Can I use the Beatbox in a MIDI Editor?

Adam-Buchanan wrote on 4/11/2022, 9:51 PM

I'm a very new user to Music Maker and i'm loving it so far. I made a little groove with some of the default instruments already available to me, including a groove from the beatbox. I'm running into a limitation that I can't seem to workaround.

Every time I make a groove, it has to export and save itself to a .wav file, which then gets played and displayed in the timing as audio, which is different than the midi blocks I have for the electric guitar and other instruments. If I want to change a note or two in the guitar, it's as easy as using the Midi Editor, but for the beatbox, there's no such functionality.

I'm having to recreate the entire groove just to make a small edit, and building the drums off a previous one makes me have to start the groove from scratch each time. At this point i have dozens of probably similar one-time-use wav files of grooves I created and may not have even used: https://i.imgur.com/at7tA87.png

Is there a way to edit an existing beatbox groove, or somehow save/use them with the MIDI editor rather than wav files?

I purchased the Urban Drums VST instrument, but it's more complicated than what I'm looking to do at the moment and I can't get it to sound similar enough to the beatbox that comes standard. I am hoping that it's something simple i'm missing, thanks in advance!

Comments

Graham-Hawker wrote on 4/12/2022, 12:55 AM

As far as I can see Beatbox is very simplistic so your stuck with your creations. Unlike I believe the original Beatbox which was much more advanced and you could edit and also do standard stuff like panning of drum voices. It is true to say I have a thing against beatbox as it seems like a creation from 2001 not 2022. then again I don't like Urban Drums either which has some very weak sounds. But really the answer is a decent vst drum instrument and the midi editor.

johnebaker wrote on 4/12/2022, 3:40 AM

@Adam-Buchanan

Beatbox is based on preset sound loops for each of the drum kits, so is not MIDI.

Depending on the version of Music Maker there will be at least one or more drum kit VST's - eg Freedrum rock, Jazz drums, Pop drums.

AS @Graham-Hawker has commented, real VST drum kits are the way to go, another alternative would be to use existing Soundpool drum loops.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

emmrecs wrote on 4/12/2022, 4:22 AM

@Adam-Buchanan

Slightly OT from your question (which has been more than adequately answered by the previous posts) but there is software that will allow you to "edit/change" single or multiple notes within an already-recorded wav file, using something called its DNA (Direct Note Access) facility. That program is Melodyne from Celemony. It actually works in this scenario very well indeed. But it is most definitely NOT cheap, even for the "lowest" version that includes the DNA, and even in that version the DNA facility is monophonic only, i.e., limited to recordings of a solo voice or instrument, e.g., a flute, so cannot handle any polyphonic chordal instrument, e.g., a guitar or keyboard. Editing of individual notes within a polyphonic recording requires an even more expensive version of Melodyne!

Jeff
Forum Moderator

gjonny wrote on 4/12/2022, 5:09 PM

Also somewhat OT: you may find something on the Plugin Boutique site that does what you want.

MarcoStorm wrote on 4/13/2022, 7:25 AM

@Adam-Buchanan,

you could sequence the beatbox via midi objects if you send the notes on midi channel 10 (drums), starting from c1 7 notes up in the pinao roll. Make sure that you have not synced the play button, because then the you will play your midi pattern and the beatbox pattern together.