What is Beam?

Beam shows the current tango, cortina, and next-tanda information on a second screen, projector, TV, or any browser on your local network. It reads what your music player is playing and puts it on screen for the dancers: artist or orchestra, title, year, the previous song, and more.

It is made for milongas and tango events, but it works anywhere you want a clean, live “now playing” display. If you can start your music player and use a settings window, you can use Beam.

More: All downloads · Getting Started

Beam in use on a projector or second screen

Features

Works with your players

Foobar2000, VirtualDJ, JRiver, Mixxx, MediaMonkey, AIMP, iTunes, Spotify, Icecast, and native macOS/Linux players. The Now Playing source follows almost any app through the operating system’s media session — no account or API key needed.

Player selection in Beam settings

See the full support matrix → Player Support.

Moods and timed messages

Moods switch the display style automatically based on the song or playback state. A timed mood keeps a special layout on screen for a few seconds — perfect for a LAST TANDA cue that returns to normal on its own.

Mood editor

More → Moods and Backgrounds.

Backgrounds and cover art

Use solid colors, single images, or rotating slideshows. Add a per-orchestra background layer, or use album cover art as the background — with the real aspect ratio, optional outline, rounded corners, and opacity.

Artist background with cover art

Browser and tablet display

Publish the same live screen to any phone, tablet, or browser on your Wi-Fi — with low latency and several devices at once. Great for a tablet at the DJ table or a small side display.

Beam browser display on a tablet

More → Network Display.

Live display controls

Instant, manual control of the projected screen during an event: show a centered temporary message (5–60 seconds) for cues like BREAK - BACK IN 10 MINUTES, or black out the display and resume — without stopping the music, moods, or rotation.

Temporary message on the display

More → Live Display Controls.

Profiles

Keep separate, named setups for different venues, DJs, or nights — a formal milonga, a practica, or a browser-only configuration.

Profiles screen

Rules and played history

Rules clean up messy metadata: detect cortinas, split combined artist/title text, ignore unwanted tracks, or trim trailing text from titles. Beam can also auto-save a setlist of every track you play as text, CSV, and a best-effort M3U8 playlist.

Rules panel

Documentation

Project status

Beam is a further developed and maintained fork of the original beam-project.

See what’s new since then: Beam release notes

Found a bug or have a suggestion? Please open an issue: https://github.com/MrNidnan/beam-project/issues

This fork is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.