I’m awaiting my delivery of the Aeros, I already have the beat buddy. I am hoping there is a way that when I select a song part in Aeros it triggers the Beatbuddy to do the same is this possible?
TLDR; Not today. You can set it up the other way, BB->Aeros.
At some point I hope they support Aeros as a master of the BB (or something more bidirectional). SS seems more focused on having their other WIP, midi maestro, serve this role. Would be nice if the Aeros and BB behaved as if they were one device. There’s a lot that could be done with 4 footswitches+scroll wheel of the Aeros (and more with the BB’s 1+2 switches). More than enough to have a great, flexible setup if they designed the two devices to work together.
At this point we’re waiting for midi-in commands for the Aeros to be finished in the next release supposedly. Midi-out is not targeted for a release AFAIK. There’s enough today for the BB to control the Aeros, but not much beyond that.
Not clear that SS has thought through how all of this really works and how to best use the hardware they have built. They are still struggling with the details of button press/release. IMHO, the Aeros needs a way to expose other foot actions on the fly (not by touch screen or an add-on pedal like the midi maestro). Not easy as many looper actions are best triggered on button down with no delay. Need a way to handle the large variation in how each person expects to use a high end looper and drum pedal. The community has shared some ideas here. The Aeros is quickly getting to the “good enough, more/less better than the competition” level, but it deserves to be “great”.
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Many thanks for a very detailed and informative response. Yeh there is huge scope with these devices to work seamlessly together bi-directionally, I can wait though it’s great that the development team are so involved with their user base here and are ramping up their staffing levels. I’m completely in love with the Beatbuddy and can’t see me moving to another drum looper. I need a guitar looper and the Aeros is the obvious choice. It’ll be interesting to see how things develop in the coming months with the midi maestro, I don’t have room on my board for it though so would love to see more control without it, as you say I may have to wait a while but I am confident the wait will be worth it.
Hi @BrennanSingularSound do you know if this will be addressed in the next update? Also being able to have the Aeros change the song on the BB whenever you change songs. This is extremely annoying when you have a good number of songs recorded in the Aeros and have to remember which song you used on the BB or spend time writing the name of it in the song’s name. Bottom line, midi out/in from Aeros to BB is a must have that should have been considered since version one THB. Thanks a lot!
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Hoping SS looks at the benefits of bi-directional midi between the BB and Aeros.
It’s not common, but would be incredibly useful as there are good reasons for the Aeros to send messages to the BB (song selection) and vice versa.
Hopefully this becomes a priority after the Aeros adds basic Midi. Having the BB and Aeros not agreeing on the time signature and rhythm (song) is pretty weird. The best implementation would update the BB firmware as well as the Aeros.
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Couldn’t agree more
No, this will not be fixed in the next version. This is a pretty advanced feature, and while it would be great, it does not prevent the user from getting the full Aeros BB experience. It’s a nice enhancement, but not a priority. We can only focus on so much at a time, and there are bigger fish to fry right now.
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Well, I believe we see priorities from completely different angles. At least from my user´s point of view I’d definitely prefer to be able to load a song in the Aeros and have the BB automatically setup without having to remember which drumset and song I used… you understand this is extremely weird and far from ideal between two products from the same brand that are supposed to work seamlessly together, right? From an end user standpoint this is far from an advanced feature, quite the opposite I consider it pretty basic, but I’m thrilled to know from your POV what’s more important than this basic syncing feature so we users can understand how you see your products evolving.
And that is the purpose of this forum, to track how people use the Aeros, we learn a lot of cool ideas from you guys. I’m positive that this was an outside idea, not something we initially intended for the BB to do when syncing with the Aeros. We have been in a process of finding out just how much the Aeros can do and how we can improve its communication with the BB.
We can bump it up in priority but it will not be in the next few updates, namely, MIDI implementation, Lock Tracks, and Auto Quantize.
I promise you all of our users are equally passionate about their own suggestions. So please, remember we are listening and improving, but it takes time to make all of these improvements.
