Post your likes and dislike (if you have any)

Fav for me is the instant jammability (it should be a word), Plugged it in, tapped the switch and off I went. The ease in finding beats and getting em running is fantastic. The variety of beats pre installed, is amazing. :shock:

Its a bit bulkier than I had thought it would be and it tends to slide a bit when its not locked onto my board. Other than that, I have no dislikes and even this isnt so much as a dislike, but rather something I didnt expect. :o

Whats the community assessment so far. My friend who also got on, hasnt turned it off since he got it this morning. He plays a lot anyway, but I swear he is through half the beats already…loves it. :lol:

I was very excited to finally receive my BeatBuddy! I opened the box and just like the PDF says…plugged it in and I was playing in no time! I was very surprised to see how sturdy it is made. Even the knobs are metal! It is very easy to use…navigating around the many settings is extremely easy. I spent the entire day listening to each and every drum setting. With the Tap button and the BPM knob, I had no problem dialing into the tempo I needed for my original songs! I am very happy with the BeatBuddy :smiley: You know how sometimes you hear about things that are “To good to be true?” The BeatBuddy is truly one of those…and it IS true!!! I have been patient in waiting for the BeatBuddy to arrive, I have to be a little more patient in waiting to download the computer software for it. As great as the BeatBuddy is…I will be patient as I’m sure the software will be just as great! Many of us will be posting to YouTube to show off our BeatBuddy…I know I will as soon as possible. Thanks to the many people who created the BeatBuddy…I now have a musical tool that is “To Good To Be True…But is!!!” :smiley:

One of the things I’d like to see is a set of ‘subtle’ patterns – a non-reverb snare, for example, with a high hat and kick, and a little ride. Something Ringo might have played, or Charlie Watts. There’s always a temptation to make the patterns ‘busy’, but for straightforward rock, simplicity rules.

Likes: Great sounds, ease of use, features, natural performances, covers every genre. Every promise regarding ease of use, sound, etc. was met. Kudos on that - no easy task.

Dislikes:

  1. BeatBuddy Manager software NOT included with product. I know getting it “right” is important, but all that should have been worked out before any shipments went out. As is, and compared to what the Home page claims, the product is incomplete. ANY drum machine should be programmable. Currently, this one is not. BTW, I’ve written software for AT&T, and was co-author of a patent. I understand all the intricacies of debugging, etc.

  2. The headphone volume disk. Mine came off. Someone else posted theirs had come off. Easy enough to reattach, but shouldn’t have to.

BB team - any rotating control that has a disk or wheel attached with a screw, ALWAYS need to be secured with screw AND lock washer or tooth washer.

I’m thinking this is going to be an occasional occurrence until the next revision. Might want to notify the factory before the next batch goes to production.

p.s. Yes, I’m a manufacturer (guitar amps) as well as a working musician, so I’ve been on the receiving end of criticism as well. I hope this is taken constructively.

Likes:

[list]the bright screen and it’s clear visual cues.

the knobs are somewhat protected by the pedal itself.

pedal shipped without the software. At least we can all be enjoying the rest of the product while the software is being finished.

Resuming with a fill after a pause is great after everyone falls off the tracks…pause, have a good laugh, then resume with fill and carry on. Nice feature.[/list]

Dislikes:

[list]Tap and hold for transition - not too sure about this yet. Almost feel like a dedicated button on the foot switch would be easier to use so it can be queued like a fill.[/list]

I hate to put this as a “dislike”, as my first impressions are otherwise entirely positive. My use case involves sometimes putting the BeatBuddy in the signal chain to my amp and other times running it out to the PA. The input/output jacks would be more accessible for frequent cable switching if they were mounted in the top edge of the pedal instead of the sides. As it is, I need to leave enough space on my pedalboard next to the BeatBuddy to get a patch cable in and out - space that would be more happily devoted to another pedal.

Not a huge gripe in the grand scheme of things. I’m very impressed with the build quality - it feels even more hefty than a Boss pedal, and those things are tanks.

I put my beatbuddy on the left side of the pedalboard and above the footswtich, then leave a bit space for a pedalboard handle, Perfect, I play acoustic with Boomerang looper and beatbuddy, The output of Boomerang to Beatbuddy INPUT. I use left foot to control them as the guitar sits on my right thigh. I much prefer the OUTPUT on the left side of Beatbuddy over the top. From the output of Beatbuddy straight to Allen Heath Zed 10fx mixer.

Sorry man.

Could you use a short patch cable on the BB with a coupler or barrel on it, and then just plug/unplug your amp/PA cable into that…thus eliminating the need to plug/unplug anything from the BB? It would basically be a pigtail or “dongle” so to speak to move the input of your BB to a more usable area on the pedal board.

