Singular Sound BeatBuddy MINI 2: Hands Free Drum Machine Guitar Effect Pedal

I got this as a gift for my bassist boyfriend. He loves it. He’s been using it for a year and says all great things about it. It’s the most realistic sounding drums or all drum machines he’s ever used. The controls are very intuitive and easy to use. The amount of drum samples and adjustments makes it a great value for the money. It’s great for practicing and writing songs. The small size makes it very portable and easy to add to a pedal board. It has programmable drum fills and changes so you it can be used for live performances. My boyfriend really wanted this one so I got it for him for his birthday a year ago and he’s been using it all the time since. Highly recommended.

Great tool for playing or practicing. It really delivers. Pros - great sound, ease of use, quality build, good display, good instructions. Did I mention it sounds great! Transitions and fills are a snap. Very fun. Cons - no way to slow the tempo on the fly. I get tired of reaching down to change the settings...I suppose I could fork over a few more bucks for the footswitch. Definitely worth the money. Has reinvigorated my interest in playing guitar, and has improved my timing. Note: I use an acoustic guitar amplifier with the Beat Buddy. It sounds really bad (distant, low volume, bad sound) if you use an electric guitar amp. (This is clearly spelled out in the instructions).

Overall it's a good device. It sounds great. But it has a few issues that make it harder for me to use: 1. Biggest issue: can't lock the tempo. If I set a tempo, every time I change song or genre the tempo changes. That means I need to go back and set the tempo again which isn't an easy process. 2. Can't disable the outro. There's a way to disable the intro but not the outro. 3. I wish when I changed the songs/genres it wouldn't stop the beat. I wish it would just continue playing seamlessly. 4. The beats are very basic. It would've been fairly easy for them to add more professional sounding patterns and perhaps a few more variations of samples. They could've added hundreds of more patterns though. But when I go to hip hop for example, there's just a handful of basic beats. I know the bigger beatbuddy addresses a lot of these issues, but what I've listed here are easy implementations as far as software dev goes, so they could have added it to the mini as well.

I never really used a metronome when I started playing guitar, but learned eventually that my playing suffered from occasional lapses in timing. Simply tapping my foot just wasn't enough. I bought this and noticed, almost immediately, that I never saw myself speeding away like I often do on my own when playing to my own backing track through a looper pedal, for instance. I can almost see the pocket, if that makes sense, and it feels really good. And it's simple to use and fun. There's always a moment where I realize I'm enjoying myself. That's really cool. The website is helpful, too. The only negative, (and it's my fault not that of the pedal), is that there's so many different kind of beats that I feel I'm under-utilizing the pedal by sticking to the country/rock/blues selections. Massive number of options and immense room to grow.? That's a good problem to have. Loving this pedal!

I thought it was going to be super cheesy and I wouldn’t use it. I was wrong. I can’t imagine practicing my triads without this now. Definitely better when not played through your guitar amp. It’s super fun.

I’d heard a lot of great things about Singular Sound and the BeatBuddy line, so I was genuinely excited to try this pedal. And to be fair, there’s a lot to like here. The Mini 2 is solidly built, very easy to set up and use, and it offers a nice selection of drum kits, styles, and features for the price. That said, there is one important limitation with this particular model that ended up being a deal-breaker for me. Just know that you shouldn't move away from Singular Sound or other models in the BeatBuddy line because of this - there other models probably don't have the same limitation, but for that you will need to pay more. Because the Mini 2 uses internal audio loops for its beats, every few bars the pattern has to cycle back to the beginning of the loop. When that happens, there’s a small but noticeable timing hiccup — sometimes it sounds like a brief stutter, a clipped hit, or a tiny drop in the groove. It’s subtle, but once you notice it, it’s hard to ignore. From what I’ve been able to find, this isn’t a defect in my unit, but rather a design trade-off of this specific model. It seems to be related to how the Mini 2 handles its internal audio playback, and other users have reported similar behavior. For some players, this may not matter much at all — especially if you’re just using it casually or for short patterns. But as a bass player, staying locked into a steady pocket is everything, and that tiny disruption every few bars was enough to throw me off while practicing. I still think Singular Sound makes great products, and this limitation appears to be specific to the Mini 2 rather than the BeatBuddy line as a whole. It's almost certainly a compromise they had to make in order to keep the price point so relatively low. I’m likely going to look at one of their higher-end models instead, since this simpler, more affordable version makes a few compromises that affect timing-sensitive playing. If you’re considering this pedal, it’s a good idea to be aware of this behavior so you can decide whether it matters for your style of playing.

This system is professional sounding, surprisingly easy to use, and has a huge amount of built-in beats. Actually hearing the drummer's cues (e.g. the 2 and the 4 in jazz) has made me a better piano player in a few weeks. Based on this experience I say -> replace your metronome immediately! My only improvement to offer is that I wish I had more control on selecting beats, tempo, etc. without having to purchase the supplemental pedal board.

It's very rare that I buy a piece of equipment and am able to use it within fifteen minutes and enjoy it. Although I am computer savvy, I am going on 60 and do not have the patience for long dreary manuals, going through multiple programs, menus, etc. I had this up and running and playing Green Onions with a serious funky drummer in fifteen minutes! This thing enables you to play fills on any beat, switch between verse and chorus, crash cymbal hits and of course, start and stop on command. Is it Electric Ladyland quality? Definitely not... Is it amazing for $200? Absolutely! As a bass player who plays alone a lot, this tool is going to help me tremendously... I'm going to mess around with this for a while. But honestly I'm already looking to buy the big brother Beat Buddy! That's how much I like it! I see several comments with issues of reliability, which will of course, to be determined. Looks to be extremely well built to me. Packaging was awesome and of course, Amazon Prime was next level delivery! What a world we live in! 😄