Drumset creation...BBM trashing wave files! Please help!

BeatBuddy Bugs/Help
#1

Hi all. So I have been modifying a drumset to attempt to have drums and bass panned left and right respectively to run them into my mixer as independent channels. All pretty straight forward and I’ve modified all the wave files accordingly and have tested them and all are good.

I have tried 2 ways of bringing these into the BBM. One by creating a whole new drumset with the new sounds and another by modifying the existing kit and assigning the new wave files to the drumset. All works well and I’m continuously saving the drumset as I go. I test the sounds as I assign them and all play back fine etc etc.

So once I finish, I save the drumset one last time and all is good. When I go back to my song list it says I have to save my project which I do. Then BOOM, none of the wave files work anymore. If I try and manually play them in Cubase or through windows media etc they are corrupt! The BBM has copied them into a nested (buried many random folders deep) folder which it uses for the sound of the kit and trashed them so they don’t work so therefore if I go into edit my drumset in the BBM and manually play the files none of them play any sound. If I try and play a song with that kit no sound is heard at all.

I have made and modified kits before but never had this problem? Does anyone know what could be going on here? I’ve tried versions 1.6.5 and 1.6.7 of the BBM on Windows 10 and still no luck.

#2

Is your drum set larger than the 100 MB limit?

#3

No it’s 96mb.

#4

Even if I copy across the wave files back into the drumset wave folder in the workspace, those files will become unusable once I open or close the BBM software.

#5

Did you run the wav files through a tag stripper? I’ve had BBM fail to play wav files and then show them in red when I forgot to remove meta tags (even though I never added any meta data.)

#6

Hi @Phil_Flood. No I haven’t but I can try that. A particular program you recommend?

It’s strange that they will work when I load them into the drumset mapping, and when I save the drumset they save fine. But when I go back to my songlist and it says I have to save the project before playing the songs i get silence. Then I’ll go check the wave files in the folder where it’s reading them from and none of the wave files work anymore. Unfortunately if I copy across all the waves into that folder again it doesn’t change anything in regards to playing the sounds in the Manager so the program must already have them read in? But then, those files that I copy across, they get stuffed up when I save or close the program?

#7

NCH Switch. As weird as it sounds save it from Wav to Wav. Make sure your format is right 44.1khz, 16 bit. When I’ve had this happen, the wav file played fine when it was first put in the kit. But, then after saving and reopening the kit, the wav name appeared in red, and the wav would not play. It took a while to hunt this down, the first time it happened. I got advise from the other Phil here on the Forum, he looked at my kit, and recommended Switch, and I haven’t had problems since, except for when I forget to run the wavs through Switch before adding them to the kit. I always thought it was something that Logic was doing to the wav, adding some meta data, but maybe Cubase is doing the same thing. Anyhow, there is a free version of Switch to use, and the nice thing is that it will batch convert the wavs for you. I use it for setting normalization levels, too, but that’s a whole other conversation.

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#8

This sounds like a plan. Any particular settings you use on switch? Is it self explanatory?

#9

Ok, no luck. Went through with Switch and cleared all meta data from the wave files. Tested them out and all play perfectly. Assigned them to the drum maps in BBM all ok. Kit seems to save ok but again the files it creates in the folder in the workspace all the wave files are corrupted and can’t be played. The samples in the drum maps play fine when I click the individual play buttons. Then I save the project and all stop working.

EDIT - I once again remapped the drumset with the wave files i ran through Switch and I think I may have it working. Will keep testing. Thanks for your help @Phil_Flood :+1:

#10

Just got back in and am seeing this. It sound like you are on the right track. The nested folders thing is a real problem that we have complained about for years. According to Goran, BBM does not need the multiple sets of wav files to work, so when you find them, you may be able delete them. I’ve had as many as 50 sets of wav for one drumkit show up, filling up my HD. I just delete them now when I find them. AS long as I have a good .drm file, the wavs will recreate themselves when I need them.

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#11

Phil… I haven’t found that to be true in all cases. I’ve had many cases where I’ve changed only one wav within a drum set, only to find that that one wav was stored in one sub-folder while the rest of the kit was saved elsewhere. I’m fighting this issue right now… deleting the folder with the wavs that weren’t changed just corrupted the entire kit. It’s a mess. From what Ive been told by a previous developer is that somewhere in the bbm code, the older original directory name is retained when it should be flushed out with an updated directory. Since it isn’t, you’re left with bbm storing to two (or more) places. This nesting issue and directory corruption issue needs to be priority #1 before BS stuff like auto-pilot.

Phil

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#12

I think there are different behaviors on Windows vs. Mac versions, too. It’s a real mess. It causes so much garbage in the system.

#13

I use the Windows version… the editor is a waste of time, and the directory structure functions are just awful and completely unpredictable. I’ve had it store wav folders OUTSIDE of its workspace folder… I’ve given up on trying to figure out why. Eventually I’ll have to clean things up. Who knows what’ll happen then.

#14

Hi @Phil. Yes, this is the first time I’ve delved into the nesting structure of the BB Workspace and I’m horrified and it’s so hard to track how on earth it knows where things are located. There are so many copies of the waves folders for drumsets it’s insane. It’s amazing how creating one basic drumset has caused me so much drama.

#15

There are so many copies of the wave files for my drumsets saved throughout the BB Workspace folder. It’s insane! I wouldn’t know where to start to try and remove some without affecting things.! :nauseated_face:

#16

Thank you to both @Phil_Flood for the solution but also to @Phil who seems to have originally found the solution. I can now continue back to making my panned stereo kit. :+1:

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#17

Pretty nuts isn’t it? SS has known about it for years and has done nothing about it. It’s screwed my hard drive more than once.

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#18

If you are using Logic to export your files, they won’t be playable by BBM manager, because the exported WAV files are RF64 compatible. They need to be regular WAV and NOT RF64 compatible.
If you are not using Logic to export, make sure you have not checked the option to make them RF64 compatible.

Use an online tool to convert your existing WAV files into regular Wav files.
Also, make suree they are not 32bit floating point. They should be 16bit, so you can fit as many samples as possible.

I hope that helps.

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#19

Hi @GoranGrooves. Yeah @Phil_Flood and @Phil got me sorted. All working now! Thanks mate. :+1:

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