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Hardware Sequencers => BeatStep => General Discussion on BeatStep => Topic started by: nolongerhuman on August 13, 2014, 11:35:30 am

Title: As of August - Does anyone have reliable sync in Ableton?
Post by: nolongerhuman on August 13, 2014, 11:35:30 am

I see endless posts about the issues with the Beatstep, and generally, there is some limited support that just kind of fades away without the issue being resolved.

So... I am wondering before I just sell this thing... here are my issues, maybe someone has a fix or a work around.

Sync. I can't find any reliable way to get beatstep to be anything close to reliable in terms of recording MIDI notes into ableton from a sequence on the Beatstep.

Tempo. There is no tempo display anywhere on the machine, or in the MCC software. This *must* be done from the DAW, correct? You can change the tempo on the beatstep, but... it's pretty much pointless since there is no way except by ear, to know what tempo you set.

MCC sync. It's spotty at best on a Mac with Mavericks. It works...then stops working.

Note values. Again, MCC doesn't really keep much track of where notes are set, so, you are playing by ear based on whatever transposition setting in MCC, or done with the knob on the Beatstep, and in control mode, the knobs don't change pad note at all... only when programming a sequence.

All of this quickly amounts to a unit designed for single track - melodic - tempo based sequences, that literally handicaps your ability to do *exactly those two things* which turns it into an inexpensive toy with very cool lights.

I am not particularly angry about any of it, more or less confused. Unless I am missing something, what precisely is the point of this product in a professional environment? That's not to say it can't be used, but why would a company go out of their way to cripple every single good idea by (at least the way I see it) making you totally out of the loop as to your note values, your tempo... those are the fundamentals of the device.

More confounding, is the support here on the forums. Arturia seems mystified about how to solve any of the issues. Friendly, but evasive, and with a rather striking lack of information. So, yea, if there are any beatstep masters out there, let me know if you have found work arounds for any of the above. If this is a case of just throwing a product to market and assuming the masses will bite because it looks like it should be useful and is $100, sure. I did. Still though as a whole, it honestly kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth being used to beta test what essentially feels like a unit intentionally crippled to the point of uselessness in a great amount of situations (in my studio in particular.) I think I am mostly just disappointed at the possibilities this *could* have had, and utterly missed the mark instead.

Title: Re: As of August - Does anyone have reliable sync in Ableton?
Post by: WattSekunde on February 02, 2015, 10:00:05 am

Very well said. I agree with you on every point.
The only workaround will be a massively improved firmware.

I am an electronic engineer and like the Beatstep hardware but dislike the firmware. Maybe someone has the time to hack the STM32F103R8 ARM M3 CPU/MCU in this thing and come up with an open source firmware. If I had the time I would love to do this. But why do the homework for Arturia?

This thing could sell like cut bread! In my opinion it's now a bad starter for Beatstep Pro.

Arturia can massively improve his standing with an error-free firmware update for Beatstep. Come on - it's not rocket science!

Title: Re: As of August - Does anyone have reliable sync in Ableton?
Post by: Gothboy on February 20, 2015, 12:42:16 am

I have yet to use Beatstep in an Ableton session...but that is what I got it for...to use with Ableton.  Whoa I guess I'm in for it.  :o ::) :-\ All I've done so far to learn a bit about it is use it with some hardware synths and softsynths just to muck about and get a feel for it.  I put it in external sync, record enabled the AU track and let it run in Ableton but just one synth track and the click to see if the sync was true.  Tight with Oddity synth a bit off with a NordLead 2.  I'm going to test this with SparkLE 2 doing the drums.
     If this is in fact an issue I'm taken aback that Arturia has done nothing to fix this....let alone address the issue.  Not good.
Has anyone reported this straight to Arturia?

Title: Re: As of August - Does anyone have reliable sync in Ableton?
Post by: Gothboy on February 20, 2015, 02:38:06 am

I've just tried to record a sequencer pattern into Live.  I followed the short Sync with Live .pdf.  It doesn't sync. ??? :( >:(  Nor does it sync into Pro Tools even though there's no instructions on how to do this I think I had that right.  I figured this would've been fixed with the 1.1 firmware update.  I'm not happy what good is a sequencer that doesn't sync with a DAW?

Can anyone report that it records midi notes in sync with any other DAW?

Title: Re: As of August - Does anyone have reliable sync in Ableton?
Post by: Gothboy on February 20, 2015, 04:31:12 pm

I kept at it:  Use record quantize and it then works fine even with hardware synths!