Having rhythm integrated with a looper makes a lot of sense, and Boss hasn’t executed the idea well.
Love to see SS step up the game here at some point. How about a $99 BB software plugin downloadable by wifi onto the Aeros? Yeah, you’ll want at least one switch dedicated to the BB added perhaps via expression in, midi, etc. Margins should be much better than BB hardware; less cost and hassle over inventory, shipping, returns, etc. Rhythm and drum kit downloads will explode if Aeros makes it fast and easy.
Thank You for your feedbacks about Rc-10r.
I abandoned the idea to try it and I bought and used Pigtronix Infinity.
It works well with BB and midi synchronisation.
I just have a problem, if I connect the BB midi out straight to the infinity it works but if I connect the BB midi to my focusrite and focusrite midi out to infinity it doesn’t Sync.
Do you know why?
Probably I had some issues because I’m new to midi.
Now I found the solution.
I’ve got cubase pro and it’s a master, It send start and stop and tempo etc from Focusrite to beatbuddy and beatbuddy midi out send the commands and tempo to Pigtronix and my line6 M9.
It’s obviously not useful to record a loop in both cubase and looper but it’s working perfectly and I just have to disable midi out in BB when I don’t need to record on the looper.
As far as I understand there is no way for cubase pro to be slave of tempo but it works well in this way as master
I’ve ordered an infinity looper .Is there a good resource to know how to set it up with the beat buddy as regards beat buddy settings and so on ? I know how to connect the two. I do a solo acoustic thing would this work good to loop a rhythm and solo to it ? Is it hard to get the timing right punching in and out of the loop ?
I got by for a while without midi sync into rc-30… But the pressure on your timing is just too much to be able to rely on it live. Even when you are really tight with timing, you can’t let the loop run for too many iterations… No matter how good you are there will be an error and it only accumulates each cycle.
Hey! I don’t think I’ve updated the firmware on the Ditto, but the BeatBuddy is always kept at the latest. The MIDI stuff should be pretty plug and play, I think there’s maybe one dip-switch setting on the Ditto that pertains to MIDI, and on the BeatBuddy it’s some personal preference stuff. And the sync works for both serial and parallel mode!
The only real gotcha is that you need to get the specific Beatbuddy MIDI breakout cable to be able to plug it into a standard MIDI cable, but I think it costs like $15 or so.
Sorry I don’t have more specific info for ya, but it’s real easy to just get started and experiment!
I have owned a Ditto, Digitech JamMan Stereo, Digitech Trio+, Digitech SDrum, and Boss RC-1.
I still own a Boss RC-3 and Boss RC-300. While you can fight with MIDI Sync and/or self timing issues with all of the above products, I was not really happy until I purchased the AEROS Loop Studio and then waited for all the fixes and enhancements that are now available. Save yourself a great deal of time and just buy the AEROS!
i at first had a Ditto X4 to go with my BeatBuddy, but the MIDI sync wasn’t quite right… it was only noticeable when the same loop had repeated for quite awhile, but the tracks always eventually ended up unsynced from the BeatBuddy if i left them to run long enough. i read on the forum somewhere that this is actually due to a bug in the MIDI firmware itself, which is shared by every MIDI device out there. they also said that the Pigtronix Infinity is the only looper out there that has adaptive MIDI clock sync that makes up for this error. (I assume the Aeros also is okay, it was an old post)
I returned my Ditto X4 and got a Pigtronix Infinity for just slightly more money. and it has been worth it. and not even just for the improved sync – there are a few ease-of-use features from the Ditto X4 that i miss, but as a BeatBuddy+MIDI poweruser, the Infinity is ultimately much better.
still want to save up for an Aeros some day tho! can we get a confirmation from someone that the Aeros has that same adaptive MIDI clock sync tech that the Infinity has?
It depends on what you aim to do with both devices. I can’t see a MIDI Implementation document on the Boss website but if it’s like the RC10R, you will be able to sync the clock but that’s about as far as it will go.
I’m surprised all midi devices that rely on song tempo don’t suffer this and hence need some sort of adaptive clock. Clocks in different embedded devices never run exactly the same.
Even the UART used to drive MIDI includes a start bit and stop bit, even though nominally the clock is a known and fixed value at both ends. That’s needed because after a few hundred bytes or so, the clock differences would mean the two ends would be out of sync.
(From what I’ve gleaned of the Aeros tempo handling works, I think they’ve got difficulties coming in development, but it’s certainly good enough for me at present)
i vjust want to be able to sync the loopof the looper with the beat of the beatbuddy, do you think it will work? what other functions am i losing? other thing, the cables of the beat buddy and the boss are different, is there no problem only using one midi in or out? sorry about the trouble, im stiil a newbie on my beatbuddy and ive only realised the problem it is synchronizing the beat with a ditto looper…
We use re-syncing to keep the Aeros in time as the song plays back, I imagine you’re referring to how many loopers end up “drifting” from the master clock.
You only gain functionality! There is no loss in function from moving to the Aeros, it is specifically designed to work with the BB and that relationship will constantly improve over time.
I was indeed. But actually it’s something I see a lot in day job, completely separate from music (lots of UART and radio Comms though, which are similar). In embedded devices you can never rely on long term synchronisation between independent clocks, even if they are nominally the same.
The trouble i think you’ve got coming that I referred to is the fact I’ve seen you say a couple of times that (a) internally you are using reciprocal time (BPM) rather than linear time as your unit for tempo (b) you’re using integers of that unit. I’d be delighted if I’m wrong and it’s just the UI values that are integer.
If not… The trouble you’re gonna have is when the clock in the beat buddy (or other master) is different enough (simply because of crystal tolerances and temperature changes) from the clock in the Aeros that 67 BPM in the master measures as 67.5 BPM in the slave, and then gets rounded to 68 BPM. (Auto quantise and aeros-as-master will also be weird)
I’m not actually worried for the product though… They’re just problems your devs will have to face. But they’ll face them and fix them because you have to.
After the next wifi release, only the UI should be in integer. Unless you use the screen +/- and tap tempo, the BPM should not be rounded to the nearest integer. We did a fix a couple of weeks ago for that and it will be applied in the next release. (available in the Lock tracks alpha)
The Aeros should stay in sync with an external Midi clock “forever”. In a case where the internal clock of the BB and the Aeros are drifting, we are always realigning the tracks with the incoming Midi Clock.
I was intrigued by their 2.0 release and wanted to see for myself what it brought to the table. Needless to say, I had a serious back-ache after bending down to access all those features there. Personally, I think the feature set is cool but I was not fully impressed with the looping mechanisms and found myself spending more time configuring than actually making music. The size kinda throws me off, too. I also found their time stretching settings confusing and not very sonically pleasing.
I think my biggest problem was my headphone cord kept hitting the screen and causing things to happen because of the placement of the headphone jack, making home use less convenient for me.