Hello,
Is there a step to step guide how to make a song file for the Beatbuddy?
I want to make a song file for the Beatbuddy of some old Rockabilly song.
And I have no idea if this is possible for an amateur, like me
First, make a midi file of the old rockabilly song. Then, we’ll go from there.
Make sure the drum track conforms to the General Midi standard. DO NOT attempt to use the built in midi editor to make the track.
Phil is a legend so listen to what he suggests. Do you know if there is a MIDI track available of the song? Which song is it, perhaps some of us can help look for it?
Thanks, then I will try to make a midi file from a song.
Can I later filter the guitar out of that midi file?
Rockin’ daddy from Eddy Bond
My Way from Marco Dimaggio
And a want to make a backing track from this demo;
Oké, I have tried to convert a mp3 to midi online.
Is there a way to upload it?
To this forum.
Make it a zip file, then you can attach the zip to a message.
I take it you don’t know how to make a midi file from scratch? Do you have a DAW, like Logic, Cubase, FL Studio, etc?
Cuz, we’re not gonna need the guitar part, right? You just want drums and bass? And then the next decision is whether you want a one press file, like a backing track, or do you want it split up into parts like a standard BB file. That’s what we need to work through.
I can make a simple bass or drum midi file in the guitar Track Pro 4 or in Sonar home studio or in Guitar pro 7. But than I have to know the notes they are playing with the bass and the drum
Here is the zip file
Rockin’ Daddy - Eddie Bond.zip (68.6 KB)
Yes, only drum and bass or like they old Rockabilly bass and ritme guitar.
Like a backingtrack to use for playing the hole song.
Rockin’ Daddy and the Guild demo should be pretty easy to work up. Both those are very straight forward and follow basic blues progressions, for the most part.
The Marco DiMaggio one is more of a modern hip-hop based track, right? Or do I have the wrong thing? For songs like that, there is a program called Riffstation that I use to get basic chord structure.
Let’s start with Rockin’ Daddy, and I’ll show you the process I would use. We’re not going to end up with a note for note perfect version. We’re gonna get something that’s pretty good and gets us close enough to what we need to play the song. For the record, however, if you want note for note midi transcriptions, there are services that do that. Like Supreme midi from the U.K.
It’s not cheap; you’d be paying for time, like 25 to 30 pounds sterling per song. But, if you can live with getting real close, we can look at how to do that.
First thing, get the key and BPM. There’s a site call Tunebat. Go there, enter the artist name and song title, and you’ll get a BPM and key, also a Spotify link to the song. That’s kinda handy. I got 97 BPM and key of E Major. Set up your Sonar Home Studio with two midi tracks. One for bass, one for guitar. Eventually, we are going to merge these into one track, but for now we want two tracks. Next, see if you can find a drum beat you already have, that when played at 97 BPM gets you the feel you want. That’s the next step, and where I have to drop this for right now. I’ll have to go through some beat collections, starting with what we have for the BB, when set at 97 BPM. Go ahead and do this too, and let’s see what we come up with. We just want a starting point for the drums.
This is the song My Way from Marco DiMaggio (in the ZIP file)
My Way - Marco Dimaggio.zip (7.5 MB)
I have to look into it to see if I still have my midi file for a backing track I ones made.
Pretty close is fine with me.
Rockin’ Daady I kow is in the key of E the Bpm 188
Yeah, the automatic BPM finder thing sometimes gives you half or double what you need. I tried it at 97, and that was about half speed. I put it at 190, and that was pretty good. 188 works for me.
And, yes this Marco DiMaggio sounds a lot more like a rockabilly song. I’ll have something on the Rockin’ Daddy one for you to play with later today. Then, if you like, I can walk you through my process.
That would be great.
I would like to make my one BeatBuddy song so that I can share it on this forum.
Best Regards,
Rockingcat
The Netherlands
Earlier, when I said to set your Sonar up with guitar and bass, I meant drums and bass. Attached are the drum and bass patterns I am using.
Rockin Daddy midi parts.zip (971 Bytes)
When I take a song like this that I am not familiar with, the first thing I do is get an mp3 file of the song. I then load that into an audio track in my DAW. I use Logic Pro X on the Mac. I use that mp3 file as a guide for the rest of what I am going to do. I have to have the BPM set on the DAW fairly accurately before I add the mp3 track. In this case, I had used 190, but, as I said, since we’re going to end up with just midi, 188 is fine.
