how do I start creating my own beats? software needed or what?

I am to the point where I need to start creating my own beats to make my own songs. Do I need to download software to do this? I have already downloaded the midi files collection…what next do I need?

You will need a DAW. You can search this forum to see what users are using. You can also search for “how to” posts as well.

So, I researched daw…I’m familiar with those things sorta…just I hate to work with them, I always had trouble figuring out how to use them. My friend uses mixcraft and loves it. Plus, I can’t afford the cost right now so I guess I will have to put the whole idea on hold. Is there any other way to create my own songs? Thanks for your fast reply.

You can try Reaper for free; steep learning curve. Beat Builder was made by forum member Charles Spencer for the BeatBuddy.

I use the BB Manager’s internal midi editor. It’s a little clumsy but it does its part of the work for all my songs. Also, it’s much quicker to change sthg on the fly rather than having to use another software.

Yes BB Manager’s internal midi editor. Its great if you are just creating less complicated beats and as mentioned above its good for fast changes or improvements.

I have downloaded the daw from Mulabs…Mutools…really like how it works and looks cool too. Am I gonna be able to use that daw for creating and then inserting my own songs to bb manager?

You can start with the built-in editor immediately, then switch to one of the many excellent FREE MIDI sequencers if you outgrow the built-in editor’s capabilities.

The easiest way to do this is to create a new song, then create a new part in it.

[LIST=1]
[]In BB Manager go to Songs -> New Song.
[
]Select the Default Drum Set for the song. This will now show the correct instrument names and play the correct sounds in the editor.
[]Right click on the ellipses (three dots) for the part you want to create. If you left click on it, it will bring up a menu that lets you select the MIDI sequence. You want to right click so that you have the option to create it.
[
]Select the appropriate values on the left hand panel - time signature, etc.
[]Create your sequence.
[
]Click “Apply” on the bottom left.
[*]If you want to use the pattern somewhere else, right click on it and export the pattern to a MIDI file. That’s how you end up with a MIDI file that you can import somewhere else or send to someone else.
[/LIST]

hmmm…nobody has ever told me that technique before…wonder why? Is it something new in the bb manager software now or whatever? And I’ve heard about the beat builder thing too…havnt looked into that…DAW seems to be the preferred method. But I still need to know if I can use Mulab to get it done? And I know zero about midi stuff…lol. Thanks for the reply !!!

I don’t think there’s any secrets on the forum. You just have to put in a little of your own effort to read the user guide and watch the tutorials. The search function on this forum is pretty useful too along with the very helpful users such as Gabriel who will pitch in to answer questions that might or not be so obvious to find.

The answer for Mutools depends on which version you downloaded. I’ve not seen any mention of Mutools on the forum before. If there are any users, I’m sure they’ll try to help—I don’t think it’s one of the “usual suspect” DAWs (Reaper, Garageband, Logic Pro X, Cakewalk, Ableton, etc). The Mutools free version may be limited to importing 4 tracks from a midi file. It will work fine if all you’re doing is creating drums and bass midi tracks from scratch. Why does this matter? Most of the songs that users derive their BB songs from have ≥10 tracks. If Mutools allows you to select the drums and bass tracks, then you will be able to edit them however, if it does not allow you to choose those one or two tracks specifically, it will be pretty frustrating. If there’s a midi file of a song you want to extract and edit the drums and bass from, it’s worth trying and especially since you’re just starting out with midi. If you find that you like the challenge of trying to “roll your own,” and the free version of Mutools isn’t up to the task, you can give Reaper a try since the trial version is not limited to 4 track and it’s free.

The takeaway from the above? Learning to edit midi is a process that you’re going to have to invest your time and effort into. It’s not simple but it’s not so difficult as to be impossible.

Mulab would work. In particular the step sequencer is what you would be working with. But Mulab and every other full blown DAW is really overkill and will require a bit of work to make it BeatBuddy friendly.

The problem with every DAW is that they are usually designed to work with audio tracks, which are recorded with an audio interface or synthesized, and “sequenced” tracks which are created by defining which sounds are played at each “step” like on a piano roll. The sequencer is really the only thing you’re interested in, so all that extra audio track support just confuses things.

