I think it’s absolutely excellent that BBM is open source, but it certainly doesn’t mean that Singular will get free developers. Open source is about scratching an itch, so in this case it would have to be (a) good enough to make us use it in the first place (b) have the lowest possible barrier to scratching the itch when we find it.
It takes time and effort to build an open source community, and if I’m honest singular don’t seem to have the full-on open source attitude you need to do that. Release early, release often; document file formats; tell us how stuff works internally. Most importantly: get a lead developer who is motivated to get user contributions integrated rather than getting users to implement the company vision.
Particularly worrying is that there is clearly development happening internally at singular. So there’s going to be one massive code drop at some point. That’s not conducive to external contributions.
Any update as to when autopilot will be implemented into a firmware update? Seriously, this is a great feature and would make many BB owners very happy.
Autopilot will be a terrific feature for the beat buddy. When I am playing, my feet are busy enough with pedals. I just want to focus on my guitar playing and not have to think about when to tap the beat buddy to move on to the next part or add a fill.
It sounds like autopilot is basically implemented now, but several bugs have to be squashed. I would be willing to pay extra to have autopilot released soon, especially during this pandemic where I can no longer play with my drummer. If the main obstacle is the lack of a dev and if you set up a gofundme or kickstarter campaign to hire or pay one, I’d contribute $100.
Strangely, I absolutely do want to tap for the changes. I like the flexibility of being able to add an extra vamp cycle.
Often in live situations, some drunk comes and chats mid song. Sometimes I go wrong with timing. Having me able to cover it by being in control of when we go from A to B is a fantastic feature. The key thing is that it’s not just a one push song playing an unchangeable sequence. We wouldn’t even need autopilot for that.
My ideal then is that the pattern sequence is auto piloted, A B A C B A B B B B … But the transition is my choice. As I understand, this will be entirely possible with autopilot as planned.
(While I’m here Singular guys, can you add named parts rather than numbered? Parts 1-6 are much more understandable and rememberable when they appear on screen as intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, bridge, outro)
@jerome1 The bugs have been the issue, mainly because the original code is spaghetti. Fixing one thing can lead to issues in something else. That’s why it has been taking so long, unfortunately.
@kingofthejaffacakes Yes, the AP function will enable you to interact with the BB in a normal manner to extend or shorten sections at will. And yes, the part naming was also implemented. We have been using abbreviations when programming existing premium content to work with it.
Awesome. I’m infinitely patient when I know something is being done well. All of your take your time and pay off some technical debt. It’s always worth it in the long term.
I too would love autopilot for those times when I want the drum part to be a backing track, and gravy would be to have the ability to add some of the BB drum sounds on the fly on top. It’s February and I’m seeing people have been expecting this any day now since last July. Any updates?
We’ve programmed most of the Premium song content to work with the AP, but have to wait on the software bugs to be fixed before anything can be made public
If you look at the thread Please be honest - will Beatbuddy Manager ever get updated? you’ll see that SS have started again with the BBM, so there is no development of the OS version. But you’ll also see from that thread that @DavidPackouz was asked for an update more than two weeks ago, to which he has yet to respond. This doesn’t give us much confidence that progress is being made
New software development is in full swing. Because of the convoluted system of the original BB Manager, we likely won’t see any more updates to it. That’s it.
Like you, I am waiting on the new software to see the light of the day. I am involved in the design process and I can tell you that I am very excited about what is going to be available to us once it is released. It will be released in stages with basic functionalities available first, with more being added.
Ah ok, is the auto pilot on hold because the bb manager isn’t getting updated? I guess that auto pilot in the pedal alone won’t make sense without some type of manager software program to set up the auto pilot play order?
I’m asking more out of interest because while auto pilot would be cool, my main use seems to be songs with 2 or 3 parts that I can transition between and add fills when needed. This is functionality that works great for me
Sigh. This is a common reaction from newly onboarded (or frustrated old) engineers to a project. The new v2 version takes far longer to build than expected, has far fewer features, and eventually succumbs to the same fate as v1. Other people’s code (opc) is hard to maintain/understand. A rewrite from scratch takes far more effort than incrementally refactoring the old to make it easier to extend (but this is less shiny) unless the basic technology is limited.
Easy for me to say from the outside. The git repo didn’t look too bad, but that’s no substitute for hands on experience.
