M-Live B-Beat. The first 24 hours with it, the good & bad. 

be interested to hear if you do get a second unit and sync them as a redundancy back-up arrangement. We've yet to take advantage of the midi features but hope to run the DMX lighting show using midi

As of the time of this comment, M-Live has released the Pro-16 version of this unit with all the latest updates

thanks for sharing that, @lucasjuniorproducer. Top tip (for everyone) is therefore carry a spare power-supply unit. Readers take note!

hi, thanks for your interest. I have always found the unit starts as soon as you press play- no delay. Apparently the new firmware (4.5) starts even quicker (pre-loads videos for this purpose) though i have no complaints with it as it was before. (4.1) The play button can skip to the next track ONLY if you double-tap it. As its a physical button it needs physical-intention to do this, unlike a touch-screen that may easily get double-triggered Regarding the stop button, you have understood. However, if you are in "live mode" you can not exit the setlist. hitting stop once is pause, a second hit rewinds to frame one of the video ready to restart that song. In live mode you can go no further but you can then use the up/down arrows to get the next song and (owing to a bug in the 4.5 firmware) the holding-screen does not appear. We therefore press stop a 3rd time (no using live mode) to exit the playlist and to display our holding-screen image. It only takes a couple of seconds to re-enter the playlist and get the next song running. I think they will fix this very soon though. Please check out my other b-beat videos if you havent done yet. Might answer further questions. Disclaimer: I offer no tec-support and have no affiliation with the company but happy to share my findings and experience with you.

i have yet to use the midi feature but it has one midi-output so, assuming you use no more than 16 channels, this appears possible

We have 2 Kempers and a DMX Controller and everything switches ControlChanges or NoteOn controls simultainiously on seperate Midi Channels. The device has a mini-TRS Midi Output but I soldered a XLR socket on a standard Mini-TRS cable because for Midi Connections between devices we only use XLR - because an XLR cable you'll find everywhere.

​@@floriankunde6699Awesome- any tips on programming up a DMX show? Guess it depends how many fixtures you have. What gear do you use to get from midi to DMX ?

@@SLATEB0Y Right now we use a Showtec Scanmaster 1 with Midi input and DMX output. We have 4 fixtures but it's very limited in programming for example if you want moving head top red and led bar red together you have to create an extra scene in the device and e.g it gets C2 as Midi Note. If you want only moving head top red you need a new scene e.g F#-1 and then in the DAW you can program that NoteOn controls for each scene. I also made a matrix in Excel to have an overview. But I'm starting to switch over to Raspberry pi with Midi input and DMX output with QLC+

the midi out is on a 1/8" jack (no midi in). To control various items you'd be best to have each piece of gear on its own midi channel. The hard task is programming your midi sequence to do all these jobs. You may wish to split your midi rather than run them all in series.

Your story sounds exactly like ours. (Take a look here- ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tcfD_6w1bcs.html You can do as many selfists (playlists) as you wish. Sounds like we're a band who has the same demands as you guys. We previously had ipad running click=L, track=R very reliably (+video sometimes). plug'n'play. Considered all the laptop +software options and its getting on for £2k plus the faff. Many people choose this route and the reliability varies. The B-beat offers click+multitrack outs, hdmi video (and midi) Our drummers (we use some deps) have found it intuitive to use and prefer it over the ipad notably dedicated buttons as opposed to a touch screen. Have gigged it over a dozen times now and it has served us well. Depending what the gig is we call up the playlists for that occasion. One occasion we were a member down but had their parts on a separate out so fed the desk with that instead. The only time you might struggle is if you are the kind of band that chooses songs on the fly. BTW i am not endorsed by the company, just an end user who still has a few gripes about the unit (see my other videos) hope that info helps!

@@SLATEB0Y ah, thanks so much for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated! I think I’ll take the plunge. It seems too good to be true in a way, so the fact that you’re getting on well with it in a similar scenario gives me a lot more confidence. Being that we only have live drums, bass, guitar and lead vocals on the lower budget shows, I really want the track to be stereo to get as bigger sound as possible, it also means I can create different playlists for different size shows utilising the multiple outputs to add or takeaway parts when necessary without having to muck about with the backing tracks in logic. I can just output BV’s for example on one channel when needed and not use that output when the singers are on a show. Thanks again for the great advice. Hopefully see you round on the circuit one day! Cheers, Tim 👍🏻

@@timpricedrums again, our thoughts too. We want stereo tracks too. You have 6 outputs so effectively 3 x stereo (or 2x stereo + 2x mono, however you like) You assign them to "families" (which us their name for "subgroups") that you can mute individually and easily at a gig. Only downside (and i hope they fix this) is that all groups are un-muted on power up so you'd need to do mute the unwanted ones these every time you turn the thing on. However, you could create a set of songs and playlist for each scenario. Let us know how you get on!

@@SLATEB0Y nice one. Will do! Thanks again 👍🏻

All i can say is, so far so good. done about ten gigs since having it. Prior to that we were using an ipad for video+track playback, which was very reliable but limited to stereo audio (click+backing) I guess piece of kit could die mid-set. I had a cable fail mid-gig recently and that was not nice (not related to the b-beat). Whatever you do, always have a back up plan!

We have this unit for quiet a year now and in a live situation we had no hickups or cut outs - luckily! If you had set up a Show with different scenes in the BBEAT Manager software, you can start the next song and/or stop a song with a footswitch and can set the time between two songs and so on...

@@floriankunde6699 great to hear. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the device. Keep us updated with and any other related items.

For non-video gigs, looking good. Still trying to find the best way to prepare a video show with holding screen in between songs. Hope to gig it in a few weeks time when the drummer (who will be operating it) gets familiar with the system

@@SLATEB0Y I am not sure but you mentioned a double click option to jump to the next track. Maybe you can do that with the video stuff. Create a longer track/thing for the video and when the next track start double tap on play and it jumps to it? I will get mine this week so I am just speculating, let me know if it works :) Cheers.

Best you contact technical support. I am not affiliated with them whatsoever, just an end-user. However, its worth trying a different power-supply first.

some things have been fixed and improved since this video was made but with each update new features come with new issues, most of which dont stop us gigging with the unit. Check out my playlist for my personal gripes:ru-vid.com/group/PLlq_NCoWjKR92vWl1_1jHwnxOZ0YA8vT1

Some valid points there. It is worth investing in a sturdy case for this. The "pro" version addresses all the points you state though the price is double. The b-beat is still one of the most cost effective and dedicated option available today. Given the choice would you but one pro-unit or two b-beats (main+backup) ?

Thanks for the comments. As you can probably tell, it was a quick-video filmed on a phone where i couldnt justify investing time in any video or audio post-production (uploaded it straight to youtube). As this is not uncommon with "amateur" videos, you might prefer listening on a different system if it causes you discomfort and avoiding using headphones to lessen any disorientation effects.

You can set your system audio to playback in mono in Android, not sure about Apple.