Technical Support, Forum Users, Software and/or App developers,
I’m an old dog. It’s tough learning new tricks but I have had plenty of experience as a one man band. I love drum machines and the one that worked really well for me for nearly 2 decades at my live shows is a Korg KR 55 (I bought it brand new). The reason it worked so well is it had many presets, was very flexible and I could change settings on the fly, because I set it directly within reach of my right hand. My shows moved very fluidly whether it was a written out set list or spontaneously.
I love the Beat Buddy but I am unable to duplicate (at this point) the shows I used to do with my Korg. Oh and I’m a Macbook user. You understand my frustration now.
Nowadays, I use an Ipad with the Onsong App and I figured out the settings for the beat buddy and list the settings with each song. Thank you to the folks listing songs! The problem is I have to bend down and search for and set the next beat and tempo for every song. I don’t mind having to scroll to the beat I want and set the tempo but the bending down is killing my back and my show!
IS IT POSSIBLE to develop an App that has the controls available on the face of the pedal for Ipad? Maybe it could be connected through the USB or Midi ports? Or could I somehow connect a midi controller to either preset or scroll to the beat I want?
A possibility with Onsong to have Onsong send a MIDI message out to Beat Buddy each time you select a new song. A feature I have requested is a change to BB to have it respond to a MIDI song selection.
Given the power of Onsong to organize songs this would make BB control very easy. You could jump around in Onsong selecting and searching songs with ease, the BB would get the message. It also makes BB practical to operate as one pedal, no footswitch needed.
Having the BeatBuddy controllable via midi would be an answer. You would then not need to set up a playlist on the BeatBuddy and control it instead through OnSong. Although an app would be cool it is just something else to support, if you use Onsong you will know how many feature requests they get as well as all the updates when iOS is updated.
I’m in the same boat as Tele78. I love the overall capabilities of the beat buddy, but we definitely need a way to control the song selection without bending down to change it. If it could indeed be possible to control BB through Onsong… that would be absolutely fantastic since I’ve got all my songs in there too! Great suggestion!
With Onosng MIDI song selection file management in the BB becomes simple, just a single Alphabetical folder of all your songs in the BB. Best of all if you decide to change the beat to a song you only have to change it once and all the sets and folders in Onsong will play the new beat.
Currently BB holds a separate copy of a single song in every folder and set where you places to. You have to change the beat to a song in all those places. Making you write down set contents on paper and delete old sets.
This would be incredible and reduce the need for the manager software. But it seems that this is beyond the reach of the current software development team.
Well I think you would still need the manager software to actually create your song files but a connection from OnSong would only have to allow you to choose the song to play… For now anyway. Could always attempt to add features later on.
Thanks for the comments. If the OnSong App could send the midi signal to the BB, that would solve my issues, even without the manager software. I am having pretty good luck matching the existing beats to songs I play.
Another thought I had was to use a Midi Foot controller. I own an ART X-11. If I could program the foot controller to choose a BB file, I can scroll the different beats in the file with the foot switch to get where I need to be and use tap tempo fairly quickly. Although it’s still not an optimum situation, it would “beat” what I’m doing now.
For instance, the BB allows me to scroll through a folder (IE Blues ) with the foot switch, but I can’t change folders. Maybe the ART x-11 can do that for me.
You don’t need a BBManager to change folders on the pedal itself.
Currently there are two ways to change folders:
you can use either up/down and left/right buttons,
or pressing Tempo, then twisting it to change songs, or press Drum Set then to go to folders and change them via Tempo twisting, then apply via Tempo press.
I know how to change folders on the pedal itself. What would help me is a way to do it without bending over and twisting knobs for every song. It is very difficult to keep a good flow going in a live setting. I have been using it live and love the sound but it’s getting very tedious.
How about for android users? I have songbook. All of the above suggestions are valid. I am, as well, trying my best to learn new things. Once a purist, I love all the new stuff out there, but i find it difficult to master. Any thing you guys can do to make it easy, and less time consuming would be AWESOME!
I use OnSong, too. I hadn’t thought about connecting by midi. If this happens, I will be a happy boy!
I’m on Mac, too, so I’m just playing with the Beat Buddy at the moment, happily banging around, learning the thing.
But when the time comes and I CAN use the manager, one thought I had was to list the Beat, Set and Tempo for each song and then put it in a folder. I do a 3 hour set, straight through, which usually means 40-50 songs per night. And my sets are really loose. There’s a skeleton of structure - start with slower, move to more upbeat later, etc. - but it’s never the same, night after night.
From what I’ve seen, and with regards to the songs that I personally play (i.e. Your results may vary!) that seems to mean about 20 different songs in the folder, as some songs will double up, beat-wise. This’d mean you can just click, using the double pedal, to cycle through the folder to get to the song. A little tedious, if you have to get from #7 to #6, sure, but if you lay it out right, it should be ok, no more than a few clicks each.
Just my thoughts on it.
Granted, this means actually getting to use the manager… grin
It’ll happen!
Hello,
I would appreciate it even if the bb songs by midi could go off, for example, a program change command or so.
Even more convenient it would be if every song were numbered on the bb in a setlist and could then be directly controlled via midi. That would be a huge improvement. I work with setlistmaker and could make this choice by midi very good.
You can use midi on off toggle to start and stop the BB, so that you can put BB up on a stand off the floor where you don’t have to bend over. I have done it with Onsong an iPad and the bluetooth footpedal. In Onsong set footswitch config to toggle midi on/off. Connect MIDI from iPad to the BB, I used iRig2 MIDI adapter. Pick up the BB (lots of cables) and put it on a stand or table. Start/Stop by pressing the bluetooth pedal.
That might be possible in the future as I would like to do something similar - but the midi implementation is quite simple at the moment and is just to enable syncing between BB and a looper.
Tele78, by the sounds of what you want… if you are playing live shows, are you playing from a set list or are you choosing songs on the fly? Not sure if you are aware or not, but if its from a set list you could create a folder in the BB with all of the beats and tempos already preset. Then you just use the foot switch to move to the next song on the list… no bending down. These days I usually only play at functions where I’m choosing songs on the fly and not in a set list… if that’s what you are doing too, then disregard my explanation
A major benefit of song selection by MIDI, is BB file management. Currently BB, folders, sets, projects leads to many copies of the same song. Where any edit requires finding and editing all the copies. With MIDI song selection you’d only need one folder of songs, probably alphabetical. The set, folder, book, program, genre, etc. management is easily done in the iPad app. Jumping around in song order becomes quick and easy. Many sets and folders on the iPad does no lead to more copies of a song in BB.
