Agree totally with your post. I have owned mine since buying it as a pre order before it was released and decided not to gig with it due to the complexity of using it. The BB manger is just terrible. Would I recommend it NO, but obviously some people do like it and use it so I suppose you would need to try it.
What do you find complex? The unit or MIDI?
One way to change individual song volumes, is to send CC:108 - value 0-100 for Mix-Vol.
See the updated manual page 34 at BeatBuddy Firmware 4.0.x "Playlists!"
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Joel, I am not sure why I am unable to download this drumset to my beatbuddy. I have added many drums but for some reason it will not transfer. Do you have any ideas?
Cheers
I responded on the other thread as well. I’m not a Mac person (although I do have an ancient Mac Mini). I tagged a couple of people in that thread who might be more helpful.
Sorry I’m not much help.
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I read the previous problems you were having with your SD card.
- Delete the existing drum set you downloaded to your computer.
- Download a fresh copy.
- Read the note from this link When the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM) doesn’t launch (or export a project to the SD card) in newer versions of the macOS
- Install the notarized version of the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM)
- Try to import and activate the drum set now; hint: scroll to the bottom of the Drum Sets tab to see if the kit appears with an unmarked checkbox
- Let us know if this helped
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I use a combination of BB Manager, Reaper and Audacity to create my own drum sets. Lots of WAVs that don’t work straight out the box will work if opened and saved in Audacity. I’m one of the few people who seem to like BB Manager. Maybe I’m just too patient. I alter the volumes of instruments/drums for individual songs in BBM and venues can often change what you thought works fine. Still use a music stand which, as a duo I share, even though we write our own songs. I admire those musicians whose memory means they know the notes/chords, words and when to change drumbeat. Unfortunately I don’t, and get round the looking-down problem by using a head mic.
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Thanks persist, I will try these things and see how it goes. Regards
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It’s been a few weeks now & I’m getting my head around what this pedal can & can’t do.
I hope my original post wasn’t too negative but as I said before the potential is huge but after a couple of weeks of quite intense tweaking/programming & adjusting it’s still not in a state where I’m comfortable to gig with it.
Things I like are that the pedal plus footswitch is fairly well programable & has dual functions when running or stopped which means I can pretty much control what I need to by my feet.
Creating your own custom kit seems to be the way to go, albeit this is time consuming & probably an ever evolving process.
If I understand correctly each drum hit for each sound has at least 3 different samples for every velocity meaning that it won’t ever sound exactly the same twice & introducing a live feel that I haven’t experienced with other drum machines. Am I right in thinking that the choice of samples is random within the velocity parameters or is there a set pattern of how samples are chosen? Anyway it sounds good.
This pedal is mostly useful for gigging as far as I can understand as I don’t understand why anyone would want to record with it as other software drum programs (superior drummer etc.) would be better choices & far easier to edit.
So for me the whole thing of changing drum kits within a gig or set is a bit redundant. It might be cool that your drums can sound like John Bonham for one song & Carlton Barret the next but that would be pretty unrealistic in a gig situation & be very inconsistent. Any live drummer is going to have 1 kit & maybe use certain instruments in some songs & not in others but changing the whole sound would never be an option.
So for me finding 1 kit you like best & adding any custom sounds to it is way to go. That way kit loading times between songs does not become an issue & controlling volume levels song to song also becomes easier.
Fills are IMO mostly way too loud & busy. If I called a live drummer for my larger band & he played like that, words would be exchanged. Almost all of the fills have to be severely edited to be useable for me.
If I listen to a small group that uses a drum machine I do not want to notice the programmed drums it should be there helping as a tool IMO providing a groove & adding subtle variations or fills but never being the centre of attention. It seems to me that the whole thing has been made by drummers adding complex fills & dynamics that they would maybe want to add in live performances. But one important thing seems to have been overlooked here, it’s not a live player, it’s a machine & therefore should never be calling too much attention IMO.
Editing is a bit of a pain. The BeatBuddy manager is cool for editing the kits, adding sounds, editing your songs & putting them in order but editing the midi is a nightmare.
