problems using BeatBuddy with solo piano

BeatBuddy Reviews and Feedback
21

Thankyou for the offer Rob…I really do appreciate it however I am hoping this thread catches the attention of BB staff and beat production.
It’s obvious there’s a problem when you have to sell a set of beats with the name ‘gig basics’ after you’ve already sold the drum machine. I wouldn’t complain if they were adequate but they are not and as the initiator of the tread pointed out they don’t work for piano either.

da dooong dooong dooong! Really? Who needs that in almost every fill? Like I posted earlier, it’s my show, please Mr. BBuddy stay outta my way :frowning:

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I never use the beats that came with the pedal… I adapt public domain midi for their drums lines and basslines (and sometimes other stuff), so i can play entire songs.

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The add on packs are very cheap, and saves you a lot of time creating something that sounds real. If you just want a drum machine to jam with then maybe the BeatBuddy is not for you. It was not designed for use with a piano but around the guitar or any instrument that when played allows you to operate a pedal and see the screen. There are ways of making it work and I’m sure in the future this market will be targeted by allowing the screen to be closer to the player - which will be useful for a lot of people.

Some of the fills are too busy - simple, just delete them or use ones from different songs, some of the toms are too loud - simple, just lower them in the drum kit editor, some of the EQ is off/wrong, try a different drumset.

You have to make the BB work for you, it is still a young product (compared to the Yamaha machine that is very experienced in sound designing) and comes with some useful beats off the bat - granted not everything is covered and that would be impossible.
Personally I don’t have any requirement for metal, hip hop, beatbox, punk, reggae, I have had to mix & match and change rock songs to make them work. I use some pop and techno (played with the standard kit). I get a lots of use from the Ballad and mallet add-ons which help add where content is missing. I also have gig basic and use one or two songs mix & matching again - I find them a little too basic though.
The free hand drum add-on is great as well.

24

Where I live, within 10 blocks there are three venues (restaurant/pubs) that have live entertainment. They hire singles and duos likely because they don’t want to devote the space to a full band. I haven’t seen anybody using the beat buddy and I’ve watch maybe a dozen acts using drum machines. That’s a shame IMO. The product should be targeted directly at these guys 'cause that’s who would utilize it. The content is just not usable for that kind of show and I don’t find content that I can purchase to be much better.
Organizing and reorganizing the content is VERY time consuming when there are other products that you can take to a gig right off the shelf…

the kind of music you want to ‘support’ not bury behind a drum machine…

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25

thanks for all the comments. I can hear the exuberance and joy in the beats provided, but for many live gigs these are all too intrusive. I play old fashioned music and there is still a demand for that here in Asia.

As I mentioned above, I did buy many extras - basic beats, also jazz brushes and the beats they need to work, and ballad beats. all a waste of money. and a waste of time, which is worse, hours to audition each one, rename the final 72 possible beats, out of hundreds tested, fills changed, intros replaced, and so on, all because Singular Sound did not make the classic beats of Yamaha, Roland, Alesis, Zoom, Korg, beats and fills tried and tested over decades by all the major keyboard and drumbox manufacturers, that is what I am asking, and I am very disappointed.

Oh I also got Vol 5 ready made songs, (buy 4 beats get 5th free) oh dear! Probably these do accurately map one original recording, ok, but to recreate the FEEL for a live audience, we do need fills, intro, outro, second section, live goes BEYOND that one recorded version and makes it … alive! For example, Van Morrison Moondance, at last, has a reasonable swing, the first and only on bet buddy. But no fills, no intro, no outro, no second part because that original recording has none of these. I was hoping I could use Moondance for Frank Sinatra, but no way. dollars down the drain.

Jazz brushes may be well recorded, in particular the sweeps change tempo, clever programming sure, but only work with extra purchase of styles that just do not cover the usual jazz standards.

Basic Beats miss the whole point, sounds like a sulky child resenting the task, again unusable because the main beats are scaled back too much and the fills are again too showy.

Ballads, usual problem, does not cover the song repertoire well.

All the manufacturers make good rhythms for decades now. For example Yamaha P-115 piano, very recent model, just 8 great sounding all purpose drum beats, no fills, basic great intro, reasonable outros. Just a piano so very basic BALLAD ROCK SHUFFLE SWING BOSSA DISCO but truly superb, restrained, clarity, foot tapping, just right but too minimal.

Korg microArranger - old model reissued in new box, classic drumbeats, all good, fills out ros intros second version - huge range all tried and tested for working musicians. Roland EXR-5s, years ago, great standard drumbeats,

… the arranger keyboards drumbeats are designed with a full band generated from your chords, these are not good, only the drum beats are good. Arranger keyboards look a mess, every gig I wish I had just a piano and the beat buddy but with usable rhythms!!

