MY BEAT BUDDY IS HERE!

[Mosfed]

That was a great video and convinced me to dive in. November shipping here we come!

 

[theLimeyBrit]

@DavidPackouz, I'll be watching out for my commission check

That was a great video and convinced me to dive in. November shipping here we come!

 

[Mosfed]

@DavidPackouz, I'll be watching out for my commission check

Eh I calmed down 5 minutes later after calculating what had been my new pedal purchases since May. Considering that a beat buddy acquisition for me would end up including a boomerang / infinity and the foot switch, I kinda need that money for other things. Like a hot tub for ski season! A beat buddy is in my future for sure though. For now my regular drummer Kevin (now how many Scottish drummer/percussionists do you know) and my zoom will have to do. Jealous though...

 

[Berme]

Haha, I didn't expect this! Standard and rock drumsets sound great into overdrive pedals! My favourite combo is Beatbuddy into B3K.

 

[sunbeast]

I used to play drum machines through distortion/fuzz and filters and there were some killer sounds. Envelope filters can do cool stuff with a snare especially, and manual filter sweeps are fun too for that electronica kinda vibe.

I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a good del on a flipped BB!

 

[Bassmike62]

Here you go:

Great vid, thx !

 

[hasbeen]

Eh I calmed down 5 minutes later after calculating what had been my new pedal purchases since May. Considering that a beat buddy acquisition for me would end up including a boomerang / infinity and the foot switch, I kinda need that money for other things. Like a hot tub for ski season! A beat buddy is in my future for sure though. For now my regular drummer Kevin (now how many Scottish drummer/percussionists do you know) and my zoom will have to do. Jealous though...

I'm with you on the hot tub. I have one and ski season is the only time it gets used.

 

[Mosfed]

I'm with you on the hot tub. I have one and ski season is the only time it gets used.

Yeah but ski season is 6 months long here and it gets used every day. Good value for money in my book....

 

[shwashwa]

Here you go:

thanks for the video, unfortunately im not crazy about that jazz beat. it doesnt really swing and what he's doing on the snare is way too busy. it gets in the way of the groove. it would be fine occasionally, but it seems to be constant. also the drum volume greatly overpowers the cymbals, and with a jazz groove it should be just the opposite, time is kept on the cymbals and the drums are used as accents, and hopefully used tastefully. kind of makes the groove feel bogged down and bottom heavy. maybe its the volume disparity that makes the snare work feel too busy to me. i realize there are probably other grooves, but i would not recommend that anyone practice with the one demonstrated if they are trying to develop a swing feel. lets the flames begin! with the software, would it be possible to edit out some the business on the snare and bring the volume of the drums lower than the cymbal volume?

 

[theLimeyBrit]

thanks for the video, unfortunately im not crazy about that jazz beat. it doesnt really swing and what he's doing on the snare is way too busy. it gets in the way of the groove. it would be fine occasionally, but it seems to be constant. also the drum volume greatly overpowers the cymbals, and with a jazz groove it should be just the opposite, time is kept on the cymbals and the drums are used as accents, and hopefully used tastefully. kind of makes the groove feel bogged down and bottom heavy. maybe its the volume disparity that makes the snare work feel too busy to me. i realize there are probably other grooves, but i would not recommend that anyone practice with the one demonstrated if they are trying to develop a swing feel. lets the flames begin! with the software, would it be possible to edit out some the business on the snare and bring the volume of the drums lower than the cymbal volume?

Thanks for your perspective - as I said in the video, I'm not a jazz player, so this is good to know. The software isn't designed to edit beats, and I'm not sure that the supplied beats' MIDI source files are accessible for the end-user to edit them, so in your case I think you'd be better off making your own.

FYI, here is the full list of available jazz beats that come with the Beat Buddy. Let me know if you'd like demos of any of them. I think the one in the video was Jazz 4 or Jazz 5.

Jazz 1 med swing
Jazz 2 med swing
Jazz 3 modal
Jazz 4 med up swing
Jazz 5 med up swing
Jazz 6 funky Jazz
Jazz 7 ¾ swing
Jazz 8 5/4 swing
Jazz 9 7/4 str
Jazz 10 med up swing

 

[shwashwa]

Thanks for your perspective - as I said in the video, I'm not a jazz player, so this is good to know. The software isn't designed to edit beats, and I'm not sure that the supplied beats' MIDI source files are accessible for the end-user to edit them, so in your case I think you'd be better off making your own.

FYI, here is the full list of available jazz beats that come with the Beat Buddy. Let me know if you'd like demos of any of them. I think the one in the video was Jazz 4 or Jazz 5.

Jazz 1 med swing
Jazz 2 med swing
Jazz 3 modal
Jazz 4 med up swing
Jazz 5 med up swing
Jazz 6 funky Jazz
Jazz 7 ¾ swing
Jazz 8 5/4 swing
Jazz 9 7/4 str
Jazz 10 med up swing

thanks for the reply. are you able to alter the volumes of the drums within the grooves? im thinking that maybe its really just a volume thing but its hard to tell. that snare is really annoying me, but when i listen to what i consider to be one of the swingingest albums of all time, elvin is pretty busy on the snare too, maybe not quite as busy though, but its considerably lower in volume than the ride cymbal, and the bass drum is almost inaudible, if he's even playing it at all. the cymbal is where the time is kept and what provides the forward motion, the other drums being louder really bog down the feel to me.



dont listen to how busy elvin is in the head, its the head after all. listen to the solos. and listen to the volume of the cymbal compared to the other drums.

