The manual says that I can send a STOP command when I pause the Beat Buddy. Is it the default behaviour that when I unPause, the Beat Buddy sends a START? This seems logical, but if this is not the case, how do I send a START when I unPause?
@Phil_Flood? Maybe you have some idea?
CC 111 pauses, and then on a second CC 111 unpauses. The STOP settings can be configured to interact with the pause. As you found, the manual does not address the START command in this context.
I think there are presumptions made about how downstream midi gear will work. You could have the option of pausing the BB and still have your looper/echo effects continue in Beat with no drums. That seems like a good idea. When you unpause the BB, you still should be in time. Or, the BB can be set to stop the downstream gear on a pause, but then does it restart it? That’s going to depend on how the gear reacts to the CC 111. Does the downstream gear have a setting that allows pause on CC 111 and then resume on receiving a signal or 2nd CC 111. It is going to be gear dependent.
When we create midi chains of several devices, we introduce this complexity. That’s why channels were created, and why device numbers can get used by some devices. It’s why i’ve Used splitters and mergers sometimes to deal with these issues. Controlling without the ability to send multiple channel dependent signals, as you could with a DAW, gets difficult. It’s one more reason why we need a proper midi implementation chart for the BB.
All the above is just to explain that I don’t know for sure if a START gets sent. My guess is that it does not, as the CC 111 probably was assumed to be sufficient.
Thanks for your thoughts on this, @Phil_Flood, much appreciated. Unless I’m missing something, your context seems to be about driving the Beat Buddy. My question is about the Beat Buddy as master. It can be configured to send a STOP on pause. I’m trying to find out if it also sends a START when I unpause. Hoping the answer is YES.
I’ll have to hook up my MIDI sniffer, I guess…
No, I was thinking of the BB as the master. But, the midi sniffer is probably your best bet.
So, are you saying the BB sends a CC111 on Pause/Unpause? I know you use CC111 to MAKE the BB Pause/Unpause, but I didn’t get that it also sends that command.
I’ll have to try to get a sniffer set up and see what it’s doing, I guess. I was hoping @BeatBuddy_Support might be able to get me an answer (they still might), but I also get that MIDI is not currently a big part of what they do, so Support may not be as well-versed in MIDI as they’ll have to be with the release of the Aerio Looper and the MIDI Maestro.
I’ll post what I find.
SOLVED: After much gyration with gear, I have discerned that yes, Pause/Unpause results in STOP/START commands when STOP is set to Pause or Pause and End. In fact, even if you turn off STOP altogether, Unpause still sends a START command (there is no obvious way to change this behaviour).
This is what I had hoped would happen…
Awesome. Thanks for the info!
New data point: It appears the Beat Buddy does not send Note-OFF; instead, it sends Note-x Vel-0. Which was completely hosing my programming (trying to get my BB to run my stage lighting rig).
I think I have it. I’ll know for sure Saturday night when I use the system in anger…
I have attempted to add a Pause/Unpause button with no success. It WILL pause but not unpause. I’ve even added the toggle and add the CC 111 command below as well. What do I need to do?
Does this help?
SOLVED: After much gyration with gear, I have discerned that yes, Pause/Unpause results in STOP/START commands when STOP is set to Pause or Pause and End. In fact, even if you turn off STOP altogether, Unpause still sends a START command (there is no obvious way to change this behaviour).
This is what I had hoped would happen…
It appears from what JoeinOttawa discovered that the BB needs to be set for STOP to be on Pause, or Pause and End in the BB settings.
@ttsing4u I don’t know if you solved the unresponsive Unmute problem but, if you did, you didn’t post the solution. I had the same problem and resolved it changing the setting Main Pedal / Mute Pause from Midi Activated (default value) to Enable. Now it works fine when I send the CC111 from a Midi external controler.
Greetings Joel in Ottowa,
I’ve got the BB, footswitch, and MIDI Maestro. Pause/unpause works fine on the right footswitch button. However, I use a Ditto X4 and I’d like an option (actually I’d like the default operation) to pause both loops when I pause the BB. Like in Tom Petty Breakdown. Having to resume the BB and then the looper is too much tap dancing. Using the MM, I think I’ve got that capability. I created a custom mode button that pauses the BB by sending CC111, but the Ditto didn’t pause. I don’t know what to put in the “value” field of the looper pause command (CC29), and TC Electronics only posts the CC commands and that it only listens on channel 4. Any idea what value to send?
Sadly, no, I have no idea. Sorry…
I would assume it is the stop and play commands, separate ones for loop 1 and loop 2, but i am not a Ditto user. Good luck!
If it helps @donw1964 I use the BB to control a looper called (ironically) Loopy Pro on my iPad and I use the BB to stop the looper. If I want to pause the song, I hit the right footswitch pause button and BB sends out a MIDI stop message, which causes Loopy to stop. On rare occassions I might even start Loopy on its own… and then stop it… and crash on the left pedal and right pedal to bring both out of pause again. This ‘resets’ the timing (starts from 1) with my settings.
Note that there was a bug in BB that stopped it sending the start message when unpaused with a transition, which left my looper not playing… prob the reason I got used to crashing and re-starting (stop transition roll on 4 and unpause right on 1 and both were back in). Last few months, they’ve fixed the midi start message when brought out of pause with a transition (or you can now transition without the roll which is great)!
Just in case this is what you need - my pause button in my MidiDesignerPro page sends CC 111 with value 127 every time and this makes BB toggle on and off (when I’m using hands instead of feet sometimes : - )
I’ve got the BB Midi chanel set to ch 10 and this is the MIDI ch I use for all messages to it (sound obvious, but maybe not?)
Hope this helps… let me know if you want more detail.
Thanks for the reply Gary. I was sending a value of 1 with the CC111, I’ll try 127 and see if that works. I’ll let you know.
Don