I think we should standardize our midi notes and instruments for the with bass kits. That way they can all be interchangeable so we can easily swap out kits sounds and bass sounds, etc. Also, songs would be standardized between all kits.
Here is my proposal! Discuss! Tagging those who I see that have “with bass” Resources. Please tag anyone I have missed!
A short explanation of my kit is: Mostly standard kit, with bass notes mostly where they are now, only expanding down to C, and up high A. This leaves note space for 3 octaves of an alternative instrument. I have one with guitar strums (which i’m going to completely redo), but i’m also going to do piano, rhodes, crunch guitar, organ, and mellotron.
In order to make room for the bass and other things, I moved a block of general midi instruments down 50 notes to the blank space at the bottom. This includes important ones like congas, maracas, cabasa, etc.
Sounds good to me. I’ve tried to expand my rock with bass kit to include an Eb bass note and couldn’t get it to work, so the sooner you can post a full kit with the lower tuned bass notes I’ll be rawkin’ out with some downtuned madness!
I agree, now is the time to do it before it gets out of hand and becomes unmanageable. Unfortunately I’m still getting over the learning curve but I’m definitely benefiting from the hard you all and others have put into this. Hopefully I can start contributing soon…
As a user, I thank all of you guys for doing this, especially Aashideacon for his ongoing initiative in the Beat Buddy community. You make the Beat Buddy the best purchase ever!
I think the standard should work around the GM drum mapping. MIDI notes 35-81 should be reserved for drum and percussion instruments. That would make importing existing MIDI files much easier since you won’t have to rearrange the drums or percussion instruments to make it fit the beat buddy. One of the reasons why I came up with my Standard Kit with Precision bass was to make it easier to use non-BB midi files. I have and additional kick and snare to 35 and 40 for the files that use them. The percussion sounds line up with GM, so I don’t have to move them around if I want to hear the conga in my MIDI file on my BB. Since moving to this, I have not had to transpose any drum part from non-BB midi files.
Notes 82-127 can be reserved for bass. That will give you almost 4 octaves of bass. Since the 5 string bass is being used more and more, as well as synth bass that goes below the E, I would recommend going from a low Bb-#82 (open B tuned 1/2 step down) all the way up to a high Bb #118 which would be the 15th fret on the G string of a standard tuned bass. You would still have 9 more notes you can add up to 127, which can be used for other things, but for bass it would be the high G on the 24th fret of the G string. That would give you the entire range of a 5 string bass.
Notes 0-34 can be used for synth sounds, additional percussion, etc. That gives you almost 3 octaves of notes, 35 chords, etc.
I’m all for Standard mappings “with / Bass Kits”. I like Aashideacon “Supper Duper Kit” proposed mapping…keeps the bass parts in same place and allows for Rhodes / Organ mappings. The Doors “Light My Fire” , Rascals “Good Loving” would be awesome “w/organ”. I think whatever is agreed upon Beat Buddy should make it the “official standard” for mappings.
The problem with the mapping of most ‘with bass’ kits is that if you import a MIDI file with percussion instruments, it will cause bass notes to get played instead of the percussion instruments. Otherwise, you’ll need to transpose the percussion notes from a general midi mapping to mappings for a specific BB kit. With notes 63-91 being used for bass, you’ll be clashing with the following instruments:
63 Open Hi Conga
64 Low Conga
65 High Timbale
66 Low Timbale
67 High Agogô
68 Low Agogô
69 Cabasa
70 Maracas
71 Short Whistle
72 Long Whistle
73 Short Güiro
74 Long Güiro
75 Claves
76 Hi Wood Block
77 Low Wood Block
78 Mute Cuíca
79 Open Cuíca
80 Mute Triangle
81 Open Triangle
Many of these instruments are not used often, but some are. Many MIDI files that I use have congas, cabasa, maraca, and clave with occasional guiro and wood block. Also a lot of MIDI files use 35 for the kick and 40 for the snare, and I put those in my kits because it makes import much easier. I understand that there’s a 100MB limit, but you can leave those MIDI notes blank if your songs don’t use them to save on space. Otherwise, if I have a song with a conga in it, I’ll have to select all the conga notes and then transpose them to another note. Personally, I don’t see a need to transpose a conga to 13 or 14 when there’s already a generally accepted slot for it at 63 and 64. If there’s more than just a single conga sound, I’ll have to transpose each conflicting percussion sound to a new mapping which can be tedious. If I have a song that has snare on 40, I’ll have to transpose the snare down to 38. But, when using 82 on up for bass with the additional snare and kick, the only thing you’ll need to transpose is the bass line, which you’ll have to do regardless of whether you start on 63 or 82.
I understand that there’s lots of songs out there with bass that use 63-91, and that it would take effort to remap those. However, if we want to use BB as a MIDI device that plays well with others, I strongly suggest that we standardize according to the GM Drum Map. This map has been around for a long time, and is generally accepted by most devices/apps that have MIDI drum sounds. This will allow easier import/export of MIDI files from other devices/apps. In the long run, it will help with scalability so that when new features are added to the BB it can continue to play well with other MIDI devices (i.e. using BB as a drum module or sending BB MIDI to a VST) without a whole lot of tweaking. Just my opinion, but if the BB is going to be a part of the larger world of MIDI, it should adhere to generally accepted standards.
Totally agree with jivejong… MIDI is a standard, so we should look at retaining the drum mappings as is… The “With Bass” incentive was a huge leap forward, but let’s keep it simple guys… Do we really need BB to be playing organ/trumpet/didgeridoo as well…? If that’s the case then reserve the high mappings for specialty kits and standardize the lower ones for GM drums and bass
Good point. We could move the bass down to 0, start at C and go up to the high Bb at 34 and not hit GM. However, it would override the metronome on the BB kits where they use note 33. If you wanted to preserve the metronome, you could stop the bass at 32, which would be the high Ab.
At the top end, you have 82-127 which would be almost 4 octaves of notes to play with.
I favor jivejong’s reasoning. Keep the GM mapping for drums from 35 to 81, put bass notes at 0 to 34 (or to 32 if you don’t want to lose metronome) - which gives you the same bass note range as aashideacon’s proposed Super Duper Kit and leaves 82 to 127 for those who want to add mellotron, guitar, piano, organ, etc, or one-off specialty sounds. And I think all bass note volumes should be standardized across kits. I suggest a volume of 0 because this gives you more range to set the desired played volume of bass via velocities in the midi itself plus you’ll get the same played volume of bass no matter what kit you use (assuming the volume of bass note samples is fairly consistent across all with bass kits).
Even though this mapping would mean a lot of work going back and adjusting all the with bass midis created prior, I think this mapping makes more sense in the long run. Actually, I plan to redo all the with bass kits I have this way anyway and re-edit all prior midis accordingly. I would rather do more work this week and less work over the next however many years than the other way around.
