Songbook Chord Pro (LinkSoft) - Songs fail to load when selected

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
1

Hello,

I am still trying to iron out the kinks in using Songbook and Beatbuddy. Currently, I have a few songs that when selected, don’t change to that song on the Beatbuddy. It seems like there is something wrong with these particular song files, or the midi command within them, but I sure can’t find what that is.

I have created 4 play lists within Songbook and can successfully select all songs within all playlists and have that song show up, ready to start, on the Beatbuddy device. However, I have 3 songs (so far) that when selected seem to do nothing. I am attaching those three song files to this case if anybody can take a look at them and see any reason why it would cause things to fail when selecting them.

Archive.zip (6.6 KB)

On a separate topic, does anyone have any adivce/suggestions on a good midi ble app for Android? As I understand it, I need to use a midi controller type app on my tablet so that Songbook can interface with the midi device connected to the Beatbuddy and get messages to it. I do have this working using an app called midi-blte, but it is constantly losing connection. I will try a few others but also wondering what others may be using, if in the same situation?

Any direction/help would be much appreciated here.

Thanks, all!
Bob

1 Like
2

Hi,
Question. Where are you selecting the songs? In Songbook? Do they play when you select them on the BB?
I have not looked at them yet. Just asking for that information.

I use a product called BandHelper. I use a Yamaha BT-MD01 bluetooth device.
With my bandmembers we use IOS and BandHelper, BH sends the midi to the BB. It also allows one of the bandmembers to be leader - and broadcast songs to each bandmembers screen so we are all looking at the same song as it scrolls.

But you say android - on this forum there is a product that is called BBFF - that will load on your phone and control the BB with song selection via it’s tool. I do not recall if it can be used on a tablet.

Let me know where you are selecting songs from.
Hope that is close to answers for you.

3

I am selecting the song from the playlist within the songbook application. When I select a song it then loads that song on beat buddy but does not start to play it, it just loads it ready to be played once the pedal is pressed on the beat buddy.

4

I notice that there are commas between your midi commands, does that work on your other files? I don’t use them on my files.

Yours:
{midi: CC0.0@1, CC32.3@1, PC4@1, CC106.0@1, CC107.96@1, CC108.85}

Mine:
{midi: CC0.0@1 CC32.0@1 PC14@1 CC106.0@1 CC107.93@1 CC108.60@1}

Also, and it probably won’t matter, you don’t have @1 on the last command.

5

Oh, and I usually use MIDI BLE Connect by Mobileer Inc, but when I’ve had trouble with disconnects it’s either because the midi cable was loose, or I placed the bluetooth adapter where it was being blocked by metal (either a pedal or the pedalboard itself).

6

I wonder if the play comes to rapidly after the song selection commands and is discarded by the BB because it is not ready to process it yet. I have this issue on a different pedal. Bummer that is looks like SongBook can only do a midi pause on IOS.

7

I use Songbook all the time. I found that:

I need a STOP command first, otherwise if two consecutive songs have the same beat it doesn’t do a reload on the second song.

You need @midichannel (@1 in yours, @10 in mine) on every command or the command is ignored.

I had to put in a PAUSE after selecting a drum kit to give the kit time to load, otherwise it threw away some commands.

I set the volume in each song to allow for volume differences in the different beats and kits.

Here is a typical Songbook midi string that I use:

{midi: STOP,CC108.40@10,CC0.0@10,CC32.0@10,PC65@10,PAUSE3000,CC106.0@10,CC107.124@10}

8

Hi Keith,

That’s great information, I didn’t think about adding stops and pauses to my midi commands (but now I will). I had the same problem with different volume levels between kits, so I just set all my songs to use the same drum kit.

9

Yeah I have made a feature request for midi pause on Android to LinkeSoft. Please send in your request as well so it gets prioritized for the next release.

10

I also use SongBook to select the BB song via bluetooth midi. My strategy has been to just create folder(s) for my own songs and then copy the stocks songs into them with tweaks, drum kits, etc. Then I also name it the name of what I call the song. I’m typically tweaking bpm, drum kit, parts, etc anyways so to me it’s easy to just make a copy (by exporting/importing). The end result is I just to send the folder select and song select midi commands, and never have an issue with a command being dropped even when the next song has a different kit.