For that, it should have taken off at some point
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Claiming you do open source is not a matter of saying you are and publishing some code. If you want people to move onboard, you need to have documentation, tutorials, and it never voided the need to have internal resources to manage the repository, organize the releases, prioritize issues and PRs…
When you see that there is no doc on the core file formats, no way to easily manipulate them…it’s not motivating anyone…
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I tried to get involved but fell at the first hurdle of trying to get the QT software stuff to compile the source, kept throwing debug errors on QT files that were there so I gave up. Don’t mind being paid to do code but give up on losing my weekends when I should be practising/playing.
I think I was the first non-Singular Sound employee to issue a PR on the BBM (to provide the Linux build)…
It was just for fun, because at that time I didn’t even have a BeatBuddy… but I was just super excited Singular Sound would take the turn of Open Source.
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You couldn’t be more correct.
I did some fairly complicated Qt projects in the past and would get involved a bit if it was interesting to me. But not to be an unpaid resource for Singular. That means they should be developing in the open, not just doing large code dumps once a year. They shouldn’t be developing a “new” version in private, it should have been started in the open, with the github repository as the working repository. There should be an integration manager to get user-initiated work into the main build. And exactly as you say: enough documentation to make the barrier to entry easy.
So, while it’s all very well that they’re starting again (supposedly), they’re already starting badly because it’s being done on a new closed source code base.
I honestly think Singular would do better, across the board, if they open sourced all their code. Aeros, BeatBuddy, Maestro. They should get some people who are good at building open source communities and be a really good hardware company who encourages open source developers to get involved – knowing the OSS community, Aeros would be running Doom by the end of the week. They’ve got good hardware – and selling that is where the money comes from. There are no secrets in their source code, so nothing to protect there (every company thinks their source code is this valuable jewel that their competitors would love to steal – they’re wrong), and software is where their weakness lies.
I would have a lot more faith in my Singular products continuing to be useful if their software became community owned. Jeez, get the guy who wrote SooperLooper - Live Looping Sampler to come and integrate it as the looper engine for Aeros. Get the guy who works on Hydrogen to do work with BeatBuddy. There are experts out there who might come forward if it seemed worthwhile.
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Classic!! 
But seriously, you’ve made some really good points in here.
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I agree, some of those Open Source projects really rock. I like as well Luppp which is a bit the “quantized” mode of the Aeros when SooperLooper is more the freeform mode. At some point before buying an Aeros I was considering investing in Midi to pilot those guys, but guess what hold me ? Exactly what you said: I don’t want to need a computer for gigs and I really liked the Singular Sound hardware. At that point I had no idea what the software would really allow or not.
The strong point of Singular Sound is the hardware, and I completely agree the fact companies always think they’ve produced the software of the century when they’re actually only redesigning the wheel again and again… But it’s always very difficult for them to realize that, and especially for the people involved in the development. Of course the hardware always introduces constraints and this has to be taken in account but the start-from-scratch syndrome is generally a very bad pattern.
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Interesting conversation with recent posts. Although Singular Sound’s strong points may be their hardware, those strong points become vulnerabilities when the software cannot be developed or maintained to effectively operate their pedals.
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Ditto.
I seriously investigated how hard it would be to buy a Raspberry Pi and a MIDI controller to push commands into an open source looper; but I liked the idea of a nice polished bit of dedicated hardware – and that it worked nicely with BB (after all I’d rather be playing in my off time than farting with computers). To be fair, I’m generally pleased with my Aeros+BeatBuddy combo, it’s met my meagre needs (2x2x2 quantised). That being said: what I don’t like is that each firmware update feels like a crapshoot – is something going to break? (And worse: is it going to break the day of a gig?)
I’d also add that I didn’t gig a lot pre-lockdown, and obviously haven’t gigged at all since last January – and there are still enough weird behaviours that I don’t seem to be able to reliably reproduce that I’m not sure I’d trust Aeros for live situations. It’s that software reliability angle that makes me annoyed and be so convinced that open source would improve it.
I get more and more tempted the more I read about their internal design to put my money where my mouth is and make the product I think Aeros should be. It’s not a million miles from what I do as a day job; and I think there are enough developers on here that are looper musicians that would make open source development viable. It’s a shame I’m such a lazy bastard 
Edit: (I hadn’t known about Lupp before – thank you for pointer)
I wish I had kept up with programming. I pretty much stopped on C back in the Amiga days, and before that Commodore Basic! 
