I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the years programming beats for my shows / songs. Only last night did I get around to setting up midi out of my DAW in to the BB so I can rehearse / build / hear the beats in real-time, editing in my DAW then hearing exactly how’ll they’ll sound on my BB in real-time!
Yes - this is nothing new. Maybe I’m a fool for doing it the “hard” way for all these years…But my golly - this method is SOOOOOO SOOOOOO sooooo much better!!! Efficient. Fine tuned a lot of my beats and fills last night. Excited to get at it.
I haven’t used my BB in this way. Are you creating beats in your DAW and playing them through the BB (via audio in), essentially just using the drum sets in the BB for your MIDI notes?
Eliminates needing to bring the midi file into BBM to hear it with BB sounds. And best of it all eliminates needing to use BBM to edit any midi! That used to take agggggggesssssssssss!!!
I get my parts sounding right - then export midi clip from DAW and bring into BBM.
I use brushes kit and various midi groove packs ( Slate / Groove Monkey etc ) and a lot of time notes aren’t on right instrument etc - this saves loading into BBM then realising somethings not right and have to re do. And my favourite part is hearing the velocity differences in real-time!!!
So yeah - midi notes out of DAW to the midi in of BB. Then audio out of BB to listen.
No. I use this method to “write” / “create” midi files I’ll use in my songs. So I know how I’ll switch between them when performing, this method just makes it much quicker to create parts. Or modify exisiting parts.
Essentially the BB is acting as a sound module with this method.
I think you are asking @Trent_Crawford this, but I think what he’s doing is using the BB drum sets WITH his DAW as opposed to adding them into his DAW. In other words, he’s running his DAW into the BB (MIDI OUT to MIDI IN) and essentially using the BB (and its drum sets) as a MIDI sound module. I haven’t tried this, but I think that’s how it works. If you run the audio out from the BB back into your DAW, then you could record your DAW-created beats using the BB drum sets.
Again, I’m pretty new to all this, but I think that’s how it works.
@GaryO0596 - that is one way of thinking about it - yes - I am using beat buddy’s drum sounds as a plug-in in my daw. So anything I program in midi is played back with beat buddy sounds and beat buddy midi mapping.
I’m gonna make a super simple video on this for my Dad - will post it ASAP.
The Beatbuddy is potentially an amazing tool, but I feel that the software on the pedal holds it back quite a bit. Consider the Beatbuddy to run in one of 3 modes:
As a midi instrument as described in the OP.
The sounds are fantastic, why not use it this way in conjunction with a DAW.
Files from sites like GrooveMonkey work great as a midi source, as long as you are using a GM drumkit.
If course, using the BB as a midi instrument, make sure to go into all of the menus to do things like disable the BB as the master clock, not to merge through midi signals, and a bunch of other things or else it wont work right.
But what if you want to record your own midi?
The BB is designed first and foremost as a live performers instrument.
So while jamming with you favorite , why not just record the MIDI output of the pedal including all of the fillls and accents that you do when playing live?
Great idea, but you will need to dive through a whole bunch of menus to now start exporting midi, but dont respond to any and still make sure that the midi clock synch is disabled, or do you want it disabled?
Note: Of course once you record all of this great midi, you will need to dive through all of the menus again to switch it over as a performance instrument to use in 1) Good grief! Enough midi switching yet?
Not quite…
You want to record you performance mentioned in 2), but to do so you have your setup such that the BB is the master of the performance, providing midi clock and start/stop messages to pedals like loopers and other time-based effects (delays, reverbs, trmes, etc).
The Beatbuddy works great in this mode, but yeah, its a whole different set of midi setup that you have to keep straight and get right.
… but wait a minute …
You want to keep performing live using your Beatbuddy and your looper, but you want to lay down a few other tracks now that you have the basis established,
To do this, you still want the BB acting as the master of tempo and triggering other things that you already had setup in 3), but because you are laying down some tracks, you want the BB to start on command from your DAW and then send out the start command to the loopers etc.
You can do this, but you guessed it, its another specific set of midi configurations.
It would be amazing if there could be something that could manage these changes via profiles or presets. IMO this is what really is holding the BB back; it just is not easy enough to use all the potential it provides.
Not totally understanding the steps involved in GETTING BB Drum Set song over INTO your DAW.
I use a DAW now to edit and adjust MIDI files, then export them back to BB. Often a lot of back and forth adjustments…since it is a trial and error process to find a Kit, that works for the song in question…but…does work.
If i understand what you’r saying…you “somehow” are able to get the BB Specific Drum Kit ( of your choice) file, over to your DAW, to load your midi song into…adjust it, and then send it back to BB…using the DAW export features.
Can you be a bit more detailed in the steps you use.
The BB makes noise. Connect it’s output to a speaker.
The BB makes noise when it receives midi “note on” messages.
The DAW can send midi “note on” messages.
Connect the MIDI out of the DAW to the MIDI in of the BB.
Job done. The drum sets don’t exist in the DAW. The DAW is merely sending MIDI messages to a MIDI instrument. This is always the way MIDI works, you’re just confused because you’re too used to the case when the MIDI instrument is a virtual instrument implemented as a plug-in inside the DAW.
Very cool! The DAW could be any midi controller, anything that can send midi notes to BeatBuddy. But the DAW makes it much easier to create, manipulate, play and save midi information.
Just assign the VST instrument to your midi track and you’ll hear play (almost) as in your BB.
No midi cables needed.
I say almost because there are no different samples for different velocities, no “randomized” beat etc.
Still it’s reasonably accurate (at least to do the remappings for bass and keyboard in the right way).
It’s like having the BB as a plug in inside your daw, but it’s not! I’ll try explain… and like you I used to do the same - a LOTTTT of back and forth… NO MORE!
Step 1. You need a midi / USB cable. This allows the DAW to send midi out of your daw INTO the beat buddy. The USB end connects to your computer, the midi end connects to the midi in of the BB
Step 2. Setup your daw so it sends the midi information OUT of your DAW to the BB via the midi / USB cable. This can be DAW specific and the trickiest part of the setup. If you’re not sure how to, mention your daw here and I’m sure someone will help if it’s a daw I’m unfamiliar with. I use Ableton.
Step 3. Assuming you’ve got the bb hearing the midi information from your DAW / computer, plug in headphones to the bb or plug the audio output of the bb into a speaker to hear the goodness!
Step 4. Thank the midi gods that such nice things exist!
It’s al about step 2. That’s the one to get your head around.
Agreed. That’s why I said with samplers you get almost the same thing. It helps with remapping, but the real output should be checked, and tuned, on the BeatBuddy itself. Kontakt does behave differently in handling samples. And in that sense, nothing beats connecting the real device and hearing it in real time, still the setup is a little bit more complex.
This is a great thread and it seems like a lot more people are recognizing all of the great ways the BB can be used. I posted this a while back, ill link the video here again: https://youtu.be/q_EEYZ8EWQM
IMO the BB manager could be made to include such a plugin. In addition to providing trigger information to the BB, the plugin could have a song selected and sequenced (similar to EZDrummer plugin ) and the midi notes sent out and even edited.
