I am a former user of the Alesis SR-18 drum machine, which I liked because I could use 2 different parts for each pattern, as well as a couple of fills, and now I’ve been using the BeatBuddy for around 6 months and I am more than happy with it. I’ve successfully used the built in patterns for most of the songs I play and bought many of the beats from the Premium Content Library, however, both the built in beats and the ones you can find in the Premium Content library lack of Latin rhythms such as Cumbia, Spanish Rumba (with an actual drum kit and not a cajon), Reggaeton, Bachata, and other Latin rhythms that I don’t know the name of.
Long story short, I have these rhythms in my Alesis SR-18, as I used to use them in my weekly gigs but I have no idea on how to transfer them to my BeatBuddy.
If anybody here could help me to start in this process or could help me with the steps to do so, I would greatly appreciate it.
The SR-18 has Midi out. You can play the SR-18 into a recording program, like Logic, Cubase, Audacity, etc., and record Midi versions of your SR-18 patterns. Then you can create new songs in Beat Buddy Manager, and drag the midi patterns into BBM. That’s the short answer.
Once you have ta beat moved from the SR-18 into your DAW (Logic, Cubase, Audacity, etc.), you are going to do a Save As and select “midi file” as the type. Then, once you have a midi files, you are going to move it into BB Manager. The Beat Editor has limited functionality, and it more for making minor changes to an existing BB file. It is not really a suitable tool for this type of conversion.
I think someone on the forum once posted a link to all the SR18 (or could have been SR16) files as midi files which would save you some hassle if you found them. Don’t forget that you will need to alter some midi note assignments as Alesis will use different midi notes for some drums (i.e. snare may trigger a hi-hat or whatever).