Even when you look at just the sequencer there are problems. All of those sequencers are designed to allow you to create sequences for all of the MIDI channels. Each channel is essentially a different instrument. It’s a little more complicated than that, but for now just think of each channel as being a different instrument. Channel 10 has become a de facto standard for “drums”. For every other channel, the note being played represents the pitch - C, C#, D, Eb, etc. For drums on channel 10, the note represents which drum is being played.

BeatBuddy only knows about channel 10 (again, this isn’t quite true, but close enough), because it’s really only a DRUM sequencer and the de facto standard for drum sequences is channel 10. So, again even the MIDI sequencers in these DAWs are an overkill because they are designed to sequence for channels other than just channel 10.

There are many free MIDI sequencers available with don’t have any of the audio processing functionality that you don’t need. MidiEditor ( http://midieditor.sourceforge.net/ ) for instance is one. This is a general purpose MidiEditor, so it does include support for some things that you don’t need.

Let’s say that you get something like MidiEditor and focus on just channel 10, there are STILL some BeatBuddy specific issues to consider. The standard BeatBuddy drum sets don’t include a sound for every note that can be played on channel 10. Which sound is assigned to which note is called a “mapping.” Again, there is a de facto “standard” mapping called the GM (for General MIDI) map. The GM map defines an instrument for all 128 notes that can be played, but the BeatBuddy only maps about 20 or so notes to high quality sounds that they have recorded at various volumes. When you use a general purpose MIDI editor, it will usually use the built-in operating system MIDI mapping and sounds, not the BeatBuddy mapping and sounds. So, when you import your MIDI file into BB, there may be notes that don’t make a sound in BB, or they sound different from what they sounded like in the MIDI editor.

That gets us to BeatBuilder and the built-in MIDI editor. Both BeatBuilder and the built-in editor work with channel 10 exclusively. The latest BeatBuilder will use the BeatBuddy sounds instead of the system sounds. Both BeatBuilder and the built-in editor use the BeatBuddy instrument map. BeatBuilder is “part” aware. It allows you to save parts of the sequence into Intro Fills, Drum Fills, Main Loops, etc. BeatBuilder has a very nice feature that maps imported MIDI files that were created with another sequencer into the standard BeatBuddy mapping. This is a very useful feature that the built-in editor doesn’t do. The built-in editor allows you to create, import, edit, and export the parts in place which is nice, but be careful. If you edit an existing MIDI file and save it under the same name, it will be changed in every part that uses that same pattern. The built-in editor will play the pattern using the selected drum set which uses the BeatBuddy samples.

For capturing sequences that you would play on trigger pads, a keyboard, or another drum program, you probably want to use a general purpose MIDI editor/recorder.

For importing MIDI sequences that have been created by another MIDI editor, you probably want to use BeatBuilder because it will map the instruments for you automatically.

For creating SIMPLE patterns from scratch or modifying existing BeatBuddy parts, you probably want to use the built-in editor.

Hi Darryl.
I created a tutorial for Creating Songs for Dummies using the Mulabs program which might help you. And no I am not calling you a dummie. I prefer Reaper myself but it’s the same concept.

http://forum.mybeatbuddy.com/index.php?threads/create-your-own-songs-for-dummies.4898/

thanks for everyones great comments and help on this adventure. hey, guitar stu…I was planning on and hoping I could do everything I need with the Mulab, now I’m sure I can since reading your recent reply. I have already created some simple beats with Mulabs just to practice with it and I got it figured out now. The only thing I was unsure of was how to make the song midi and get it to BB manager and do the rest but since you so kindly did the tutorial now I’m pretty confident I can get thru it now…lol…I also downloaded Reaper but it has NO internal drumkits to use except some junky thing in it and as far as I can see it is kinda wacky to use…big learning curve…and really I like the Mulabs set-up much better. I will also use the Mulab for other projects in the future so I was already looking for a DAW. I will check out the beatbuilder and the BB manager editor as well and see what works best for my skills…thanks to all !!! Darryl.