I understand that a user from here invented it & they added it to the BB manager as there was no midi editing facility in it at all previously. So marks for trying & it’s probably better than nothing but tbh not a lot better.
The 2 choices you have of quantised or tick system is very basic & the just seeing where the notes are in this tick system is difficult. Basic functions such as hearing the individual drum sounds within the editor or looping the pattern are not available.
If you manage some basic editing of the midi in BBmanager & subsequently want to export that & refine it further in another application the ‘export midi file’ function seems to be very hit or miss. Sometimes it works fine, other times it exports only the first hit of each sound & elongates the notes for the length of the pattern. This appears to be totally random but very frustrating.
I’m editing the patterns in Cubase & then importing them into BB. This is ok but I can’t really hear exactly how the patterns will sound with exactly the same sounds on cubase as on the pedal. Maybe there is a way to export or map the BB customised kit to hear it on cubase but if there is I haven’t worked out how to?
So this means a lot of back & forth between Cubase & BB until I’m happy.
My music has a lot of breaks & programming the transition fills to play these breaks is great. Even odd bar numbers appear to be possible by just keeping the pedal pressed for the duration needed. I haven’t seem that mentioned anywhere but it’s a very cool feature. Before I would just stop my player & then start again after the break leaving the actual break drummer free.
Midi communication with my RC-5 looper has been great so far without me having to anything at all from default settings which is amazing & quite unexpected tbh.
But I haven’t managed midi control from Onsong yet. I’m probably doing something wrong & I have bought the widi but nothing I do will make it work. I have now bought a wired lightning to midi connection but I haven’t had time to experiment with it yet. If that doesn’t work I may try another app like Songbook or similar.
Meanwhile I’m just programming the songs I need to do my regular Thursday & Sunday night duo gig. We play about 25-30 songs a night drawn from list of say 70 songs. I’ve done about 30 so far, when I’ve added another 10 or so I’ll be ready to gig.
I enjoyed your post, as I had many of the same reactions years ago when I started with the BB. I want to try to address your observations point by point with my recommendations.
Agreed, but considering you address owing Cubase and possibly Superior Drummer, this is the means to your end. You can create wav files from Superior Drummer, and create your own BB kit to match the mapping in Superior Drummer. Then, you can create whatever patterns you want within Cubase, and bring them directly over to the BB without remapping.
Not necessarily. Some sounds have only 1 sample per velocity. The problem you run into is the BB maximum kit size of 100Mb. You would need to pick and choose which instruments you sample less heavily. I believe the BB chooses from within the samples set randomly. I created a a Sampler instrument in Logic Pro, and it uses a “Round Robin” system, wherein it plays the samples in order. This still sound realistic. I do not know what facilities you may have for creating an instrument within Cubase.
This was an observation I also made. My recommendation is that one either treat the BB as a “real drummer,” where the kit does not change, or that you try to create exact copies like some kind of ultimate tribute cover band. I would think with the single kit approach that you might need two kits, one with sticks and one with brushes.
Agreed. This is why you would want to create your own patterns with Cubase. The stock BB midi patterns are available for download on the Singular Web Page. You don’t need to rely on the Export Midi feature, unless you are dealing with user files or premium content.
Amen. This is why you should create your custom kit from your drums in Cubase, and edit patterns in Cubase. BB Manager is a lousy editor, but it is a very nice sequencer.
I use Onsong just for selecting the song from the BB and pulling up a lead sheet for the song. I realize Onsong can do more, but I chose not complicate the process. For example, I do not use Onsong’s scrolling feature, and I instead can scroll manually with a IK Multimedia Blue Board.
I think you are well on your way to achieving what you want.
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Great replies, thanks, I’m sure I’ll be asking you exactly how you managed the song select thing from Onsong before long.
Fills, why are they so freakin’ loud & in many cases way over the top in complexity?
IMO it’s a machine & shouldn’t be calling that much attention to itself, the main thing the audience should be focused on are the humans playing not the BB. Be subtle.
Agree 100%. I’ve been a drummer for 40 years before I switched to keys, and the quality of the drumming is high school level, especially the fills. Nothing tasteful. And don’t even get me started on the obnoxious, UN-dampend toms. I"ve had BB for a couple years and never used it on a gig. Just too much work to simulate an inexperienced drummer.
