I wanted to follow-up on this one and see if anyone has attempted sending MIDI from SongBook Pro using the most recent version (using 22.1.7)? I ask, because it looks like they have added some basic MIDI abilities via the song (edit) function that has some options such as…
Control Change
Channel
Control
Value
If you change the top entry from Control Change to Program Change, then you get three additional options.
Program Number
MSB value
LSB Value
The only option you seem to have for kicking off the send of the MIDI command is on song open, which I guess is OK.
I’ve watched some videos online, all of which seem to be demonstrating this with OnSong, and am wondering if the following settings on the Beatbuddy still make sense if trying to send the commands from SongBook Pro. Basically, if the line starts with — it indicates the menu selection, if it starts with +++ then that indicates the option selected.
Menu selections
Settings menu
--Main Pedal
----Midi messages
------Midi out
--------Sync
++++++++++Disable
** This prevents Beatbuddy from being the MIDI clock
----MIDI Out
------MIDI Start
++++++++Disable
** I don't want the selection of the song to start the song on the Beatbuddy
----MIDI Out
------Notes
++++++++Disable
** This prevents MIDI from being sent for every note played
----MIDI IN
------System Realtime
--------Sync
++++++++++Enable (Not sure about this one)
------System Realtime
--------Start/Stop
++++++++++Enable
----MIDI IN
++++++Channel 1
----MIDI IN
------Control Change (CC)
++++++++Enable them all
GOAL: I just want to have SongBook Pro select the beat that aligns with a song that I load up in SBPro. Any help / suggestions people can provide here would be AWESOME!
I was hoping you could help educate me a bit on what each of the values above mean/how you knew which numbers to use to identify folder, vs. song, vs. tempo? etc.? So from the above…
It looks like we would always start with CC0.0@10 which says we’re using bank 0 on channel 10?
Then you have CC32.0@10 which is the first folder in your list in Beatbuddy?
Then comes the program change PC0@10 which indicates the first song in the selected folder?
What does the CC106.0@10 accomplish? Is this just required along with the CC107.90 in order to send the tempo from SBPro to the Beatbuddy, the value being sent is 90?
What does CC108.87@10 do/represent?
Really appreciate any insight you might be able to share with me here.
Hi Bob, the @10’s are always telling it to send the midi commands on Channel 10, I have multiple midi devices so I tell my BB to only listen on channel 10, and I then send specific midi commands just to it. If you only have the BB in the midi chain, you can leave these off.
The first three commands CC0 CC32 and PC are actually all one command. The first two CC commands tell it which folder to select, and the PC says which song in that folder.
If you want to select the first song in the first folder, it would be CC0.0 CC32.0 PC0
If you want to select folder 129, song 4, it would be CC0.1 CC32.1 PC3
There’s a table in the BB Manual that shows an example of selecting folders and songs.
CC106 & 107 are also one command and set the tempo.
CC106.0 CC107.40 would set the tempo to 40 (the minimum tempo)
CC106.1 CC107.25 would set the tempo to 153 (CC106.1 means to add 128)
CC106.2 CC107.44 would set the tempo to 300 (CC106.2 means to add 256, and 300 is the max tempo)
and finally CC108.87 would set the BB master volume to 87.
So I’m still trying to work through getting this all working with BeatBuddy and am running into a snag, wondering if you may have any ideas.
I tried adding the code into the song itself and I could not get that to work at all. I did notice that when you edit a song, on the Advanced tab, there is a MIDI function button which brings up a dialog to enter in some MIDI Events.
Here are a few screenshots of the options that now exist in SongBook Pro when you edit a song.
The only event that seems available is on ‘song load’ which I’m totally good with. At the beginning, you just hit the + symbol and that brings up the next dialog.
What I have found so far that has worked is to set ‘Program Number’ to the song number and while working in the 0th folder, that works as expected. In doing this, I have left MSB and LSB to 0, not for any reason other than I don’t know what to set them to. Since I was working in the first folder (0), all seemed to work as I wanted and when I select a song from my list within SongBook Pro, it changes to that beat on the beatbuddy (I created matching setlists on the beatbuddy and songbook pro).
The problem comes in when I try to do this with my 2nd setlist folder. I can’t seem to get it to select the song in the 2nd folder. I have tried the following settings and none have worked yet - or I’ve done something wrong.
MSB 1 : LSB 0
MSB 1 : LSB 1
MSB 0 : LSB 1
Again, just sort of guessing here, as I’m not sure how to tell it I’m now in my 2nd, 3rd, etc., folder.
Any help/direction you may be able to provide here would be awesome!
I’ve been referring to Songbook Chordpro by Linkesoft, and you’re using Songbook Pro (these guys really should have come up with more unique names for their apps). So I can’t say for sure, but here is what the manual says:
So I guess you would have to set the MSB to CC:0 with the value of 0, and then the LSB would be CC:32 with the value of 1 (for folder 2) and then whatever song would be set in the PC.
I can’t really see how you would set the values on the screens that you shared, but hopefully someone with more experience in Songbook Pro may chime in.
Thank you so much Tim for the excellent explanation and examples. I was able to get it going first try by following your instructions.
Much appreciated!
Just curious if you are using songbook chord pro, or songbook pro? If the latter, may i ask what you did to select the 2nd, 3rd, folders? I can only seem to be able to get folder 0. Guessing you are using songbook chord pro?
Hi Bob, at the risk of having a double response since my reply of two days ago is still not showing up, I want to specify that there are two versions of SongBook Pro by Linksoft for Windows PC but only one of them works with MIDI. The Windows version and the Tablet version are available but only the Windows Tablet version (touch screen) is MIDI capable. However I find it is lacking in other areas so I keep both versions (not expensive).
