# Colour flashes white because Beam only outputs colour on dimmer/note change

**URL:** <https://forum.showsync.com/t/colour-flashes-white-because-beam-only-outputs-colour-on-dimmer-note-change/2655>\
**Category:** Beam for Live\
**Created:** [December 20, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/colour-flashes-white-because-beam-only-outputs-colour-on-dimmer-note-change/2655 "2025-12-20T23:43:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CLIQER](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/cliqer/32/1371_2.png) [@CLIQER](https://forum.showsync.com/u/CLIQER)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/colour-flashes-white-because-beam-only-outputs-colour-on-dimmer-note-change/2655/1 "2025-12-20T23:43:44Z")

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Hi all,

In Beam for Live (Ableton) with a CMY fixture (Martin MAC Hybrid Axiom), I’m seeing a white flash when triggering notes.

It looks like colour changes from the Beam colour picker don’t output DMX immediately. The CMY values only get sent when a note-on / dimmer change happens, so the dimmer opens while the CMY is still transitioning, causing a brief white flash before the target colour lands.

I tried the Robe MegaPointe and similar discharge fixtures and all behave the same.

How can I make Beam send/refresh colour independently of dimmer/note activity (i.e., push CMY as soon as the picker changes)?

Thanks.

[Martin Mac Axiom Hybrid.sbf](https://forum.showsync.com/uploads/short-url/oU02sr6suQsChh1tki2rMkDuSbr.sbf) (4.3 KB)

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**Author:** ![Luka](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/luka/32/197_2.png) [@Luka](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Luka)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/colour-flashes-white-because-beam-only-outputs-colour-on-dimmer-note-change/2655/2 "2026-01-05T17:46:41Z")

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Hi @CLIQER,

Thanks for bringing this up!

This happens because when the intensity of a Beam lighting signal chain is at zero, Beam’s internal color-mixing system has no color information and also sets all the color channels to zero (CMY at 0/0/0 = white). When intensity goes from zero to non-zero, Beam does in fact immediately set the color channels to the relevant DMX values, but because CMY fixtures use physical filter wheels to create a color mix, it takes a moment for the wheels to spin from “white” to the desired positions after the fixture has received the DMX values.

We’ve been aware of this and a solution is already on our list.

In the meanwhile, you can work around this by making a fixture profile that uses the `dimmer` _Colorspace Type_, and maps Cyan/Magenta/Yellow channels as direct modulations:

 ![CMY workaround](https://forum.showsync.com/uploads/default/original/2X/4/4ff4b73735ce2b52e7c89f2bee4bf2e43be49e5b.png)

[Martin MAC Axiom Hybrid (2).sbf](https://forum.showsync.com/uploads/short-url/bd3tr7oqXje6oL0Ljke9VfYVfTR.sbf) (8.7 KB)

The color picker and the RGB/HSL parameters on a Beam device won’t do anything with a profile like this, but you can directly control CMY channels using e.g. `cyan`, `magenta`, `yellow` modulations:

 ![image](https://forum.showsync.com/uploads/default/original/2X/5/5792e78d7eed71f686899ab4a8a14388494c34b9.jpeg)

If you want to think in Red/Green/Blue instead, you can invert the `cyan`/`magenta`/`yellow` modulations, which effectively turns them into `red`, `green`, `blue` parameters:

 ![image](https://forum.showsync.com/uploads/default/original/2X/a/a0efbba4a32546dca9e7cc51044001530ea92b42.jpeg)

Alternatively you could also just use the `colorwheel` and use fixture’s color presets, although that takes away the benefits of having a CMY fixture with smooth color-mixing.

Hope this helps until we have a proper solution!