I’ve tried searching under every combination of words/terms/etc but can’t find anything to answer my question. I have 2 drum pedals, Beat Buddy and Digitech Trio +. I would like only 1. Trouble is Beat Buddy doesn’t do auto fills and Trio+ doesn’t have MIDI so no clock signal to sync all my other gear to. As this is the Beat Buddy forum topic I’ll concentrate on the Beat Buddy’s lack of auto fills.
What I want is to be able to let the BB be my drummer, i.e. not keep hitting or kicking him when I’d like him to play a fill! So I don’t want to keep stomping on the fill button whenever I want a fill, I want my drummer, the BB, to do it for me. Has anyone else needed this? Has anyone else found a way of doing it? After all Digitech did it - without the all important MIDI out socket - I love the real feel of the Trio + but need the MIDI out clock of the BB. I want to keep the drumming fluid and impromptu so the last thing I need is a MIDI file player, or a rigid fixed “song” format. Any ideas?
The Trio looks like it “listens” to your music in order to create drums based on what you play.
The BeatBuddy doesn’t listen and so couldn’t do the same.
The problem with auto fills is where should it place them? After four bars, after eight?
You could edit some songs and create parts that are the right number of beats long and copy the fill in to the middle or end of the part so that the loop includes a beat with a fill. I can’t think of another way to achieve what you’re looking for without the rigidity of a fixed song.
What is wrong with the rigidity of a song especially for a novice player who wants to learn how to play a song in its entirety?
Im a little overwhelmed with playing, singing, and being a drummer. I was hoping this product would be more helpful for someone of my caliber. I would love to hear if anyone has suggestions as to how I can overcome this issue. Thanks.
There’s definitely nothing wrong with the rigidity of a fixed song, but then I’d argue that you should use a backing track, not the BeatBuddy (obviously this is my personal opinion).
The benefit of the BeatBuddy is to be able to have flexible drumming while playing.
Think of your BeatBuddy as another instrument that needs a little practice just like any other.
I suggest:
- Start by using a single beat and play along with that
- Practice pressing the pedal to bring in a fill at appropriate times but otherwise just keep the same beat.
- Practice press and hold to transition to the next part on a chorus/verse change.
- If you’ve got an external pedal, add an accent at some points rather than a fill.
That’s it. Work on those steps and you’ll be comfortable with it in no time.
Ok. Ty.
There are also one-press songs available from the forum—many with just drums, others with drums and bass guitar and even others with more instruments. You can give those a try as you start out.
Getting a bit off topic here, lots of help for beginners in other topics, nothing about auto-fills…
The Trio + only “listens” whilst you “teach” it a song, it then goes off and behaves much like a human drummer (and bass player) so somewhere in it’s algorithm it decides when to put in a fill. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part but maybe a firmware upgrade could allow the appropriate timing of the insertion of fills, dependent on the genre? Perhaps this option could be turned on or off using an updated version of BeatBuddy Manager? More wishful thinking?
I can’t help thinking, wishfully or not, that a product that combined the best of BeatBuddy and Trio + would be rather exiting…
To help me integrate BB into my songs I mark up a song crib sheet, F = press fill, T = transition, O = Outro. As long as you press in that bar, BB takes care of it. My example is chords for 32 bar instrumental, but could mark a lyric sheet by the appropriate words.
With a little practice it gets easier very quickly and in fact working out where to put fills and transitions and then using them real time on BB helped my playing and co-ordination.
Hope that helps.
We use a Behringer FCB 1010, so another band member can insert fills , we have also programmed it for stop start et etc.
So what about using a timed relay to simulate the pressing of the fill stomp button? I already use a remote footswitch so another band member (when available…) can trigger the fills mainly because I find it distracting to have to remember to do it myself when my creative juices are flowing! The BB doesn’t seem to mind when the button is pushed as it waits to insert the fill at an appropriate time, so maybe a random push via a relay would provide my illusive auto-fills? Remember this is an improvised section hence the need for spontaneity…
Hello, Hawaii50. From my experience the BB is designed to work in that way, to let you interact with the BB in changing the beats and fills in the moment you want, not blank automatically. However you can kind of hack that with a little effort but I’m not sure its worth it. You may use the editor tool and create your own midis witch may include your main rhythms with fills at the end. You can do it in witch length you need then you push only once and all the song will follow as you created. alternative, you can creat this midis in absolute other software then transform it with Midimap website to work perfectly with BB. So you may work for each particular song with tricks like this but in my opinion makes no sense to use BB like a passive drum player. The BB is designed with its dynamics and interact on rhythm changes and fills. Hope my feedback helps. Good luck, Iosif