M-Live B.Beat 128GB

My band recently used the B.Beat for backing tracks, MIDI, and video projection for a show, and it worked well! Figured I'd share my experience with it. When I first got it, uploading the files to the B.Beat was very slow until I updated the firmware. Afterward, everything went smoothly and quickly. I found the app well designed, and I loved being able to easily select outputs, rearrange songs, and keep everything organized. I also appreciate being able to run a second one as a spare on stage. I did run into a problem with MIDI for lighting, so I reached out to the company for support. My show was in 2 days after I contacted them, and they solved the issue quickly. Stefano was incredibly helpful and kept me updated during the entire process. It was the best experience with technical support staff that I had ever experienced. I feel confident that if I ever run into an issue again, they will take care of it. They're proactive with improvements and new features, which is an added bonus. Overall, I like the B.Beat a lot for its capabilities and design. I don't know of any other company that's currently doing what M-Live is doing.

I bought this to reinforce live sound by allowing a full band to play modularly with a backing track should certain members not be free for a show, while also allowing the band to sync their midi devices.

The sound quality is about what you put in to it. If you want to have the best quality, mastered and EQ treated mono WAV files is absolutely the way to go. It will play the sound from the channel you assign it to exactly as you dropped it in. I haven't noticed any additional saturation, EQ anomalies, or compression. It plays the files perfectly.

The included app is very intuitive and it's very simple to get what you want out of it in terms of dropping WAVs in. I found the midi implementation to be a small headache as I can't get certain PCs (Program Changes) to always trigger correctly, and even troubleshooting using a midi device in between the instruments and the B Beat seems to confirm that it occasionally just doesn't send the messages. Not sure what to make of that but maybe a firmware patch will resolve it. In terms of syncing to tempo and start/stop on loopers, I haven't noticed any problems at all. The problem seems tied to the sending of PCs from from what I can tell.

The amount of memory on it is insane for the price. We haven't begun to experiment with video files yet but at present I've got 25 songs on it with several backup routing available (such as bass, drums, guitars, percussion, as required for each show) as well as Midi data, and I've barely made a dent in the memory. Maybe this will change a little in the future when video files are dropped in, but it also allows for looping of video clips and arranging on the app, so don't anticipate it getting too full.

I was a little surprised at the build quality. It feels robust in some ways but fragile in others. I find myself being really careful around it as it's hard plastic and feel that a bad knock to the ground could do some serious damage to it. Guess I'll just be extra careful!

Overall this bit of kit fills a niche that previously involved midi slave devices and looper pedals doing things they weren't designed for - if you have a need to have backing tracks for your show and don't want to go the laptop route, this is an absolute no brainer solution to that problem.