Can the BeatBuddy support multiple time signature in a single song ?
Take for example Dionne Warwick’s chorus of “I Say A Little Prayer” which is a 3 bars loop composed respectively of 4/4, 4/4, and 3/4 meters. Can this be “correctly” done with the BB ? And by correctly I mean, not having to do the exact number of loops to end up on beat 1.
Sooo many songs do have the occasional 2/4 here and there and so far, the BB has not quite been a good partner for me in those situations. Pause/Un-pause can save some of those occasions but hey.
I hope there is not another with this exact question (I have not found it).
It depends upon what you are expecting or what you want the pedal to do. Each song part as shown in BBM can have its own time signature. But time signature changes within a BBM part do not work. And by “work” I mean be recognized by the BBM virtual metronome. BBM will play whatever you throw at it. So one possible remedy is to just put the subject part in 1/4. It will play fine, but you will only see 1 beat per measure on the visual metronome.
That would depend upon your “cue fill” settings. Again, the fills and transitions can have their own time signatures. If your cue fill is set to “next beat” vs. “next measure,” you’ll have differing results. If the “cue fill” is set to “next beat” or “immediate,” the time signature will not be impactful. I normally use “next measure,” so I have to be careful with how I craft a multi-part song. With a “one press” song, the visual metronome will no longer be aligned with the measures after the first time signature change.
I realize that there is lots of users on this forum in the “one press” situation you’re referring to. Then I suppose the BB becomes just another MIDI player. I use it quasi exclusively in … is there a term for that ?… looping song structure ? I feel that this is really where the BB shines. In “one press” songs, you could be alternating 7/8, 4/4, etc at every bar and it won’t cause any problem (except for the visual metronome of course).
The terms used are “traditional,” which I think is weird, since one-press started in earnest just after the per part note limit was lifted; and multi-part, which is self-explanatory.
I frequently make “jam version” songs which are a hybrid of one-press and multi-part. It’s a three part song, consisting of everything prior to a looping jam, which is placed in the intro, then a looping jam, and that gets followed by a closing section placed in the outro. Since I play a lot of blues and jazz standards, this format can work well.
In SOME situations, you can create work-arounds. For example, OutKast’s “Hey Ya” has three measures of 4/4, one measure of 2/4, two more measures of 4/4, repeat. To make that work without any button pressing, my BB version uses two measures of 11/4. Of course this only works where you have a regularly-repeating structure.