Then drum machines also have good beats but not the feel and style that the Beat Buddy promises. Zoom RT-223 all classic drum beats, drum machine, old school. Roland TR505 1980s? Classic usable gig beats. Korg microStation new grooves, all usable, no fills, just a great feel and all new styles reinventing old themes, great beats you can use tonight at a gig out of the box.

The advantages of Beat Buddy are that it works with whatever keyboard or guitar you want - I also play bass, if it was well programmed I could have my set list across different venues especially if they have their own piano, some hotels do have a grand piano and want you to play it not your portable which is ugly. If beat buddy had my set list then I could play the same songs on bass with a guitarist!

It’s an uphill climb with Beat Buddy.

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26

wow just saw more replies, drum kit editor, now that should work, change the volume onthe toms, just a learning curve…

I really want my repertoire to work with beatbuddy, I can see the simplicity would be so good, but the trouble is finding time to fuss with the editor.

27

That’s really good! Odd beats in that particular song, and the thing is it works without drums.

Here is a link to one of my bands, the Angkor Rat Pack, swing jazz trio (vocals, sax, piano split so play bass left hand - Korg Micro Arranger on this recording). when our drummer left town, I put a ride cymbal quietly on every bass note, it has got us through 2 years of gigs now. There are styles that do not need the drums to intrude, here we have a great vocalist, superb sax, I just hold the rest together. I never use the micro arranger swing beats, they are very good, but machinery compared to our natural sound without. I want that human restrained percussion we had with our real drummer before which you can hear at www.angkorratpack.com technically ONLY the beat buddy has a chance to do this because it has human feel played by real humans and top quality sounds.

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That’s it! We need tight clean rhythms and tasty short fills that don’t end with a tom and cymbal crash…

I opted for groovemonkee and they aren’t much better :frowning:

I got my old Alesis SR16 out yesterday and fell right back into the groove… I thought about selling the BeatBuddy but I love the operation of the pedal…
Suppose I’ll patiently wait for somebody to come up with decent content for it. In the meantime it’s back to the Alesis for now.
BTW Mike…LOVE your arrangement on Hotel California…well done!

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There’s the rub I think, I’m betting there are zero working musicians on the BeatBuddy team. My friend has a classic name for drummers. He calls them “bang-a-holics”. He likes to give 'em their moment in the sun during a gig but they must respect the music during the rest of the show…

I think that’s were BeatBuddy content fails some of us.

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30

It might be possible for you to use your content on the SR16 to “play” the notes on the BB. The only “trick” would be lining up the midi notes. For instance, what midi note does the SR16 use for kick? BB typically uses 36, but that can easily changed. On my mac, I use a program called MIDI Monitor that tells me everything the BB is sending or receiving (or anything else any midi device is doing).

If you get that lined up, you can use your SR16 to operate the BB for you.

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@Abbott[/USER] and [USER=7010]@Mike Mahalo i don’t think you will find any beats to your liking and getting them created takes a lot of time - hence if a lot of people ask for them they may be created, quicker but still time intensive is to create the beats yourself. If your devices can output the midi data for the drums then it may be possible to record that into a DAW and edit them ensuring that the midi notes are supported etc. Then build up the song.
The problem with older keyboards and devices is that the rhythms don’t sound realistic most have been programmed and not played live. The BB’s stock content was mainly created by one person, this unfortunately means that you get that persons playing style and personality. If you want to use the BB then unless someone has already created and uploaded something that works for you, then you will need to create the beats.
One other thought - as the SR16 was very popular someone may have already captured the midi for use in other devices and you may find them on the Internet somewhere. All you then need to do is find a suitable Drumkit to play it with.

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thanks for the comments guys, the intent with my comments and I’m fairly certain Mike’s comments is to be constructive. There’s a huge market of working musicians that can’t use the stock beats and don’t have the time or ability to work up their own.
The tool is awesome but we REALLY need simplified content that doesn’t get in the way…
Hopefully sooner than later…
@[SIZE=4]aashideacon
I have set up with SR16 driving the BBuddy but I hate setting up and it’s just another complication and place for things to go sideways…I did get to use the Vintage Ludwig drum kit though which I love![/SIZE]

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33

Thats to bad. The working musician i know who use this (including myself) just love it. but im sure they will put out something like that soon. I find this company very receptive to there customers requests

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Over the months I’ve been following this forum, I’ve come across numerous complaints of the BB content, both free and purchased, being too busy. I myself have difficulty using the BB in public, because it sure sounds odd - one voice, one guitar, and a full bodied drummer in the background.
The SS company would need to relook at its customer profile. I think the people interested in the BB would mostly be solo/duo singer/musicians in need of some simple rhythms they can use and control. Most of them are likely not professional performers, but hobbists, home users, and small group leaders in church settings.
The full band type of sound the BB is currently giving out is more suitable for three or four piece bands in need of drums (and they mostly already have a drummer).
What is available now on the BB caters mainly to this smaller customer segment. The company should perhaps focus its efforts now on catering to the larger customer segment, with simplier, lighter and more acoustic beats.