I like this idea. For the time being, I haven’t secured the footswitch to my board and I’ve left enough space next to the BB where the footswitch fits sideways for storage (and I just take it off and set it in front of the board for playing). If/when I want to rearrange and secure the footswitch on the board too, I will look into this as an option.

Part of my problem is, I have the BB, footswitch, Zoom B3 + Expression pedal that all want to be on the front row of my PT2 and it’s a reallytightfit :shock:

Likes: Awesome kit. I can tell this solves 20 years worth of performance problems with a drum machine. I’ve wanted to get off backing tracks for the simple tunes and be able to jam. BB does that in spades with less than 20mins of fooling around.

Dislikes: Maybe I’m missing it, but…

  1. With each beat, the tempo changes. Once I set the tempo, I want to scroll through beats to look for one which matches my tune. But as I preview beats, the tempo changes with each selection. (or am I missing something?

  2. Hard to preview beats handsfree. You have to stop the beat, click to the next beat on the aux footswitch, then start the new beat including the intro. Would like to swiftly play through the main beat to find “something that works”. This seems tedious.

  3. Tempo scroll button with “enter” fx. As I try to constantly reset the tempo on each beat (see #1), the click function of this pot is too sensitive. I end up slipping into the beat menu with a new beat selected (and its default tempo). Somewhat infuriating to do work and have it undone by an ever-so-slight depress on an oft-used scroll pot.

I’ll find more stuff… and maybe the stuff I found has a workaround but I didn’t notice anything in “Settings”.

Congrats on the product launch. I love it.

Love the BB, does what it says it’ll do. The only con I have is no on/off switch.

  1. Each song has a ‘default tempo’ which is why the tempo changes as you change the song.

  2. We’ll look into adding a setting to skip the intro fill.

  3. Should we make pressing the tempo knob set the song’s default tempo to the currently selected tempo?

Thanks, glad you love the BeatBuddy! :smiley:

It would be great to have an option to ‘lock on’ the tempo. If I recorded a loop on my Boomerang, it won’t get scaled to other tempos, so it would help immensely to be able to change songs while having BPM locked on the specific value.

As far as changing the default tempo for the song permanently - I think it would be too easy to screw the content.

Strongly agree with need for tempo lock when switching between beats!

I just tested the BB,

DISLIKES:
(1) the LED screen is a bit too small. Maybe it should have two modes like eventide pitchfactor, it has play mode and bank mode. For BB, in play mode, just like what we have now all the details, in BANK MODE, we only need the song names and the part of the song-- intro, verse, chorus, outtro and transition fills. then we have more space to make the font size bigger. we can easily see it when we do gigs.

(2)I don’t like the TRS cable, it is pretty hard to bend it near the jack. It has like protective plastics. If I wanna put them next to each other, or BB above the footswitch, then I need more space to put the cable. I prefer this kind TRS cable http://www.loopipedals.com.au/product/1 … tch-cable/[/url] OR this one [url=http://www.loopipedals.com.au/product/15cm6-trs-stereo-patch-cable-2/]http://www.loopipedals.com.au/product/1 … h-cable-2/

I approve your suggestion (1) about the LED display could be used better when the song is not playing. This will be definitely looked into.

I love my BeatBuddy and can’t wait to introduce it to music group at Church :slight_smile:
Agree with ‘tempo lock’ but would also like a ‘kit lock’.

I like the idea of bigger fonts for live use but also a different colour for the ‘chorus’ as I find it difficult to know if it is playing part 1 or 2.

I have no problems with the transition fills but getting the outros right takes practice. Love the external foot switch but I wish it could do more as I notice it can’t just start a beat only when it is paused and to do that you need to have started the beat which includes the intro fill.

Also setting the tap tempo is difficult live. I also noticed yesterday that setting the tap tempo on the 2nd foot switch doesn’t work when “stopped” but does when it’s playing, strangely it can do both on the first foot switch, is this a bug?

Some of the fills are nicer than the intros so the software is vital to the usability of the beat buddy…having said that, I can wait as I know you are working hard to get it completed and fixed.

My only other ‘gripe’ is due to it being an electronic device it can’t create a drumbeat on the fly and improvise like a real drummer so it requires some programming, planning and time before hand. If it could there would never be no need for drummers at all and I am one as well :wink:

I love the ability to control the beat and create a groove!! :smiley:

Pressing external footswitch pause again will start the beat from the beginning of the bar, sans intro. Pressing the main pedal when the beat is paused will start the beat again with an intro.

Yeah, but to do that you need to have started the beat in the first place! It is possible if your feet are quick enough to start the beat with the intro and then quickly press pause. With the management software it will be easy to remove the intro, however if you are running a set currently you can’t move to the next song in the folder if it is paused.