Two instruments using the same tag group

Beam for Live
1

If I have two instruments of the same tag group, say moving heads, even if I haven’t set a parameter it seems to merge them by weighted average as if it was set to 0.

I am using Cameo Hydrabeam 4000.

If I add a tag group I only want to modify the parameters I explicitly decide to.

2

Hey! This is by design. What is it you’re trying to achieve? There might be a way to reach your goal in a different way.

3

I want to control colors and position in separate tracks.

Specifically, I am using M4L to map envelope follower to control dimmers based on music.

But then I might want to have different positions. Right now I have to use macro variations but they are limiting.

Also if you accidentally have the fixture in multiple tracks your positions are all messed up and you have to hunt down the device to make things not messed up. My experience has been extremely frustrating. And the simple fix would be to not touch settings that are not set in the generic control.

4

Another user asked a similar question on Discord recently - they also want to control different modulations across different tracks and I suggested to use the External In device for that. I’m copy-pasting my response below. I’m referring to Intensity and Color as the two separate modulations, but this equally applies to you for color and positioning.

Indeed, using two instruments on two tracks will sum their values together. Just like when you have who audio instruments. This is useful for creating two layers for the same light, but in your case indeed not what you want.

Instead, you should double down on how it works with audio. You want one source that make noise and everything you want to do after that instrument is an effect that modifies the sound coming from the instrument. In Beam, working with light works in the same way. For how you want to work, you should use one source that makes light (the instrument) and changing the color or other properties is done by modifying through effects.

The effect you can use for changing the color is Recolor: Effects | Showsync Support . For any other property the Scale effect is a useful device: Effects | Showsync Support . If you enable the ‘link’ button, you can use the Scale effect to override the value that came from the instrument.

Now, this all makes sense when you want to control everything from one track, but there’s a way to spread control out over multiple tracks. Use the External In device for that: Instruments | Showsync Support

The External In device has a special feature: you can set its input to another track in Live. This means that the lighting signal from one track is sent to a second track. And since it’s a MIDI instrument, you can put it on a MIDI Track with empty MIDI Clips for easy automation. The idea would be that on track 1 you put the Beam instrument as the light source, and controlling something like intensity on it. Then, you add External In on a second track and put some effects like Recolor/Scale on it. You can automate these with separate MIDI clips.

So in your screenshot, you’d want something like:

  • The Beam instrument on the Intensity track. Control the intensity of your lights with MIDI notes and/or automation.
  • Mute the Intensity track. We don’t want to see it directly.
  • Add the External In device on track COLOR. Select the Intensity track as its source.
  • Add effects like Recolor or Scale to the track COLOR. Automate their parameters in MIDI clips.

Note that you can repeat this as many times as you like. Imagine you want to control movement separately from intensity and color, then do:

  • Mute the COLOR track, we now don’t want to see it directly anymore.
  • Add a third track, adding the External In to it. Select the COLOR track as its source.
  • Add effects like Scale to the track for pan and tilt, and automate the parameters in MIDI clips.
  • You now have three separate tracks all controlling the same group of lights, but with different parameters spread out over multiple MIDI tracks allowing you to automate the parameters with separate MIDI clips
1 Like
5

I’m also using envelope follower to control beam instrument parameters.

And I think like you, I have been creating separate tracks with the same tag when I want to start with the lights (moving head) in different pan/tilt position starting points.

I’ve had a similar issue, that if more than one track uses the same tag, even if the track is off, if the device is on, it messes up the values for the device on the track that is on.

I’ve ended up with lots of different channels in the same project with the same tagged instruments, and automating the on/off and other automations using dummy midi clips.

6

Also if you try to use Map to a Macro, then you can’t rename the macro either. It seems Map is tied to the name of the macro. Not a Showsync problem I don’t think but it was a workaround that I thought would be good and was very cumbersome.

7

Hey @Hungry_Man and @vjpr, have you already tried the approach proposed by @hidde? It would be interesting to hear how this works for you and to what extent it accomplishes what you are trying to achieve.