Is there a way to visually compare, in a single document, the Main Drum Loops of multiple BeatBuddy songs? This would be those familiar MIDI events on a time grid such as displayed in BeatBuilder. The focus would be on bass drum kicks and the snare, so as to keep things uncluttered.
I have experimented with this:
Open a midi source file in BeatBuilder
Select the note data
Copy to clipboard (Ctrl C)
Open a blank document in Excel
Without selecting a cell, paste clipboard into spreadsheet (Ctrl V).
This sort of works, for a single data set only, because Excel won’t accept all that data into a single cell of the same worksheet. Then there is a whole bunch of formatting in order to try and make it all readable. For me, it’s impractical, so not what I’m after.
Does anyone know of an app or process that would make it possible to view graphically even just the first couple of bars of several independent MIDI grids, one above the other, for comparing beat basics visually?
I’m curious as to what you want to accomplish by visually comparing beat basics.
Any DAW should let you drag a bunch of midi files into it and let you see them one above the other. I am on a Mac and use Logic Pro X. PC has Cubase, FL, ProTools, etc.
open the BB mgr & look at the velocities ?
Thanks for the replies; no notice by email, so need to adjust my preferences I guess.
Persist - I have an original tune in mind and a basic kick and snare, etc…to go with it. If I had a graphical library document of my BB Main Loops, I could look through it for a match.
So I’d like to be able to paste the “basics” of my BB Song files into a document for easy comparison. Not to suggest any comparison with BB, which is mind-bendingly great, but this would give me a visual of a BB Song similar to the display of my old TR-505, but with all of my Main Loops (or at least from one folder) on one page to choose from.
Phil Flood - I’m a novice when it comes to DAWs, although I have put a couple of “publishable” tunes together using Ableton Live Lite; will have Tracktion in a day or so (also a “lite” program, I assume). My approach to music on computer has been through standard notation software. Am currently using Harmony Assistant, which will import .mid files, but automatically converts them to std. notation, so I just stopped with that.
Do you think that I could copy/paste just the kick & snare from multiple BB Main Loops into what I guess would be multiple tracks of the DAW as a solution? Thanks for considering this.
rknrne - Interesting that you mention velocities, since when copying BeatBuilder MIDI events into Excel, they appear not as graphic bars, but as the velocities recorded for each event. Those could serve my purpose, since each instrument’s events show up on a unique row of the spreadsheet, a velocity value would simply represent an event - a bass kick, for instance. Too many mysteries remain in an Excel solution to this. Any ideas?
Seems like they’ve changed the forum configuration as I don’t get e-mail notifications any more either.
Thanks, for clarifying what you’re trying to achieve. Seems like using a DAW is a long haul for a short slide. Not sure of what else to suggest other than a DAW, though. I think some users were tracking Drumapp from Bias Grid that might provide what you are looking for but it may not be the same concept that you envision.
Phil Flood - I’m a novice when it comes to DAWs, although I have put a couple of “publishable” tunes together using Ableton Live Lite; will have Tracktion in a day or so (also a “lite” program, I assume). My approach to music on computer has been through standard notation software. Am currently using Harmony Assistant, which will import .mid files, but automatically converts them to std. notation, so I just stopped with that.
Do you think that I could copy/paste just the kick & snare from multiple BB Main Loops into what I guess would be multiple tracks of the DAW as a solution? Thanks for considering this.
Yes. Midi drum tracks typically appears as a single track. What would be notes in other tracks are different drum sounds in a drum track. Think of each note a being a lane to hold the time when a particular drum sound will fire. You can, therefore, copy just the kick from one track and paste it into another track. Likewise with the snare.
Importing .mid file into Harmony Assistant, my current std notation program, results in a new window with the MIDI data in std notation. I copy and paste it into a staff which is configured to represent a std drum staff - and it comes in as all instruments on one staff.
This appears to be in the right direction - I can repeat the process, pasting multiple .mid files to unique staves; I can spit the staves according to pitch, and delete the unneeded staves (notes) [thus reducing the “clutter”], but resulting staves revert to std instrument style… i.e. Many and numerous formatting issues arise, which today I’ve spent half the day trying to get a handle on - exactly what I’d hoped to avoid * - and to no satisfactory result.
[The H.A. Help system is very DOS-like, and it’s a European program to start with. A powerful and affordable pgm however.]
* I’m a CNC machinist, project/program designer, so familiar with the challenges of learning new systems. Yet, as the wife says, “Work smarter, not harder”. :rolleyes:
First iteration of what I’ve been doing; that includes formatting for my screen, the imports and adjustments, edits, and this page formatted for sharing/printing.
I started putting Blues 3 in, but since the time signature changes to 6/8, will make a new document with hopefully Songs - Blues 3 - 7 on one page.
Here’s how my morning went. Although the closed hi-hat and ride cymbal are not really basic to the beats, and contribute slightly to what I’ve been calling clutter, I left them in to aid in timing the kicks since they fall on counts of the 6/8 bar.
Configuring these for sharing is its own ball of wax, so for the time being I’ll concentrate on building the library.
I’d still be interested in alternatives, of course. Thanks
Here is a grid version of the Main Drum Loops in folders Blues 3 - 7. The distinctively human feel of BeatBuddy’s songs results in some quantizing anomalies in this, also seen in the standard notation version above on Staff (Song) 5)a, kick drum transition from Bar 2 - Bar 3. Anyway, I thought it worth the effort to see how Harmony Assistant would do with rhythm grids.