Hi,
I wonder how I can do this:
let say that in a song, I have 2 parts.
I want to pause anywhere on part1, and when pressing a button, starting back directly on part 2.
For the moment, I created a simple part 1, with only a main loop and no transition clip.
And a part 2 with a simple main loop.
And I set the main pedal unpause behaviour on tap/transition.
If I pause on part 1 with the external footsw, wait, and then tap on main pedal, the beatbuddy plays a last time the main clip of part 1 before playing part 2…
I wonder why it absolutely wants to play a last piece of part1…
I would build a transition measure and have the drums drop out at the appropriate time.
I do this on a cover of Creep by Radiohead, and I have the drums drop out on beat 1 of measure 4 of the first chorus.
I made a 2 measure transition beat that I trigger on beat 1 of measure 3 of the Chorus
Measure 1: normal chorus beats
Measure 2: Kick/Snare/Crash on Beat 1, then blank for the rest of the measure
This way, the drums stop on the transition part, and it moves back to the verse, and all I have to do is start the transition. I also use a Boomerang Looper on that song, so I actually start the transition on Beat 1 of Measure 3, and then stop the loop on beat 1 of measure 4, and then restart the loop in time with the change back to the verse riff.
Kind of hacky, but it works and didn’t take too much time to set up.
I know Creep and I see the end of the chorus with a crash and 1 measure pause. But if I understand correctly, you made a fixed length silenced transition, that you trigger to make a single silenced measure before the next verse.
But that’s not what I want to do. I want to use the PAUSE/UNPAUSE external pedal that allows you to pause the song as long as you want and to start it back at will.
I want in this order : verse loop at will. PAUSE (no predefined length). Start back on chorus loop.
The BB is supposed to do that if you press the main pedal to exit the pause (and if you use the setup option “main pedal/unpause behaviour/transition”).
If this strange behaviour is not considered as a bug, then it would be nice to add another option to the main pedal unpause action : “play next part”.
But I think that it would be better to correct the actual behaviour :
without any transition defined on the current part, the BB should start directly on next part after a pause (if main pedal unpause behaviour = transition).
I would create a 1 bar MIDI file, using a DAW like Reaper for example, and make that MIDI file almost silent, ie: maybe put 4 pedal high-hat hits, but keep the volume as low as you can set it. Put this MIDI file in the transition slot for your “Part 1” (the verse loop). When you’re playing Part 1, and want to go to that silent section, just press and hold the BB pedal—this will keep playing that “silent” transition as long as you hold the pedal down (so you can’t go running around the stage while you do this! ). Then release the pedal whenever you wish and you’ll go into “Part 2”, your chorus section.
Now, the only issue is when you release, what part of that silent one-bar are you at?! Will you hit the first beat of the chorus at exactly the right moment you’d like to?!? Option one—you could keep glancing down at your BB and you’ll see the visual metronome, giving you the clue as to where BB is in the bar. Option two—you could make that “almost silent” pedal high-hat a little louder, ie: you’ll hear it while you’re ad-libbing in the section between verse and chorus, and maybe make the first hit louder so you can hear the first beat of the bar more clearly. I’d probably go with option one, but you might want to test this out to see if either suggestion might work for you.
That’s a nice idea, and I will definitely use it for other songs. But there are two problems with this song on which I want to do this :
1 - the silent transition will be very long (like 16 bars) and the pianist who plays with me does not have access to the BB screen (I sing and play sax). More than that, it is a special transition, a little bit out of rythm, where the tempo might slow down a little bit, to start back again on part 2.
2 - the time signature on part 1 is 5/4, and the signature on silent transition (silent means no drums) and also on part 2 becames 4/4.
And as you may know, there can be only one signature per part in a BB song. So it would mean that the long silence transition will be also in 5/4, and even if we keep the good beat with a soft high-hat, there is no chance that we start back on the good 1 first beat of part 2…
Hmm. OK. I use “OnSong” on an iPad for my lyrics. But more useful than for the lyrics, it connects via Bluetooth to the BB, so I can tap the iPad to the left or the right of the screen and it’ll move my BB to the next or the previous song. So if I were in your shoes, I’d create two completely separate songs in the BB Manager—song 1; verse; in 5/4; no need for any other parts—song 2; chorus; in 4/4; no need for any other parts.
Then I’d pause or stop “Song 1” when you come that quiet section—tap the iPad to move to “Song 2”—and I’m ready to start the chorus bang on time, whenever your pianist is ready. The only issue would be, can you have say a 2-bar(?) pause at the end of the chorus to enable you pause BB and tap back to the previous 5/4 song—the verse?
Now you may not have an iPad talking to your BB like me. If so, you could set up your external BB foot switch to have the left button moving BB to a previous song and the right button to the next song? But of course that might screw up however you have your external foot switch configured at present.
I’ve found there are often ways to think outside the box with the BB pedal. My solution might not work for you but maybe it’ll inspire you to think of a way that will.
Hi Nito,
Thanks for the idea, I will try it ! So I’ll have to pause. Then stop (triple clic ?). Or does a double click is enough ? If you have no outro, does it stop on double click ? I’ll try this.
So perhaps you don’t have Singular Sound’s external foot switch?..
You can program the two switches to do things like trigger a stop, a pause, an accent sound (like a cymbal or whatever), and in your case, you could use the left switch to move to the previous song in your list and the right switch to move to the next song in the list.
Maybe that could solve your verse/silence/chorus issue? Even if it doesn’t, you’ll probably find the external foot switches to be very useful.
Your response to my request on the other post is not really the same prupose, even if it looks a little bit the same.
In the other “request” post, I’m thinking about moving forward/backward quickly in the song, for rehearsal or test purposes, not for live use.
In this present post, I’m really speaking about the normal/live use of the BB :
This strange behaviour that makes the BB create a false transition, even if there is no defined transition pattern, when going out of pause to the next part. I really badly need this feature to be implemented.
I think that if the user did not define explicitly a transition, there should not be any… Sound more logic to me than the current behaviour.
But anyway, I understand that it’s hard to change a behaviour now that numerous users have build songs on this behaviour.
That’s why I propose to add another option to the main pedal unpause action : “play next part” (that would be distinct from “start transition”). So it would be retroactive.
). Then release the pedal whenever you wish and you’ll go into “Part 2”, your chorus section.
