Thank you Luka. I will first update to 1.6.3, but in case I have enough time, I would like to update to Beam 2. I read the article you sent me, and I see I will need the new versions of my fixture profiles. So here I send you the fixtures I’m using now (4 heads of Mr Beam Fun Generation and 2 Pico Spot), and if you could send me the new ones, compatible for Beam 2, I will have everything I need to update. Fun Generation Mr. Beam 120W - 46ch (head) RGB+W.sbf (1.7 KB) Fun Generation PicoSpot 45 LED - 11ch.sbf (1.7 KB)
Thank you again for your help !!!
Fixture profiles v1 (as used in Beam 1.x) are compatible and will work in Beam 2, so you can already use your existing fixture patches made with Beam 1.x, as long as you copy the profiles to the new location (Documents/Beam/Fixture Profiles/User).
Fixture profiles v3 do bring some improvements to the way intensity/colors are handled. Here are the updated v3 profiles:
Thank you for the new fixtures ! Everything works smoothly with Beam 1.6.3, I will go like that for my gig and switch to Beam 2 as soon as I’ll have sole quiet time.
I’ll get on touch at that moment if i experience any trouble.
Thanks again !
Hi Luka !
I’m trying to switch to Beam 2, and I realize that I didn’t ask you to send me the V3 for this fixture profile. I have the “head” fixture for Mr Beam, but not the “total”.
Can you send it to me ? Thanks a lot
With fixture profiles v1 separate files were needed to describe different fixture sections and were then referenced as “children” in the main profile.
This is no longer necessary with profiles v3, as it is all described within a single fixture profile as “Cells”, which then appear as such in the Patch Editor:
Thanks for your explanations ! I created a new patch for my light devices, trying to reproduce the patch that worked with Beam 1.6.3. The 2 pico spots respond perfectly. But I must have done something wrong with Mr Beam assignments.
Here is a screenshot of the previous patch.
For the Mr Beam device, I assigned B2 for the total, C3 for Head 1, C#3 for Head 2, D3 for head 3, D#3 for Head 4.
In the new patch I tried to create, I assigned the same notes to each head.
It does react, but beside my actual light writing, there is a blue+green color which stays in each head, as a permanent background. It’s there even when the heads should turn off in the writing.
I also tried to assign only the head notes and leave the global note empty, but then there is no reaction at all.
To be more accurate, Mr Beam does react in this patch configuration, but only for the movements. There is no light or colors. It moves, but does not shine.
It does react, but beside my actual light writing, there is a blue+green color which stays in each head, as a permanent background. It’s there even when the heads should turn off in the writing.
I just tested the fixture profile again by looking at the DMX values in Beam’s Monitor, as well as controlling Capture visualizer’s simulation of your fixture. Everything seems to work as expected and I cannot reproduce the issue you are experiencing:
Could it be that the Intensity of the device you are using to control the Head fixtures with notes is not at 0%? Or an additional device somewhere else in the set? It could even be an Effect device.
Please keep in mind that if you have multiple Instrument devices controlling the same Tag in your Live Set, Beam will combine their input, just as Live does with audio.
To help you understand what is going on I would recommend creating a new Live Set and set the Beam devices to control the fixture from scratch and see if that behaves as expected, then go back to your original Live Set and try to turn OFF/ON every Beam device, until you find the one that creates the “permanent background color”.
Yes, the intensity of my heads generic plugins was at full level. When I turned it off in the 4 head plugins, it worked perfectly.
I think I understand, on the file i was testing, blue and green are the only colors which are not automationed in ableton. So with a full intensity for the generic head plugin, they appeared ?
The strange thing is that when I was using Beam 1.6.3, it was exactly the same, i mean the heads intensity was also at full level, but i never experienced any problem of additionnal colors coming in.
Is that a difference between 1.6.3 and 2 ?
Thanks anyway, now it does work !
Oh, one last question: I see that in your test, you are using the same midi note for the total and the head 1 (C3). I put a different one (B2 for total and C3 for head 1). Otherwise, how can you control them separately ? Is that a problem to do so ?
Everything seemed to work well, but after playing one full track, i observed that at one point in the track, all the lights turned off suddenly and remain off til the end, as « blocked » in a way.
So I look et at the Beam monitor and even if the lights are off, the values continue to be correctly transmitted to Beam, i see them move the way they should. So there must be something wrong at one point of the track in the transmission from Beam to my light devices.
Any idea what it could be ? I never had this kind of issue with 1.6.3.
Thanks for your help !!
I tried with another track and everything went fine. A third one and it got stucked also at one point. So it’s not an isolated problem with one track.
However, little information, the devices didn’t turn off, they remained blocked suddenly while they were on. So there is something that freeze the devices. It was the same with the first track, it didn’t turn off, in fact the devices got freezed also but at one specific moment when the devices were not shining, that’s all.
Same thing with Beam monitor : the values are stil moving correctly.
Yes, the intensity of my heads generic plugins was at full level. When I turned it off in the 4 head plugins, it worked perfectly.
