Singular Sound BeatBuddy

As simple as it gets and as complex as you want it to be...

I use BeatBuddy for several different things:

*Practicing
*Sync slave for a looper
*Sync master for a looper
*Live sequencer playing sounds/samples on other gear (Computers, drum machines and iPads)
*Soundbank for external triggers

I don't adhere to the rules of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) in this review - myself.
Sorry about that - You can skip to the last sentence right now if you want to - and still get my opnion of the product...

First of all I use BeatBuddy as a very versatile metronome for practicing.

I also sync it up with one loop pedal, which has to be master (RC 300) - and in another setup I use another looper which acts as a slave (Infinity).
.
When BeatBuddy acts as a slave it drifts out of tempo after a while.
I've tested the looper (rc 300) with DR 80 and DR 3 (drum maschines) - and I didn't notice any drifting with any of them, - so I believe it's BeatBuddy which is loosing sync after while.. This problem might have been fixed with a beta firmware update already - don't know, however the BeatBuddy developers are very responsive and there is a very active forum for end users which is monitored by the developers.

When BeatBuddy acts as a master for another looper (Pigtronic's Infinity) I don't register any flaws in tempo sync..

BeatBuddy is able to send and recieve midi notes. Recently I used it to trigger drumsets on a couple of iPad apps. This worked very well.

I use an external ctrl pedal for added functionality (pause & changing songs/rythms).
I don't use the optional BeatBuddy ctrl pedal because it produces a loud click sound when you push it - which is not great when you play semi acoustic gigs...

Using GuitarWing (or another pad controller) as a drum controller for BeatBuddy is also possible. You can trigger drum notes and/or send cc messages to change different parameters.

Again check out the BeatBuddy homepage and the user forums.

I've bought several of the extra drum kits and drumbeats. They are all well worth the money and adds to the great value of the pedal.

It's very easy to use the BeatBuddy software to create your own songs from existing beats and drumkits. You can even add your own samples and midi files.

Everything is read from a SD card - which means that you might have to buy a faster card than the one that you get with the pedal when you buy it - to get an acceptable load time for drum kits...
This was the only thing which I thought was a little annoying when I first bought the pedal.

I recomend the BeatBuddy pedal for musicians at any level.
It has a tremendous potential for the adventurous - and at the same time it is so very simple to operate even when you play it for the first time.

Great product.

Cheers

First up I nearly sent this back. Nearly. Why?
A/The software is too glitchy, and also quirky, the manuals do not help. They even refer to things that are not in the software, like say "organize". Some of the things you want are there, but not where you expect them.
B/ It is useless for Jazz swing. If you are into "avant garde" (which I suppose means less than 50 years old) then fine, go ahead. If you play standards or traditional swing, forget it. OK so you can download other sounds at reasonable rates, but when listening to the samples on sound cloud there was nothing there which would please our audiences. I know of a lot of bands that could use something useful in that area. This is not it.
OK you can import your own .wav files. Fine. See A/ above. So far we have only managed it by accident.
So why keep it? Because it is very very good at blues, rock, shuffle country and the Latin folder is quite extensive. Sound quality is OK, not too much hiss and once you are used to the software faults easy to make up new songs. If you want to load up a song into another folder with a new name you have to export it. Change the name, so you remember what it is. When you import it back in to a different folder say with a different tempo, the name of the song reverts to the original name. You have to change it again. Sustituting sounds in songs is easy as long as 1/ the sample is already in and 2/ The drum kit you are using has instruments which respond to the import.
After a long evaluation period we decided it would be useful for our duo sets as long as we don't do our Jazz set. We had to stick a volume pedal in the line from it to makes adjustments on the fly, there is no way we could find to alter volume in the software.
Hopefully updates of the software will become useable before singular sound comes out with the MKII version and makes this obsolete.
Lastly while it will pass input straight through to your PA, we didn't like the extra hiss we gained with our setup.
A lot of money for an imperfect product, but we are sticking with it. We have found nothing better, and we have tried quite a few.