Hi BB users. Had my first gig with the Beat Buddy last Tuesday. It took me over 2 weeks to program all my songs (300+) into the BB. I had a set list for the 3 hour gig but I picked too many songs for that time period. The BB sounded great and gave a new dimension for my sound. I can’t wait for the drag and drop to come out because it will be much easier to move songs between folders. I am still fine tuning the beats and tempos of my songs but it is a lot of fun with the BB. I wish there was an easier way to grab the song if I have a request not on my set list. I have to bend over to scroll through the 3 folders my remaining songs are in. But all in all I am extremely happy with my new sound.
I use an iPad with Onsong for all of my music and now I put the beat, drum style, and other relevant information on each song. So if I get a request, it is pretty easy to change to RB or Country or whatever, set the tempo and change the drum style. Someday, I would imagine that could all be slaved together and when I hit a song on OnSong it would match up with what I need for the BeatBuddy.
I played my 1st gig tonight and while there is a leaning curb, it was awesome!!! I did have some songs that were too slow and some too fast and realized I didnt have one thing or another set up properly but it sounded great!!
It brought some songs to life that I otherwise don’t play acoustic…
It was worth every penny and is so easy to create songs… And getting better and better every day at creating beats…
I’m just so stoked about this new tool…
Got a small gig on Friday. To small for a drummer. Regular singer can’t make it. Just gonna be me, bass player and beatbuddy. It’s gonna be a test for me, singing, guitar and controlling beatbuddy. First time for me in a Duo like this. Had a good hit out at practice with the beatbuddy and it sounds really good when turned up a bit.
Only thing Im worried about is hitting the fills and transitions on time. I don’t play an acoustic very often and would not be confident in playing a gig with no beat behind me. Can’t wait.
Here is what I find interesting. The first time or two with the BB I would slide away from the rhythm and then it was a little difficult to bring it back, so I started doing a fill when I lost it and then I could start back up on the downbeat. I found that I needed to practice quite a bit so that it was more natural. The second or third time was a much better performance after a couple of weeks of intense practice. Yesterday I had a professional lead guitar player sit in and he was unable to adjust to some of the rhythms on the BB even though he plays behind a drum set always, but a different style of music. So, I think there is a learning curve with this thing. First you take a song you do, find an acceptable beat, style, and rhythm, then you have to practice enough to make it natural.
The listeners like the sound when it all comes together smoothly, but several remarked that they preferred the non-drum music. So I think that will change as I do it better.
Just as Jim did above, I’ll give you a few of my thoughts on giging with it… I received mine this past Friday (few days ago) and while I was playing with the software, its not the same as pressing those pedals, on time (or close to it) I would not recommend using the pedal for a gig unless you have practiced at home!!! It’s not just getting use to the Pedal, it’s knowing the set up of EVERY song… For instance, I downloaded about 30 songs and all of them where created by different people… Some songs are simple and you just click the pedal and it goes to the next part and everything is smooth, some people use the transition as part of the song and not just a fill so if you don’t know that you need to hold the pedal down and keep it held down until the bridge is over, then you’ll miss part of the song or get screwed up…
If you decide to use the pedal without becoming very familiar with it and the songs, be prepared to “wing it” and you better have guys who are cool with “winging it” as well… Quit frankly, most good musicians will get frustrated if things aren’t perfect and while guys like us are stumbling threw to improve our gigs, they don’t care about our learning curve…
Luckily, I own my own bar and played with it on the patio on Sunday evening and there weren’t many people there because of father’s day weekend… Like one table here and there… So my buddy sat and listened to me and gave me feedback but it was a struggle on many songs… On the other hand, several songs were AWESOME and I found that for ME, the key is simple… I’m just using this for acoustic so I’m going to keep the design of the songs simple and I can always add once I get it all down…
I hope my insight helped you…
I agree with everything… I will add that you will always have people who will not like the additional sound… I play mostly acoustic patio type stuff but I have tons of friends who come and play with me and every time I add a drummer or play full band, I get a few comments about how they like it better just me or just me and my lead guitar player… Personally, this beat buddy opens up 50 more songs that I generally won’t play solo acoustic because it just lacks enough sound and most of those songs are faster tempo songs so I was reduced to playing slower songs even when the crowed picked up cuz I didn’t have the full sound… now, the beat buddy brings Johnny B Good and Pride and Joy to life for me when I would never play them before by myself…
I also play a “patio” show where often the focus isn’t on me as a performer, so I use those times to run through beatbuddy songs as instrumentals. Without singing, if you go to the wrong part or miss a transition, it doesn’t really matter… you just keep up on the guitar 
Yea, you need to get familiar with the structure of the songs for sure but I’m not a good enough guitar player to do instrumentals… Just rhythm… If I did a instrumental, it would consist of me stomping the “fill” pedal and “accent” pedal over and over… LOL…
I find the idea of “Patio Music” interesting. The thing I hate more than anything is when I am giving it my all and the drunks and the talkers are so wrapped up that they get to the point of competition to see if they can drown me out or compete at the same decibel level. I guess that is just a part of the doing music thing and I try to focus on someone in the audience that is listening, following the beat, or whatever and tune out the others. It is hard but I am getting better at it. But the idea of background patio music makes me wonder why they don’t just bring in CD’s or something if they are only interested in background noise.
So played my first duo dig on Friday and first gig singing and first gig with the Beatbuddy. Hell of alot of fun. Didn’t really get a chance to sound check as guests were there early and used the first song to set levels which sucks. Beatbuddy should of been alot higher in the mix but it still sounded great and I would love to get some better PA gear. Had a couple of times where I missed my cues but It wasn’t to drastic as I was playing with a bass player and a missed cue isn’t as bad when using just drums on the beatbuddy.
Had some troubles with some of the outro’s. I upgraded to the latest firmware during the week and not sure if that contributed but I had a few times where I triggered an outro but it just kept playing and to get it to stop I had to pause the song, unpause it and trigger outro again. Not sure if I was pushing the button three times maybe instead of just twice but it was annoying. I never used the accent button so may assign that to stop and add accent to pause as thats the only time i really use it.
I made a recording on a Zoom H2 I have posted on youtube so I can pick myself apart. Here’s a link if anyone’s interested for a listen. Bass player was fantastic, Guitarist was Average (Me), Singer was pretty ordinary (me again) and is working on it and drummer was not to loud for the venue, kept perfect time, sounded great but had a little trouble with some of his fills and outro’s.
Cheers.
Well done bro…
well done keep up the good work