I’ve never used DAW’s before, and I just started using BBMO 2.0 just about last month, I’ve created some beat sequence of my own to use for my BeatBuddy 2.
In BBMO, it’s easy enough to figure out that on the left side of the app are your virtual instruments, you choose which drum kit you want to use, then choose the BPM of the song then you decide how many bars you will need for your song and then you will double click on the grid that aligns with the instrument of your choice to add the instrument you want, then you create your own beat sequence.
But after installing BeatBuddy Plug In for DAW and loading it in Reaper, I can’t figure out how to put the virtual instruments on the left side of the screen just as you would on BBMO to start my MIDI beat sequence.
How can I configure Reaper to look and behave like BBMO when creating beat sequence?
And also how to export it to BBMO so I can use my preferred drum kit for a particular song.
Meant to answer this earlier. The plug-in came about a couple of years before the BBMO was adapted by Singular Sound so that might partially explain why the difference in appearance.
With what I said above, that probably also explains why the plug-in Emulator cannot be configured to resemble the BBMO in appearance and exact one-for-one functions.
I’ve not been able to use the plug-in on my Silicon Mac for a couple of years now (either Logic Pro X or Reaper) however, I believe the plug-in still works in earlier versions of the macOS. In order to use the plug-in, you have to make the drum sets available to the plug-in so that it can use and edit them. You’ve read the instructions already but if not, here’s a link Announcement: The First BeatBuddy Plug-In for your DAW (FREE BETA). As you edit one of the default drum sets, the BBMO will “see” and use the same drum set where you can edit it further or synchronizing it to your SD card.
If I’m wrong in what I’ve stated above, I’m sure Brennan will chime in to correct or clarify what I’ve said.
The reason why I’m trying to use Reaper to create MIDI beat sequence is because I needed the swing function to create some of my beat sequence (songs) and Daniel from Singular Sound support told me that BBMO does not have swing function, he suggested to me to use a DAW to get that functionality.
I’ve downloaded and installed Reaper on my Windows 11 desktop PC, however I quickly realised it’s not as straightforward to use as BBMO at least for someone like me who’s never used a DAW before.
And yes, after downloading and installing BeatBuddy Plug-In for DAW, I managed to get the virtual BeatBuddy pedal, master volume and instrument mixer on the left panel of Reaper, they even have instrument sounds playing when I click the play button on the left bottom part of the panel, but as I said before I can’t figure out how to get the individual virtual instruments show up on the left part of the grid of the MIDI sequencer to start creating my beat sequence, in fact I don’t even know where to begin to create my own MIDI beat sequence with or without the BeatBuddy Plug-In for DAW.
I agree, the learning curve for almost any DAW is pretty steep.
I’m a Mac user and when I first started out with the BeatBuddy (BB), I began learning to use Reaper (which was Windows-centric). 10 years ago it seemed much simpler to understand and use. As it started to become more complex with each update, I chose not to try to keep up with Reaper and abandoned it in search of something hopefully simpler. As I didn’t want to spend any money until I found my “forever DAW”, I tried Pre Sonus Studio and it wasn’t very intuitive. I tried GarageBand but it required a workaround to export files to MIDI but I liked the interface as it was simple (for a Mac user, I suppose). I made the leap and tried Logic Pro X and I’ve been using it ever since. Moral of the story? If you’re an Apple user, try Logic Pro X as they offer a 90-day trial. But since you’re a Windows 11 user, you might find MIDI Editor to be a little easier to use (only for PC). Don’t know if it has the ability to quantize or change to Swing.
I don’t create MIDI for the BeatBuddy (BB) from scratch. Instead, I transcribe existing MIDI source file songs into content for the BB using Logic Pro X. To get a better feel for using Reaper, I’d suggest:
ensure you have the audio and routing properly set up so you can listen to what you’re doing. I had a horrible time doing the initial configuration for Reaper.
use Reaper to open an existing MIDI source file song. Double-click in the upper pane to bring up the MIDI editing window. Start exploring from there.
you can create a template for instrument names for Reaper to replace the keyboard on the left side of the MIDI editing window. You can probably find out more from the Cockos forum on how to do that. I think it’s a plain text file.
search the forum for a 5-part Reaper tutorial and see if that gets you started on the right foot.
when it opens, scroll to the bottom of the displayed tracks to get to the Drums track. Double-click anywhere in the track and it should display the MIDI-editing window. I’ve included a couple of screen shots to give you an idea of what you should be looking for. IIR, the notes template was for the NP StdPBass 63-91 kit which is kind of dated. Screen shots.zip (269.4 KB)
'fraid I can’t be much more help than this so hopefully this will get you started on a productive journey with Reaper.
I should probably try a different DAW, perhaps a DAW which is more beginner friendly than Reaper, and the reason why I chose it is because lots of user recommendation from online forums regarding DAW’s, and also because of free 60 days evaluation period, lower price if I decide to purchase it, which I haven’t yet, I’m still within the evaluation period.
But as you have said, all DAW’s have steep learning curve, so I will give up trying to figure out how to use it to create MIDI beat sequence for BeatBuddy, instead I will follow your advice and search the forum for a 5-part Reaper tutorial to get myself on the right track, and watch more video tutorials about Reaper or try a different DAW. My mistake was I thought it would be easy and straightforward enough to figure out how to use it, after all, I will use it just to create drum beat patterns for songs with no other instruments involved such as guitar, bass, piano or keyboard, since I don’t have an audio interface and the only instrument I have is an acoustic guitar with a pick up installed in it, plugged in on a Fishman acoustic amp, I’m not a pro musician, I’m just a bedroom self-taught guitar player with no musical background.
I really wish Singular Sound Dev. Team who developed and maintains BBMO will add Swing functionality on BBMO soon, so I don’t have to resort to using DAW, because that’s the only reason why I’m using it.
I use a DAW, so I haven’t tried this, but you should be able to set BBMO to 6/8 or 12/8 time, and then you’d have swing capability built into the beat. When I get a swing beat song to work on, I sometimes set the beat to 12/8 in Logic, rather than rely on its swing setting.
The songs that I want to create that I believe requires swing functions are The Beatles’ songs ‘Girl’ and ‘All my loving’. When I attempted to recreate the beat patterns for those songs using BBMO 2 in 4/4 time signature I couldn’t get the beats in right timing, I remember a while back, when I was still using Polynome app on my iphone as my drum machine for my guitar practice, I remember having the same problem with those two songs, but Polynome app have swing function, when I enabled swing on those two songs, problem solved.
Even in Beatles’ song ‘A Day in the life’, when I tried creating the song in BBMO 2 using 4/4 time signature, when I’m trying to recreate the drum fills I couldn’t seem to get the sound of the fills right, it doesn’t matter where I put the MIDI notes (beat) in the grid, it doesn’t matter what division I use 16, 16T, 32, nothing seems to work or maybe I wasn’t just doing it right or maybe I’m missing something.
I’ve never thought of using different time signature 6/8 or 12/8 to get that swing effect naturally, like I’ve said before, my music theory knowledge is very basic, I don’t know which time signatures are to be considered interchangeable, for example, in the Beatles’ song ‘All my loving’, which I believe is in 4/4, which alternative time signature should I use in BBMO 2 to get that swing effect in the beat?
That is why I gave up when Daniel from Singular Sound support told me that BBMO doesn’t have swing functionality, he suggested to me to use DAW to get that swing function, now that I’ve tried Reaper, I run into a bigger problem, I don’t even know where to begin to create a beat sequence.