What midi editors for Mac are people using out there in BeatBuddy world?
I need to edit beats in the kits that the otherwise very neat Java BeatBuilder will not work with. The built in editor in BBManager is OK for minor tweaks but I find it impossible to use for creating new beats. Apple’s Logic Pro X and Propellorhead Reason are rather expensive, 200 and 250 quid here in the UK and seem to be way more complex and capable than I’d need to create and edit beats. Does anyone have WaveDNA Liquid Rhythm? What tools do you recommend?
For less expensive, try Reaper. It’s shareware but you can try it and if you decide to use it, then you can pay for the license. ~60USD; I use it and it does the job but it was written for PC and ported for the Mac so to me, it’s kind of awkward and not as intuitive as Logic Pro Xf.
Some users are able to use GarageBand with some workarounds to export midi.
I think PreSonus still offers a free version (Studio) that you can edit midi files with. I tried it but didn’t care for it as it just didn’t seem very easy to work with.
Studio One Prime is still free; http://www.presonus.com/products/Studio-One/get-studio-one
It has some limitations but appears to be simple enough to get the job done.
Let us know what you actually try and how it turns out for you.
garageband works for me- its free
I use Garageband, but I could not find any way to get midi out of it.
emacnevin posted a workaround that requires a small app.
http://forum.mybeatbuddy.com/index.php?threads/hallelujah-w-bass.5213/#post-19400
I had a good session with Presonus Studio One some time ago and found it difficult and too complex for my simple requirement of editing beats in other drum kits than the BeatBuilder.jar application could cope with, that is Latin and Hand Percussion in the main. I had about four hours with Reaper yesterday and again, found it more difficult to set up than Studio One and too complex for my requirements, which amount to only using about 10% of its functionality with the other 90% getting in the way. Today I have spent about an hour with Liquid Rhythm and find it very easy to set up and work on midi files exported from BB Manager. Made up three new beats already after only spending about 10 minutes on RTFM. Each to his own I guess, but I think I’ll stay with Liquid Rhythm for now.
I hear 'ya. PreSonus was just too cumbersome 
for me. Gotta use the tool that’s most cost effective. Key point though about reading the manual. If sure helps to have a reference . . . .
GarageBand was perfectly intuitive (to me) but Apple probably didn’t want it competing with Logic Pro X (LPX) sales and so they left out some key functionality (such as exporting to mid files:mad:). The Gb2mid file is good to work around that limitation but the ease of use in GarageBand is what led me to LPX. Using the preset keys, I can usually transcribe an LPX song in just a couple of minutes (probably why some of my efforts are cruddy :rolleyes:).
Thanks Persist. BTW I wrote Reason when I meant Reaper, now corrected. I like LPX (played with friends’ installations and much prefer it to CuBase) but just can’t justify spending that much on something I’d use about 4 hours a month! I’ll post some songs from Liquid Rhythm when I get the time.
Made a funky beat with Liquid Rhythm, tweaked in BBManager editor. Put it in Beats/Other Beats Forum. Hope that’s the right place.
I use Ableton Live lite 9 (“intro”) and find it very easy to work with. The software came free with an interface I purchased. It’s $99 USD retail. It’s a complete DAW too with both linear and pattern based recording. For BB I record MIDI in pattern mode and assemble patterns into complete songs but you can easily export the individual patterns too. Another feature I find extremely helpful is the velocity editing which shows up as vertical bars under each note. It’s very easy to drag the bars up and down to find the right level. You can also work with all of the notes of a particular instrument (adjust all snare notes for instance) or even groups af instruments. There are some limitations in the lite version but it’s more than adequate for programming beats.