How can i change tempo from 6/8 to 4/4 on beat buddy?

General Discussion
#1

hi all beatbuddies :slight_smile:

im just working on an op song for beatbuddy: maybellene from vollbeat. the intro of the song
the intro of the song is 6/8 with a bpm of 114 i think, after then the song change in 4/4 eith a bpm of 98, arevthere some geniuses on this forum and can help me to solve this problem?
I tried to make a midi file with logic pro with the tempo changes, its still working on logic pro c, but when i export the midi for BB i have only one tempo (124 in 4/4) as result on Bb.

many thx and have a great musical day

#2

Hey there, sadly BB can only handle one time signature/tempo set per song, you can however modulate the tempo using the tempo knob (obviously this is a side note, won’t help you here). You could use a MIDI controller to set the BB to a specific BPM once it needs to be there, but the 6/8 question is the problematic one. You could create a fake 6/8 in 4/4 by using eighth note triplets that are grouped in twos. Like so:

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Screen Shot 2020-10-21 at 3.38.49 PM1876Ă—558 60.5 KB

As to the BPM, that’s tricky. Two eighth notes are equivalent to one 1/4 note. BPM on BB is based on quarter note pulses (no need to understand what this means, but someone may find this helpful to know).

So the “fake” 6/8 would sound like it’s about .75 or 3/4 x the tempo so the question is what BPM multiplied by .75 = 114BPM, or 114/.75 which is 152BPM

So ideally, you create the song in 4/4 at 152BPM, add intro in fake 6/8 (using tied eighth note triplets) at 152BPM, and manually set BPM to 124BPM using MIDI once 4/4 starts, this is the best I can come up with given these parameters.

lol

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#3

haha, actually, fwiw, Brennan you’ve pretty much nailed it there, bearing in mind the limitations of the BB.

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#4

I also forgot to mention using the tap BPM on the footswitch to set the 4/4 tempo once you’re ready for change, might be a hard thing to do though, in essence, everything is about practice here

So start in 152BPM with fake 6/8 (actually 4/4) and tap the feel (at least 4 taps to get it perfect) to change the tempo. Maybe this is worse lol

Remember in your midi file, all you have to do is set the grid to 1/8 note triplets and make sure your strong beats are on every other beat after the first one. That is if you don’t have a music notation visualizer available

#5

For eighth notes just use the 8th note triplets

#6

Hi,
thx for the reply. Ill try it.

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#7

beatbuddy can handle time signature changes, i’ve got several songs with different time signatures for different parts. tempo changes need to be accomplished with creative use of expression pedal control or with MIDI maybe (haven’t dug that deep into BB MIDI CC commands yet)

but yeah i think just doing it in 4/4 with the intro written as triplets instead of eighth notes should do it, once you get to the verse and start playing quarters instead of triplets it will feel just like a tempo change

#8

Hey, just to be clear or you mean you’re creating time signature changes using a workaround, correct? Because just to be clear for all users, there is no way to set several times signatures for a song before hand. Just wanted to be clear for everybody!

At least not currently!

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