Let’s start with this: I understand your use-case – I use it myself for a couple of songs in our list – but I cannot agree that the option (not the requirement, but the option) to manage songs on the fly is “useless.”
Do you consider Sweet Home Alabama a loosey-goosey blues song? Because that’s the first song we ever really leveraged this functionality for. Because we read the crowd – and the packed dance floor – and decided NOT to have the same expected outcome. I communicate my intentions to my bandmate to extend or shorten – or he does to me – or he sees it coming, because it turns out not to be that hard to read where something is going in most pop songs, and to follow-along.
Missing a transition is a different issue, and yes, we deal with it when it happens, but even that is hard not to notice and adjust to in most cases. And is often followed by the not-so-subtle pointing and laughing of my bandmate at me.
Multi-part songs ARE optional, but, for many of us, they ARE the norm. If OP is more your thing, there are lots of options for you (which I gather you already know about, because 98% of your set list is OP). But your perfectly valid choices in how you manage your drummer do not negate the value of the options the Beat Buddy gives us to manage our drummers the way we see fit. Multi-part is absolutely NOT a useless option.
And, quite frankly I AM playing the Beat Buddy as an instrument. That’s kind of the point.
The whole purpose of BB is for live interaction. I already have MIDI back drums that follow about 2000 of my songs to a T. What I want as a solo artist is live interaction as I play my other instruments. I dig it. Although I understand it takes some learning but if anyone and everyone could do it …it probably wouldn’t be a thrill.
Hi Paul!
THANK YOU for that post!
The Deaf Bunnys Band uses BB in place of a live drummer now and if we don’t support the product it will go away!
There is NOTHING like this on the market!
The thrill you talk about we call lightning in a bottle: EVERY take is unique! Way cooler that playing to a track.
ROKKON!!
Pete & Sheri Paznokas
The Deaf Bunnys Band
“Rock Hits from the Fifties to Today!”
267.333.6048 Pete’s cell
267.333.9214 Sheri’s cell DeafBunnysBand@gmail.com
+1 on BB as a creative tool. I like to play my BB like an instrument, completely live, 100% spontaneous, and different or the same each time, as I please. Having the freedom and flexibility to repeat a chorus an extra time, add in as many or as few fills as I want, bring the drums in and out ad hoc for breakdowns and mashups, all at my feet is a live performing dream come true that I could never go back from.
I’m finding Beat buddy pretty useless…In the same boat as many of the people sharing here…just want a back up rhythm for songs we play…@bfrank…your beatbuilder sounds interesting but there where no responses to your note…I couldnt find it online anywhere. Can you find any info on the app info about who made it and availability…I’d pay some for it if it was useful.
thanks
I am always perplexed by these types of threads, because there are lots of people – including me – for whom the BB is an indispensible tool. So, what are you trying to do that hasn’t worked for you? Are you familiar with the song-matcher page (http://songmatcher.singularsound.com/) and might that help?
Sorry takastone I do not know who created the beatbuilder. It was available on the old forum as a free download. Perhaps one of the moderators could put you in touch with it’s creator or maybe the creator will re post it on the new forum. At any rate it is what you are looking for I have 83 1 touch songs and I use beat buddy as my drummer often at live venues. Some will argue that 1 touch songs aren’t cool and that you don’t get the full use of the beat buddy using it as a one touch because you have to play each song exactly the same every time and you can’t extend a song or a solo if you’re in the groove but to me that is exactly what I want. A drummer that never misses a gig or practice, never makes a mistake, you don’t have to hunt down between sets, don’t have to pay, always plays at the correct tempo and 1 less schedule to coordinate. I am already playing lead and rhythm guitar, lead vocal and my own backing vocals using a vocal harmonizer pedal as well as being the front man and starting/stopping the drums. I simply don’t have the patience to also be working through the sections of a song on the beat buddy. Good luck in your quest for the creator of this program, when you get it you will not feel like you’ve wasted money on the beat buddy ever again. This is a really great drum machine with a very supportive( although demanding) support group ps…a few songs on my set list I do use a generic beat so that I can jam out if the room feels right.
We bought the BB for its consistent quality drum sounds, premium song library and build quality.
We play in cover bands without a drummer, we are not drummers, we have no interest in being drummers.
