Introducing LooperBuddy

I tried and failed to get the attention of the folks at singular sound to enhance the support for the infinity looper. So I had to DIY something. What I have done allows me now to start/stop a beat and trigger fills as usual, but with a second home made foot switch I can trigger a transition on the BeatBuddy and when the transition ends, the Infinity looper will simultaneously switch to loop 2. A second footswitch will trigger another transition and tell the looper to go back to loop 1. If you are working on a song with part A / part B, that allows you to change the beat and the loop together without being a tap dancer as well as musician.

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Arduino Pro-mini or Nano are very low power and can be powered from the BeatBuddy MIDI out current source Pin 1 and GND pin 5. The nano is better for this as you can program it via a usb cable without any other hardware.

Connect BeatBuddy MIDI in to Arduino MIDI OUT +/- via 220 ohm series resistors
Connect BeatBuddy MIDI out to infinity MIDI IN +/- as detailed below.

BeatBuddy MIDI pin info:
DIN6 pin

1 - MIDI OUT current source connect to arduino 5v and looper MIDI in current sink (5)
2 - MIDI OUT current sink connect to looper MIDI in current source (4)
3 - MIDI IN current source connect to 220 ohm resistor and other end of resistor to arduino TX
4 - MIDI IN current sink connect to 220 ohm resistor and other end of resistor to arduino 5v
5 - GND
6 - N.C.

Infinity looper MIDI pin info
DIN5 MIDI

1 - N.C.
2 - Shield
3 - N.C.
4 - MIDI IN current source
5 - MIDI IN current sink

Connect momentary normally open foot switches between ground and digital inputs on arduino as follows.
Transition/loop1 switch to digital input 2
Transition/loop2 switch to digital input 3

Set BeatBuddy output setting to MIDI MERGE.

Set Arduino config to use a single digital input pin to control two MIDI button functions as detailed below.
One function sends loop footswitch control change message to looper CC-24 and second function
sends BeatBuddy transition control change message CC-113.

Similarly set arduino config to use a second digital pin for two functions, in this case loop 2 CC-25 and transition CC-113.

Beat buddy receives these CC-#'s and merges them with MIDI sync, and start/stop messages.

Details from the sketch:

//************************************************************
//SET THE NUMBER OF CONTROLS USED***********************
//************************************************************
//—How many buttons are connected directly to pins?---------
byte NUMBER_BUTTONS = 4;

AND also:

//DEFINE DIRECTLY CONNECTED BUTTONS****************************
//Button (Pin Number, Command, Note Number, Channel, Debounce Time)
//** Command parameter 0=NOTE 1=CC 2=Toggle CC **

Button BU1(2, 1, 24, 1, 5 );
Button BU2(2, 1, 113, 1, 5 );
Button BU3(3, 1, 25, 1, 5 );
Button BU4(3, 1, 113, 1, 5 );
//Button BU5(6, 0, 64, 1, 5 );
//Button BU6(7, 0, 65, 1, 5 );
//Button BU7(8, 1, 64, 1, 5 );
//Button BU8(9, 2, 64, 1, 5 );
//*******************************************************************
//Add buttons used to array below like this-> Button BUTTONS[] {&BU1, &BU2, &BU3, &BU4, &BU5, &BU6, &BU7, &BU8};
Button BUTTONS[] {&BU1, &BU2, &BU3, &BU4};
//
*****************************************************************

The MIDI controller project comes from Notes and Volts:
http://www.notesandvolts.com/

Use Arduino midi sketch from notes and volts:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwnVMB_6yujwR1dydVJ6MHJib2M/view

Get the Arduino MIDI library here:
https://github.com/FortySevenEffects/arduino_midi_library/releases/tag/4.2

That is pretty awesome, great job :slight_smile:
…just thinking is there any way this could be extended such that you could still run android/iOS apps to control BB to switch settings to match your set lists when playing live?

Having never owned a cell phone or pad I couldn’t say for sure, but as long as the device has a mege finction I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. The arduino has eight digital inputs all of which you could wire up to switches so you could possibly do everything you want with BeatBuddy that way as another option. This could also be done via a box made by a Canadian company called MIDI Solutions, but the equivalent eight channel box costs $350.00 without the foot switches! I paid $1.65 for the arduino from china and the hammond box and switches, wire and DIN plugs came in at under $20.00. Keep in mind the arduino allows you to connect pots as well as switches for controlling things in other ways. I hope this will be useful for someone.

Shine on.

wow, that is awesome, great job!!!

I’d be willing to pay for this, would you consider making one for me and I will pay the price that you consider fair.

Thanks in advance!

I wish I could help you but I don’t have much spare time for building hardware for others. I thought by publishing the details it would help others to copy it. If you find someone local to you who has some technical skills it shouldn’t be too hard for them and I could offer some help via the forum.

I understand, I will give it a try myself! I know how to wire and solder stuff up, I just need to dig more into all the programming stuff! Which I am not familiar with, at all :frowning:

You could probably just use the MIDI Flow app on iOS to emulate what Tone Seeker is doing; no need to get out the soldering iron. I don’t have an infinity looper, but I do have quantiloop on the iPad, so the principle is much the same. I’ll give it a go this weekend and if I have any luck I’ll post my findings up here.

Dude, this is so great! Will be exploring this. Solid work!

Just to be clear…

I`m using BB and a FS6 for footswitch functions. Am i right in thinking this second switch would be used to transition between BB parts AND change looper channels? So if wanted to transition beat buddy but not looper, just use BB pedal as normal?