Hello all
Wow finally managed to get in
im very interested in purchasing the BB but have a few questions before parting with my hard earned money
and would like to know if its for me.
I mainly play bass with loopers and some FX pedals and in the future I will build a 5 string bass with a high C for chords and solo styles the only thing that limits me right now is drums on the fly,
I am also into creating Dub reggae which leads to the question is it possible to single out parts of a drum kits such as snare and crash to use with tape echo delay and reverb.
Im I right in understanding for a more quality set of say reggae beats id have to buy them from their web site this sounds dodgy to me as the Beat Buddy plus foot switch already cost a fortune.
I need to justify spending that over 300 pounds to my wife for a pedal lol your help will be appreciated.
Ok, kind of a complex question, so let me see if I can break it down into parts and not do too much to scare you or your wife. 1st, check Amazon for new pedals. I often see the Beat Buddy going for $279 or less. It’s not a huge discount, but it’s something.
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Singling out parts to use with effects. The pedal is not directly designed to do this. But, the pedal is stereo and it does respond to full right and full left pan setups. You would need to build a custom kit to accomplish this. Then you could have the snare and crash panned hard left and running through effects pedals, with the rest of the kit hard panned right through no pedals. When you get to that point, I can tell you how to do it.
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The pedal comes with some reggae beats. There are also some reggae songs already in the Forum that are free to download. You can also download free midi files from the internet and strip out everything except the drum part, and use those midi files on the Beat Buddy. Again, when you have a practical example in mind, ask for assistance in the Forum and one or more of us can help.
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The most important creative tool you will need with the Beat Buddy is a good DAW, digital audio workstation. If you already own a program that can edit Midi, that you are comfortable with using, great. Otherwise, look into that. I am on a Mac and I swear by Logic Pro X, but I realize not everyone can go that route. There are free programs, Audacity, Reaper, and a few others that some guys use. NCH software makes a good low cost program. Sometimes you might have already received a free limited version of a good program like Cubase, that will work. The real issue is that if you learn to create or edit Midi in a DAW, you can create beats for the Beat Buddy. Once you create the beat, creating a custom kit within Beat Buddy Manager is not that difficult, and it can get you the results you want. You will have to be willing to put the time in to learn the pedal and its software.
Dont think twice about this pedal it has great kits that come with unit and also you can purchase kits and beats that would be perfect for Reggae at a really reasonable price like $10.Percussive/World Kits and some of the Police tracks would be great for Reggae as you can edit the songs to your own needs.Also theres a great Resources section on the forum page that you can request or that have already been put up drum beats that members have posted.Its amazing.One of those memebers is Phil.This pedal took me a month or 2 to get my head around but it can do much much and you can tweek it really to your specs I have found less is more.The thing is I hate backing tracks like the ability to ad lib and this is perfect
Thanks guys for getting back to me I feel more reassured about the BeatBuddy now , Phil great idea regarding your hard panning suggestion I think that will work a treat , I do have a DAW Ableton live 9 lite still getting my head around it though as for midi thats another thing I have to get my head around too, ahhhh I just want to play lol,Thanks again.