So no song selection via midi for quite a few updates then?
Thanks Brennan for your response, and I fully understand it, but to be absolutely honest with you and trying as well to be impartial, I really don’t see how MIDI implementation, Lock Tracks, and Auto Quantize are more important than having two products communicate with each other on basic features. Again, you have that functionality already implemented between the BB and the Maestro, why doesn’t it exist between the BB and the Aeros and never thought about? utterly weird… but nevertheless real
That is correct.
We see our first goal being standalone excellence, and from there we will focus on the three devices working together in every single way. In fact, MIDI implementation is what allows the Aeros to work with the MM at all (if not using BB), so that’s a high importance! Lock tracks is something we’ve been told is a standard ability that is expected of a standalone device. And auto-quantize also further powers the use of the Aeros in standalone.
This song selecting feature idea is great, but it isn’t simple to implement, and it isn’t in the way of using the BB and the Aeros together once playback has started. It can be improved and will, which is more than really any other company can claim.
So I understand your frustration, still, the Aeros must be a fully functional kick-*ss looper without any other device attached, and that’s the truth.
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Totally fair that this idea takes a back seat to some of the more basic features not yet done. And this is an advanced use of midi so it would need that to be in good shape.
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I have just recently got the Looper, BB, and Midi Controller and I am very impressed and really like it but must admit I am also wondering how the interface between the 2 cannot retain the associated beat for a song you save - I have the complete 2020 drum package which has a ton of great beats but if you are jamming and save and then move on you can be left wondering what beat you had used. In a live situation it’s not even functional. Is there any update on this feature? Even something that allowed you to save the info automatically in the looper for reference when recalling the song? An option when saving could be - would you like to save BB info? This would not be as good as it sending the info the BB but it would provide it for the User? I have come to recording the drums on the looper so I have it for playback but that is not a good solution as it creates other issues later on. Again even having the ability to save a reference of the beat would be really helpful - any others have thoughts on that?
Also, like to commend SS for allowing us this forum and a chance to share ideas and exchange info. Thanks and hope to hear an update on what would be a very helpful feature and looks like has not been mentioned in awhile. Happy Holidays to all.
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I agree with you that this would be a great feature to have. As a workaround, what I’ve done to document what beat I was using in a particular looper song is to include it in the title of the song somehow. But yeah, if there was a way to link the settings like you suggested, that’d be great.
Hey there, this is similar to what many people are asking for, MIDI song select, this will likely be as far as we can take this relationship, the two devices being separate, it is hard to make them interact with so much attention to detail as you’ve specified.
Likely the best we can do is allow the same MIDI song select message that works for the BB work for the Aeros, this way you can open an Aeros song with a specific BB song. Other than that we are also looking at how we can improve the bi-directionality of the relationship when wired together through MIDI filtering templates, we still are toying with this idea, however.
All I can say is that changes will come soon.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi Brennan, thanks for your reply. That sounds pretty cool, they would more than maintain that “relationship” which would really help, especially if you have a substantial quantity of songs recorded and beats available. Also we understand you can only do so much and you guys do a TON already. Also I’m sure you’ve considered a lot of options but is it possible to have the looper at least save the BB song/beat reference, don’t need tempo, and possibly the drum set, and then just display it on the Areo’s when you bring up the song - perhaps a sub window under the song name? Also possibly offer the option to save the BB reference info or not when saving the song on Looper or have it as an option in the settings. This way it’s automatically there and the player can look at it and then bring it up on the BB pretty easily. Is that possible and/or something you have or possibly will consider? Seems like the info is there as the tempo is already sent and locked - but admittedly I don’t know MIDI very well.
On another note could you tell me what is the best way to get help setting up a custom mode on the Midi Maestro?Curious if in the Custom mode can you combine both BB commands and Areo’s commands or must they remain in separate modes?
Many thanks and again, really enjoying the gear!!
Have a happy holiday!!
Larry
As a quick stopgap measure, how about giving us a Notes field that we can write in any text info we want ban Aeros song.
Small feature. Lots of uses.