What do you call a drummer that shows up to practice on time, keeps a steady rhythm, fits on your pedalboard, and doesn't hit on your significant other? The Beat Buddy! (Insert Beat Buddy-supplied rim-shot here.) And yes, you can indeed program one of the buttons on the external footswitch to do just this. Drummer jokes aside, the Beat Buddy is my new favorite thing. In short, it's the world’s first pedal-based drum machine. It's designed specifically for guitarists and bassists and is simultaneously a powerful tool and intuitive.
The story of the Singular Sound Beat Buddy begins in late 2013 when founder and CEO David Packouz launched an Indiegogo campaign to build a pedal-based drum machine. The initial campaign goal was $75,000 and it was raised within the first 24 hours! The campaign for the Beat Buddy ultimately raised more than four times that goal and ended at $249,057. Clearly, a pedal-based drum machine was an excellent (and popular) idea.
And while the Beat Buddy first came into the public eye with the Indiegogo campaign, the inspiration and engineering of the Beat Buddy began prior to 2013. Like so many great inventors before him, David conceived of the Beat Buddy to meet a real need in his playing and performance requirements. In short, he wanted a hands-free drum machine that he could manipulate with his feet. What he created may just be the best practice, song-writing, and performance tool of the 21st century.
At face value, the Beat Buddy is just a drum machine in pedal form. And quite frankly, that alone would make it pretty cool. But thanks to careful attention to detail and innovative engineering, it’s much more than that.
Build
It’s always refreshing when a new company arrives on the scene with a proprietary enclosure rather than the usual “project box” housing we’re so accustomed to in the effects world. It suggests that they have grand plans of being in this business for the long haul. And it means that this pedal is built by a real company, not some dude in his parent’s basement. It’s not that dudes in basements haven’t built great pedals. They have. They just don’t always last long enough to support their product for years to come.
But back to my point. The Beat Buddy enclosure shows attention to detail. Sure the shape of the pedal (and the footswitch) pay homage to the classic Boss design, but the pedal is larger and feels more substantial. The optional two-button external footswitch feels just as substantial and both units are painted in an attractive, heavy-duty silver metallic paint. The Beat Buddy straddles the line with regard to size and offers a large footswitch and user interface without taking up a huge amount of space. The optional footswitch will require that you offer up more pedalboard real estate, but the placement of the two buttons makes it easy to hit the one you are aiming for.
Getting Started
The Beat Buddy comes from the factory with an SD card loaded with 10 drum sets and 100 songs (grouped within 21 genres). Examples of the drum sounds available include rock, classic, hand, dance, ethereal, and even human voice. Yes, you read that correctly. The Beat Buddy can kick it, human beat box style. All you need to do is plug the Beat Buddy into head phones, a PA system, or other means of listening and start jamming. You can plug the Beat Buddy into your amp. It’s even setup to send a through signal of your guitar. Ideally though, you should run the Beat Buddy into a PA system or other full-range system. It won’t sound its best through your guitar amp and at extreme volumes, it could damage your speakers. For practicing at home, I used a set of high-quality computer speakers with a subwoofer and the Beat Buddy sounded great.
Now, start scrolling through your available drum sets. Next up, select your genre of choice and find a drum part you like. The exciting thing is that you can choose any drum set to play any pattern, so feel free to get crazy and use the "Country Brushes" to play a "Drum and Bass" pattern. Just promise to use this technology for good rather than evil—don't use it to create the next “Cotton Eye Joe!”
I fell in love with the Ethereal setting (it reminded me of mixed up by the Cure or other late-‘80s and early ‘90s electronic percussion). The Rock and Classic sets are also favorites of mine. All of the drum sounds in the Beat Buddy sound professional and I was able to use it to make some very convincing demo recordings.
You can set tempo with the scroll wheel if you know what tempo you are looking for. Or you can tap in the tempo with the handy "Tap" button that works just like the tap tempo switch on your delay pedal (the Beat Buddy comes out of the box ready to sense your tapped-in rhythm as quarter notes).
The Beat Buddy is insanely easy to use, but here’s the quick and dirty:
- Select a genre and drum set
- Dial in or tap in your tempo (if different than default tempo). There is no reason to do this if satisfied with default tempo.
- Tap the main foot switch once to start the song with an intro fill. It will then go to the first verse.
- Now any single tap triggers a “fill”. It will be different each time, just like a real drummer, and always in time, regardless of when pressed.
- Hold down the foot switch to transition into the “chorus,” the Beat Buddy will play a fill
- Release the foot switch to end the transition and start the “chorus”
- Hold down the foot switch to transition back into the “verse”
- Double tap the foot switch to end the song
When there is no song playing, you can hold down the footswitch to enter tap tempo mode. The optional two-button foot switch can trigger accent hits, pause the song, serve as a tap tempo input, and more. The Beat Buddy is highly functional without the optional switch, but the added versatility is awesome. It’s worth noting that the Beat Buddy will work with any latching or non-latching dual footswitches as long as they utilize a single TRS stereo output.
Multiple Uses
Incorporating the Beat Buddy into your songwriting or practice regime is much easier than you can imagine. With the huge range genres, beats, and drum sounds it's sure to open up your creative instincts and push your technique. You can even import midi drum parts for any songs you play. With the Beat Buddy software, it's extremely easy to do this. You can even create set lists for multiple gigs and then just scroll through song by song during your practice or live set. You can even do this scrolling hands-free by using the foot switch.
The ability to save songs adds even more versatility to an already impressive device. The fact that this is done via an SD card is just plain awesome. If you are managing multiple bands or projects, you can easily manage each on its own SD card. I’m not managing multiple projects, but I do have a large stash of half-completed songs. To simply my life, I use one SD card for completed songs (saved and labeled by name) and a second one for new ideas and uncompleted songs. If I’m in the mood to work on new ideas, I pop in one SD card. If it’s time to practice, I slip in the other.
The Save feature of the Beat Buddy is something I really fell in love with as I was writing this review. The drummer in my band frequently travels for work and misses practice. The Beat Buddy is now his stand-in. Sure, it’s not as simple as saying “Kevin, try this with more of a National feel,” but it’s pretty awesome.
Getting Better
Speaking of practice, I found the Beat Buddy to be an amazing rhythm training tool. I’ve never been good about sitting down and practicing with a metronome. Intellectually, I know I should—but it’s so boring. With the Beat Buddy, there’s a sea of drum sounds and patterns to choose from. And unlike a metronome you have multiple time signatures and visual cues to work with. I fell quickly in love with the visual metronome. The simplest way to explain the visual metronome is that there is a small translucent block that moves across the display as the beat plays. It’s especially helpful when playing in 5/4 or 7/4 (time signatures in which I do not shine) for keeping track of the down beat. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be a prog rock god. It’s doubtful, but the Beat Buddy certainly has more patience than any drummer I’ve practiced with.
Attention to Detail
With the Beat Buddy, Singular Sound did an amazing job with every detail. From the custom-designed enclosure, to the stellar drums sounds, to the easy to use interface, I can’t find anything to complain about. One of my favorite features is the included headphone output with volume control. Between the volume control for the drums and the headphone volume control it’s easy to strike a perfect balance between drums and guitar without blasting your eardrums. And even better, when paired with a decent speaker emulator (I paired the Beat Buddy with both a Line 6 POD and an Electro-Harmonix EHXTortion—both with great results) you have a near-perfect late-night or apartment practice rig.
To date, the Beat Buddy is the only product designed and manufactured by Singular Sound. It’s clear that along with that “singular sound,” they also have a “singular vision.” It’s quite impressive that they created such a great product straight out of the gate. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.