BeatBuddy as MIDI tempo slave?

OK, so here’s the story. I bought the BB about a year ago…sync’ed it as tempo master to my voicelive three extreme. It works in that configuration flawlessly.

I recently decided to up my looper game and got a Boss RC300, which I understand has to be the tempo master. No problem, I thought, I’ll just run MIDI out into the BB MIDI in, things will be great! I switched the cable, set the MIDI sync to internal on the RC300, started the rhythm and got ready to rawk.

Well. I ain’t rawking. The BB doesn’t acknowledge any tempo change, nor do I get the little arrows indicating any sort of link. I’ve tried a new cable. I’m running the latest firmware on both machines. I’ve done factory resets on both machines.

Just for kicks, I reversed the config with the VL3x - setting it as the master and the BB as the slave - the BB also ignores the VL3x.

As of now, the only MIDI sync I can get to work is with BB as master, and VL3x as slave. That continues to work perfectly. At this point I’m not sure that there’s not some issue with the BB itself. The most closely related situation I was able to find on here is:

apparently he got a new hardware unit and it do’ed the do. I’m not sure I need to go that far, but I’ve been fighting the thing for a week and still no success.

Any thoughts? Settings I might have missed? It seems like it’s a pretty straightforward process, but something ain’t doing like it’s supposed to be did.

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried this workaround?

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yea, that didn’t help at all. no change.

just for kicks, I set the RC300 up as master to the voicelive 3, and that worked perfectly with no fussing about at all.

Any ideas?

just to clarify:

RC300 master >> VL3x slave works perfectly
BB master >> VL3x slave works perfectly
RC300 master >> BB Slave nothing at all. no sync

I’ve got almost the same setup as you (RC-300, VL3 and Beatbuddy… and a Line 6 Helix.). I just got my BB (I’ve had the RC-300 since Christmas), and when I hooked them up through the MIDI splitter cable, the BB starts and stops with the RC-300, changes tempo and syncs perfectly.

I’ll make a list of all the settings on both units if you think it will help. I did make sure the firmware was the latest available in both boxes.

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Herb I’m having same issue. Have you had a chance to post or list your settings?

I just updated to the new firmware, so I wanted to make sure things worked as expected before I posted anything. So far, so good.

BEATBUDDY SETTINGS:MAIN PEDAL

INTRO: None (Currently experimental)
OUTRO:ENABLE
DOUBLE TAP:ENABLE
DEFAULT TEMPO:ENABLE
DEFAULT DRUMSET:ENABLE
MUTE PAUSE:ENABLE
MAIN PEDAL UNPAUSE:

MIDI SETTINGS:

MIDI-IN:
SYSTEM REAL TIME:
SYNC:ENABLE
START:ENABLE
STOP:ENABLE
MIDI CHANNEL:OMNI (For now but will have to change in the future)
NOTE ON:ENABLE
NOTE OFF:ENABLE
CONTROL CHANGE:ENABLE

START BEAT:RELEASE
TRIPLE TAP STOP:ENABLE
RELEASE TIME:0

MIDI-OUT:MIDI OUT
SYNC:ALWAYS ON

I’ll check the RC-300 settings and do them tomorrow.

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RC-300 SETTINGS

SYS:

MIDI RX CHANNEL:1 (Shouldn’t matter for now)
MIDI OMNI:OFF (Shouldn’t matter for now)
MIDI TX CHANNEL:10 (Shouldn’t matter, as Beatbuddy is set to OMNI)
MIDI SYNC:INTERNAL (𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓)
MIDI PC OUT:OFF (Shouldn’t matter - Program changes not being sent)

LOOP EDIT TRACKS 1, 2, and 3

LOOP SYNC : ON
TEMPO SYNC: ON

My procedure is:

(Don’t record Beatbuddy output into the RC-300 LOOPS unless you mean to. They have a tendency to build up and drown everything else out.)

TAP TEMPO on any STOP switch
MEMORY EDIT:TEMPO and set to a WHOLE BPM (Maybe this doesn’t matter - needs experimentation)
Go to BASE LOOP (usually LOOP 1) EDIT : Set number of measures I’m going to record
Record BASE LOOP with RHYTHM ON to lay in timing METADATA

After this, all the loops and the Beatbuddy stay in sync, even when changing tempo (TAP or EDIT) on the RC-300, as well as when hitting the ALL START/STOP switch.

ISSUES:

I have yet to figure out how to get INTROS on the Beatbuddy to work the way I want them to. If you set RC-300 to COUNTIN, it counts and then starts, which starts the INTRO/COUNTIN on the Beatbuddy.

PAUSE on the external Beatbuddy footswitch works but… you have to hit PAUSE button in time to get things started again. (Need to monkey with START and STOP messages maybe )

If anyone has comments and/or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

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