Out of sync placement of fill within measure when pressing pedal

[Axel_B]

Saw the BB at this years NAMM, ordered one rightaway when back home.
A feature that I really liked when it was shown at the show was the placement of fills at the end of the running measure, regardless of when you pressed the pedal within a measure. This being helpful, so you won’t have to be spot on with pressing the pedal, the feature taking care of correct placement, AT THE END OF MEASURE, before continuing with the next one.
Well, the pedal I received doesn’t do that !
It places the fill whenever I press the pedal once, which defies the purpose. Now I HAVE TO BE spot-on.
Is that sthg. that can be changed in the BB somewhere in a setup section? I’m running latest firmware, 1.2.9.
Sent an email to Tech Support, but no answer.
That"s another issue. No phone number on the website, no prompt response from tech support.
Is the forum my best bet?

[Daef]

@Axel B.

Is the forum my best bet?

Yes

The feature you seek is the Queue Period setting. It can be directly changed in the pedal. Enter Settings Menu by pressing both Tempo and Drumset knobs at the same time.

You can also use search here on the forum:
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?search/32759/&q=Queue Period&t=post&o=date&c[user][0]=54
Choose one

I hope this will help you find out what this setting does and how to handle it properly. Have fun with your BeatBuddy!

[Axel_B]

Thx, I tried
Pressing both buttons simultaneously, -> Main Pedal -> Queue Fill Period, then see options in percentage.
It is currently set at 75%.
What do the different percentages achieve, what shall I choose to place a fill at the end of a measure?

[Daef]

Did you follow the link I’ve provided to read about Queue Period?

Let’s try again.

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?posts/157/

@Daefecator

Actually, I can tell you even more - there’s a special setting called Queue Period inside Main Menu (press both Tempo and Drum Set knobs simultaneously) > Main Pedal.

There you can override the default behavior (that you just described). Actually, I personally like it best, when I can queue a fill so it will start at the start of the next bar. I actually prefer to hear the whole fill, not only it’s ending.

Queue Period is a percent of a bar length, so if a fill is triggered after this position, it will get queued instead of played instantly. For example, if you have a 4/4 time signature, and set Queue Period to 75% (default value), then any fill that is triggered before fourth quarter of a bar will be played instantly up to the end of the current bar, but will be queued for the next bar if it’s triggered on the fourth quarter. Queue Period of 50% will queue the fill that is triggered in the third or fourth quarter, and so on!

It can be very over-complicated at the first glance, but when you get used to it, it’s very intuitive and cool. Because having the option to queue a full fill leaves you a lot of time to trigger your other effect pedals.

I think you should check my video (no post processing, non studio quality) that shows why queueing is necessary, and how it could be used in live performance -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWJycpyhn9U
.

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?posts/2175/

@Daefecator

So, staying on topic, I can tell you that there is a special parameter in the BeatBuddy called Queue Period. It is a percentage-based value basing on the bar length, that sets instant-queued breakpoint.
TLDR: If pressed/held before Queue Period (of let’s say its default value of 50% - in the first half a bar), you’ll get the fill kicked in instantly. Pressing/holding after this value (in the second half a bar in this example) will queue the fill to start when the next bar starts.

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?posts/2401/

@Daefecator

I am sorry for correcting you, but Queue Period means the opposite - having it at close to 0% will mean what you wanted to say - that any time you press (or, more precisely, after 0% of a bar elapsed), the fill/transition will get queued to the start of the next bar.

More realistically speaking, having it at strictly 0% will mean that if you delay your press timing just a little bit and a new bar already started (but you wanted to have a fill/transition here) it will mean you will not be able to do it, and will need to derp a whole new next bar (as you will be able to only queue your transition)!

That’s why clever engineers at Singular Sound chose to make 25% the lowest value for Queue Period. At first, I was against that as well, still I was proven wrong as soon as I started actually playing. Theory and practice often vary significantly!

Queue Period of 25% will mean (for a 4/4 bar)

• If you tap/hold in the first quarter of a current bar - fill/transition is applied instantly (for this bar)
• doing so in second, third or fourth quarter - queues it for the next bar.

BeatBuddy is very easy to learn, but can be pretty difficult to master! Try playing with different Queue Period values. At first I was almost sure 25% is what I need. But value of 50% is what I loved the most after several hours of playing.

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/beat-arrangement-for-this-song.1392/#post-5844

@Daefecator

If you have a transition fill assigned to main part 1 but still want to go to main part 2 without playing it, it can currently be done in a bit hack-y way.

To put it simple: make sure you trigger a transition and make sure you released the pedal hold before a new bar kicks in. Depending on how you Queue Period option is set this may lead to exactly what you are intending.

What is Queue Period?

• It is a logical separation margin of a bar.
• If the pedal is pressed/hold before that margin, the fill/transition will play imstantly (right at current bar).
• If the pedal is pressed/hold after that margin, the fill/transition is queued to start on the next bar instead.

As far as I recall, the default setting for Queue Period is 75%.

A 4/4 bar with 75% Queue Period looks like that:
[–1–|–2–|–3–||–4–]
Now if you trigger the pedal when playing 1-st, 2-nd, or 3-rd quarter of a bar, what you triggered will play instantly. And only triggers in 4-th quarter will make the fill queue to the next bar.

Now, we come to the next totally not obvious thing: Transition fills are only queued if the pedal is still being pressed when a new bar kicks in!

So, the full answer to your question is:
Press the pedal after Queue Period but release it before a new bar starts.
Doing that way, you will

1. play a clean bar from a main part without insta-changing to transition (as the transition is being queued), and
2. no actual transition will be ever played as you released the pedal before the new bar started, and a clean bar of next main part will be playing.
   Thus you skip the transition.

This solution may seem somewhat flawed, as if you use 75% Queue Period and, let’s say, 200+ BPM 4/4 time signature, you will probably never ever be able to initiate a transition (as you will be holding the pedal for far too little time!). But this exact situation was being evaluated carefully while beta-testing, and this behavior was specifically chosen as it is the most flexible one.

Simply put, you will probably want to use BPM’s in 100 - 150 range as well as set Queue Period to no higher than 50% to use this technique much more easily.

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/wagon-wheel.1552/#post-6600

@Daefecator

You can always use Queue Period. If you set it to as low as 50%, you would be able to begin holding a pedal for super clean transition on the next bar as early as half of a current bar. But remember, you will need to release the pedal after the next (queued transition) bar starts. Otherwise you will get a no-transition next song part on the next bar (instead of a queued transition). This can be useful at times.
Well, such powerful features always come with complications

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/progressing-to-the-next-song-in-a-set-list.1604/#post-6966

@Daefecator

Initially I had the same problem. Yet, you may do it very easily if you begin counting your rhythm a bar before you need to trigger outro
1-2-3-4-B[/B]-B[/B]-3-4-stop.
You calmly press pedal on (1) and (2), outro is played on the rest 3 and 4.

If you need to play most of the outro, you can
1-2-3-B[/B]-B[/B]-2-3-4-stop

If you need to completely queue the full outro, you can do set Queue Period option to something like 50% or 66%, and do
1-2-B[/B]-B[/B]-1-2-3-4-stop

[Psalm40]

I would also suggest reading the BeatBuddy manual, a link to it is in my signature. Maybe you can post a link to a video so we can see what it is doing.

[mkjski]

The way I read the question is that axelB only wants a fill at the ‘end of measure’ regardless of when he presses the pedal during the measure. AxelB-Does that mean you only want a fill on beat 4 of a 4/4 measure even if you press the pedal on beats 1 or 2 or 3? As far as I know you can’t really do that. The fill is going to logically start as soon after pressing the pedal as possible. If I want a fill on beat 4 I am pressing the pedal on beat 3 or slightly after.

[Daef]

Hey, @mkjski!
Actually, what you say is indeed possible. If you rock a 4/4 bar, and you want the fill to start on the next bar almost no matter when you press the pedal on the current bar, set Queue Period as low as possible - at 25%. That way if you press on count 2 or 3 or right before 4 - your fill will get properly queued to the next bar. Only if you initiate fill before count 1, it will fire immediately. Slightly after 1 - it will get queued.

Hope this helps.

[mkjski]

Yes I agree with you. That is definitely possible. I still think the OP wants a fill to occur at the end of the measure (like a fill on beat 4 only) regardless when he triggers the pedal.

[Daef]

In this case, you can make a MIDI pattern for a fill, that replicates the main bar but has special “fill” only in the last quarter. In this case you also do not need to employ Queue Period at all.

[Psalm40]

I still don’t understand the question or the request. I assume @Axel B. tried out the pedal at NAMM and didn’t just go by the demonstration which most likely were pre-programmed songs. Having said that the queue period is best described in the manual -

Main Pedal > Queue Fill Period: This allows you to set the amount of the measure that has been played before the fill is played in the next measure, rather than in the current one. So if the setting is at 75%, and you tap the pedal before 75% of the measure has been played, then the fill will start immediately and end in the current measure. If you tap the pedal after 75% of the measure has been played, it will wait until the next measure to play the fill.

How this works in practise on a 4/4 beat is if the setting is at 75% and I press the pedal on the last beat of the bar it will play the full bar fill in the next measure, if I press it 2 beats before, the last 2 beats of the fill will play. So if you want the full bar fill every time, you need to be acurate, however not all drum fills a drummer plays are 1 bar long and as long as you press the pedal before the last beat of the measure, the fill will end at the end of the current bar - staying in sync.