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35

Nice! if the SR16 is driving the pedal, then all that content can definitely be saved! You just need something like Reaper or another program that records midi.

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At the request of another user, I removed the snare from the Country 7 - Brushes Shuffle beat and posted it in the Resources = Songs section of the forum. The change took all of 2-3 minutes with the midi editor in the beta BBManager (v1.6.0.1). See if it suits your tastes better. If you’d like a version with a little snare left in the fills or transitions, let me know. Here’s a direct link:

http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?resources/country-7-brushes-shuffle-no-snare.326/

I don’t see time or ability is a show stopper here if this sort of simple mod can get you closer to what you want. You don’t have to know midi and don’t need any extra software to do this. If there are a bunch of musicians who need this, then that group could share the workload and post the revised songs back to the forum.

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Hi Rob, that’s a definite improvement taking out some of the busy-ness but overall the fills are too showy. The crash should be eliminated and those big deep reverb’d toms don’t lend themselves to acoustic music at all. There’s really not much to be salvaged from the stock beats IMO. Don’t know if you guys have noticed but many acoustic shows now perform with the drummer sitting on a beatbox like this http://www.amazon.com/Meinl-Percussion-HCAJ1NT-Headliner-Rubber/dp/B000B6FADU/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1460587041&sr=1-1&keywords=drum+box
The point of my tractor rhythm thread (most of you missed the point) is it can be just that simple…EVERYTHING on the beatbuddy is over the top for acoustic shows.

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38

Yep Abbott and I think your missing everyone else’s point. Use the BBmanager software to modify and customize / simplify the beats. Your refusal to install and use the software that came with BB IMO is like buying a computer and not installing and using the software that came with it and then commenting to everyone about how useless it is.

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A beat as simple as you’re describing might take all of 4 minutes to create/modify. With that little variation, you don’t need a whole family of beats, you need two or three beats. At this point, you seem to be more interested in making Singular Sound generate more free beats than actually getting what you need.

I can eliminate the crash and repost this evening. You can match the revised beats to a drum kit you feel is more suited for acoustic. Your toms issue sounds like a kit change rather than a beat change.

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I’m with Abbott et al: Many of the fills are just too loud and showy. And it’s not just the fills, I find all of the various drum hits tend to be at least a little overplayed. It’s like Goran is auditioning, instead of playing. If my actual live drummer played like that consistently, I’d fire him.

Plus, the difference in volume between the brushes and the drum sets is a bit too large, and I sometimes have to adjust the BB volume live when I switch back and forth. And because the toms really sound like they were engineered by a drummer (why do all drummers want the toms to sound like cannons?), they can be a negative mark on an otherwise excellent track. It’s worth noting that simply turning down the velocity of the toms solves the “booming toms” part of the problem in a lot of cases (although they are often still too busy for my taste).

Now, I DO use and love the BB a lot – he’s the drummer in my acoustic duo – but I also find myself reprogramming stuff on almost every song, because they really are over the top. I have accepted that this goes along with being an early adopter, you have to expect a bit of “hand-coding” on something this new, this broad, and this otherwise frickin’ brilliant. And, really, the ability to hand-code is actually a huge plus to people like me who want it “just-so.” So there’s that.

But…

But I think it may be time for a few new drum sets that are drier and have a compressed dynamic (i.e., MIDI Velocity) range. Problem is, if I install a new set of drums like that, I might have to re-reprogram all of my old songs, or they will be loud and bombastic (been dying to use that word this morning!) and new songs will be tasteful but too quiet.

I wonder if this could be solved with a setting (maybe in the BB Manager?) that enables us to set a dynamic range for hits in a given song. Normal MIDI velocity is 0-127: What if we could say, “Set max velocity to 118,” and have the software map all notes proportionately to the new dynamic range? And save that on a song-by-song basis?

I know that’s probably a very large technical challenge - way easier than just saying it, for sure. Not to mention the math is likely not linear in mapping, and probably requires some sort of logarithmic calculation, or at least an audio taper curve applied. But, rather than just complain
(which is my much more familiar approach) I thought I’d offer up a possible avenue to resolve at least one part of Abbott (and other’s) issue, because it’s my issue too.

Thoughts?

Joe

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