New to BB *Happy New Year* Advice Welcome

[Ulrich2000]

The lovely wife put a BB under the tree for me. She got a recommendation from our local Sam Ash manager. I watched some demo videos - I’m sure from many on the forum - and then plugged into a Roland AC-30 after doing the initial install. Wow! The sound was very live and the ideas for capabilities beyond “something to practice with” started bubbling.

I play in a 2 guitar group - bluesy rock, Stones, originals, etc. We lost our main drummer / percussionist a year ago. Sometimes we get our buddy, a darbouka player out with us. Seems to me the BB can help us out with both rehearsal and live performances with tools and practice. We mix up fixed arrangements with jam tunes.

I also do a few gigs a year with my family - always without drums. Would need another kid. In this group we do classic rock and a bit of country with very set arrangements.

Both seem like good BB opportunities.

We immediately ordered the foot switch. Then after listening to the included content appropriated the Complete Collection (thanks Goran! - so much great stuff in there).

I’m starting to find lots of user content which will be useful for performances as well as for learning and fun. I’ve read lots of the pros and cons on the forums and have also been overloaded with ideas.

I see my priorities as:

1. Learning to be facile using preprogrammed multipart songs and one push songs
2. Improving my playing with a drummer that will not adapt to my adrenaline
3. Deciding how to ultimately control the device - I’d like to see my tunes and be able to control them at eye level. WiFi with my BlueBoard? MIDI Maestro? Onsong on iPad?
4. Making a few simple BB arrangements for a couple of originals in BBM and give it a shot with the band and then get more complex as time goes on.
5. Try looping rhythm guitar. I have a Boomerang III and sidecar… somewhere.

I have very, very limited free time. Being on the frontline healthcare team COVID has actually decreased my free time. Any suggestions regarding the above priorities? I know the forum is full of info on how to do many of these things. I’m just looking for general advice on how to get rolling while avoiding mistakes or wasting time.

The Maestro seems like a no brainer (money aside). I’d love the ability to vary accents in a tune, back up to prior parts etc.

Anyhow, thanks for all the info and the amazing user content in the forum, and thanks to the Singular team for their cool products and ongoing development.

Happy New Year!!!
All pointers welcome

Ulrich

[Tyraell]

Hi Ulrich,

“frohes neues Jahr” and welcome aboard! Some hints for you I hope you could find useful:

#1 Getting used to the BB won’t happen in a day, especially if you actually have got another main work in your band. So sharing your concentration for a second instrument, which ideally has to be triggered offbeat, may take some time.

#3 For me as the pianist of a little jazzband it’s the same. I like having BB right in front of me, so I can visually recognize the rhythm and position in the song. For this reason I 3d-printed a small stand for BB that gives me the right viewing angle and keeps all cables tidy and clean at the back. If desired I could provide you the stl-files.

Because of the high position of BB I use a double-footswitch. In my case it’s a slightly modified Boss FS-6 (the original one works fine and silently, but needs 9v power - mine doesn’t). I have a Midi Maestro for 14 month now as well. Primarily I ordered it to replace the double-footswitch and have an extra outro-button, because I sometimes missed the double-tap and fired a triple-tap in the heat of the moment… But the annoying loud clicking sound of the foot switches and the missing configurability kept me from using it on stage.

And as the “rhythm group” of our band I like to use Bandhelper (similar to SetlistMaker and OnSong) on iPad to control the setlist via midi. So with a single press at the song in my setlist I change the song on BB, change the sound on my Roland and the right score appears on all the bands ipads.

Cheers,
Mark

[Ulrich2000]

Thanks Mark @Tyraell .

This is very helpful and is pretty much what I’m envisioning. I may ask for the print file at some point but i would probably keep the BB on my music stand with the iPad initially. I’ll definitely be exploring the various song organization programs.

What was the challenge with configurability of the Maestro?

Ulrich

[SytRep]

@Tyraell
I may have a solution for your loud midi maestro button issue

Acquiring soft switches for Midi Maestro?

The Midi Maestro (MM) is great, I have it working nicely with my pedal board and even with Bluetooth to my tablet. However, those button clicks, whilst fine in a band setting, are too loud in an acoustic environment. So, I took mine apart to see if the switches could be changed. They are surface mount push switches that are operated by a sprung button. Which means they could be changed but it would involve soldering, fly leads and risking damage to the Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The overall e…

I’m interested in your FS6 mod, do you have a how to?

"Rep

[Tyraell]

@Ulrich2000

What was the challenge with configurability of the Maestro?

Most of the time I own the Maestro there simply was no possibility to configure anything - contrary to the advertising on the website… So the challenge was the missing configuration tool. You had to accept or adapt to the preconfigured layout, which was not very convenient at last for me. I signed up for testing the beta app on IOS. It started in august last year. It slowly began to get into a usable state in fall - seemingly the Android version was a little bit ahead of that. At the moment you can finally configure a lot of functions as you like it. But I would not quite call the app a masterpiece… IMHO it lacks to be intuitive and user friendly. It just left beta stadium, so I hope there will be a further development to met today’s standard of an app. Just my personal opinion.

[Tyraell]

@SytRep

I may have a solution for your loud midi maestro button issue

Thank you, I’ve read your thread with great interest! I will definitely give it a try!!

@SytRep

I’m interested in your FS6 mod, do you have a how to?

I didn’t take any pictures when I did this mod. But different to your workaround this involves a destruction of the pcb and soldering. Like in most of the modern pedals the buttons and the jack-plug sockets are directly soldered to the pcb/ circuit board. So I took a small rotary tool (Dremel) and cut all the circuits from the two buttons and the middle socket to the remaining board. Or in other words I left the parts on the pcb and simply “isolated” them from the rest. Then I soldered four wires (two from each button) to the corresponding contacts of the jack-plug socket and there you go. Works perfectly. Needless to say the warranty is void and you now hava a bunch of useless switches and sockets inside that pedal.

Mark