 

[theLimeyBrit]

No, there's only the master volume control on the BeatBuddy unit. From my understanding, adjusting the mix of the various components of a drum set is beyond the scope of the management software as well, but we'll see what it can do when it finally gets released.

 

[ArtechnikA]

...adjusting the mix of the various components of a drum set is beyond the scope of the management software as well, but we'll see what it can do when it finally gets released.

I'm really interested in this as well.
I have a big pile of books on MIDI and drum programming in my Amazon shopping cart and I'm waiting to see which are going to be really useful.

And I haven't gone digging into the SD card contents, but that will happen soon.
*IF* the components of the drumsets are WAV files as has been suggested, it should be possible to use just about any WAV editor to adjust the volume of any given component. Sheer speculation on my part so far - I could be wrong...

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't find a "Texas Blues" swing-shuffle beat (like Stevie Ray Vaughn's drummer, Chris Layton was so good at). Is this something we'll have to create on our own?

 

[shwashwa]

Thanks for your perspective - as I said in the video, I'm not a jazz player, so this is good to know. The software isn't designed to edit beats, and I'm not sure that the supplied beats' MIDI source files are accessible for the end-user to edit them, so in your case I think you'd be better off making your own.

FYI, here is the full list of available jazz beats that come with the Beat Buddy. Let me know if you'd like demos of any of them. I think the one in the video was Jazz 4 or Jazz 5.

Jazz 1 med swing
Jazz 2 med swing
Jazz 3 modal
Jazz 4 med up swing
Jazz 5 med up swing
Jazz 6 funky Jazz
Jazz 7 ¾ swing
Jazz 8 5/4 swing
Jazz 9 7/4 str
Jazz 10 med up swing

could you maybe just run one of the medium swing at 120bpm for around 16-32 measures just so i can get a sense of how it feels? without any fills or transitions pls.

 

[theLimeyBrit]

could you maybe just run one of the medium swing at 120bpm for around 16-32 measures just so i can get a sense of how it feels? without any fills or transitions pls.

Sure, I'll try and get that done for you tonight.

 

[shwashwa]

Sure, I'll try and get that done for you tonight.

thanks, no rush

 

[makohund]

thanks for the reply. are you able to alter the volumes of the drums within the grooves? im thinking that maybe its really just a volume thing but its hard to tell. that snare is really annoying me, but when i listen to what i consider to be one of the swingingest albums of all time, elvin is pretty busy on the snare too, maybe not quite as busy though, but its considerably lower in volume than the ride cymbal, and the bass drum is almost inaudible, if he's even playing it at all. the cymbal is where the time is kept and what provides the forward motion, the other drums being louder really bog down the feel to me.

Some of it may be the recording... when I listen to the same beat here in headphones, the cymbals (esp the ride) are very prominent. While the snare varies from one hit to the next (as it should), it never overtakes the ride in my ears. The difference isn't quite as large as clip you posted, but it's there IMHO. Other included jazz beats do have a bit larger difference, others less.

If the software gives us access to the midi files in the on-board tunes, you could edit them... select the entire row of snare hits (or kick, or whatever) and lower the velocity (which in turn should lower the volume of the sounds getting triggered). Something like that. Or edit the wav files making up the jazz kit, lowering the volume of the ones you think are "always too loud" for you.

I also think we're well into the land of the very subjective here. I'm a little disappointed with the metal category myself, so I understand. They all sound to me like a great non-metal-player's impression of metal... lots of really cool/sick/fancy double-bass work, which is fine... but few basic/common/classic building blocks to be found. (Not too surprised, many "metal beat" collections I've seen suffer the same problem.) No basic single-kick or thrash beats, no *steady* triplet or 4/8/16 double-bass grooves (most have runs or accents in places that limit general applicability), no blast beats, etc.

Not too big a deal, though... there are plenty of midi files of the beats I'm talking about to be found (on the internet in general, plus I think I have a giant pile from an old copy of EZ Drummer), once the software is available.

I'm also wondering how long the wait will be for what has been mentioned as a possible additional feature... sample playback. Basically songs that are a single midi note, triggering a wav "drum hit" that happens to be a sound clip you want played. A snippet of noise, a sound effect, a movie quote, some violins in the key of whatever, maybe an entire song? Knock the Jamman Stereo off my board, please!

 

[theLimeyBrit]

Some of it may be the recording...

The video was recorded through my iPhone. The sample I'm going to make tonight will go straight to my laptop's line-in input and I'll record with Audacity.

I'm also wondering how long the wait will be for what has been mentioned as a possible additional feature... sample playback. Basically songs that are a single midi note, triggering a wav "drum hit" that happens to be a sound clip you want played. A snippet of noise, a sound effect, a movie quote, some violins in the key of whatever, maybe an entire song? Knock the Jamman Stereo off my board, please!

They've said that building your own drum kit is a feature that's going to be there from the outset, so this *should* be possible from day 1.

 

[hasbeen]

Yeah but ski season is 6 months long here and it gets used every day. Good value for money in my book....

go ahead and rub it in. ;-)