I can’t figure out how to take a midi file and use it in BBM at all. Im not totally computer illiterate but i just can’t figure it out. Can someone walk me thrugh it from the beginning. I’m working with a windows 8.1 and and i think my pedal is 1.65, how can i tell. I tried to upload the latest version but not sure if it worked. Im an old guy that likes to play guitar and play at a few bars around where i live and i would love to have some backup and this seem like a good idea. Thanks for any advice. Bud
I am assuming that what you want to do is to take some exsiting midi file that you found on the internet and make a Beat Buddy file out of it. If so, the tutorial that follows tells you how to do that, although it is written for Logic Pro X, a Mac-only program. You will need to use some sort of DAW, like Cubase, ProTool, Audacity, Reaper, etc., to do this. The principles ill be the same, although the command names and actions will vary from program to program. There were other tutorials on the Forum, but when Singular updated the Forum. we lost all linked information and all screen shots. So, those tutorials will likely be difficult to follow.
On the other hand, if you are just trying to get a song you downloaded from this Forum to load on your BB, and you have .sng and midi files that you downloaded, you do NOT use the midi files. You simply import the .sng file, using File>Import>Song from BB Manager.
Here is the tutorial for converting a multi-track midi file for use in BB:
How to Convert a Midi file to Beat Buddy using Logic Pro X
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Find a midi file you would like to convert. Some good sources are http://www.ajsmidi.com/docdoc/docblues.html and http://www.ajsmidi.com/blues/blues_1.html for blues files, and middy.com and freemidi.org for rock files. Or, just Google, Song name midi.
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Download the file to an easily found location and open it directly in Logic. Logic will open the midi file and assign instruments to the tracks. Logic sometimes assigns a piano to what is clearly the drum track. Switch the piano out for a drum kit, or it’s gonna sound real bad.
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Play the file and note where the sections break.
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Decide how you want to present the song on the Beat Buddy Forum. Is it an OPB* or OPBk*; is it a song with a single jam section, or do you want to have many parts? Once you decide, Go back through the song and use Command T to break the song into sections. Listen for your sections, verse, chorus any bridges or transitions and any good drum fill sections; or prejam, jam and outro.
*OPB - One Press with Bass
*OPBk - One Press with Bass and keyboards -
Save this file as [song name] tracks. You will be coming back to this file.
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You will generally be using at least the drums and bass. If you want to add a keyboard section, figure out which part or parts will lend themselves to making a good keyboard part.
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Pick a section to work on, the jam, for example. Select just the bass track. Select all notes in the bass track and drag them up, such that nearly all of the notes fall between E3 and E5, if using a 63_91 kit, other kits may have other mappings. Check the mapping by double clicking on the drum set name in the drum kit list. Phil Flood kits and GarryA kits, usually use 0 through 31 (C-2 through G0). For those kits, you will drag the notes down, so they fall between C-2 and G0. Standard Pro bass starts the bass at E5. There may be some notes that are outside of the mapped range. In that case, select just those notes and transpose them up or down one octave as appropriate. You might also wish to transpose the bass track to another key using this process. If bass notes overlap, or are nearly touching each other, you may need to shorten them. The easiest thing to do is to select all the notes and drag the end of one note slightly shorter. This will shorten all of the selected notes. This has to do with the Beat Buddy’s original lack of recognition of “midi note off.” This has been fixed to a some degree, but its still good practice to not have bass notes unintentionally overlapped, as they will appear to drop out when the song is played.
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Its good practice to save after you make significant edits or complete a section. This will help in the event you need to do more work.
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Check the drum track for non-compatible mappings and adjust as needed. Some tracks have a kick drum at B0 (Midi 35) and some BB kits do not have this drum. Also, some tracks have notes mapped to a location that corresponds to a handclap in Beat Buddy. Frequently, these are supposed to be a snare. Select all the handclap notes at the offending location and drag them to D1 or E1 which should be a snare. If you have odd sounding drums when you audition the file, you can come back to this step using the file you saved in Step 8, and make adjustments. You also may find that the drum track has notes that do not correspond to an instrument in your kit. In those cases, use your judgement on where to move the notes to a similar instrument. Alternatively, find a General Midi w/Bass compatible kit, and use it on the Beat Buddy.
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Select the bass and drum tracks. Join the tracks (Edit>Join>Regions). Create a new track, and move the joined track to the beginning of measure 1. This is a Logic idiosyncrasy. If you don’t do it, you’ll have blank space at the beginning of the loop. It won’t work as intended.
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In Logic use Export>Selection as midi file. Give it a name like [file name] verseA and save it to a folder where you will place all you files for this song.
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You can now add the newly created section to Beat Buddy Manager to audition it. Open Beat Buddy Manager and select a folder that has less than 99 songs. Select a song, and the +song button above that song will become active. Press the +song button, and a new song layout will appear. Enter the BPM and song title. The BPM should match or at least be in the range of the BPM that was showing in Logic for the song.
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You can now add the newly created midi file to the verse section. Simply click on the verse button and navigate to the file. Select it, and it will appear in that section of the beat buddy window.
Make sure you have a “with bass” kit with corresponding mapping selected. Then you can press the play button on the track to audition it in Beat Buddy manager. -
Repeat the process with the rest of the song sections. Save the Project when complete.
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If desired, export your song from Beat Buddy manager to your project location so that the song can be added to other Beat Buddy Manager Projects if need be, or shared on the Beat Buddy Forum.
Thanks alot Phil i will give it a try.
¿ Links are not good ? They lead to a generic nothing .
Those midi sites come and go. The best thing is to search for a song and add midi in Google. Something like “Let it Be midi.” That should give you a site with results.
When I got started (non mac user) I used freemidi.org to find midi files for older songs, and used the beatbuilder found here:
http://forum.mybeatbuddy.com/index.php?threads/free-midi-editor-designed-for-beatbuddy.2545/
Open midi file in beatbuilder, save it in beatbuilder, then put in beatbuddy manager.
This is very, basic to get (drums only) files onto beatbuddy. Like Phil was saying there probably was a nice tutorial before the update, which would have helped. Getting started was pretty overwhelming and can be confusing, but this might help us beginners using windows.