button, the following menu is displayed:When you click the button, the following menu is displayed:
The commands available in the Tools menu let you customize the behavior of the beamz controller and configure certain aspects of the beamz software interface. The Tools menu commands are described in the following sections.
While the Custom Beam Layout screen looks daunting at first, it's really quite simple. Using this screen, you can rearrange which beam corresponds to which instrument. You can also control the volume of each instrument and you can control the behavior of the two main buttons on the base of the unit.
You'll notice that there are two beamz units rendered side by side.
The two controllers don't indicate that you have two separate hardware
units installed; rather, they indicate that each beamz laser can trigger
two separate instruments depending upon which "bank" of instruments
is currently loaded. In the standard player mode, the bank switch, 
,
tells you which set of instruments is currently loaded. You can switch
between the banks by clicking the bank switch button or by pressing the
large left hardware button on the beamz controller base, 
,
(if one of the buttons is configured to control the bank switch).
To change a beam's assigned instrument, click on any of the available instruments in the instrument palette located above the beams graphics:
You can then drag and drop the instrument on the beam or button you'd like to trigger it, and it will replace the current instrument. You can also drag instruments from one beam to another. Note that there are two specialized trigger, Swap Sounds, and Rhythm that are usually assigned to the left and right beamz controller keys respectively.
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Be aware that if you drag and drop an instrument
onto the large left or right control buttons, you'll lose the ability
to switch between instrument banks or start and stop the rhythm accompaniment.
You can always drag Swap Sounds
or Rhythm back to the buttons
or click the |
You'll notice after you've changed a beam's assignment, that the title of the song turns from black:
to red:
in order to indicate that the song has been customized. The song title will appear red in playlists, the playlist management dialog and the master song list as well.
You'll notice that each of the beams in both banks has its own volume control:
The volume controls let you determine whether a solo instrument such as a saxophone or guitar should play louder than a background instrument such as bass or a drum flourish. To adjust the volume of a particular beam, simple click and slide its volume control left to reduce its volume and right to increase its volume.
You can also adjust the master volume of a song by clicking and dragging the master volume slider on the left of the player window:
The volume you've selected will be saved along with any other customizations.
If you change your mind, you can click the 
button to undo the change, or the 
button if you decide the change was actually what you wanted. You can
also click the 
button to return the song to its original settings. Clicking
the 
button will save the changes you've made to the assignments,
and clicking the 
button will discard your changes and return you to
the beamz player mode.
Manage Playlists takes you to the Manage Playlists dialog as described in Playlists.
When selected, details on the current song position will be displayed below the song title:
In the center of the display is the name of particular section of the song that's playing. Song names can be anything from simple letters denoting the particular section's musical key (A, B, C, D, etc.) or a brief label (as in INTRO A above). In the first cell, you've got the current measure of the current section followed by current beat in that section. In the third cell, you've got the cumulative number of measures in the entire song, followed by the current beat (which will be identical to the beat measurement in the first cell).
If the current song has been customized using the Custom Beam Layout function, the Use Custom Preset menu item will be checked. You can quickly toggle between a songs customized format and its default format using this menu item. If you have not saved customized changes for the current song, then this menu item will be greyed out and unavailable.
Clicking the Options menu command brings up the following dialog:
In the View group, you have the following options:
Display One Beam Unit: Default--shows a single beam unit in the player interface
Display Two Beam Units: Shows two beam units side by side in the player interface with all of the instruments for each bank:
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If you have two separate hardware units connected to your PC, the display shows both banks, each one assigned to a hardware unit. If the swap sounds button on either hardware control unit is pressed, both beamz controllers will switch instrument banks. |
Swap Hardware Units: If you have two beam units connected to your PC, you can select this command to switch which unit functions as the left unit and which one functions as the right unit.
In the Startup group, you have the option to either load the last song played or no song when the beamz interface is launched.
Finally, the beamz Library lets you select the location of your beamz music files. Use the Browse... button to point to the folder containing your music.
Clicking the About beamz command brings up a dialog showing your beamz player version as well as a brief copyright notice.