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Very good video, thanks
The only thing missing is how to send midi to adjust overall volume per song. But as I’ve been careful about programming & use the same kit all time maybe that’s not going to be much of a issue for me?
Gotcha. I use triggers in OnSong. I learned about it through this forum. Here’s the link:
and clearer directions:
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Ok, I haven’t read the rest of the thread, but this post is fairly offensive. My first question is, why did you buy the BB when obviously, this wasn’t the tool you wanted. It’s like telling me the screw driver you bought doesn’t work because you are using a straight slot screwdriver to take out a phillips head screw. Use the correct tool.
Second, let’s assume someone actually watched some videos about the BB and decided it was what they wanted. If this drum machine and it’s associated software is so unsophisticated, why is it the only product of it’s kind on the market? Why doesn’t someone else make one that’s better?
I know that nothing that’s designed by someone else is the way I would have done it. But then that’s obvious because I didn’t do it. If I wanted a drum machine built exactly like I thought it should be built, then I’d have to build it myself. Or, I could buy the best on the market and figure out how to make it work for me. That’s why I bought the BB.
You must be very easily offended if you take offence at someone sharing their opinions on the BB forum.
Some things are great, some things not so much & some things could be a lot better.
These are my opinions & judging by the responses (that you haven’t read) there are many who agree.
Everyone else on this thread has been offering some very positive thoughts & opinions of how to make things better. That seems to me how things work at Singular Sounds, user experience & comments are taken on board to make things better for everyone.
Your screwdriver analogy is laughable, you say I’m using the wrong tool for the job but also say it’s the only product of it’s kind on the market.
But any case opinions are as the saying goes like assholes, in everyone’s got one.
There’s a difference between constructive criticism and simply bad mouthing something. If you don’t feel the need to apologize to anyone, that’s your business.
There are other products that could be used by a solo performer that could provide them with a simple percussive element. This product is designed to be a drummer that gives structure to the song for a solo performer. It sounded like that’s not what you wanted. Thus, wrong tool.
I’m really trying to be constructive here & as I said initially this is a product with tremendous potential & I know that eventually I will have a seriously good tool to use for my duo gigs. It’s just the time it’s taking for me to get the BB to gigging standard is massive IMO.
I’ve paid a lot of money for all the extra styles, patterns, kits that Singular Sound & Groove Monkey offer for this product but straight out of the box it’s quite frankly amateur hour & that was not really what I was expecting & none of videos that I watched before purchase (& I watched a lot) indicated this.
I currently do duo gigs twice a week & a quartet gig once a week & sometimes work with my sextet & maybe I’ve been spoilt to work with some truly amazing drummers with my quartet & sextet. I’m talking about players who’ve played with the best.
In comparison a lot of the drumming on BB (& I’m talking about fills & transition parts here mainly) is too loud, over complicated & tasteless. This is my opinion.
As I’ve said i other posts in this thread, for me in a solo, duo or trio setting the drum machine (BB) should be there grooving but not calling so much attention. Of course I want some variation, breaks & fills etc. too but in order for me to achieve this to a reasonable standard, all of these patterns have to be severely edited or re- programmed.
Which brings me to the other important issue, the midi editor. It’s difficult to read when in tick mode, you cannot loop a pattern or hear the individual drum sounds & it’s very time consuming to edit. These are basic functions for a midi editor, it could & should be so much better for a product of this cost.
The other issue I find quite incredible is that the individual songs cannot have an overall programmable level assigned to them. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to me that many other much less sophisticated machines achieve this basic function.
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If you want a song to have quieter drumming, create a drum set with lower velocities. We use a different drum set for different songs, but then, I like the variety it gives to our original songs. We’re not trying to copy, or cover, anyone else’s songs, but we are trying to entertain. We obviously haven’t got a drummer behind us so there’s no reason to pretend we have, and using the same drumset for all our songs would sound pretty boring in my opinion. And the BB does have limitations, the size of each drum set comes to mind, so we work within them and are more than happy with the results.
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