Thanks @nickeax. Actually it turned out to be a soft switch in the GR-55. I had to enable the midi out in the Systems settings. The easy stuff is often overlooked. 
Edited to add that it works but is glitchy - doesn’t track well. Update: Set the GR-55 System Guitar-midi Chromatic setting to “ON” and the tracking improved immensely. Just a tip for anyone considering bass line recording with the GR-55.
@Guitar Stu: OK now I’m stumped again. I’m playing with the intro to Just What I Needed as it just has the low “E” that I transposed up in Midi Editor to Note 64. I tried playing with the note velocity in both Reaper and Midi Editor. I made sure Manager has Rock with Bass loaded as the drum kit. I still don’t get any bass sounds in manager. Any hints?
Hi Mark. Can You post the midi file And ill have a look at it and try it on my end.
I must be doing something wrong. I’ve uploaded the drums/bass file, but when I play a bass song, I here the drums/bass drum, but no bass notes. Many ideas?
Is this in the Beatbuddy, the Manager software or both? Are you selecting the correct drum kit when auditioning? Can you see it as a choice when auditioning.
You should find my drum editor tutorials helpful in getting to the bottom of this, although when I made them this kit hadn’t been created but the theory is the same.
Phil you must make sure you upload the rock with bass drumkit and select that kit as well as psalm has said
Yeah … I feel stupid … I saw that checkbox next to the imported kit, but it just didn’t register. Once I checked it off, all was great.
I’ve been in the computer business for 35 years, developing, programming, teaching…I still find things baffling.
Seriously though, having read the “new” manual twice, it’s not really novice ready. Looking over the threads on the forum, there are lots of issues with basic terminology. Netherlands import/export concept seems troubling to many.
If you have any suggestions to make the manual better (which is still work in progress) please add a post here:
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/beatbuddy-manager-manual.3407/
The process is very simple once you understand some concepts, but the manual was written and checked by users who are very used to the BB and so could use fresh eyes to check it over to make it even more Friendly to new users.
@Guitar Stu, the files to troubleshoot are in this dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vxoe5hyrr2twwar/AADoxHOAPkIVQ5vSj5wJB0eRa?dl=0
I’ve included:
[LIST=1]
[]A Reaper file of all midi drum parts
A Reaper file of the bass and drums intro
[]A midi file of the “raw” bass and drums where the bass midi is recorded as is
[]A midi file of the bass and drums where the bass is transposed +2 octaves and velocity of all notes set to 31
[]The .sng file
[/LIST]
Thank you so much in advance! I am determined to learn the process.
“Catch a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he may develop a sustainable business case for a new venture.” :rolleyes:
I Believe I have your solution Mark. The Midi file needs to be saved so it is the drum and the bass as one midi file. You have one track for drums and one for bass and these need to be merged together. To do this drag the bass midi up on top of the drum midi. There are then two options. I used to glue the two tracks together to make one but these days I leave them as two tracks but the bass overlaid on the drums.
I not sure what you call this but I then left click under the midi and highlight from one end to the other. I then right click and drag on top of the midi file and this selects both tracks. If you just click on the midi it will only select one track. Then from the file dropdown menu i export to midi.
Let me know how you go. I will post some pictures if you have any troubles
I have included a midi of your intro in this post. I raised all your velocitys up to 100 which is what I use. Also you bass notes were also short but when you play your file in BBM the notes will ring out. I have added the midi notes needed to cut the notes where you want them to stop to show you how thats done
Cheers
Thank you sir!
Done! Thank you again @Guitar Stu. I did the implode and glue process in Reaper and I added an event “F” 65 of a note velocity of 1 to stop each group of notes. Man, that’s a lot of work. I found that my GR-55 can play 44 Hz wave files copied onto a USB thumb drive. Probably a lot easier to do that. I’ll complete the entire song as my self-learning exercise anyway - hopefully this weekend.
Just What I Needed Drums and Bass Intro Merged Into Single Midi
When the bass note is short and there is no note straight after it you have to add that event with velocity 1 which is a pain but you will find most of the time you don’t have to do it as going to the next note will cut off the previous note. It definately gets quicker once used to it.
Do you guys have a Reaper “instrument” that is drums with bass? That has been my main mental block. I pulled up an older version of garageband, and was able to create a Drums with Bass “instrument”, and it plays Stu’s awesome midis! The problem is that garageband isn’t the friendliest with respect to midi. What I was doing is playing the midi snippet in garageband, and copy/pasting it into reaper to edit, then copy/paste it back to GB to listen. I wish I could find a way for that guy’s beat builder to use a drums with bass instrument. Once I learn how to do this and get going, I’m motivated, and will crank out probably 100 BB with bass songs! I play a 3 hour set weekly, and I want all my songs to be BBwBass, with new songs every week.
Here are the midi files and song file for The Cars’ “Just What I Needed”. There are some glitchy bass parts, probably due to some not so clean picking and resultant non-musical artifacts. It is what it is. Be sure to use @Guitar Stu’s Rock With Bass drumkit…
Drums with Bass: Just What I Needed
Edited to add: the way I created the song parts, you’ll have to quickly do the transition hold taps between parts and also the outro double-tap. Someone can probably figure out a cleaner way to do the transitions. And again, many thanks to @Guitar Stu for kindly guiding me through this project and for doing all the preliminary work, especially in creating the drumkit. Cheers!
First, you’ll need to download Stu’s Rock with Bass drumkit and load that into your song in BB Mananger.
In Reaper, you’ll need a VSTi that does drums mapped to the same midi drum notes as Stu’s Rock with Bass drumkit - I use Manda’s Power DrumKit 2 which is freeware.
You’ll also need a bass VSTi - I use 4Front Bass, also freeware - the trick is to transpose the bass up 2 octaves and then merge bass and drum tracks together.
Sorry, nobody’s made an all-in-one VSTi compatible with BeatBuddy yet.
Thank you! That totally makes sense!
I’ve been playing with Reaper and I haven’t had complete success yet. I found and downloaded the VST plugins that you suggested, and I can see them. When I dragged in one of Stu’s midi’s, I was able to get the drum track going, but not the bass. (The way I see them is that there are two separate tracks in the .mid – one for bass and one for drums).
When I just dragged the midi in, I couldn’t figure out how to get Reaper to play the bass track through the bass VST and the drums through the drums VST. But, that led me to investigate that there are several sampler plugins. I have a list of wavs that would make at least a decent basic sampler out of. It was said no one has made a Drums With Bass VST but this might be possible to create a sampler plugin.
Still workin!
Neither have I …HELP