MAJOR Update- BeatBuddy Default Content v2

published August 28, 2019

Since the BeatBuddy was first introduced to the musicians’ world, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Along with it, we have also gotten requests for improvements to various aspects of the product.

Several months ago, I set myself on an intricate mission- to analyze over 2000 beats and fills, as well as the drumsets and improve anything that could be improved. Many months, weeks and countless hours later, I am happy to present you with your improved default content- v2.0!

Everything sounds even better, groovier and more musical!

What changed?

The folder structure, most of the songs and song parts are where they were. However, almost all beats and most of the drums fills have been tweaked one way or another. Types of adjustments include:

Microdynamics: eg. hi-hats having a better ratio of accented and non-accented notes, finer ghost notes on the snare.

Groove: small tweaks were made to make beats tighter, groovier and to loop smoothly. The human feel is still present.

Simplification of varying beats: if a beat contained too many variations, it was simplified and shortened to a 2-bar phrase or a 4-bar phrase on occasion.

Simplification of fills: many drum fills were replaced with very simple fills, while others were edited, simplified and quantized to better fit with beats.

Drum mapping change of Latin drumset

Drum samples replacement: Standard, Jazz and Latin kits

Drumsets mix and levels- all drumsets had individual components adjusted and overall volumes adjusted to be uniform.

All Premium drumsets have also been tweaked, so if you own some, you should download the latest version of them from your Library account.

While beat, fill and song names were kept, each beat and fill file that was changed is marked with either an “!” or with a “+” at the end of the name.

A detailed list of all changes.

The Most Significant Changes

Jazz Genre– The Jazz genre was re-recorded and edited from scratch. It has no resemblance to the original one. Previous songs were discarded. All beats are tight to the click and contain human feel appropriate for a particular tempo they were made for.

Jazz Drumset– the Jazz drumset features a newly sampled snare drum with a tighter and nicer-sounding tone. Toms 2 and 3 and kick were remixed and reedited to sound warmer and cleaner. The new Jazz grooves sound very authentic and realistic when played on the updated Jazz kit.

Latin Drumset– a major overhaul of the drum mapping for percussion components. The new mapping is significantly simpler. Congas and low timbale were EQ’d to reduce overtone ringing. New instrument- guira.
Here is the PDF of new Latin mapping, along with the old one and changes made.

Latin Genre– all beats were edited to conform to the new drum mapping. Authentic latin human feel was applied to all beats. Microdynamics were improved.

Standard Drumset– new snare drum samples resulting in a tighter sound. New toms were mixed and edited, resulting in a punchier sound that gets out of the way quicker and has less ambiance.

NOTE: While drumsets were updated and will show version numbers in their names on the computer, they will display their normal default names within the BeatBuddy Manager.

There is now a newer version of the content with multiple options for upgrades, depending on your particular needs.

See this post

How To Update- READ CAREFULLY

If you have not used the BB Manager, don’t have any custom or Premium content and just wish to update your pedal, you can simply DOWNLOAD THIS SD CARD BACKUP, and unzip all of its contents onto an empty SD Card.

If you have any custom or Premium content and intend to use the BB Manager, proceed with the following.

The procedure is broken down into 3 stages: BACKUP, CLEAN UP and INSTALL.

BACKUP

If you created your own songs and folders- export them from your existing project within BeatBuddy Manager to a location on your computer. Start the BeatBuddy Manager and open up your existing project that contains your songs. Navigate to the folder you wish to export. Go to File->Export->Folder.
To export an individual song, go to File->Export->Song. You will need to export each folder you wish to backup individually. When you are done, CLOSE THE BEATBUDDY MANAGER BEFORE PROCEEDING.
If you purchased individual Premium Library albums or drumsets- you will need to re-import them into the Default Content Project v2.0. You should re-download them from your Premium Library account.
If you purchased the Complete Collection, you can re-download the entire package that contains all changes to default content, updated drumsets, and Premium content.

CLEANUP

Because this is a major update, you will need to remove your existing drumsets, to be replaced with the updated ones. For example: New Latin beats will not be compatible with the old Latin drumset and vice versa. There are 3 locations where you need to check and do a clean up. Before you begin, make sure that you can view hidden files and folders on your computer.

First, remove all contents of the default_lib folder within your BBWorkplace directory on your computer. Mine is here:

C:\Users\Goran\Documents\BBWorkspace\default_lib\

You will be deleting the following folders and their contents: drum_sets, midi_sources, projects, songs, wave_sources.

Second, navigate to user_lib to delete all default and premium drumsets you find there:

C:\Users\Goran\Documents\BBWorkspace\user_lib\drum_sets

If you created some drumsets of your own, leave them in there. Delete all others.

Third, remove your existing user projects:

C:\Users\Goran\Documents\BBWorkspace\user_lib\projects

For safety’s sake, I recommend that you move them out of the projects folder to another backup location on your computer. If you don’t see any projects there, but you have used them within BB Manager, you are probably not seeing hidden files and folders. Google it.

If you wish to do so, you can leave your projects there, but do navigate to each project’s drum_set folder and delete all drumsets within.

INSTALL

Download the BeatBuddy Default Content v2.0 zip archive to your computer.
Download all of your purchased Premium Library content from your account.
Unzip the Default Content v2.0 archive you just downloaded into the default_lib folder within your BBWorkspace. Mine is here:

C:\Users\Goran\Documents\BBWorkspace\default_lib

5 folders, containing all content will be copied: drum_sets, midi_sources, projects, songs, wave_sources. Don’t worry about some folders being empty. Everything is there.

Start the BeatBuddy Manager. Then go to File->Open Project and navigate to BeatBuddy Default Content v2.0 – project you just created.
Once you load the Default Content v2.0 project, proceed to add all of the Premium packages you purchased and any songs you created and previously exported to the computer. If you forgot how to do it, watch the video on our tutorials page.
And finally, to get this project into your SD Card, simply insert your SD Card into the reader, then to go File-> Export->Project To SD Card. Navigate to your card when prompted, overriding any existing content there. It will take a minute for the content to be copied over.

That’s it. Once the BeatBuddy Manager gets beefed up, the procedure will hopefully get easier. Have fun with your BeatBuddy!

Goran Rista