I have worked with the beatbuddy 1.33 version for several days to set up new drumsets. I used a flawlessly working Wondows 7 laptop from my friends (HD etc working fine) for that, but would welcome a Mac Version as it was announced quite a while ago. Using parallels and beatbuddy on my Mac was not much fun. I use the beatbuddy connected to the laptop as overwriting the SDCard is not possible in the SD slot of my laptop.
I guess I stumbled over what I consider bugs:
Synchronising was suddenly greyed out (worked before), even after new drumsets were created. Exporting the project to the SD Card inside the beatbuddy was also not possible because of the “invalid song” message. But I did not alter the default song material at all, neither created new songs. Strange.
I restarted bbmanager, synchronising was not greyed out anymore, but sybchronising was not possibble because of the “invalid song” message.
Saving the project und a new name files the whole material not in the same folder level as the formerly saved projects, but one level deeper. In other words: Save your project ten times, you will have ten folder levels with the same material. Makes no sense to me.
Minor thing: Open a new drumset and bbmanager will ask you to save the current drum set, even if there is no drum set loaded.
Strange layout: Sometimes the drumset list in the left column of the bbmanager shows the sets without with clickable rectangles (sorry for my English, I hope you understand what I mean), somestimes without, sometimes ticked on, sometimes not. I understand there is a difference between user and default drumsets, but this is all in all very confusing and not intuitive at all. Anyway, my 2 cents…
Just a few of many more things that I found strange. Maybe cou can help me with that annoying “invalid song” message?
One thing I want to add: To make sure I deleted all songs on my SD Card in my beatbuddy. Then I copied the songs of the original beatbuddy SD card with the default material into the song folder of the SD Card in the beatbuddy manager. Still there is the “invalid song” message when I want to save the project on my SD Card in the beatbuddy. I have no way to save my works to the beatbuddy. Very annoying…
If you are encountering an “invalid song” issue, there definitely is an invalid song (that has one or more main parts missing) in your project! You should go through all the folders manually, scroll through all the songs until you find the bad one. You can re-download the content from http://mybeatbuddy.com/downloads/.
Also, there is a Mac beta version available - http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/beatbuddy-manager-mac-beta.1591/
While it may contain weird bugs, but overall it will be much more stable and comfortable to operate with, as it is will be a native piece of software for your piece of Mac. It also rocks some exclusive features unavailable for Windows version currently!
I installed the Mac version and will keep you posted.
On my windows laptop: I already deleted all the songs and replaced them with the original content. still the message comes up. Strange. I will switch to the Mac version now.
Out of curiosity: Any plans to accept wav-loops (not only midi files) on the beatbuddys?
There is an issue with your content. Try removing all your project altogether (exporting all your new songs before that), and open a clean one (importing your songs to there).
From what it looks like, there is a support for WAV based loops in the source code. Most likely, this was the first early pre-alpha functionality of the BeatBuddy. Why this wasn’t allowed already in the early access beta version (I’ve participated in) is beyond me. May be to keep things easier.
I think you’d better make a separate request for that.
I have a problem with the bb manager. Only 3 songs in my set list are visible in the manager. there are 10 on the BB which all work. why cant I see them in my p.c. manager? I want to delete some and adjust others. if I start again the old ones will still be on the sd card. guess i’m stuck and wont be able to use the bb at gigs now!!!
Don’t panic, what were you doing, usng a different PC than the one originally used? Best is to backup the folder with your three songs in and then reimport project from pedal, then reimport folder of missing songs.
I am not sure of the file structure, however each time I reimport a project to overwrite the old it just creates another copy. So once you have a backup (just incase) start opening the projects in you BB workspace, by default they will in user_lib/projects, and you should find it - unless you are using a different computer.
I’m actually having good success with parallels on Mac. The sound quality and latency are bad, but I would expect that from a VM. I edit the midi files on the mac side and use the BBManager on the VM with no major problems so far. I did not have great success with the native Mac beta. Specifically, certain downloaded songs would not import without errors. The same songs imported fine on Windows, so I stuck with that. YMMV, I guess, but I’ve been happy with it.
