Hello, do you all like the beatbuddy?

I am thinking about purchasing the product.
Wanted some feed back.
Thank you!

Yes, BeatBuddy is awesome!
'nuff said.

It depends what you are looking for - do as much research as you can, watch users YouTube clips, listen to the demos - someone even has demoed all the BB songs. If you are happy with the stock beats…go for it, if not be prepared for making your own. If you are not happy with the sound of the drum kits be prepared for making your own drum kit or modifying those already there.
Many on here have written about their experiences and at the moment I would say the BB is not for everyone - but if you are happy with it out of the box, then you will love it. If you want it to fit in with your setup then be prepared for some work. Unfortunately that work will require the use of a computer and midi and an understanding of both will help greatly.

I bought Beat Buddy for two specific purposes- 1. I play in a Praise and worship band and our drummer can hardly ever make practice. This pedal out of the box has been perfect for our needs at our weekly drummer-less rehearsal. The stock beats work great for virtually everything we play. We run it through the PA and into our stage monitors. I operate it while playing my bass. 2. I bought it for solo practice at home. Practicing bass is way more fun with a drum beat.

After using the pedal “as-is” for a couple months I finally downloaded the beta BB Manager that was developed for Windows XP 32 bit. It has worked great with no issues for me. Now I have a folder in BeatBuddy with our church songs listed and I have experimented with editing the songs a bit (eliminate some fills etc…). I also downloaded the free Beat Buddy pack being offered by Groove Monkey and I have been experimenting with some of those beats.

As an added bonus I do a little home recording (bass, sax, keys) and I have successfully used Beat Buddy to add a drum track to my recordings.

So for me it has met all my expectations. But I would consider myself a pretty basic user.

I’ve been noticing that a lot of recent contemporary rock music sounds like it was entirely assembled using a digital audio workstation and that the rhythm tracks sound like someone copy-pasted a purchased sample of a single drum hit over and over. Without any extra effort on your part, the BeatBuddy sounds like real drums being played by a human being. Even if you don’t bother with randomizing volumes or de-quatizing the notes, the fact that multiple samples are used at each velocity layer already gives you a more real sound than what I’m hearing on the radio.

I agree Charles. Alot of todays music sounds like it is cut and paste. I played guitar on a country album a few years back and I was pretty pleased with the demo tracks as they were done pretty much in one take just to get the song structure and solos in place. When the actual album was done alot of my guitar parts were copied and pasted into parts of the song. Drove me nuts and totally sounded unnatural. In fact the whole album had that feeling but yet the demo sounded so much better, warts and all. The beatbuddy can require some work if you want to take the time to do it. Some users may be better off just using complete midi files or backing tracks if that is what they are after. load the files onto a looper and away you go. I’ve done alot of sequencing over the years and I find that drums parts are often the hardest at capturing the human element. The beatbuddy seems to have this realism. I still haven’t found the time to really work with the pedal as I am working full time but I have a ball when I hook it up to the infinity looper. Lots of ideas flowing and all in sync.

There is a term youtuber The Tone King uses which was applicable to me “bedroom rocker”, just a guy, guitar and guitar stuff noodling in the privacy of his home, well it applied to me BEFORE the Beat Buddy. I’m now working on a full song with multiple instrumentation because of the inspiration that the Beat Buddy helped inspire.
Not gonna lie, it isn’t cheap but it has become important enough to me to where I’m contemplating buying a 2nd one just as a backup.
I’m hoping in about a week to publish that song and post it here with a comparison of my music immediately before the Beat Buddy and after.

I like the BB for its flexibility. For practicing and messing around with the guys, it’s absolutely perfect. Unlike per-recorded backing tracks, there is no script to follow, so jamming and experimenting with no direction in mind is a pure joy. A bunch of generic drum patterns really let the creativity flow early on when you’re waiting for inspiration to strike. When it does, because of it’s program-ability, you can edit the drum pattern accordingly, and add complexity as you go. The beauty is that at no time are you locked in to any one section of a song. With a simple foot stomp you can start, stop, pause, and restart any section, without having to fumble with a phone or laptop to stop, back up, find your place again, then replay the wav file. I think a lot of guys struggle with trying to cover songs with such precision that they get frustrated with the BB. It doesn’t simply play a pre-recorded backing track from start to finish. It’s more of a creative tool that can be used to play entire songs if you choose to do so, but you’ll be making the song your own as you do it. Perfect re-production of drum tracks is not it’s strength. If you’re the type of person that needs a perfect copy of a song’s drum track in order to play that particular song, the BB probably isn’t the best tool. If you like to play songs using a variety of different beats or you like being creative with song covers, or you just like jamming along with friends without playing any particular song, the BB is a fantastic product. The software still needs work and while there is a plethora of user created content, it’s all over the place in terms of quality and polish.

