Fill behavior

General Discussion
1

I’ve watched the demos for the Aeros Looper and the Midi Maestro. The Midi Maestro has gotten me to thinking about the way the BB handles fills.

When I am creating a song in Logic with the Drummer, or even in Band in a Box, fills can get inserted into a larger section, rather than causing a return to the beginning or a section. I can’t see any way to replicate this is in the BB, other than an OPB or a majorly cut up main loop. As I understand the way it currently works, 1) we get a main loop playing, and then, 2) if we trigger a fill, the fill plays and 3) returns to the beginning of the main loop.

From a drumming point of view, is this logical? Shouldn’t the fill play and then return to where the main loop would be at the end of the fill? in effect, shouldn’t a fill act like an accent, that suspends what it playing and then resumes what was playing at the point in time when the fill ends? That would seem to make fills more useful, but I’m also pretty sure we can’t do that with the current hardware/software configuration.

2

I dunno, Phil. To me, a fill represents the end of a phrase – and the start of the next one. There are a few verses in songs we play that need a fill in the middle and then the drum progression changes, but when I run into that. I program the whole verse, including the fill.

3

Thanks, Joe. I’m just looking for opinions, so that helps. I guess your second example (fill in the middle) is how I thought a fill should work, and the first (end of a phrase) is how I think a transition should work.

4

Yeah @Phil_Flood, I hear ya. The way I approach it, most patterns are 4- or 8-bars long, but most verses are 8- or 16-bars long, so I use fills to end phrases. But I certainly do have a couple of songs with parts that have front- and back-half parts that I don’t want to have to transition.