I then listen to the song, and set markers for the various sections. Here with Rockin’ Daddy, it breaks down as follows:
Intro - 4 bars
Verse 1 - 12 bars
Stop Time verse 1 - 12 bars
Solo 1 - 12 bars
Interlude (where he sing Well) - 2 bars
Verse 2 - 12 bars
Stop Time Verse 2 - 12 bars
Solo 2 - 12 bars
Stop Time verse 3 (first part of end) - 9 bars from the stop time verse
Ending - 5 bars, with the note being held.
With the two midi parts I gave you, you could proceed as follows:
- The drum pattern works for just about everything except the stop time and the end. For the stop time, you could edit the fill from the last bar of the drum pattern, or just have a rimshot hit on the downbeats. That would take care of the drums up until the very end.
- The bass pattern breaks out this way -
A -first two bars of the pattern twice for the intro
B - Full pattern verse 1
C - Stop time. Place an E on each down beat of the next 3 measures, then B quarter notes in bar 20.
D - full pattern
E, interlude, - 1st two bars of pattern
F - full pattern
G - Stop time pattern
H (solo) - full verse pattern
I - first 9 bars of stop time pattern
J - the ending, I used four half notes on B, then the pattern from the first measure. The last two measures are E quater note, F quarter note, E, 6 beats long.
The drum ending, at measure 90, I would use the fill from the end of the pattern, and at 91 , enter a crash, beat 2 - snare eighths notes, beat 3 kick.
Once you have the bass and drums laid out to your liking and they sound OK with whatever bass and drums you have in Sonar, you will need to move the bass to match the BB drum kit that you want to use.
This would be my process, for one of my kits that is labeled as a 0-31 kit.
Select the entire bass track, and transpose it down 4 octaves. If you want the bass to play higher, you could choose to move it just 3 octaves.
Then, you will have to merge the bass and drum tracks into one track. If you have the option to make a midi type 0 file, this may work, but I just merge the tracks together in Logic. BB will not respond to the individual channels per track. Once you have that midi file made, you can put it into a main loop in BB manager with the 0-31 drum kit that you selected, and it will play. However, it will keep looping, since its in the main loop. If you examine how OPB songs are made, you will see that the main section is placed in the intro or outro portion of the song. This is largely a matter of personal taste. I like having the whole song as the intro, so that when I press play, the song starts, I then have a null loop as the main loop, and when the song is done, I just double tap to end the song. If you have the song in the outro, you press play to have the null loop start, and then double tap gets you to the outro where the song plays through once and ends.
If you wand to use a 62-91 kit, instead of transposing the bass down 4 octaves, you would transpose it up once octave for low notes, or two octaves for higher bass.
Feel free to ask questions.
3 Likes
Thanks, I put up sonar with bass and drum (I don’t have a VST guitar apparently.
This is my midi sound (converted to audio)
test sound 1.zip (198.1 KB)
Rockabilly in E.zip (2.3 MB)
Thanks for your help, I will try it out!
Best Regards,
Rockingcat
the Netherlands
Oké, I get the drum sound, but with the bass I don’t here a sound.
in which range should it be? E3, E2, E1 or lower or higher?
I have tried different pitches but it doesn’t work.
What am I missing?
You wont hear the bass in Sonar after you transpose it. You will onle hear the bass in Sonar while it is on its own bass track before you merge the tracks. After you transpose the track, you will only hear the bass once it is in BB Manager with the drum kit that matches the range you selected. For a 0-31 kit, the bass needs to appear in Sonar in the range of notes from C-2 through G0. For the bass to work with a 62-91 kit, the bass notes in Sonar need to be transposed to the range of D3 through G5. Your notes appear to be in the correct place on the piano grid for a 62-91 kit. You must now merge that track with the drum track, and place the resulting midi file into BB manager. Then you need to make sure you have a kit with bass at 62-91 selected for your active kit for the song.
The process is to do your edits in Sonar before transposing and merging the tracks. After transposing and merging the tracks, you will rely on BB Manager to be able to hear the song.
What drum kit have you selected in BB Manager?