Using BB to play actual backing tracks - a short tutorial

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
16

Sorry to post in an old thread but i seem to have run into a snag. Using Reaper, everything went according to plan until i clicked play in bbm. My wav file plays perfectly at the right tempo when i added it to the drumset. However when i hit play on the virtual machine, its playback is slow. Did i miss something?

17

See Hagglelad’s post above (#12 of 16). Apparently some trial and error is needed with setting the BPM in BBManager. I did not experience that, but there are a number of different BBM versions out in the wild, including several betas.

18

Success ! Thanks Phil and others. My only problem now is that BB (using intro or main loop to play the trigger) will play the whole wave through and cant be stopped. If you want to stop it for any reason, a double tap or transition will only start it again overlapping. Only fix I can find is unplugging. Not a big problem in that you wouldn’t want to start again in a performance situation. Many thanks again!

19

There is a setting for a “triple tap” to stop. This acts as a sort of panic stop and end the song immediately. Look through the settings in the BB manual for details.

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20

Mmmm, its not working with these backing songs/drumsets.

21

I’ll check it out and get back to you. Do you have the external footswitch for your BB?

22

Yes I have a footswitch. Thanks.

23

Unfortunately, I am getting the same behavior from the pedal. That’s kind of the problem with these hack methods. We’re not usually going to get full functionality when we go outside the box.

24

Thanks for looking into it. I have the main functionality now which Im grateful for. cheers.

25

Thank you Phil. The instructions you provided are very clear but a bit more than I wish to do. I may just use an old phone and store the mp3s on it connected via blue tooth to my pa.

26

Has anyone tried advancing to Next song via midi controller to stop the playing sound? Will it sort the issue?

27

Hi, just checking… since this post is almost three years old, I was wondering whether some changes occured, in that procedure you posted (for playing backing tracks, that is) with any recent firmware update.
Thanks a lot.

28

No. It still works the same way.

29

Whew! That’s a relief, thanks!

30

Does this mean i can load a complete song (drum tracks only of course) without having to step through the different sections of that song?

For example, Come Together…

Am I mistaken or does this suggest that can i use the existing drum sounds in the Beat Buddy to construct the track?

31

The process above would not use the sounds in the BB, and is a hack to allow a recorded track to play on the BB. There is another process that lets you use the BB sounds and string a track together without having to change parts. We call that “one press.” There are many songs posted to the Forum using this format. For just drums, they are usually tagged as “DOP.”

I am sure that Come Together has been done this way.

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32

thanks. I’ll look through the forum for ‘one press’ files.

i also want to learn how to create them.

33

I see this topic has been idle for a year or so but I thought I would just chime in because I’m in the middle of gearing up the Beat buddy as a backing track player . I was going to go out and buy a looper pedal to do this but where I already own a Beatbuddy, and don’t really use it for much, I figured I would save a buck and try this method. My bass player and I have a two man band with backing tracks I made that do the drums ,synth and harmonies while we do the guitar, main vocal and bass. When we do shows, All is controlled by the laptop including our pre programed lights but when we go somewhere to do a set where the house system is already there, it’s easier to just take something with the tracks on it to play straight to the house. Right now, I have done most of what was listed above and so far so good. I’m in the middle of creating the songs in a folder on the Beat buddy for the set we will be playing in 2 weeks so fingers crossed it works lol I’ll keep everyone posted. Oh and if it all works, I do plan on making a step by step video guide on youtube with credit to Phil_Flood because without discovering this post, I never would have known how to do this in the first place.

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34

Thanks. I’m not big on doing videos. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

35

if you want BB to do long wav files as backing tracks, it can absolutely do that… here’s a link to how i did it, probably too long ago for people to remember :smiley:

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