no sound from my own midifiles?

Hi,

new beatbuddy owner from Germany here. I tried to integrate my own drumsound and drumloop library in the beatbuddy as I find the loops and sounds quite a bit superior to the original library but the functionality of the pedal is second to none. I was hoping for a mac version of the bbmanager. Unfortunately no release until today but you guys promised it is going to be released pretty soon. Okay, I tried virtualbox, but this made the bbmanager unusable as it got so slow that it was hardly usable for me (mac powerbook from 2011). So I asked a friend for his Windows 7 laptop which I can use for some days. Since then I am fiddling around with the bbmanager with limited success - what am I doing wrong here?
I exported the midifiles and drum sounds from my other drum app. Then, I set up a new drumset in BBmanager with the exported sounds - using three different samples incl. velocity setting per drumsound (low (0 - 60), middle (61 - 90), loud (91 - 127). I used the “Standard drum” as a template so the notes were corresponding more or less to the GM midi drummap). With my user midiloops sometimes there was
a) no sound at all to be heard,
b) only the sound of the kickdrum to be heard with every event.

  • I thoroughly checked the midimapping of my user drumsounds like kick snare etc seveal times.
  • I played the midifile with Windows media player - no problem, then moved the midifile back to beatbuddy: no sound at all… Does it have to do with a certain midichannel incompatibility which I rater doubt or the possible fact that the midifiles are multitrack?

Any suggestions welcome!

Heinrich

Most likely, despite you say you’ve double-checked the MIDI files, there are still notes that are uncovered by the drumset you are using.
You should compare MIDI note numbers, like 36, 38 and 44. Not their names, as they can differ in various programs.

As far as I know, no matter how many tracks in the MIDI file is, the first one with channel 10 is used. So don’t worry, this is not your case. You would encounter an error of ‘No MIDI events’ when importing such MIDI file.

Have a look at this thread.
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/does-beatbuddy-consist-47-low-mid-tom.1516/#post-5942

Thanks for your Replies, fellas,

But I still think, the midi file is correct:
To clarify, what I did is

  • check if beatbuddys standard drum set corresponds to the GM drum map, which it does. I then took the Standard drum set, inserted my own drum sounds, saved this set under a new name. The drum map is still the same as the Standard set, with kick drum, snare etc. connected to the right midi numbers.
  • check with a piano roll editor if the notes of my midi file are all there and are all in the right place (kick, snare, hi hat, ride etc). They definitely are.
  • check if my midi file can be played with windows media player. Fine as well.

But this file does not play correctly with the bbmanager. For instance all the notes like kick, snare, hi hat are played back with the kickdrumsound despite a correct drummap.

The only idea I have is whether there is some info in the header of my midi file is missing something like midichannel (10), or there is some midi filter applied which is not compatible with the bbmanager playback or the midi file has some hidden panorama settings of the drum sounds or wht do I know…?

Anybody here who knows what information must be included in the midi header to play bck correctly in the bbmanager?

Or am I completely wrong with my assumptions?
Help is really needed here…

I can help you if you upload your MIDI file so I can check it.

Hey Daefecator,

Sounds better than Santa!
Where shall I upload it? Any upload space on this forum or send you a link in my next post here to download it from my Dropbox?

Thanks and all the best!

Hi Daefecator,

OK, here are the links (my dropbox) to

thanks for your help looking into these files. Greatly appreciated!

And a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE HERE on this forum. I´m allready stuffed with duck, goose, rabbit and lots of kind words…

all the best.

I am sorry for a long pause, I was really busy.
You second sample is totally invalid for BBManager.

You first sample, however, is pretty suitable, yet see how it actually looks like:

I see at least two different unsupported notes - 35 and 40. They don’t have corresponding WAV samples in a drum set, thus they do not sound.

I’d suggest replacing 35 -> 36 and 40 -> 38.

hi Daefecator,

thanks for checking those files out. This helped me find what was wrong:
You say the second midifile was not suitable for bbm? I guess I found out why: This midifile was exported as multitrack and the single tracks except one were not layed out with channel 10. Midinote 35 is a second kickdrum (first one being note 36). 40 is another snaresoudn that was not supported by the drummap I am using. Oh well, looks I have to go through the process again and export my loops as one-track-midifiles. Then create new drumsets that support the odd numbers - or transpose the odd numbers to the usual notes.
Will keep you posted if this worked out.
Lots of work to do: I think funciton and usability of the bbmanager could be vastly improved with a) fixing the distorted sound bug, b) adding velocity sliders that react to each other (no gaps possible) for much quicker handling, last not least: a mac version please!
Still thanks a lot for your help,

Heinrich

Hello, Heinrich!
As far as I know, the distorted sound bug is currently being publicly tested - David shared a version to check out!
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/beatbuddy-manager-software-distorted-sound-solution-testing.1569/

A Mac version is still a priority :slight_smile: