue streams from products, but the BeatBuddy is the flagship and should at least be fully up to date at this point with the amount of time its been on the market.
Great product but shitty software support.
Imagine if the Beatbuddy software was 2019 compliant? That would be so awesome.
Since they refuse to update it then we are stuck with 3rd party tools to build midi tracks then import into BB.
When the BeatBuddy (BB) was created, it was designed for working exclusively with beats—not one-press songs with multi-instrumentation. As the user-based concept for using one-press formatted songs continued to evolve, the BB was never able to keep up due to the hardware limitations of the pedal i.e., limited memory to be able to process larger drum sets and etc. The MIDI Editor was not a part of the original design framework and was grafted onto the software. It was never intended for anything other than the lightest of duties.
Can’t speak for Rockindaddy or others but here’s my compilation of what users have been asking for on the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM). I’m sure I’ve missed some features but here goes:
Fix the performance issues and bugs.
Make the BBM leverage the Windows and Mac OS basic functions e.g., drag and drop, cut, copy and paste, ability to select a range of notes and perform bulk processes.
Create mobile versions for iOS and Android.
Add capabilities to the BBM such as reverb, fast forward and rewind, true pause and resume from the point of where it was paused.
Ability to manage the pedal and remote foot switch settings from preferences built into the BBM.
Manage MIDI.
Improve the MIDI Editor. There are 2 trains of thought. 1) expects a MIDI Editor with all the features of a DAW and 2) prefers to do away with the MIDI Editor.
MIDI 2 is coming off the drawing board and into broader public awareness so that future compatibility with MIDI 2 will also probably be expected.
Compliance with accessibility for visually impaired standards.
Improved documentation that shows how to integrate the BBM with the AEROS and Maestro.
Updated screen resolution processing under Windows 10 (high DPI).
Hi Dave, more than 3 weeks now and Midi Maestro is set to ship, so is the firmware update due soon (which hopefully squashes the bug with the output of transition messages)? Or is it still 2-3 weeks?
A long and varied list, indeed, and I understand how difficult it must be for you at Singular Sound to cut a straight path through that while satisfying a good part of your customers.
As an intensive user of the BBM and its MIDI editor I would say that delivering -at least for starters- the items mentioned on the second bullet will hugely improve the functionality of the manager and will immediately satisfy most users -hands up, anyone?
These improvements fall under the category of Basic Editing Features (select/copy/cut&paste specific notes, drag&drop, multiple selection of events for bulk processing -like note velocity changes, previewing instrument sounds, randomization of select MIDI parameters, etc.)
Lastly, and needless to mention, fixing the bugs that are and might/would be inevitably present.
Finally got around to trying this out, and you’ve only half fixed the bug. Transition messages are now transmitted when in Midi Merge mode, which is great but they are still only transmitted on Channel 1, ignoring the output channel setting. Not a show stopper but annoying nevertheless. Please make sure this is (still) on your list of bugs.
Thanks
Tim
Here’s the thing about BB manager - No one expects it to be anything other than what it was intended to be: an interface for organizing songs for the beloved BeatBuddy pedal. People understand this, and they know they need to use other apps to create or edit midi files, that is, if they want to get anything done effectively. The real problem with BB Manager v 1.65 is that it is slow and tends to crash or require a restart because it gets confused about a file location even though you’ve pointed the BB Manager right to it.
If people were only making a few changes to a project, they might live with this stuff - they shouldn’t have to, but they might/could. But when you sit down for extensive session for reorganizing songs, folders, drum sets - or creating a new project from scratch - BB Manager v 1.65 sucks every last drop of joy out of life. That’s the real issue.
Also, @DavidPackouz, @Offbeat is not the 1st to comment about the noise your footswitch makes. I emailed @AnthonySostre back on Aug 4, 2018 saying I had returned mine because it was too noisy for quieter applications. I mention this partly so that @Offbeat doesn’t thinks he’s the only one dissatisfied with it. If you decide to keep using those particular switches, spray the inside of the box with some kind of dampening material and charge an extra few dollars to cover the costs?
Before I wrap this, let me say that I have the MIDI Maestro on order and I’m very much I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it. So in the name of that famous BB roadie, ‘Keep Codin’!’ <-- See what I did there?
Make the BBM leverage the Windows and Mac OS basic functions e.g., drag and drop, cut, copy and paste, ability to select a range of notes and perform bulk processes.
There are some others in that list I hadn’t thought of but I sure do like them.
I disagree. Most people initially expect the software that comes with the pedal will be sufficient for also editing beats. See the number of emails on here that start “I can’t get the Midi editor to do …” followed by replies from the old hands saying “You need to use (fill in name of favourite DAW)”. In hindsight it would probably have been better not to have included a Midi Editor at all, rather than include one which is only just usable. (That said some people do succeed in using it to create fairly complex patterns).
Tim
The built-in MIDI editor? Yep, putting that in there was more a of mistake than anything. It’s a rudimentary chunk of software that falls squarely in the ‘better than nothing’ category. The point is that BB Manager is falling down on the most basic needs of all users because it is slow and crashes, and doesn’t work the way most good software does - things like cut and paste, drag and drop, the fact that you have to actually play the song for a second or two when you change the drum set assigned to it, just to name a few. But sure, if they want to put a full-fledged MIDI editor in there, I’m all for it. I think that’d be great. Maybe they’ll add reverb effects; I’d really like that as well. Right now, though, the core function, user interface, and user experience of BB Manager needs significant and long overdue improvement.