That is a great description of the Beatbuddy. That is what I was trying to say. If you you want exact drum parts for a cover tune and your not comfortable with working with the software then I don’t see the point in using the Beatbuddy. But the freedom that it offers you when you play is like having a real drummer. I think it is a great product.

yup love it, still fighting a bit to get it to work with my looper, but when playing without the looper its a great way to keep time and practice

Personally I would buy the BB through a music company like sweetwater music, musicians friend ect. because if you have a defective unit, you could get the problem solved quicker. Most of these companies have a 30 or 45 money back guarantee plus they have customer service. BB has no customer service phone number and it takes a long time for anybody to reply via e-mail. I should know, I have been trying to get my problem/replacement unit solved for a month now through the BB e-mail support/contact system.

Love it, so far have 13 set lists, 30 songs per list, eventually I’ll get all 550 covers I do programmed in

It’s Awesome…!
I made mine to be a ezdrummer 2 in a pedal …

The toontracks EZX & midi pack works great with the beat Buddy…https://www.toontrack.com/ezdrummer-line/

Do you mean adding the samples from EZDRUMMER to a Beatbuddy drumset?

Yes! The midi samples from EZdrummer works in the BBmanager new project/song than export to the pedal…

Here’s a (test) sample I threw together using midi file from ezdrummer 2…https://www.dropbox.com/s/5cfu64cbunbm28z/double%20Trouble.sng?dl=0

Sorry that you have been having an issue with getting a replacement. The company is new and I don’t think they realized how quickly BB would take off. The people that I have had contact with regarding a recent issue worked hard to get what I needed and have even followed up to see if what they suggested had worked. So don’t give up on them yet.
Sweetwater has the best customer service of any company that I have dealt with. You get your own personal person and are routed to them (if you wish) whenever you call. I have had great success in getting what I need, good prices, etc from them.

Wicked_Truth are you saying you can build a drumset from EZdrummer samples??? PLEASE, tell us about the process!!

EZdrummer2 drum kits are packaged as EZX expansion kits and map to the EZDrummer2 kit layouts. The EZX kits for a genre also come with a variety of midi patterns to use with that style kit, like Drumkit from hell vs. Cocktail or Electronic. The drum module works by triggering .WAV samples like other drum modules and it may be possible to extract the .wavs to make a BB kit from them but that’s not what is mentioned above which is that EZDrummer2 .mid pattern files can be exported to be used in BB. As noted in other posts, native EZDrummer2 midi files do not map directly to BB and need transposing to conform to the BB GM and other kits. BB versions of GrooveMonkee midi pattern files that work in EZDrummer2 do not need remapping. IMHO, EZDrummer2 and midi loop packs should be a first purchase for anyone with more than a passing interest in making songs. Since BB doesn’t have corresponding sounding or mapped EZDrummer2 compatible kits, you can save a lot of money and not buy the EZX expansion kits, just get EZDrummer and a ton of Groove Monkee or EZDrummer midi loop packs. If you load a ton of EZDrummer midi patterns in song on the BB with matching fills based on say beat compatibility from the search feature it would be one way to use BB and have EZDrummer loops on the go needing the computer.

Yes I only have mine less than a week but am well pleased. All users have different individual needs, for me it’s mainly accompanying my own original songs when practicing and playing live, but at the very least it makes jamming in your room a lot more enjoyable than just with a guitar. Even using the BB in it’s simplest out of the box form adds a whole new dimension, and I’m finding having a good beat accompanying me is making me perform better. It’s also relatively easy to use, and the quick start manual is very clear and gets you moving in no time.

Mine was mainly an interesting gizmo at my feet, and only used it for occasional jamming, until Guitar Stu figured out how to add bass lines to the beats. Since then, once I figured that out, I’ve been gathering beats and creating beats for my weekly show. Last night I played an entire 3 hour show with 90%+ songs that had Beatbuddy with Bass as my accompaniment. People really seemed to enjoy the full sound, plus, it really frees me up to be able to play leads and melodies without having to fill the space with rhythm.