Bi-direction part navigation, IMHO, handcuffs the user needlessly. I don’t see ANY advantage to being able to go back ONE part versus using the flexibility of MIDI part selection. It’s frankly foolish to think that BDPN would free the user to work as they want. If you want to freely be able to skip around to parts, that’s fine, I understand that. The current system allows unlimited repetition of any main loop. The issue becomes one of song design. Will I always go to the chorus after Verse, or might I go to bridge after verse? If I go VCB, why would I necessarily want to go to C, I might very well want V, so how does BDPN enable that? Just use MIDI to jump to the part you want.
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Yamaha programmed that way on the RM1x 20 years ago. It would be nice if Singular could catch up. In fact, isn’t most drum machine programming done in this block style, where you have piece A programmed, you play that X times. Then go to piece B and play it Y times. Then you have an option to play A again or move on to C. This is not new stuff.
The BB method allows this, but does it by repeating song parts. It not really all that different. Instead, it seems there is a desire to have a system where a song consists of some number of pieces. The user then, on the fly, can select any of pieces, and play it for as long as he likes, before selecting another piece. And, to complicate this, we want piece dependent variations in the form of fills, along with another piece dependent variant that transitions to the next selected part. It just seems to me that MIDI part selection is the only viable way to get there.
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There is a gesture to go forward, A -> B. A gesture to go backward, B -> A completes the cycle and enables a significant increase in flexibility for those who want this and wish to use it.
I would say the injunction to “just use MIDI” for B -> A is equally valid (or silly) as saying “just use MIDI” for A -> B.
And, I note, “just use MIDI” in any case requires more hardware, more cables, more stage space, more pre-planning, more to think about in realtime, more $, etc. This is all appropriate if you want/need true random access. It’s a long, long walk around the barn if all you want/need to do is navigate backward from C to V!
Obviously, if a feature has no applicability in your personal usage scenarios you can ignore it. There is no question of “handcuffing” whatsoever.
Consider: Some people use only OPP. Other use only sectional navigation. I would never argue that the pedal shouldn’t provide both. Rather, obviously I’d say, providing more flexibility makes the pedal more valuable to more people.
My own current primary imagined use for BDPN would indeed be with simpler rather than more complex arrangements. I’d probably get more use out of manipulating just VCBE (or even just VCE) than anything else. That’s me personally, but I can fully see where someone else (or maybe even ultimately myself also) might want to use the BDPN along with a more complex starting structure. Wherever the boundaries of my own creativity might lie, I’m not going to presume those boundaries should apply to others.
I also note that since it has been announced that we will be able to name song parts, it strikes me as very intuitive and direct if we could be allowed both a “move forward” gesture and a “move backward” gesture to allow us to navigate to any point in the structure which will be referenced by name.
Given this choice, some people might choose to use a complex song structure as a “library” from which they could play live for a long, long (effectively unlimited) time while still having great variety on tap.
Such “library songs” might be by organized by genre, or by kit sonics, rather than by single-song composition.
Let the MonsterJams begin!!
We’ve all heard that ubiquitous marketing phrase “The only limit is your own imagination!”.
Perhaps that can never be literally and completely true, but we can approach it asymptotically, and that is the goal of tech, IMO.
I can say clearly that after acquiring my BB, my own imagination went almost immediately to the wish for BDPN.
At the moment, the tech is the limitation. This is possible to change …
You also need a computer on stage 
how do you think you are going to be setting up songs that are not from singular,.on some kind of computer. i offered the screen shot up for the developers to glimpse a visual representation for the BBmanager and whatever they are going do to it ,
The solution by Jamstix doesn’t incorporate drum fills, from what I can see. BB manager already arranges songs in a similar fashion, but incorporates fills. Visual redesign of BB Manager will make things cleaner, tidier and more user-friendly.
I was talking about actual stage use, not farting around in your bedroom! Jamstix is a great app, I own it myself, but as it needs a host to run, no standalones, and taking a laptop on stage is awkward the BB is the best system there is tbh, unless you are looking at all in the box solutions on the iPad platform where there are a few great alternatives.
pax eterna: you’re just dont get it. i was just suggesting a small portion of jamstix work flow be considered and viewed as a reference so that the wheel is not recreated but improved upon.
something like this will need to be in BBM. they might approach it completely differently.
Goran: jamstix does to incorporate fills in the picture on the left there is a box says (my song) …there are check boxes to control intro and outro fills of each song section…this is the…
SongSheet This is the arrangement of your song. It lists the individual parts of your song (intro, verse, chorus etc.) in sequential order. You can name parts, change their length and number of
repetitions, their fill behavior and choose a specific style and drummer for every part. You can also adjust timing, shuffling (swing) and power level for the whole song or individual parts.
The SongBuilder is a fast way to create a complex song arrangement in Jamstix. Never before has it been so easy to get a complete drum track with verse, chorus, bridge etc. (even drum solos!) in just a few seconds.
Here is how it works: you specify the sequence of the parts of your song by chaining parts together via drag-&-drop or double-clicking from the part list on the list or pressing the keyboard key assigned to each part. You can also use the existing parts of the song shown in the smaller list at the left bottom. The ‘Presets’ button gives you a menu of pre-defined song structures as a starting point. On the right side you can tell Jamstix which style, drummer and kit to use for the drum set . You may also define the length of verse and chorus parts.
TLDR; SS would learn a lot by studying the competition and incorporating the best ideas.
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What I want for my purposes (arrangements of traditional music) is to be able to have a random choice of (say)12 loops to play by turn. Say I am playing an mbira piece, what I would love is for one of the 16 traditional jingle shell or shakere loops to play randomly by turn. That way I get to play against something unexpected, and people who listen won’t always get the same order progressing through the loops. (Currently I have half a dozen songs with the loops in different order).
that would be my ideal autopilot
thanks
That sounds like a great feature for some ambient artists. Pretty sure this is outside of anything that would be in AutoPilot or the BB. Best hope here would be some sort of midi control that was able to jump randomly. IMHO
Is this available yet?
Not yet.
I think the random choice idea is another good idea for how the BB might be used in a creative way.
Whatever patterns are placed into a Song (e.g. in the BB manager), it would ideally be possible to define one or more “random lists” (e.g. R1, R2) in the Song and then have the BB at any point do choosing from a random list for some specified number of measures.
Probably this would also require a firmware update, but hopefully the nature of that would require only a very small amount of code addition to the FW.
I could completely see this as a follow-on addition to the AutoPilot, and I think it would be worthy to add.
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I agree. It would seem that entering a random function as an adjunct to AutoPilot should be able to be accomplished. It would probably need some sort of option selection criteria, as to whether to randomize from main loop, fills or both.
Keep in mind that unless the main loop is a 2-bar, 4-bar, 8-bar phrase or similar, it will only be a single bar repeated. Therefore, randomizing bars will do nothing. And if a loop is, say, 4-bar phrase, randomizing it will break the musical phrase.
The point of autopilot is for a completely different purpose and should be not confused with other functionalities you would like the BB to accomplish. The idea of the AP is to allow for highly complex arrangements to be performed in an exact fashion easily. If you like things random, don’t worry about using the AP. Load beat variations into drum fills and trigger at will.
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Since all the songs in the Complete Collection are being updated for Autopilot, is the bundle price going to go up anytime soon?