Creating fills and transitions in the BeatBuddy Manager - glitches

BeatBuddy
#1

Hi,

I’ve been writing my own patterns in the BeatBuddy Manager software and have had decent luck by copying existing patterns and editing them. However, one thing is mystifying to me.

Sometimes when I create a fill or transition pattern, the BeatBuddy either plays the transition twice or it will drop the sound from the first beat of the new pattern is it plays my transition fill.

It’s not clear to me how the BeatBuddy is interpreting my fill. What is the best way to create a drum fill part where I want a cymbal hit on the downbeat of the pattern that it is transitioning to? How does the BeatBuddy know when my fill/transition is a half/bar only when I can’t specify less than 1 bar in lenght for any pattern. It’s all a sort of trial and error exercise for me with no way to really understand how the BeatBuddy interprets fill patterns and aligns them into the pattern that it is transition from/to. Any insight into this would be welcome. I’m struggling with an ad-hoc approach and want to understand a better way to do this.

#2

Hello, we are working on demystifying this process, we are on the task of doing so and presenting steady behavior for all sorts of fills. Thank you for reporting and for your patience.

Stay tuned!

#3

Thanks so much @BrennanSingularSound ! I am using the BeatBuddy like mad right now, creating most of my own beats with the BeatBuddy manager software. I’ve tried to understand as much as I could by looking at some of the drum patterns from some of the built-in songs, but this has kind of raised more questions than it answered :slight_smile: I can see some fills are created with only two beats, with a cymbal crash at the end of beat 2, and yet when this fill is used it aligns it such that the last cymbal crash overlaps right on beat 1 of the following bar (as you would want it). I’m just trying to figure out why it works and how to use that information to create my own drum fills, which are not working in the same way.

#4

How are you going about making those fills? What DAW, procedure etc are you using?

#5

Goran, I’ve been using the BeatBuddy Manager software. I’d tried to use my DAW to create some patterns but the BeatBuddy drumkits use an odd drum mapping that doesn’t match anything in my DAW easily. Honestly, if Singular Sound would team up with EZDrummer and sell a special kit just for BeatBuddy users (allowing you to easily create your own patterns with an easily-mapped set of drums) I’d buy that in a heartbeat. But for now I’m slogging through it with the BeatBuddy Manager. Its usable for simple patterns but becomes harder if you need to do things like creating patterns with a swing feel (or more subtle slightly-swing feel). For now, I just use 12/8 for my swing patterns and it gets you in the ball park. This pedal has made a huge difference in the trio I’m in. We’ve been able to create drum patterns for our whole set list. It makes a huge difference to gig with this thing for smaller venues.

#6

I highly recommend NOT using the midi editing function found in the BB Manager. It should have never been added in the first place. Trust me, you do not want to be making loops that way.

The BB drumsets do not use an odd drum mapping, but rather conform to standard GM mapping for the most part, wherever possible. If you are using a plugin like EZDrummer during loop creation, it is their mapping that is non-standard and that is likely throwing you off.

My suggestion is to connect the MIDI out of your computer into the MIDI in of the BB pedal, so you can audition real-time the sounds on the BB. Whatever you hear is what you will get when you export the loops and import them into the BB Manager. Make sure to export the files as simple Type 0 midi.

Give that a shot and let us know it goes.
Cheers!