Hi- Can someone tell me how, if if I can create a drum beat that has pattern changes and symbol crashes in it,so I dont have to manually do it with my foot?
Well, if you want a pattern to change, it is pretty easy. You need 2 MIDI pattern files for that.
You then create a song with two song parts, adding each of them as the Main Part.
Please refer to official video guide and tutorial videos by @Psalm40 - he has them listed in his forum signature.
Each “part” of a bb song has a limit of 500 notes, but other than that, you can take the drum track our of most any midi out there, and break it up and use it, or create your own.
Ok Awesome, Im gonna try & find a site where I can get some midi drums then I guess. Thanx a bunch!
TY Daef …tryin to get in the groove here so to speak. This is all brand new to me. Hate asking question but …its got me so interested yet,complete newbie as far as midi & stuff like that. I dont know what format of files can go on BB & what cant but I will learn =D
BeatBuddy pedal itself can use only .BBS for song files. It takes instrument sounds from .DRM files. Accent Hits are in the .WAV files.
All of these must reside in the predefined hardcoded folder structure. All of these must also be listed (or registered) in a .CSV file inside these folders.
Resume: Only .WAV file format is well-known. The .CSV is actually a text file, so one can try editing it manually. All the other .BBS and .DRM are proprietary formats that were not intended to be edited in any way. Strict project structure and necessity for everything to be listed in .CSV files force you to use BBManager to edit the pedal content. It is close to impossible (or at least very very tricky) currently to edit something without BBManager.
BBManager itself accepts .WAV files as accent hits and .MID (MIDI) files as actual beat patterns when compiling .BBS files for the pedal. It also allows you to create/edit/delete .DRM instrument sound files for the pedal.
Not to discourage using midi to do this, it can also be done in “Beat Builder”. I make “Riffs” all the time using the Beat Builder so I don’t have to use the pedal to trigger them and I can make them quieter than the original fills that are in the furnished fills. Some are very loud compared to the Beat Volumes. If your song has pretty standard places for the fills, this is a snap and you can concentrate on just playing. You can still use the fills if you want to. Try it at least once to see if it works for you. I have really made some nice soft transitions this way. Really effective when it comes to a nice feel you want.
Hope this helps. Sincerely, Fingerstylepicker.
Tried this website but McAfee kept me out of it. Another one is free-midi.org, so I will try that. McAfee OK’d that one.
Sincerely, Fingestylepicker.
Yes, freemidi is blocked for good reason. Usually on the first try, if you click on a download, it will try to download some kind of garbage to hijack your computer. Fortunately, I can get passed that, and after that most of the downloads are actually genuine.
Just found this thread and it’s pretty much what I was looking for, but still have a question:
Will there be a chance that with some firmware/software upgrades we can get past the 500 notes limit?
I would love to find a way to just tap the pedal once and have an entire song play. As a beginner guitar player, I’d like to be able to just tap and then concentrate on the song. God knows that it’s a chalenge in it by itself.
Anyone found a work around? How would the silent moments be done?
I have created a number of songs that lend themselves to this. Many songs are just a single loop over and over, VCVC, etc… so you hit start, it does intro, then loops. you just have to tell it when to end.
Thanks aashideacon for your reply. I could see this working for some simple songs, but not sure that it would work with all and some of the songs that I am working on right now. I thought that I had seen in some posts that folks could load a backing track (WAV) file to play from start to finish … I was just wondering the the same was possible with just the drum beat patterns. I think that it would be a nice feature either as an upgrade or a Ver.2 of the Beat Buddy.
I did create a way to loop a wave file as an entire song. It’s not an ideal way to use the pedal, but it does work.
i did this with a karaoke version of Steely Dan Reelin in the years:
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/beatbuddy-karaoke-steely-dan-reelin-in-the-years.4349/#post-14836
one of the tricks is that the “main loop” loops of course. so i made it a fill.
the “fill” is a long wav loop that is the whole song.
You can likely examine the midi, and replace the large wav file that is the song with your own. I made the midi loop make sound so i knew it was happening, but live you wouldn’t want that. experiment, and report back!
The next release of bb manager and firmware might get rid of the 500 note midi limit. I fear that it will remove the art of creating bb songs though! I’d rather have the ability to loop a certain number of times, rather than play a reaaaaaly long midi.
Without the limit on the midi, you could do a whole song without having to touch the pedal only for fills and transitions, and of course, the end of the song. If you have noticed that when a fill is triggered, the song comes back to the beginning of the loop when it reverts back to the main beat. Even with the extended limit, the song would loop to how long it is in the main. It still could be used for one measure, two measures, or whatever your choice. It still might prove to be benificial with the best of both worlds.
Sincerely, Fingerstylepicker.