I’m a (fairly old) gigging muso. I used to use an old style drum machine programmed by a mate of mine and it worked fairly well… Until it carked it! After reading about usable drum machines I tried out the Beat Buddy Mini. First off I had to find beats for about 120 songs - and I have, though with limited success. Here’s my problem…
I can’t conveniently change genre/songs/timing with the B.B.M. on the floor. I can change settings okay from a stand next to my mic sand, but I need to operate the optional on-off footswitch on the floor. My real problem is that even though the(very short) patch lead (supplied) has what appears to be guitar jacks, an ordinary guitar lead won’t work. I really need an extended patch lead so that I can change settings by hand, while operating the drums on a song with a foot switch. Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, what solution did you come up with, please?
1/4" to 1/4" trs patch cable will work, you need 2 for some songs. Or, a 1/8" stereo headphone plug from the BB to dual 1/4" mono cable on the mixer. I saw the second solution in a video on YouTube. I plug either solution into an unused stereo channel on my mixer. I choose to plug my guitar (wireless) into the mixer on a seperate channel.
Thanks for that, mate. My old drum machine worked with guitar leads. To be honest I don’t know what a 1/4"trs patch lead is, but I’ll find out and get one of a decemnt length. I’m running the beat buddy through a Roland AC60 acoustic amp and plugging my guitar into the guitar input. I tried it last week with some mates as a trial and I was up and down like a fiddlers elbow!
I made an error. If you use a 1/4" patch cable, a ts one is correct, a regular instrument cable. I use the cable in the photo attached.
TS - Tip-Sleeve, mono
TRS - Tip-Ring-Sleeve, stereo
A audio guy would give a better explanation. Lots of good videos on YouTube about all of this.
Also, you need the TRS cable for the footswitch to Beat Buddy connection, that’s what the little cable with the footswitch is. I have a 6’ cable for the footswitch. There’s a setting in the Beat Buddy settings to use the footswitch as the main switch allowing you to put the pedal up high so you can reach it easier.
That’s pretty much what I want to do. I only have the mini and like most drum machines, it just does too much, I play mostly country and older pop and rock stuff. there are no simple shuffles and the intros and outros are too heavy handed, but I can work my way around it I guess.I can never understand why there are always so many beats that you (or almost ANYONE) will never use, butmany handy, very usable beats are completely absent. Ah well… (I did tell you I’m old, right?)