Hi! I just downloaded Beam and got a midi-DMX converter in hopes of programming a light show for some videos and performances, but I’m running into a couple problems. One: The 2 strobes I’m using don’t appear on the Fixture Profile list: Rockville STAGE PANEL 864 LED RGB Pro Stage Wash Lights+Strobe+Matrix Combo. SECONDLY, I can’t even operate Beam as a VST in Ableton (for Mac). I kept trying to add it in Ableton Preferences, and it would never appear in the Browser, and then finally I tried to open one of the Ableton Patches in the actual folder in Finder and it says: “This device is not available in this version of Live.” But I saw on the FAQs on Showsync’s website that Beam is supported by M1 and Intel Macs alike? I’m running Ableton Live Standard 11.3.10 on macOS Ventura 13.0. Help on both these problems would be greatly appreciated!!!
EDIT: I just upgraded my Ableton to Max for Live, but still having compatibility/setup issues since my fixture isn’t recognized!
Thanks for reaching out! Beam devices are not VST plugins and indeed require Max for Live to work - good to hear you already solved this part.
As for working with your fixture, you need a fixture profile for it, Beam cannot recognise it by itself. You can use the Fixture Editor to make one yourself, or you can request one here. Besides providing the fixture manual, please specify the DMX mode of the fixture you want to use. Here are the fixture profile files for the 4-ch. and 39-ch. modes:
Place these files inside the Fixture Profiles/User folder, which you can find by going to Beam > Fixture Profiles… Restart Beam in order for the files to be recognised.
To use the 4-ch. mode:
Set the fixture to 4-channel mode on the back of the unit.
In Beam’s Patch Editor add the Rockville Stage Panel 864 LED - 4ch fixture, but don’t assign any tags to it yet.
Once you have added the fixture, double-click on it to reveal its components: RGB and Strobe. Assign separate tags to each component.
In Live, use separate Par devices for the RGB and Strobe components.
To use the 39-ch. mode:
Set the fixture to 39-channel mode on the back of the unit.
In Beam’s Patch Editor add the Rockville Stage Panel 864 LED - 39ch fixture, but don’t assign any tags to it yet.
Once you have added the fixture, double-click on it to reveal its components and assign these tags to them:
Master dim: Rockville Master
RGB stroberate: Rockville RGB
RGB 1-8: Rockville RGB (MIDI notes C3-G3)
Strobe bar stroberate: Rockville Strobe
Strobe bar 1-8: Rockville Strobe (MIDI notes C3-G3)
In Live, add separate devices to control separate aspects of the fixture:
Par: Rockville Master (master intensity)
Strobe: Rockvile RGB (color/intensity and stroberate of the RGB segments)
Stroberate: Rockville Strobe (intensity and stroberate of strobe bulbs)
Let me know if you need any further help with this or if you need profiles for other modes of this fixture.
Hey Luka! Thank you so much, I’ve got these Rockville RGBs working now within Ableton. Question though: I have 4 of these Rockville lights and want to program them to act differently, rather than them all responding to one signal. How would I go about patching that in Beam and in Ableton?
If you want to have a completely separate control over each of the 4 fixtures you can just assign a different tag to every fixture, and use a different device for every tag. For example (using the fixture in 4ch mode):
Fixture 1:
Rockville RGB 1
Rockville Strobe 1
Fixture 2:
Rockville RGB 2
Rockvile Strobe 2
…
Alternatively, you can address individual fixtures within a single tag:
using MIDI note-triggered envelopes, by assigning a different MIDI pitch to each fixture:
…when using Beam devices in Live you can then use the corresponding MIDI notes to trigger envelopes for individual fixtures
using Live parameters in a Generic device, by assigning the same modulation parameter to more than one slot:
…the number of same-modulation slots will be distributed across the number of fixtures, read more about this here
Let me know if this helps or if you have something more specific in mind.
Thanks Luka! Glad to see this fixture getting integrated already.
I was wondering - how would i amend the …39-ch.sbf? It looks like i cant change aggregate fixtures?
I was hoping to program/automate both the 3-in-1 Mode & Mode Speed [39-ch Mode Ch. 3 & 4] and Strobe Bar Mode & Mode Speed [39-ch Mode ch. 30 & 31] in order to use the fixtures built-in effects. Should I just make a new custom fixture and just have their DMX address overlap ? Or would a new fixture profile be needed in order to make those channels taggable?
Either way, what do you think would be the most efficient and accurate way to automate those channels ? is there a way to use piano roll/midi notes to sequence a channel’s values? figure that would be more accurate with midi notes being 8-bit versus the parameter knobs in the max devices being decimal, but maybe there is a way to make those knob read “0-255” instead?
