Survey: D-Beam

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[X] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.

I use for radical panning automation, which isn't totally necessary because I can use the control nob as well. (using a FX)

I've been watching this post and am a little surprised more are not using this feature. I added a 5th category.

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.
[X] 5. I use it and find it useful

I have quite a number of live sets playing in a local group. We are in our 40's 50's and playing Classic Rock. I have two songs using this feature that you may find interesting to know. I play Doors - Riders on the Storm. Can anyone guess what that D-Beam would be good for? I also play "Walk the Dog". The beam is my bark all through the song. It's useful to assign these sound effects to the D-Beam rather than use keys. I would much rather assign it to my extra
"Gear" pedal, but I cannot find anyone to help me achieve this. Is this the wrong kind of pedal to make this happen? I've spent too many hours trying and finally gave up.

Hope I have given some of you new ideas to use these features. I will watch this post to see if others have some good ideas for use. Could it spin a Leslie speaker rotary effect on a Hammond B3. Now that would be cool ! But how ?

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[x] 4. I use it and love it.

Mainy for a more realistic pitch bend on some synth brasses and leads, and for smooth modulation things.

Never used the solo synth mode

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[X] 4. I use it and love it.

Personally, the D-Beam its by far one of my favorites controllers of all times. It's cool to use it and it looks cool when you use it on stage. Some people got curious and ask me "How could I do the Whammy bar pitch shifting on my synth by only waving my hand up and down?". One of them thought that I had a magic glove or something =D.

Believe me, you can do amazing thing with it thanks to the Assignable Mode !

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[X] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.

Well not yet. I still haven't figured how it could be useful to me. Perhaps I find a good suggestions in this thread
It's freaking cool to show to your friends tho

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[X] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.


I actually wish I could find a practical way to incorporate the D-Beam. Its a very innovative feature. Definitely made to be used in a live performance though.

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[x] 4. I use it and love it.

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[x] 4. I use it and love it.

It's good for showing off during solos
I use it mostly for the wah-wah effects when I solo...
Would be nice if it was visible, for instance with fog.

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[ ] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[x] 4. I use it and love it.

I use it mainly for adding crescendo & diminuendo to wind & string MIDI tracks on second passes. The only problem is that when I remove my hand from the D-beam path it resets the track volume to zero so I have to clamp my hand over the beam while turning the d-beam off. It would be ideal if it could "latch" on to the last setting used - I guess inverting the D-beam control would work, if that is possible.

I tried it out as a tempo controller so I could conduct show bands at the same time but it's not worked out yet!

Good survey!

[ X] 2. Not at all,.. as of yet.

Judging from some of the answers it looks to me like the D-Beam feature does have some useful purposes. It seems a little gimmicky to me and somewhat over the top but as long as it serves some useful purpose then Roland will probably keep putting it on their workstations most likely. It gives the appearance of something unusual and intriguing (especially for the younger crowd) and it sets Roland apart from other manufacturers in that the others don't offer something of this nature on their gear, at least that I am aware of anyway. So I suppose we should at least give Roland some credit for trying to be unique i.e. "set apart from the rest of the pack" by providing this unique and interesting feature for users to use, and that has at least some 'potential' benefit(s) when using it.

So it doesn't take a rock steady hand to use it effectively?? I still think it would be rather prone to various "errors" (i.e. out of sync, out of tune, very tricky to pull off effectively, etc.) when using it. But again, practice makes perfect I reckon eh?

Keysme, I agree, and I think I would use it more if:

a) I wouldn't have another synth on top of the Fantom G that renders the d-beam useless.

b) If the software would have more d-beam control parameters, like setting minimum and maximum values for what the d-beam controls and for perhaps adjusting the overall d-beam sensitivity. The software side could be developed quite a bit further, like having user defined scales for controlling the synth.. a bit like this video where Rudess meets BeBot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFG7-Q0WI7Q

c) If the d-beam would have a CV out (control voltage) in the back of the Fantom G, it could be used to control other devices live and perhaps even the CV data could be recorded into the sequencer. This should be possible from what I have seen in the schematics of the d-beam.

d) The d-beam is a bit 'gimmicky' for me. As it is now, it looks if your fending off flies with your hand onstage. Hooking up a class II laser beam to it would make the 'wow factor' go up quite a bit, if gimmicky is what you aim for.

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[x] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.

I found another use for it. Detecting paranormal activity I was playing with D-Beam the other day and set it to trigger some vocal sample on the Pad. I left keyboard switched on behind me while was doing something on the computer. All of the sudden it started to sing (played female sample something like "oh yeah" or "yeah baby")! Scared the crap out of me! And it kept triggering sample from time to time. Ok I know it was probably just light or temperature and not some ghost flying over it, but still it was very spooky
Did something like this happened to you?

Bratan, yes, with very bright sun shining on the D-Beam, it can trigger itself since there is a lot of infrared frequencies getting into it. I guess you can also use it as an alarm system in your car too!

Bratan: LOL!

[ ] 1. Not at all, couldn't care less.
[X] 2. Not at all, but I find it interesting.
[ ] 3. I use it but don't find it useful.
[ ] 4. I use it and love it.

I think, just my opinion as a customer, that Roland can left a "hole" like the FX srx expansion on top of the keyboard, and make d-beam an expansion option. And make the board cheaper or spend this money on polyphony, on board memory, new sounds or even a ribbon controller.