BeatBuddy Drum pedal

[Rudi]

I picked up this thing a couple of months ago, and if I’m honest I still haven’t yet used it a lot. I expect to use it in my studio when I get around to making a jazz tune.  

I’ve put this in the Bass area, because it’s not a drummer’s tool (I checked with Tom Hoffman anyway). Although it can be used with any other instrument, IMO its bass that it lends itself to best.  

This Sweetwater demo gives you a great overview of what this is and how it’s used.

 

 

 

This user review isn’t bad either. He’s a bassist and plays along at 7.50 in the video.

 

 

What it is.

It’s a MIDI based drum machine. It uses large high quality WAV samples and it’s operated by a foot pedal (or pedals).

It looks as if it is designed for live use when working without a drummer. However, it’s not just a bunch of pre-programed bars to play over. The foot pedal(s) control where you are in a song. Used live or as an aid to practice, it’s a performance tool. . The ‘live control functions’ work as follows:

 

* A tap will begin a song (Intro followed by a repeating ‘verse’).

* Further taps will play a fill (it will cycle through 3 available fills). The fills will time themselves perfectly regardless of when you stomp during play.

* A held press will trigger a ‘transition’ to a ‘chorus’. The transition acts as a fill of indeterminate length. Only when you release the press will it reach the chorus. It will return to verse when    next held down via a further transition.

*A double tap ends the song using with an ‘outro’.

 

A further slaved foot switch can be added. If it’s a BeatBuddy one, it will have 2 buttons that can be configured however you want them. The default setting is for button 1 to play an accent hit (a cymbal) and button 2 acts as a pause button. A further tap will restart the song with a fill. It’s useful for caesura moments in a song (eg: ‘Sweet Little 16’ has a lot of such pauses).

 

What it isn’t: Though you can control tempo with a knob, MIDI or tap control, you can’t change the song elements or create a new song using just the hardware. New song arrangements need to be created outside the unit and imported.

Another thing it isn’t: It’s not an effects pedal. It can be used independently through a separate amp, or through a separate input of your instrument amp.

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I bought the BB slave pedal which comes with an instrument stereo TRS patch cable. I also bought a MIDI cable so it would interface with my SIAB or keyboard (hopefully).

 

I used the unit through the Aux input of my Fishman acoustic amp, reasoning that it would sound better due to its wider range (regular guitar amps don’t have tweeters etc).

I had to download the latest firmware onto the supplied SD card. The card holds the default 200+ songs, 10 drum kits and the operating system. I also bought extra SD cards for backup. The software interface (via USB) is called BeatBuddy Manager. This is used to load or save out new songs and kits to SD card. The Manager can also be used to create new kits and edit existing songs. The Manager has its own a separate pdf manual.

 

So far I have used it as a practice aid. I felt an immediate benefit, though it will be even better for bass players. The small display screen is cleverly designed. Coloured coded screen displays let you know whereabouts in the song you are. The visual metronome is a vertical bar tracking across the screen counting bars. The screen shows SONG, GENRE, TIME SIGNATURE, SONG PART (eg: verse or fill), DRUM KIT and VOLUME.

 

The BeatBuddy is more comprehensive than the onboard drum songs in my SIAB. It has more drum kits (10) and songs with some juicy odd time signatures.  I wanted to use some of these for my recording. This is not what the BeatBuddy was created for, but this is the interesting thing. People seem to find different uses for this unit.

 

Here are two reviews by users whose opinion I value, Rob Chapman and Scott Grove. Both are using the BeatBuddy as a practice aid. Scott is making good use of his MIDI savvy in his video.

 

Rob Chapman

 

 

Scott Grove

 

 

The unit has 3 knobs used for VOLUME / DRUM SET / TEMPO.

There is a TAP button and 4 directional buttons for feature navigation.

It is supplied with SD card and a 9 volt power supply cable.

 

There is an USB link socket and stereo / mono inputs & outputs for ¼” jackplugs, MIDI and headphone sockets with a headphone volume dial.

It’s a well constructed robust looking unit (as is the slave footswitch). As usual with all such devices, the weakest link appears to be the power cable.

 

Difficult to rate this as its the only one of its kind (that I know of anyway). I am impressed with it and have high hopes it will be a flexible recording aid.

 

17-December-2016 RS

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Rudi
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