Here’s a video providing an overview of the drumset editor
I finally had a chance to play around with the BBFF. I think you’ve done an amazing job with it all. 
I get a feel-good vibe from the get-go, which is very important.
I tested the drumset maker without watching any relevant video or any instructions for it, as I believe it should be intuitive enough for me to crack quickly. I think you’ve done a very good job in that regard.
Here are some of my observations.
I like the “sort by name” button for the drumsets. I know of a particular person who will be in love with this. 
Drumset Maker:
- Auditioning samples play them at random. That is not supposed to be the BB behavior, but rather the round-robin. If doing the random, then the same note should never be repeated sequentially (if more than one note is present) in order to keep the natural-sounding playability.
- Need a button to remove a dynamic layer if creating dynamic layers before adding any samples.
- When trying to add samples to a single dynamic layer (the initial layer present), no samples are added. Currently, one needs to add another dynamic layer to be able to add samples. Then, when trying to move a sample from the top new layer to the bottom default layer, the two layers merge into a single layer. Surely, this can’t be the expected behavior.
- If a single layer is present and it covers the entire velocity range, it should be more obvious than just saying 0. 0-127 is the expected info. It would be nice to have “127” present at the top at all times, if in any combination of dynamic layers, the 127 is always the top end of velocity.
- We need a method to specify which dynamic layer to import samples to. They are automatically added to the top layer, requiring additional unnecessary steps to place them in the desired layers.
- An ability to select multiple samples via shift+click (to move to another dynamic layer) would be a nice touch.
- The ability to import instruments from existing drumsets is a fantastic feature. One detail that got me a little confused is that I first created a blank kick drum instrument, then tried to import an existing kick drum into it. I couldn’t find any. Perhaps allow an import of an instrument with the same note#, but prompt the user to overwrite the existing instrument on import or change the note# of the imported instrument. I think that would make it less confusing for general folk.
I like the fact that the red vertical dynamic bars on the left also act as velocity-spread audition buttons. A nice touch to make that more abvious would be to turn the mouse cursor into a speaker icon onHover, as you’ve done elsewhere.
Another nice element to have would be the main audition pad for an instrument that would behave like the red ones but that would audition the entire instrument, top to bottom.
Info on the lenght of samples and the peak values of samples (in db) are wonderful details.
Song editor:
- One function that I feel is badly needed, but missing, is the ability to play songs like we do on the BB, with the ability to trigger fills and change sections.
I didn’t test all the features present in the song maker, as I know a lot of others will.
Overall, these are excellent results for the serious effort invested in developing the software. I hope that you will add a few of those tweaks I mentioned to make this even more kick-ass.
Cheers!
Goran
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Thanks Goran
You have provided some great feedback here and I’ll certainly implement some of those changes.
One important note. The BeatBuddy’s round-robin implementation is random, not sequential. If it were sequential, it would give you a different variation of the machine gun effect. There would be a discernible pattern, especially on fast repeating notes. This is easily tested by creating a drumset with a single instrument containing a few distinct samples (tom, snare, kick) and then creating a song that plays repeated notes on that instrument. If the BeatBuddy’s round-robin were sequential then you would hear tom, snare, kick, tom, snare, kick, … but you don’t. Instead you hear various combinations including repeats of tom or snare or kick.
A virtual pedal on the song editor is probably the most requested feature and the next thing I intend to tackle.
3 Likes
Is editor ready to substite a daw like reaper or others to use with midi songs?? Is there any virtual canvas or vst to hear the instruments on editor?
Thanks
Thank you, Andrew.
I had my suspicions about the BB round-robin but never quite got around to checking it properly. You know what that means, right? Both the BB firmware and your software need tweaking 
I look forward to some of those tweaks and using your software for real to put together some kits and songs and see how everything flows. Testing is one thing, but only when you actually go about completing tasks do you start noticing things.
I realized I needed certain features and elements in my own software only when I started trying to use it myself.
This is all very exciting, and I look forward to following the development of it.
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What is a virtual canvas?
You can not use VSTs, but you can use the BB drumsets you have available in your project.
And yes, you can very much do everything you need in the included MIDI editor. You should try it out.
I think the term Canvas comes from a midi sound unit from years ago, the Roland Sound Canvas. Years after that, a vitual version was introduced.
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Yes i meant virtual instruments.
The problem for me is that for me to build midi songs I need there to be several tracks so that I can hear the instruments separated
. In the case of this editor this is not yet possible.
Probably best not to confuse it with a full-featured DAW as it is a MIDI editor for the BeatBuddy (BB).
3 Likes
I’m not confusing, just saying that for my use I would need these features.
I think the feature you are looking for would be useful even with just the drum sounds. I mean that if you want the drums to be perfect then you might want to mute some drums to tweak others. But I agree that it’s even more useful with multiple instruments 
2 Likes
Hello Andrew, this is just amazing, i immediately bought it 
the interface is slick, it just works and the fact that it’s web based is just brilliant.
I am noticing, or maybe it’s me not finding it, it seems impossible to create triplets / shuffle patterns easily, which is one of the few things that the beatbuddy manager was excellent at.
Are you planning to add it? or… it’s just hidden and i can’t find it??
Thank you so much!
And shame to the singular sound company for the missed opportunity to make this thing by themself, i’m just speechless.
Hi Matteo
Thanks for the kind words.
No there isn’t a way to create triplets yet. It is on my list but it will be a while before I can get to that.
it’s definitely not a big deal however, more a nice to have, since i can easily use the 6/8 time signature and create triplets anyways.
Just wanted to make you aware this could be one of the future enhancements 
thanks again!
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Hey Andrew, Been enjoying the latest build! Designed a few drumsets with ease and have imported some of my own samples. Thanks!
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My First post: This appears to be the editor I have been looking for. I am able to open my projects with the Beatbuddy manager but can;t seem to open them with BBFF. Can someone tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help,
Ben
Here is what I found, I was using firmware version 4.1.6 and switched out my card to one that had version 4.1.4 and now it loads into the BBFF editor?? I also tried thw original card I received from Singular Sound
and that also loaded.
Hi Ben
How are you opening the project? Are you loading directly from the SD card?
The firmware is set on the pedal, not the card, so each card should be able to load into the editor.
Hi Andrew,
First, thanks for developing this program. I tried loading from the card and from projects I have backed up on my PC. I have multiple cards that through the past couple of years I have backed up different versions. Thanks for your quick response, I will try to put some time in today to learn your editor.
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