Just wanted to report my first experience as a total BeatBuddy newbie picking content, purchasing, and getting it into the pedal. . .
- Locating content - I think the library site is very well done. I like the organization of it, the audio preview, and the textual information including recommended drum set. kudos! very well done!
- Purchasing content - I opted to use the pay pal payment option in the checkout process. My experience was after agreeing to terms, it routed me to pay pal. I logged in and was presented the payment approval screen. I clicked it, PayPal did its thing and routed me back to my cart. However . . nothing happened despite it appeared as a charge process. I did this three or four times, same result. What ultimately worked for me was opening Pay pal in a new tab . . I did this to verify no charges or no multiple charges had been applied . .I went back to the other tab with the cart and attempted again. Visually it looked the same but this time by having an active session of pay pal in the other tab, the return was a confirmation and the content was available in orders/download area.
Now, before you blame operator error . .I made a second order hours later and experienced the same thing but ultimately, I got my content and lost no hair in the process. Now that I have been through it twice, I think next purchases will be faster and no issues. No real complaints but another kudo would have to be to the pricing model for the content. I think it is VERY reasonably priced for drumsets and song packs. again, kudos to Singular Sound. - Getting content on the BeatBuddy - I located the YouTube on this and followed it exactly but with one exception. In the video, they move to the pbf file to the desktop to “know where is it located” . I opted to leave it in my unzipped folder inside my downloads folder and just browsed there during the Import->folder or ->drumset process. The video was dead to the point and very helpful. Another kudo.
My only quirks were understanding projects, and when you’re dealing with the localized content versus SD card . . but that’s on me and my newness. I found the software’s prompts, suggestions, and instructional content to be very helpful and nicely done.
If I had any recommendations, I would like to see integrated content in the library area. By that I mean, through the forum I have learned about GrooveMonkee which I intend to purchase from and I think it would be cool if the shopping area included other vendors that offered BeatBuddy formatted content so you had a relatively single point of content acquisition. As a newbie, it is kinda difficult keeping up with content offered through the forum, through other vendors and through Singular Sound. Personally, I would like to see it more integrated. Having said this, I am floored by the vendor and the community. I have a lot to learn and the web resources and community have been fantastic.
While I’m at it, I would like to see the pedal format continue, but a version that is more in line with a chassis like like a Boss GT100, Helix or similar floor units would be my preference. I get and respect the pedal form factor but personally I would opt for a bigger unit to have dedicated pedals and maybe an extra assignable pedal or two and an expression pedal . .that kind of direction. But I am thankful for the current product offerings and the non linear pattern control. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.