Is it possible to make changing the genre and style of drumbeat seamlessly, during a live performance? I just picked up a beat buddy. Not much familiar with using any kind of drum machine but it seems to stop if I change up the beat to a different one.
Hi mindsofmusic, welcome to the forum.
Yes if you have the bigger BeatBuddy (not the mini) you can do what you want by using the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM) software to mix and match the various genres into a single song.
Thanks for the reply. I was hoping to change the beat during improvised performances, in real time. On my RC 300, whenever I want the feel of the drums to change, I simply move the dial to a different random drum beat. I was hoping it would be this simple with the beatbuddy, even if I have to manually go through the settings to select a different genre and style of beat.
The only way I could think of doing this seamlessly would be to create a single song and each part is a different genre. Then use MIDI command CC 113 to transition to any given part at any time.
| CC Number | Value | Action |
|---|---|---|
| CC-113 | [1-127] | Starts song transition |
| (Selects the next part) | ||
| 1: Starts transition, will jump to Part 1 on exit | ||
| 2: Starts transition, will jump to Part 2 on exit | ||
| 3: Starts transition, will jump to Part 3 on exit | ||
| 126: Starts transition, will jump to previous part on exit | ||
| 127: Starts transition, will jump to next part on exit | ||
| Transition will continue looping until value is changed to 0. | ||
| It is possible to start a song with a transition. | ||
| 0 | Quits the transition and go to specified part |
I am assuming that it would support values above 3 (ie 4-125) otherwise this would be limited to 3 parts.
You would need one drumkit to rule them all too, but that should be easy to put together.
Hello @mindsofmusic
The answer is no, we cannot change the beat live at our will without interruption.
Wish we could.
Yes, like @mindsofmusic I wanted to use this facility in an improvisational way. It is a jazz piece and will be different each time, rather than creating the whole song in the BB manager. Looks like it is not possible with the switches on the Aeros, the Beatbuddy and the Beatbuddy two button footswitch+. Shame.
The Beatbuddy two button footswitch+ allows you to switch to double time and halftime and tap tempo, but NOT to switch from say a bossa to a shuffle. On the “stopped” commands, it does have the facility to change to next song or previous song, but the BB needs to be stopped.
Could you do a different beat on a certain part? I may be wrong?
Thanks for the suggestion Keymn. I shall have a go on the BeatBuddy manager and let you know how it goes. I haven’t yet found a way by which you can create a BB song with two different tempos. The tempo box is common to all song parts. The only way i can think of changing tempo on the fly is by using the double footswitch for tap tempo mid song when I change to the new song part.
if you embed the tempo into the midi for a part, it will change to that tempo when you change to that part… there is a setting that tells the bb to ignore the song tempo settings or not, as well