I would also suggest looking at the tutorial sticky and watching the official BeatBuddy manager videos which explains this and more. You may also find my tutorials helpful.
I’ve been wanting a BeatBuddy for a while now, ( just been waiting for them to be available through Sweetwater, or zZounds where I can get monthly payments…) and I must say, from reading these forum posts, I’m really starting to have second thoughts… ( some people say you can’t program a whole song all the way through, while others talk about having 3 full set lists in theirs! Very confusing! ) Anyway, back to the quote: Can I use my BOSS FS-5L (latching) footswitch to step through songs until I buy the BeatBuddy footswitch?
You can definitely use FS-5L with the BeatBuddy. Official footswitch is much more stylish, and also offers 2 pedals (think like FS-6 without batteries). You will just need to play with BeatBuddy pedal setting to make sure your single FS-5 footswitch is assigned the correct task (in your case - go to the next song).
The process of creating new songs may seem complicated, but after initial ramp up process, you will be able to create new songs without much trouble.
The other issue is that currently BBManager offers no way to edit MIDI files - so you will have to rely on using third party software to edit your tracks. Making an official MIDI editor is a work in progress, and it should be released in one of the next updates.
Thanks Daefecator! I started out in the “Dark Old Days” when there was nothing but midi (think “Dr Ts” running on a Commodore 64!), I’ve been a Cakewalk user since v 1.0, and I currently use Sonar X3. EZ Drummer has been my main drum prog for a while now. Though my midi skills are somewhat atrophied, I am not too worried about editing midi drums… ( Not too sure why I would even have to edit midi, as presumably one could put together songs just using BeatBuddy’s pre-programmed patches… )
Wow, you are an old school musician then?! That’s great! 
Yes, definitely, you can do great without even editing MIDI files, as shipped BeatBuddy content provides plenty of them. Yet, it is always nice to know you still can in case you want to
Yeah! Too Old School! Actually yesterday I took some of BeatBuddy’s blues midi files and imported them into EZ Drummer and made a new blues track…Cheers!
Hi. I thought I would share how I am organizing my songs and set list. I have just a little less than 300 songs in 3 folders in alphabetical order. My set list is my favorite songs I can play in 2 or 3 hours and if the gig is 2 hours I will simply move the set list songs up or down to get my better songs toward the top. That way I don’t have move the songs from my master folders back and forth. If I get a request for a song not on my set list I will have to manually go to the folder in the master list and select it. Hope that makes sense.
considering a folder for each dance styles ie. polka, latin, waltzes, western swing, Jazz, rock , many of these styles may use similar tempos but the styles are seperated to shorten the folder list thats the way we use the styles in writing in a booklet ring binder with the Roland TR 505
I used to keep all songs in a master folder and then import the ones into a set list folder for each gig and that worked ok, but i found a faster way to make a set list. Inside the master folder which is in alphabetical order simply drag the songs for the gig up to the top in the order you need them. The rest of the songs are in alphabetical order underneath your set list. If someone makes a request that is not in the set list you can simply scroll down and pick it. A lot less time consuming then importing songs into the set list folder each time and you have all your songs in that folder in case of a request that was not in the set list.