I’d be the first one to buy that. The beebo is the only music gear I own at the moment that needs a power socket.
There’s some crosstalk between channels on mine, FYI.
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Ahh good to know. So best as a single effect as a time deal?
I mean, other people seem ok with it? And I’ve been meaning to go dig into gain structure etc and see if there’s anything I can do to get it cleaner, but I haven’t been using it much lately.
These questions are coming from a more guitar-oriented perspective than I bet many participants in this thread are used to, but this seemed to be the most active discussion of Beebo/Digit on the web, so I thought I’d try and see if anyone here had any thoughts on some questions I’ve recently had with regards to this device.
I’ve recently become interested in the Poly Beebo/Digit and have now seen a few out on the market for very reasonable prices, so I’d be grateful if any current or previous owners could help me out with a few questions to inform my decision whether to get one or not.
So, by way of background, I run an HX Stomp-based ampless guitar rig – more details about it (and a demo) here. I use the Stomp for amp modeling and IRs, plus delay and occasional modulation, with a Source Audio Ventris for reverb (because I think it sounds a little better than most of the Helix reverbs, and it helps free up DSP on the Stomp), and an EHX Super Pulsar because that one does a good repeat percussion tremolo sound (a very percussive ramping down sawtooth) with envelope control. (I also use some dirt pedals in front of the Stomp but that won’t be very germane to my questions).
So my questions are:
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What are the tremolo options on the Beebo like? Most importantly: can it do a good repeat percussion sound? (As an illustration of what I think of as a good repeat percussion sound, think the characteristic Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized sounds – if you’re unsure, I can provide some examples in links. As an illustration of what I think of as a not good enough repeat percussion sound, I’d cite the Helix’s ‘ramp down’ tremolo setting – it’s not percussive and 'ping’y enough!). I assume that it’d be very possible with the configurability of the Beebo to set the tremolo speed to be envelope controlled, but I wonder about the quality of this specific tremolo sound, given my quite specific wants.
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How much DSP does the Beebo have? How many effects can you run in a given patch? I know this is completely dependent on WHICH specific blocks you run and how, but if anyone could give me some illustrations on how many and which effects they run before their Beebo/Digits start giving up, that’d be helpful. In my dream world, the Beebo would be able to run two different amp IRs in stereo, a stereo envelope-controlled tremolo, and a convolution IR reverb, as that would help me simplify my setup a fair bit. I realise that dream is probably wildly overoptimistic, but would stereo amp IRs + stereo envelope-controlled tremolo and maybe some other less DSP-intensive effect be possible within a patch? In that case, that might well be good enough for me.
If any owners/previous owners would be able to weigh in on either of these questions, it’d be much appreciated! Thanks in advance!
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New firmware update 3.25:
https://www.polyeffects.com/firmware
Seems like the latency is still not addressed unfortunately.
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I was hoping this thing works like “The Finger” where the effects chain order is established by which order you engage them. Very much a poly effects device.
I’m guessing it does not do that?
New modules: A tuner, matrix mixer, 33 new MIDI utility modules, clock divider, trigger to gate with note length.
nice.
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Yeah, that was the dealbreaker for me (and the missing Ableton Link support via WiFi dongle that was promised).
They must still be working on the FM synth (Dexed port I think) as I thought that was coming in the next update.
Not a lot of love for Hector yet, it still feels very much like a guitar pedal with a few Eurorack connections (I guess that what it is) but it has so much more potential…be great if one day the Hector and Beebo had slightly different OS’s (so all the hector patches weren’t referring to the footswitches that aren’t their)
Yeah, it’s all right for non real time effects imo, delay and reverb etc. But when I let a guitarist friend try it out, he noticed the latency straight away. He felt like something was ‘off’ when playing the guitar through it, even dry with no effects added.
I’m really curious about getting a Beebo to pair with my Digitakt. I don’t think I really need more than one groovebox (although I’m tempted by a Digitone) but I think something like this (or e.g. a Zoia) would add a lot of fun and value.
Do I understand correctly that I could actually build simple synths as well as FX? I watched some videos and it looks like there are Mutable Instruments clones as well as basic oscillators etc but I got a bit confused as to whether there is any difference between Beebo, Digit or the eurorack one. It also looks like it would be possible to send MIDI the other way back to the Digitakt with Euclidean sequencing etc? The MIDI CC mapping looks very easy also, I could use those 8 MIDI channels on the Digitakt to control FX params with very little fuss.
It looks like a lot of stuff for £450 and even if you just used simple FX (not massive mega-patches) or a looper then it would add an extra dimension to the Digitakt. £450 doesn’t go that far with desktop devices at the moment and this looks like pretty good value for money.
Yep, it’s a great little device, and you can do all of those things. There are a ton of interesting presets included to get you started, and people share others on patchstorage. Loki (the developer) keeps adding new stuff in firmware updates all the time. Although for full disclusure, I mainly use it a multi-effect rather than a synth, so I’ve never used the MIDI out on it, and really only clocked it over MIDI. Also I should probably point out that I am currently unsure i will keep it. For my workflow, while I really like the concept, the touchscreen is a bit too fiddly, and I’ve found that when I want to do complicated FX chains I generally just end up doing it ITB.
Beebo and Digit were originally two pedals sold with different firmwares. they had the same hardware platform but with different modules on the firmware-- one was a firmaware for supporting convolution reverbs/ cab simulations, and the other had the Mutable Instruments clones and other affects iirc. You could swap between the two on the pedal, so if you bought a Digit you could just change it to a Beebo by selecting an option and rebooting, and vice versa. But a while ago, the Beebo and Digit firmwares were merged and so only Beebo exists now. Hector is same thing, but in Eurorack form and with CV inputs/outputs. As far as I know, it has all the same modules as Beebo, the only difference is it supports external CV.
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Thanks for the detailed response, appreciate it. I have plenty of software options including Bitwig which is a monster multi-fx playground but I’m deliberately trying to get away from the computer. I code all day for a living so I need a break! I also need to avoid option paralysis which I always get with software synths and plugins.
Heh, you might find you get option paralysis with the Beebo, too, there are a lot of modules in there (probably more than in the manual – the firmware gets updated frequently, the manual less so). I’ll ping you if I decide to sell mine instead of trading it.
Yeah for sure there’s a lot of options. It’s really about one thing at a time though, if that makes sense. I can use it as a looper and have fun with that. Another day I’ll load a granular ambient patch and play the Digitakt through it. I can handle that amount of choice. What I can’t handle (and it’s been haunting me for 20 years) is too many plugins, too many samples, too many FX and an empty DAW timeline staring back at me! I can’t get any enjoyment from the computer environment any more. Just trying to be honest with myself!
HI everyone – I’ve found a used Beebo that I’m thinking of getting. It’s serial #200 (or something close) with the old Digit faceplate – does anyone know if there’s any difference between these and the newer ones other than the MIDI connection type? Thx ; )
I know when one of my Beebos had a screen issue and I dropped into the Poly Effects factory to get it fixed Loki mentioned mine had the type of encoder that he preferred (clicky type) but couldn’t source any more. (mine serial 322 digit, 91 beebo - both same encoders), so one could ascertain that they changed over time.
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Do any of you have exemples of interesting synths built with this pedal ? Thx.
no