I think I understand, on the file i was testing, blue and green are the only colors which are not automationed in ableton. So with a full intensity for the generic head plugin, they appeared ?
The strange thing is that when I was using Beam 1.6.3, it was exactly the same, i mean the heads intensity was also at full level, but i never experienced any problem of additionnal colors coming in.
Is that a difference between 1.6.3 and 2 ?
There is no difference in functionality in regards to this between 1.x and 2.0. My guess is that it is due to a slight difference in the way your Fixture Patch was set up with the previous version of the profile , but hard to say without having all the ingredients and reproducing it myself - I am not sure.
Either way, this is expected behavior and not something to be worried - Beam allows you to introduce Intensity within the same track by both MIDI notes and Intensity/dim parameter, so you can mix and combine both.
Oh, one last question: I see that in your test, you are using the same midi note for the total and the head 1 (C3). I put a different one (B2 for total and C3 for head 1). Otherwise, how can you control them separately ? Is that a problem to do so ?
As far as I can tell, there is no need to have a MIDI note for the “Total” section - you can probably just set the Intensity to 100% at all times. Unless you are using a Preset/Program channel, the lights will only turn on when the color channels of the “Heads” are active.
Everything seemed to work well, but after playing one full track, i observed that at one point in the track, all the lights turned off suddenly and remain off til the end, as « blocked » in a way.
So I look et at the Beam monitor and even if the lights are off, the values continue to be correctly transmitted to Beam, i see them move the way they should. So there must be something wrong at one point of the track in the transmission from Beam to my light devices.
Any idea what it could be ? I never had this kind of issue with 1.6.3.
Thanks for your help !!
I tried with another track and everything went fine. A third one and it got stucked also at one point. So it’s not an isolated problem with one track.
However, little information, the devices didn’t turn off, they remained blocked suddenly while they were on. So there is something that freeze the devices. It was the same with the first track, it didn’t turn off, in fact the devices got freezed also but at one specific moment when the devices were not shining, that’s all.
Same thing with Beam monitor : the values are stil moving correctly.
Could it be related to how you are controlling the Master Intensity using the “Total” tag?
Does it always happen at the same point in the Live set?
Could you please record a video of this, showing both Beam’s Monitor and the fixture while this is happening?
Hi Luka, Thanks for your answer. Here is the link to the Beam monitor + light devices video you asked me ( i couldn’t upload it directly here)
You can clearly see that the lights freeze at some point, and that the values in the monitor continue to evolve as written in Ableton.
I made further testings on 3 different live sets, and here are my weird results :
In one live set, the lights never have any trouble and work perfectly.
In the 2 others, I have mixed results. Yesterday i played them 4 or 5 times each and everytime they got freezed at a different time in the live set. (This was never at the same exact moment). I had to close Beam and reopen it to make them work again.
The light devices remain connected to Beam, their screens don’t start flashing as it does in case of disconnexions (i experienced this in a previous set up, and this is not happening here)
Today i tried again to make your video and the same thing happened, as you can see on the video. I played them 4 or 5 Times again and same freezing problem. But then, i wanted to look at what happened on the Showtec net 2/3 at the moment of the freezing. So I did exactly the same process looking at the showtec device but i never managed to reproduce any freezing moment. I played the two live sets again and again, maybe 10 times, and no more freezing moment. I tried to turn off the computer and try again, but no freezing.
So here i am : I don’t know why they freezed, and i don’t know why it stopped, and this is clearly distressing for my shows…
Can you help me understand what could have happened ?
If i manage to make it freeze again i’ll tell you.
I join some screenshots of some Beam parameters, maybe it will help you…
I realize I didn’t answer your question : Could it be related to how you are controlling the Master Intensity using the “Total” tag?
No, it’s not, the intensity of the « total » plugin is at 100% all along thé live set. Besides, if it was an overall intensity issue, the lights would rather turn off, they wouldn’t freeze the way they do in the video…
Thanks for documenting this! The fixtures seem to freeze at around 1:01 on your video, but this doesn’t seem to in any way correlate to the Monitor activity, where DMX remains active even after the freeze. So this is most probably not related to the fixture profiles and also likely not to a specific Live Set, but Art-Net connection specifically.
It could be a Beam (2.0?) issue we are not yet aware of. Please try to consistently reproduce this with both Beam 1.x and 2.0, to be sure this is indeed related to 2.0 as you say.
Try to reproduce this again and check the DMX activity indicator LED on your Art-Net node if there is DMX signal present when this happens.
I’ve personally experienced similar issues in the past due to a loose USB-C-to-ethernet adapter connector / loose MacBook Pro USB-C port / loose ethernet cable connector / faulty DMX cable. Double-check everything is in tact.
I’ve also experienced similar behavior when one of the fixtures in the DMX signal chain was a strobe with a weird grounding issue that was causing the node to freeze. Try reproducing with only a single fixture connected or connecting everything to another power socket.
It could be something related to the network/connectivity state of your computer. Check if you can reproduce this while your computer is disconnected from Wi-Fi.
Please let us know what you find out via e-mail at support@showsync.com and we’ll take it from there.
