Post your problems with building/running/abusing beast here :-)

• for known problems there's also the BEAST FAQ.

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Nothing happens on Play

Device or resource busy

Failed to configure device frequency

See the FAQ: Why does nothing happen on Play?

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Recording Midi

Hi all,

I have been playing around with beast (what a surprise) and have found it is very good. The only problem is how to record midi input from my midi master keyboard. I can get the midi input to play notes on a synthesizer within beast, but I can not find any recording functionality. Recording midi input is integral to the way I make music. Is this possible? How do I do it?

Thanks Kev

I noticed that for v0.6.6 the record midi script has been ported (thanks). How do I record midi though? I have no idea. I see that the program recognises the script at startup, but it is not available on any menu (if it must be activated manually) and their still doesnot seem to be any midi record functionality. Am I missing the point?

Kev

• With beast 0.6.6, recording of MIDI events works by selecting the "Utilities/Record Midi" from context menu (button3) of the piano roll editor. We're looking into offering MIDI recording from a more prominent point in the GUI though. --RamboKid

Success

I have just recorded my first midi events!

Thanks

Kev

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Automation

How does this work? I had a look at passive.bse and noticed that some extra tracks have been created with a mod suffix for the track name and some continuous controller # 12 events. What I can't figure out is how these are being used anywhere??? Is there any documentation on automation? What if I just want to control the volume of a track using events and the track has quite a few different parts (not feasible to adjust the volume by editing each individual part (would have to be unlinked parts))? Can I use a separate track like passive.bse with automation data for volume?

Kev

• There is unfortunately no documentation on automation yet. Mostly, because i wasn't sure whether the current mode of automation is the last word on the topic, and because i didn't get around to updating the QuickStartGuide? in a long time. The way automation works currently, is by synthesizing MIDI events in a part (like the Continuous#12 ones you noted already), and assigning a MIDI channel to the track the part is being used in (1, 2 and 3 for passive.bse). To make use of the MIDI events, you then use an instrument that either uses a MIDI input module (Synthesis Modules/Input & Output/MIDI Control Input) or you use a module that supports MIDI automation of one of its parameters (e.g. Synthesis Modules/Filters/Bass Filter or Synthesis Modules/Distortion/Saturate). --RamboKid

Success

Excellent! All is working!

Thanks

Kev

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Failed to open midi device

On ubuntu hoary I installed beast-0.6.2, when I try to play the demo song or an empty project, I have a message box with :

failed to open midi device "BseMidiDeviceOSS?::" (reverting to null device): No such file, device or directory

I do not have any midi software / hardware... How to use Beast without Midi ? How to deactivate this annoying message box (each time I press Play...)

Thanks, Greg

• Upgrade to beast-0.6.6, you can use it without MIDI and disable its dialog boxes. --RamboKid

• I already tried to compile 0.6.6 but many dev libraries are missing, that's why I was looking for something easier... thanks anyway. Greg

• ok I managed to compile it, works fine. Thank you. For ubuntu users, I had to install following packages (in addition to those mentionned in the download page) : zlib1g-dev libart2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev. Greg

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Using MIDI output in Beast (without midi device)...

I would like to know if it is possible to use Beast with a virtual synthesizer like timidity since my sound card do not have a hardware synthesizer. Thanks, Sawyer

• Up to and including version 0.7.1, beast does not support MIDI output, regardless of hardware support. We do support loading the GUS patches used by timidity for some time now but pure MIDI sequencing has yet to be implemented. --RamboKid