Will the B2M work for me?

The B2M™ Universal Bass to MIDI Converter.

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worldfamousandy
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2010 2:19 pm

Will the B2M work for me?

Post by worldfamousandy »

I'm very new at midi, so I don't completely understand it. I've got a new Macbook Pro, and really dig recording in GarageBand. I use an M-Audio Fast Track for my bass, and I also have a small keyboard with usb, which is fantastic for midi sounds. I recently discovered that GarageBand can generate musical notation of my recordings, but it can only do that for midi tracks. I ain't much of a keyboard player, so I want to be able to convert my bass to midi. I see that the B2M has no usb connection. Do I need something else to accomplish my goal, or is there a way to make this work for me?
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james
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Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:12 pm

Re: Will the B2M work for me?

Post by james »

To connect the B2M to your Mac you need a MIDI input port. The M-Audio Fasttrack doesn't have one of these, so you'd need a simple USB-MIDI converter (M-Audio do some, as do many other companies). Our new product, the i2M musicport, is like the B2M but has a built-in USB connection so it will connect directly to your Mac without any extra hardware. It's also USB-powered (no batteries), smaller than the B2M and has more features, but it's a bit more expensive than the B2M.

Both B2M and i2M musicport, work great with GarageBand and a bass guitar, and you get much more natural results that using a keyboard because the nuances of your playing (particularly timing, note velocity and pitch-variations) are accurately captured. Musical notation works too, but it's never 100% accurate because you can sometimes get the wrong note, depending on your playing, tuning/intonation, etc. But cleaning up a few wrong notes is usually much simpler than trying to do the input with a keyboard in the first place.

This video demo of the i2M musicport uses GarageBand. The discussion on MIDI also applies to the B2M:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tho3t7UC_Ec
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