Initial Ideas from a new user

Hey all!
Just downloaded Beam. As someone that has used luminaire, resolume, DMXis, etc.
just wanna run you through my first thoughts as a first user installing…

  1. After typing in the IP for an artnet device, id like an ‘okay’ or ‘save’ or something. Clicking off the entry form didn’t save. hitting enter does.

  2. in the PAR plugin, not all fixtures / channels are ‘intensity’ from 0-1. I’m using a monoprice LED bar - https://downloads.monoprice.com/files/manuals/612601_Manual_150715.pdf
    only in two channel mode, and unless I’m missing how to create a channel for macros, I would love to be able to insert DMX values instead of intensity.

I might be a unique use case, but having midi mapable "jump values’ for variables would be awesome.

Would also love to create my own profile!
:slight_smile:

that’s my first thoughts. Thanks for this opportunity!!!

Thanks a lot for sharing your first experiences! Your input is very valuable; someone can only be a first user once so you are a finite resource!

  1. After typing in the IP for an artnet device, id like an ‘okay’ or ‘save’ or something. Clicking off the entry form didn’t save. hitting enter does.

Thanks, I added this to our tracking system!

Regarding 2: Indeed, the PAR plugin might not be what you need for this fixture. It sounds like for your fixture, a plugin that sends out arbitrary DMX values (0 - 255) for an arbitrary modulation channel might be better. Let me know if I misunderstand though.

Would also love to create my own profile!

Did you discover the Fixture Editor yet (menu > Window > Fixture Editor, or press Cmd + 2)? Or are you perhaps referring to something else?

Hello, thank you for your feedback!

To elaborate a bit on the point 2 - the best way to work with slot-based parameters is making a custom Max for Live device including:

  1. a [live.menu] populated with slots of the function of the specific fixture you are working with
  2. mapping the slot index values to the corresponding DMX values (as specified in the fixture’s manual), using an object like [coll] or [zl.lookup]
  3. scaling this to a range between 0. and 1. by dividing the incoming values by 255.
  4. prepending the incoming values with the corresponding modulation keyword (e.g. slot), as specified in the Beam fixture profile

Here is an example of this, based on the Monoprice LED bar in the 2 channel mode: Monoprice 612601 LED Bar - 2ch.amxd (251.4 KB), along with the corresponding fixture profile: Monoprice 612601 LED Bar - 2ch.sbf (472 Bytes).

While we would like to also provide a more generic out-of-the-box tool for working with slot-based parameters, the approach of making a custom device per fixture profile will likely always remain relevant when you want to make use of Live’s automation/mapping and enjoy features such as seeing names of the slots being reflected in the Envelope Editor:

In regards to creating your own fixture profiles - as Mattijs already mentioned - the Fixture Editor allows you to do that. It is a part of Beam we are still developing though and there are situations the Fixture Editor does not support yet, e.g. adding custom modulation keywords. In such cases, you can open the fixture profile file (*.sbf) in a text editor and edit the profile manually (the fixture profiles are in the JSON format).

We hope to provide a better workflow for this soon. In the meantime, you are always welcome to contact us and we can make the fixture profiles for you.

hi !
Just wanted to let ya know I see this, and I’ll get back to you asap.
Don’t get to play with new apps for a moment again. :wink:

Vince

Just opened Beam -
I see the Fixture editor now! Initial thought is it’s a little counter intuitive to have things only accessible from the menu, BUT, I’m not trying to be negative. Just trying to note what I see when I do it, as a UX experience. I came from D-PRO before this, and its seems like the backends are very similar. :wink:

I’d love a ‘dashboard’ of Beam, instead of multiple windows. WHen I open it, I’d like to have all my options in the app. (personal opinion, and im sure you have 200 reasons why im wrong. :wink: )

No worries, this is all useful feedback! Making a well thought out user interface is hard :slight_smile:. A ‘dashboard’ type feature hasn’t come up here before, and it’s worth talking/thinking about.

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