How ive used BM3 live
I’ve read a lot of stuff on this forum about BM3’s shortcomings and I just have to say that I think it’s brilliant. I think I paid “full price” for BM3 and it’s totally worth every penny. I’ve been using it live 2-4 times per week for the past 8 months. Yes there are quarks and I did think some of them would have already been addressed but none of them have made me stop using BM3.
I found BM3 in January when I was looking for an iPad app that I could use as an alternative to Abletons drum rack. I love that I can setup and play banks that mirror the drum pad I use as a midi controller without ever plugging anything into the iPad. Through an interface I’ve even mic’d up some perc elements and “processed” them in real time inside BM3 and then mixed them in with my samples. BM3 has allowed me to do stuff with an iPad I used to only be able to do with a laptop.
Here are some of the quarks I’ve found and my work arounds.
Loop latch settings. My drum pad doesn’t have the ability in hardware to do a “latch” or be constantly held down so that BM3 will keep looping a sample over and over. So inside BM3 I set the sample to loop and turn on the sustain pedal. I then setup a dummy “choke” pad with its volume all the way down. Add them both to the same choke group and problem solved. Through a bit of logic I’ve even set it up so that multiple pads can be linked and looping together and then stopped with a single pad hit. This is great when I ha e multiple loops I want to run at the same time but apply different effects to each one so I don’t want to use layers on a single pad.
Fixed velocity bug. Most of the time I want my samples to be at a fixed velocity but not all of the time. I process all of the midi from my drum pad through midiflow bypassing BM3s fixed velocity bug.
Quick tempo changes. I setup my sessions so that each bank is a different song. Again I use midiflow in combination with midi link sync to convey midi clock into ableton link and instantly change tempos as I cycle through banks in BM3.
Again I love BM3 and I’m excited for what it could turn into.
Comments
Hi,
I agree with you. I'm using it very simalrly with a Yamaha multi 12.. Drummer here.
Was wondering about 3) tempos.....
How do you store a tempo with a bank? I also would like to use a bank= song type of deal. But I need to set a starting tempo. Am I blind?:-)
And how is midi flow compared with midi fire?
Thanks for sharing your setup thoughts......bm3 is worth every penny I paid and more IMHO.
I recently switched from a SPDSX to a SamplePad pro. Since I’m just using it as a midi controller didn’t need the SPDSX and the SamplePad fits in my oversized backpack.
I store tempos inside midiflow. I have it set to change patches in midiflow with the same button that changes the BeatMaker bank.
I just got midifire because midiflow has been crashing on me recently but I haven’t been able to really use it yet.
Appreciate the info @jfox815 really. It sounds like an excellent workflow and props to you using BM3 in live situations.