Loopers compatible with the BeatBuddy

You know I haven’t thought much about looping as I usually have a full band, but I just realized I can loop with my Helix pedalboard sysnced with the Beatbuddy via midi. The Helix not only has looping capabilites along with guitar effects, but is a midi board as well, so with the 12 switches I could dedicate a few of them to more advanced controls for the BB along with looping. Just have to find the time to dive into this and paly around with it.

1 Like

I gig with a trio using the Ditto Jam X2. I feed the BB mike out to the Ditto. It works very well for usual beats. Even Bossa Novas. Sometimes, on some jazz swing beats, you have to force the beat to start on the one « manually » with your foot. We do 2 sets of 9 songs with the BB and we have not had any hiccups so far. The footswitch is a must and I keep the main pedal on a small table next to the mixer.

1 Like

I think we are all going to pool some money to get you a pedal board and some cable ties… :smile:

1 Like

Just a quick post to say that from my limited experience with BB it seems to work just fine with the the Boss RC-5. Just plugged them together using adapters & I didn’t have to change any settings at all & it was synced.

Note, Singular sound, make a BB with a TRS midi socket.

3 Likes

I am using a Morningstar Engineering MC8 midi switcher to control by BB and Boss RC 500. The BB sets the clock which is passed through the MC8 and is sent to the rest of my board, including the RC 500. I have had zero clock drift problems with this set up.

Midi can be a pain in the proverbial a**, but there is a huge reward on the other side. The level of control I have over my board is unparalleled, as is Morningstar Engineering support for their midi switchers. I just can’t recommend them more enthusiastically.

5 Likes

I use BB with a Boomerang 3 Phrase Sampler. I had to upgrade the Boomerang’s firmware to the current (version 3.4) so it would sync, but that’s a Boomerang issue.

My only wish is that there was an easy way on the BB to turn off the clock signal when I’m using the looper without drums. I’ve discovered the cleanest way to stop the MIDI signal is to click out the SD card, then it’s easy to click back in again when I need it. I tried the other option of removing the MIDI cable as someone suggested, but that way is awkward, and it can damage the pins in the MIDI cable.

However, I’ve got the flow of it now.

I suggest to develop a beatbuddy with a looper function. :grinning:

3 Likes

Hey, this is possible via settings, only send the clock when bb is playing. Because i use Boomerang iii too.

Thanks a lot. But too late I bought a Ditto X4 (:wink:
I have to sell a looper, somebody??

I have the 1440

Just chiming in. I have the DITTO x4, and it works well with the BB.

Well, when it works. The DITTO x4 is a steaming pile of… something. It keeps breaking. Every few months I have to re-flash the SD card (includes advanced computer usage and unauthorized tools – their Linux distro gets corrupted). Last week, it was stuck in double speed until I power cycled.

Don’t by a DITTO. It’s garbage. (PS: Mine is on sale at Reverb)

Which one is the slave/master? Thanks

BOSS RC-5 and Hotone Ampero Control are working fine with BB (in slave mode)

2 Likes

TC Helicon Voicelive 3 Extreme IS MIDI sync compatible. However, you must use Looper sync QUANTIZE or SMART mode and have the metronome on. Then turndown the metronome volume in the main TC mixer. Thus the loop length will match the BB beat. Hope it helps.

2 Likes

… and with BB in master mode :wink: