I would like to know what you mean by “interprets midi differently.” No disrespect intended. i just have no clue what you mean by that. BB takes a “note on” message with a given velocity parameter and plays the note. If the note is designated in a BB kit as “percussion,” it plays that note without send a “note off” message, and the note plays for the full length of the sample assigned to that note. If the note is designated as “non-percussion” it recognizes the “note off” message, and terminates playback of the sample at the point. If that’s what you’re getting at, you could make Ableton replicate that behavior. by adjusting the ADSR parameters.
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Fair call, Phil.
I’m referring to the interpretation of midi data to what we hear in the end. I’m not sure what you call that.
I bought a kit online which I used in Ableton. I then recreated that kit in BBM. When I make beats in Ableton and export the midi data to BBM it sounds different. I always need to make minor tweaks to get it to sound right.
Maybe it’s not a midi conversion issue?
It’s probably a note release issue. Ableton splits a sample into its ADSR components, Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release. When the end of a note is reached the Release triggers. BB disregards those components. It just triggers the note, going though all 4 parts if it’s percussion, or,if non-percussion, a note ends without a triggered release. It’s particularly noticeable in bass and keyboard parts, where you may hear a soft clip, as the note ends without regard to whether it is at a zero crossing value. In any event, and I realize that is technical, there is no easy fix given the original programming of the BB. With just percussion, you should be able to get them to sound nearly equal. If you introduce non-percussion parts, you will hear differences.
Never heard of any of those, but I use main stream plugins. Reaper is great though.
At any rate, opensource isn’t working for BB
Wasn’t really done right.
You don’t get good results by just dumping a code base on GitHub.
Couldn’t agree more… They killed themselves with the original coding and now can’t get out of it. BBM is pretty much stuck, seen this happen where I work with a db that was originally written in the 80’s and seen them spend millions trying to covert it to oracle or sql… all unsuccessful.
OK, fast forward 10-13 months. Back in February '21, Brennan and David posted about rebuilding BBM, and there was lively discussion that followed. That was VERY welcome news, back then, but fast forward . . . and now BBM is ANOTHER year older without an update.
I’ve learned to make use of the clunky software. I can put together songs from parts, and put together sets. But having been a gigging drummer for years, I’m very particular about my drum parts and arrangements. Nowadays I just play guitar and violin. I NEED a good MIDI editor to arrange songs the way I want to play them.
There are several excellent options for building drum parts (DAW editors, EZD, Slate, MT, etc.). But the process of exporting/importing/MIDI mapping (& repeat multiple times) is highly tedious and highly frustrating.
I’ll reiterate what a couple people above suggested; Build & release a plugin (VST preferably) so I can open/edit/create a BeatBuddy song file directly in my MIDI editor of choice (currently EZD3), and directly hear what it will sound like with my BB drum sets.
Let’s face it, Singular Sound probably cannot build a MIDI editor that will hold a candle to the several good existing editors. So - - - stop chasing that carrot. Work out a licensing agreement with a company who can put together a plugin that works with multiple DAWs and multiple editors. Let me open EZDrummer, put together my drum part with excellent software, but using BB MIDI mapping & BB drum sets, and export directly to my BBProject. Don’t make me go through multiple steps of re-mapping/exporting/importing every time I want to check how my project is going to sound on the BeatBuddy.
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No I don’t think so
I’m currently working on the drag-and-drop part of my DrumsetEditor… I have a Drumset Editor, Song Editor, Midi Editor, and a Beatbuddy Project Manager mostly finished–at the moment, they are read-only so don’t actually write out their results yet. I have successfully written the various outputs, so that shouldn’t be a problem to implement and test.
I didn’t want to put something out there partially finished, but I might be convinced to share what I have with a developer/tester/designer type. My code is a complete rewrite from the bottom up, in JavaFX.
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Even a read only set of tools could be wonderful for the for the morale of everybody waiting.
And read only still gives people the ability to see How things work. Also if you used JavaFX will it run on pc/Mac and maybe iOS?
If you are not working for Singular that is even better… competition.
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Interesting choice of technology. It was somewhat interesting about 15 years ago, but it never caught on.
ii haven’t tried it on ios, but it will definitely run on mac and pc, and possibly linux… google says you can do javafx on ios 
Yes, the read-only shows how things work – possibly too much so! you can see all the fields in the headers and everything, basically so I could make sure i was parsing it all correctly, even if to the end user the info is basically meaningless. I guess I could post some screenshots at least
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the whole idea of desktop apps is kinda “15 years ago” as well , so I guess that follows 
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Love it. The layout is very workable. Awesome! 
To edit MIDI files in DAW and know exactly what you’ll get on BB, I suggest you connect the BB to your computer via MIDI. Route the output of your DAW midi track to your physical MIDI output connected to the BB. Plug in your headphones into the BB and you’ll be able to hear precisely what your loops will sound like.
The BB drum mapping follows GM midi wherever possible. The exception are custom percussion kits.
While I use my Handy Drums plugins when creating and editing loops for BB within DAW, I always also audition them on BB via midi, just to be sure they translate as expected. This is particularly true when I create bb drumsets and need to mix the components (which is currently a major headache).
I hope that helps.
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Love to see it. A quality effort I know based on what you’ve brought to projects in the past. Especially nice for those of us dedicated to working with MAC. Like many I map kits into a DAW (REAPER) but use plugins like EZD and save a MIDI file for BB. Transfers can be troublesome.
Hey Goran,
I tried this method but the midi from Ableton triggering the BB doesn’t sound the same as the midi track playing directly from the BB via SD card.
Method:
Ableton midi > XR18 > Helix >Beatbuddy (sounds good)
I then export that midi file, import to BBM, sync to pedal and play that same file.
The light snare that was unobtrusive before now sounds much louder.
In both examples, they were triggering the Ballad kit.