I would of loved to have had a play.
That idea crossed my mind more than once. The point is that you need professional in/out or adding extra USB sound hardware, but definitely the Raspberry is not enough in itself on that front.
I can add that I do use my BB + Aeros every single day and globally it’s a pleasure, but like you I find updates not reliable enough (even when you wait for a release to be pushed as an official OTA firmware) and sometimes I would like to go further with BBM to create my own songs, but the Linux version barely works, and fails miserably when dealing with song edition, and the process to synchronize with BBM is purely non existent (but it looks like other platforms are not really first class citizen neither 
).
Then I play to forget.
[EDIT] Ah sorry I didn’t catch what you meant… You mean using a Pi and midi controller to kind of replace a Singular Sound Maestro ?
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No, you were right originally - looper. And right about the fact that so much extra hardware would be needed that it’s not a practical solution. Hence… Aeros.
The hardware/software of which you speak exists already. Check out https://www.critterandguitari.com/organelle
A bit of a learning curve, but if you’re technically minded then it can do it all…beats, sampling, midi, looping, effects…
Interesting. Thanks for the pointer. I’ll look into it.
Thank you very much for the pointer @limedrop .
Yet I already know this is not what I expect from hardware at all.
First, the easiest to say, the hardware user interface. There is no way to use such a device hands free. Probably with a kind of MIDI controller added on top, it could be possible to pilot it. But being able to act with feet only and having potentially visual feedback is a big part of the deal.
Then in terms of hardware, this is already far less powerful than the latest versions of the 35$ Raspberry Pi, both in terms of CPU and RAM (I don’t think the Aeros beats the latest RPi neither). Regarding connectivity, there are improvements compared to what a bare Raspberry would bring (Midi in/out, separated in and out stereo but only one of each, and come on, USB 2.0 !), yet it is not on par with the Aeros regarding connectivity for example.
So I can say that on the hardware front it’s already a no-go. But then if we have a look at the software side of things, the journey is not over.
I like their “patch” approach, although I would have named that plugins (but introducing misleading vocabulary is often part of the game) but there is nothing already existing to actually loop guitars easily. So this is something to develop again… not even speaking of one of the strong features of the Aeros/BB couple… the Midi sync, structured multipart songs etc… So if I look at it as a development platform, that could be interesting, but it’s far from being an off-the-shelf solution.
Last but not least… price. This is clearly not cheap (as are Singular Sound products), but as opposed to Singular Sound products, a lot remains to be done in order to use it in a live or gig context (in both hardware and software fronts)…
So for me it’s a clear no-go, yet I feel the potential of such initiatives, and maybe even people in this forum that are less tied to guitars and hand-free actions may find an immediate interest. And it’s not mentioned but as it is running a real Linux (kernel but what about the distro?), I expect it to be infinitely tweakable.
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I did it several years ago:
With a raspberry and pisound hat as hardware, sooperlooper as linux looper software.
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Loop And BB fade out…
@vud1 Super mega 
!! As usual Open Source, and in this case complemented with Open Hardware, really rules !
The Pisound clearly lacks some In/Outs, and you still need to have a dedicated MIDI pedal (or keyboard pedal) to trigger actions, as I do not plan to use a PC keyboard for that 
, but it’s definitely a lead I may follow either as fallback or as secondary device… or even just for fun.
Thanks for sharing
Yes, the keyboard option is not the best option, hehehehe.
I have made an usb device for the buttons, but I have not video for it.
In my last solution, my usb device only has metal buttons and is connected to the raspberry pi. The raspberry works as looper and midi controller for the BB. But… As u said, you could develop a midi controller to control BB and looper at the same time…
In any case… it is a fun solution :), but not a commercial solution, hehehe. The pisound hat costs 100€…
I had another technical problems. The looper in the raspberry “eats” my guitar tone. And when i connect BB and rasp to the same electric socket i hear noises. Perhaps I need more develope hours 
there are a number of footpedals out there that can do “computer keyboard” type operations, right? like 4 pedals emulating arrow keys, etc. I think the blueboard can do keyboard, or midi cc, or midi notes, depending on what mode you put it in.