Feature request - For the love of all that’s holy, Keep it simple.
I’m seeing lots of “feature” requests on here, which is great, but I’m also afraid the core strengths of the BB, including reliability, ease of use, and simplicity, are being forgotten.
It’s important to understand that the BB is a niche product that fills a gap between a hard core full blown midi drum machine and the simple linear static beats on the less than full featured drum machines. It gives the user control of the beat so that playing along becomes a dynamic and flexible experience. “Let’s try that part again”, or “One more time” are but a pedal press away, all the while keeping everyone in time and (hopefully) in rhythm. Stopping everything and futzing with knobs and buttons or mouse-clicks just because someone lost their place and missed a transition or flubbed a solo or some chords, completely destroys any creative flow (and enjoyment) you might have had going. In terms of a practice and impromptu jam tool, The BB is without equal.
With that said, it might be nice if the BB were a full fledged, end all be all drum machine, but it’s clearly not and I didn’t buy it thinking it would be. Moving forward though, I’m nervous that shoehorning additional features will result in transforming a well designed product that does what is was designed to do exceptionally well, into a buggy, bloated, overpriced, difficult to use, impossible to master tool that falls by the wayside.
Think a hammer that has all sorts of attachments so not only does it hammer, but it has a bottle opener (that weakens it), a few screw drivers (that never fit any screws), a fork, a butter knife, a saw (that try to kill you), and a big magnet so it can hold nails (and then fling them). Sometimes all you need is a quality hammer to drive a nail. Sure, some people like the deluxe model, others simply like the basics. Nothing wrong with preference, but it’s counter-productive to make one by starting out with the other.
Want drum tracks from specific songs? Google backing tracks and Karaoke.
Want a midi editor? There are lots of really good ones out there.
Want to play a drum pattern straight through without having to press any buttons? There are a bajillion other tools designed to do exactly that.
Want to play wav files at the touch of a button? There are much better tools for that.
Want to import and play custom midi files? Tons of better options already out there. Don’t buy a natural sounding rhythm pedal when what you really want is something to play robotic quantisized patterns.
I’m not saying there aren’t great ideas being tossed about, but please don’t don’t wreck the hammer by welding a butter knife and a #4 Phillips bit to it.