Midi solutions could do the job, if i really had an appetite for this.
Big E…Thanks for the info
I have just successfully (after weeks of studying arduino coding) built a small black box that takes the midi out from the beatbuddy and goes to the midi in of the ditto x4 looper.
Now when i stop the beatbuddy, the looper stops too 
It can be done!
I basically took the midi stop signal (0xFC) coming from the beatbuddy and used the arduino to convert it to the CC29 value for stopping both loops.
It works flawlessly
I can easily edit the code too now to have the beatbuddy control many of the looper features.
It is also running off 9VDC (center negative)http://i68.tinypic.com/efnond.jpg
Very happy today.
Im typing this on my ipad but will share the code if anyone wants - it is on my computer.
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Very cool Andy. Its a great feeling when you get a project like that successfully working.
Sounds great. I’ve been using the fade out on the ditto to end songs and using the pause button to end songs.
Very cool Andy. Can you explain what are the parts in the little box? Since the Ditto is the less expensive looper, it will be great to make it work well with the BB. Thanks
I’ve been using OnSong, but not connected to the beat buddy. I do plan on getting the midi cable and a Bluetooth midi dongle in order to send tempo, song, and kit changes. Does anyone integrate the ditto 4 in this setup? I don’t necessarily want to stop and start the ditto via midi, just have the loops synched to the beat buddy? Anyone know if these can all be connected this way and how the dongle would be connected? Thanks
So besides being out of your loops and actually playing guitar so you can come to a "rolling stop with the beat buddy, has anybody found a looper that will stop with beatbuddy, or is it not possible with both devices?
So can this processor automate functions on a looper
Like automating the stop function on the ditto x4 to the stop feature on the beat buddy?
I’m missing how that would work.
Is it something you are currently doing?
It is just an arduino nano with my conversion code on it. The thing is so tiny i was considering building it into the ditto x4 loop pedal itself.
You just hijack the midi path and apply my conversion code.
I’ll post the code if you are interested in making one yourself.
Any way these are very easy to make.
Cost me under $15 and work perfectly for getting the ditto x4 to follow the beatbuddys sysex messages
Excellent! I have the Beat Buddy and am in the market for a simple yet midi-sync capable looper (and have an Arduino sitting around collecting dust :oops:). Your post makes me think the Ditto X4 will fit the bill!
i was hoping that the ditto would come out with a firmware update that would allow it to obey the beat buddy and be able to start and stop loops. I like ditto x4 better than the infinity looper for a couple reasons but I dont like the fact that it cant be controlled by beat buddy yet.
Actually everybody I just found this and Im going to give this a go.
http://forum.tcelectronic.com/topic/22072/new-ditto-x4-firmware-1300-public-beta-available/
This claims to solve midi slave function.
this kinda works but its glitchy.
if you pause the beat buddy the loop doesnt sync back up good when you start the beat up again.
Darn, I was really hoping we had another hardware option. I don’t do the looper thing very much. I have the Infinity, which worked well last time I tried it, and I have the Quantiloop on the iPad. I like the idea of the simplicity of the Ditto, but I guess I am going to pass on it until they resolve the sync issues. Really, I just have to work with Quantiloop. It looks like the best option.
Thanks Andy.
If you can provide me the links for the parts, I will do it for sure !!
and also , for the code , I will appreciate it !!
after trying the beta version on the x4 for a few days i really have found that its pretty workable.
It doesn’t quantize to beats and bars so you still have to be johnny on the spot with your stomp, but the other features on the ditto are still pretty awesome. and there may be a way to get the ditto to work better, tc electronics provided the cc settings hard coded into the beta version.
my question: can the settings in the beat buddy be tweaked to match up to the beat buddy better?
I’m going to copy in the beta version info and maybe one of you geniuses can give me an idea if this can be done.
looking at the beat buddy settings I can see that there are channel settings, but I am no smarter than a chimpanzee about this stuff.
maybe one of you fine folks could give me an opinion as to how workable an idea it is to try and match up channel settings?
It would be greatly appreciated!
sorry for such a long post.
MIDI Spec
Responds to MIDI Channel 4 (hardcoded
–
can’t be changed)
CC3
Looper 1 Rec/Dub/Start
CC9
Looper 1 Stop
CC14
Looper 1 Clear
CC15
Looper 1 Level
CC20
Looper 1 Hold to Store
CC21
Looper 1 Clear Backtrack
CC22
Looper 2 Rec/Dub/Start
CC23
Looper 2 Stop
CC24
Looper 2 Clear
CC25
Looper 2 Level
CC26
Looper 2 Hold to Store
CC27
Looper 2 Clear Backtrack
CC28
Decay “Level”
CC29
All
Loops Stop
CC30
All Loops Clear
CC31
FX On/Off
CC85
Parallel/Serial Toggle
Program Change
PG1: FX1
PG2: FX2
PG3: FX3
PG4: FX4
PG5: FX5
PG6: FX6
PG7: FX7
Hi Andy. I’m interested in getting your code and some tips in getting the parts together to replicate your black box. Thanks in advance.
Just thought I’d weigh in here - I skimmed through some of the other posts, so not sure if the issues I list below have been raised. I bought a dittox4 yesterday and I’m returning it today. I upgraded to the new firmware linked above and the MIDI sync was pretty darn useless.
Firstly, the sync is to the beat, not the bar. So tap a little early or late and you’ll find your loop synced to the 4th or 2nd beat of the bar. Good luck trying to do that at a fast BPM.
The next issue I noticed is that the sync is not maintained; I don’t know how it works under the hood, but it behaves like it syncs to the beat before you record then maintains that tempo. If you know much about MIDI, you’ll know that MIDI clocks drift a little - it’s just a pulse. The Ditto x4 does not compensate for this drift and does not timestretch the looped audio. This means that given enough time it will eventually drift out of sync.
Lastly, and I don’t know if it’s related to the previous issue, general usage just makes it go out of sync. I found that after recording a few loops and overdubbing, it would be quite off. I also tried out the FX, but that really screwed the syncing up.
So yeah, not a great looper for use with the beatbuddy unfortunately. I’ve gone back to using an iPad, iRig Pro Duo and Quantiloop. If only the BeatBuddy guys could come up with a looper with as much smarts as the BeatBuddy.