Hi all,
I’m running Beam 2 with Ableton Live and controlling an Art-Net to DMX interface. My setup includes a mix of LED PAR fixtures and a 4-channel dimmer pack (ADJ PP-DMX20), and I’ve hit a snag specifically with the dimmer control.
Here’s the situation:
What’s working:
- My PAR fixtures (ADJ VPar) are fully mapped in Beam, respond correctly to MIDI from Ableton, and output DMX as expected.
- I’m using Beam’s “Par” instrument for each PAR fixture with no issues.
- Beam is communicating properly with my Art-Net node, and all MIDI routing from Live is verified.
The issue:
- I’ve added four 1-channel fixtures in Beam for my dimmer (DMX addresses 17–20).
- I’m using the “Generic” instrument in Beam and trying to assign four Params (each set to “Dim”) to four MIDI notes (D3–F3).
- The fixtures respond perfectly using Beam’s “Test Fixture” function, but they don’t respond (or respond inconsistently) when triggered via MIDI from Ableton.
- Beam’s DMX Monitor shows output for the PARs but not consistently for the dimmer instrument.
- I’ve tried using both a single Generic instrument with multiple Params, and multiple instruments with one Param each, but the issue persists.
Questions:
- Is “Generic” the right instrument for a multi-channel dimmer fixture like this?
- Should each dimmer channel have its own instrument, or is one instrument with multiple Params correct?
- Could using the same tag for all four fixtures cause a conflict, even with separate addresses and notes?
- Why would this setup work for PARs, but not for the dimmer?
Everything suggests that Beam is seeing MIDI and can output DMX, but something in how the Generic instrument is handling multiple notes seems to be breaking the link.
Any advice or clarification would be appreciated. Thanks for your help.
