The Beamz is an interesting ‘laser harp’ style controller that ships with its own music generation software. It has four laser beams that you can break to trigger various sounds and loops.
One interesting element of the controller is that it has a switch on the back that turns it from being a proprietary controller into a standard MIDI device. By flicking this switch and connecting it to a PC using the included USB cable you are basically dealing with a very simple set of MIDI notes. The device usefully appears as ‘Laser Controller’ in the list of MIDI devices.
Using Ensemble’s MIDI Input Plugin you can easily link all the beams and buttons to trigger notes, chords, sounds, lights and videos in Ensemble. To make it easier I’ve put together a custom block file for Ensemble Designer, so you just have to select the beam number or button from a drop down list. You also need to tell it which MIDI Input is linked to the Beamz Controller.
Once imported you can use this block like other inputs in Designer. Just drag and join to outputs as desired.
Download “Beamz MIDI Controller”
Beamz-MIDI-Input.zip – Downloaded 1565 times – 22.55 KB