Singular Sound BeatBuddy

Od ponad 3 lat służy w dwuosobowym zespole na koncertach i sprawdza się znakomicie. Świetny dźwięk, który potrzebuje niestety dobrego akustyka, rozumiejącego, że to automat ale jednak perkusista. NA PLUS: bardzo dobra jakość dźwięku (24 bity), łatwość i intuicyjność obsługi grając jednocześnie na gitarze lub innym instrumencie (najlepiej z dodatkowym footswitchem), możliwość sterowania przez inne maszyny lub komputery dzięki MIDI, współpraca z looperami (synchronizacja przez MIDI), ogólna jakość wykonania. NA MINUS: trochę szkoda, że brakuje możliwości programowania rytmów bez udziału komputera.

When I came across Beatbuddy on Youtube and compared it to other drum machines I realized that it is extremely friendly to use and very realistic at the same time. I bought it quickly and I can't be more happy with it :-) Due to the fact that it has MIDI I use it together with the Ditto X4 looper and Nux MG-30. However, I wonder very much whether to buy a Kemper profiler Player and use instead of MG-30. It would be a set that would make me extremely happy. Unfortunately, it costs a lot so dreams must remain in the realm of dreams :-(

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.

I had been looking around for a while for a small, easy to use drum machine. As a guitarist, I needed something I could use in my studio for backing, but also take along to band practise etc. if our drummer didn’t show, or sometimes working on guitar parts with our other guitarist.

I didn’t want to waste time getting into programming drum loops, and a lot of drum machines seemed to be designed for drummers, or people that wanted to spend the time creating loops.

I saw the Beat Buddy, and it is ideal. It’s aimed at musicians who want an easy to use device to provide drum backing. It can sit on the pedal board (put it last in the chain), or can go into a P.A. or monitors, which is what I do (sounds better through FRFR speakers). It’s controlled like a pedal, and if you can dial up a drum style (rock, punk, blues, metal, etc.), put in the tempo and you’re off, so easy to get something quick going, and there are loads of styles, kits and patterns to choose from. There’s a 4Gb SD card included to store the data.

The sounds are real recorded drum kits, so they sound ‘real’ and don’t sound digital or artificially processed.

One touch of the pedal will start the loop, with an intro section followed by the main pattern. Pressing the pedal once will insert a fill, this will synch to the pattern being played so if you hit it a bit early or late it will compensate, so you don’t have to be exact. Press again twice and the outro pattern will play. There’s a colour coded display which will indicate which part is playing.

If you get the additional footswitch you can get another 2 functions, to add additional cymbal crashes, and to pause the drums completely.

This is how I’m using it, but I’m only scratching the surface. There is software included to create drum patterns, or amend any existing ones, the pedal attaches to PC via USB. Also there is an online community who have written drum tracks for many songs, these are available to download and store on the pedal.

So it’s easy to get started with, but you have complete control of the patterns if you need it.

I use mine all the time in various scenarios, it’s very versatile and sounds great.