Guitar Tricks Insider April/May Digital Edition | Page 60

GEAR REVIEW

SINGULAR SOUND –
“BEATBUDDY”
FOOT PEDAL
Review By Dave Celentano

STREET PRICE $299
Bye-bye, metronome. Say hello to your new friend,
“BeatBuddy” – a hands-free, on-the-fly, controllable drum
machine in a stomp box format. Who is it for? BeatBuddy
is designed with the guitarist in mind; but every musician
– instructor, solo artist, songwriter, and music student
can use it. The intuitive design is perfect for those who
want artistic control of the drums without spending
hours programming a drum machine. Within minutes of
unwrapping the box you’ll have tons of drum content at
your fingers – err, feet! In December, 2013, founder and
CEO David Packouz and his crew at Singular Sound ran a
crowdfunding campaign to launch BeatBuddy. Within 24
hours their $75,000 goal was completely funded. When
all was said and done they had reached almost $350,000
– history’s most successful funding drive for a musical
accessory. Now that’s amazing!

plus a hold for two seconds transitions to the next
section, and a quick double tap plays a fill to end
the song. Perfect timing is not required to insert
fills. The machine intuitively calculates where
specifically you hit in the measure, and plays an
appropriate fill ending on the first beat of the next
bar. Genius! It comes with a preloaded SD card
containing 10 drum kits, 21 different styles, and
200 songs, plus access to more content online.
It’s worth mentioning that the SD card must be
inserted in the unit before operating, so make sure
to bring it with you to the gig. Part of the pedals’
simplicity is that you can’t create new beats or kits
with it, but additional ones can be used via MIDI
and WAV files.

BeatBuddy lets you effortlessly control accents, drum fills,
and transitions between song sections and all by foot.
Operating a drum machine has never been this painless
and uncomplicated! There’s something for just about
every musical taste: rock, metal, blues (straight and swing),
jazz, Latin, funk, reggae, R&B, punk, country, techno,
world, and even odd times like 5/4 and 7/8. To retain a
human feel, they used real drummers without quantizing.
And it shows. The sounds are inspiring, dynamic, groovefriendly, and perfect for practice, recording, song writing,
and gigging. There’s nothing to program. Just plug in and
play! Easy breezy.

FEATURES
The drum patterns are organized in menu form
as “songs” containing two sections. For instance,
verse and chorus, three different fills, song intro
fill, and ending fill. Navigate between parts with
a tap of the foot. A single tap starts the song,
another tap plays one of three different fills, a tap
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DIGITAL EDITION

APR/MAY