We play guitar and for me at least are also lead vocal, I have a helix and voicelive 3 xtream at my feet; and just want the beatbuddy to play the drums for the whole song.
I was hoping to link it via midi to my VL3X so when I change preset it would select the correct song etc, which I’m sure it would. But then I’d have to learn in some cases when to make up to 15 transitions on a song while singing and playing rhythm guitar.
I’m sure a lot of people here do this and more power to them, but that’s not me.
It’s my fault, as playing a song from begging to end is the simplest scenario I assumed it would be the default. I did watch a lot of videos and read reviews, but I should have checked if it would play an entire song before buying it. My bad, it looks good on the shelf though !
Your use case is pretty common. What you want to look for are songs in the User Content forum with “OP” in the name. The OP stands for one press. A lot of the songs you’ll find will have an extra letter (often a B – for bass), but they will work just fine with the regular drum sets (they won’t play the bass parts). You can also download a lot of free MIDIs from the interwebs, strip out all but the drum parts, make a couple of tweaks to remap the toms, et voila! Instant OP song!
You should be able to get your BB to start and stop from your VL3X, but I wonder why you would when the OP songs only require START and STOP. I’d keep it simple and leave MIDI out of it.
Of course, you could get your VL3X to select songs and, optionally, START and STOP – that would save you the outboard pedal – if you were willing to do the MIDI command programming on your VL3X, as well.
As good as it looks on your shelf (and it IS damned handsome, isn’t it?), it’d look way better under your Size-10 Chuck Taylors while you rock out with your socks out!
Hi thanks for the reply. The midi thing was really just to que up the correct song on BB to correspond to the preset selected on the VL3X. That way I change the preset on VL3X and the Helix/BB also change and I would just start the BB manually.
We play covers of classic rock and pop, Dire Straits, Brian Adams, Green Day, Undertones, ZZ Top etc etc.
I downloaded Beat Builder last night and had a play, it works but hangs when I try to close it. I’m guessing Windows 10 and Java have had a few updates since it came out plus I may be using the wrong version of the Java Runtime ( I’m a software developer by day ).
I downloaded some songs from Ultimate Guitar and used Guitar Pro 7 to export as midi, then used Beat Builder to convert them to just drums and it worked fine although I’m not sure I’d say they are the same quality as the version of the song from the premium library I bought. I also did the same thing in Studio One just to see if it was any better doing it by hand but it’s quicker to use Beat Builder.
It looks like by the end of 2021 we will have auto pilot, probably overkill for me but if it plays the whole song then that’s fine as I’m sure others will benefit from the other bells and whistles
Thanks, sounds really good, is it possible to use your custom kit on my stuff or is it just on that track ?
Here’s my ZZ Top ( Gimme all your loving ) converted from Guitar Pro so not the same as creating it myself but it sounds ok. ZZ_Top_-_Gimme_All_Your_Lovin.sng (11.2 KB). I did tweak a little in Beat Builder, is there a way to stop it from looping so it just ends ?
My initial solution for this was to export all the parts of the song, import to the reaper and there , place all the parts in the sequence of the original song, save and export, become an OPB.
Now I do it differently, I download midi songs from internet, open it in reaper, fix what I need, move the instruments to the midi numbers corresponding to the kit I’m going to use, save and export drum and bass, sometimes a piano, and open it in BBM , it also becomes an OPB.
now in 90% of my repertoire I no longer need to make transitions
My custom kit is essentially a re-EQ’ed, gated version of the original Standard kit. I find Goran mixes tend to lean towards studio tone (and he does an amazing job of it), but, for my purposes, I really needed a more live-appropriate mix.
Hi Lee.
I can’t be sure if it was you who asked specifically for Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits…
Anyway, I feel your frustration with the BB songs that have so many parts that it’s very difficult to match the original song. So, I remembered I had some .kar folders from many years ago in my back-up discs and there I found this song. I then used Logic Pro to focus on the drums part only, made a couple of tests to make sure the BB read the .mid file properly, moved a few instruments to the BB required locations and created a One Press (OP) .song file which I just uploaded via another post.
Here’s the file, anyway, in case it’s of use to you (and others, of course).
NOTE: The original song doesn’t have an outro, it just fades away. This one does have one so what I did was I added 4 measures after the final crash to allow time to stop the BB.
) the OP approach is equally valid. I use both, but tend heavily towards live arrangement.
