Old school disco effects

[Bad_Rock]

I need something to add to the mirror balls for a disco music dance floor. This will be a nostalgic party and they want 70's lighting.

 

Any idea?

[thatblokewiththelaser]

light screens? pm me if interested!!!

[pritch]

There's always the good old fashioned coloured reflector spots in some sort of rudimentary wooden box.

[Bad_Rock]

There's always the good old fashioned coloured reflector spots in some sort of rudimentary wooden box.

 

Do you have any pic?

[pritch]

Do you have any pic?

 

Not of the effect as a whole, I'm afraid. But imagine these:

 

http://www.buyersok.co.uk/shop/images/thumbs/t_j851237.jpg

 

in a variety of different colours, usually laid out in a straight line of four lamps, or two lines of three one on top of the other. That's what I remember from my school discos, anyway. I believe they used to come with a built in controller, but if you were doing something yourself, then they could easily be run off a chaser or dimmer, depending on what you have available.

[dbuckley]

Do you have any pic?

Please forgive me for being old, but that's really quite funny...

 

The lamps used for disco bulb boxes are these, which use an ordinary ES lampholder. You build a box with a multiple of three or four holders for the lamp in holder, usually in a line, but squares and other combinations are possible.

 

Hard to pin down exactly what made a 70s disco, but I think that pinspots had just started appearing, and the first of the moving pinspot effects, the scanner, and clusters and rows of same. I dont think helicopters and the such arrived until a bit later, but when they did insane numbers of pinspots moved around.... Strobes, smoke. Neon was fun.

 

Many early discos had quite horrible control, often just several chasers (one per effect) all running indpendently and unsynced.

 

And of course, there was the infinity mirror:

 

http://www.phys.appstate.edu/demos/images/optics/6a10_65.jpg

 

And lets not get started on light up dance floors...

[Ynot]

I need something to add to the mirror balls for a disco music dance floor. This will be a nostalgic party and they want 70's lighting.

 

Any idea?

UV.

Strobe (just the one, often small!)

Rota-scans - Par 36 pin-spots on a motorised base with something like 540 degrees of rotation in one field - backwards then forwards, then backwards.... etc

Light boxes - varying numbers of either coloured reflector bulbs or clear ones behind coloured perspex shapes. Often also row of bulbs behind a perspex screen with tacky name of the disco/DJ. All powered from a 3 or 4 channel (limited power) sound to light controller.

Infinity box (see post above somewhere)

Smoke

Oil wheel

Late 70's, early 80's you started getting the motorised helicopters, astro-raggi type effects - lots of pin spots or such like on fast moving motorisedspinning frames - limited control, but quite good in their day!

 

Zat help?

 

Tony

[Modge]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Hudge pin spot rigs rock. 4 or 5 colours of pin spot, run off a chaser that puts 1 or at most 2 colours on at a time. Just use as many pin spots as you can possibly hang. Add some smoke so the beams are visible. There's a club I know ofin brum thats not changed it's rig since the 70's when it first became a club (the sounds black box as well...) Full respect to who ever they had design it for it's still looking good now. I'm affraid the best I can do for photo's is the clubs gallery website (http://www.sicfelt.com/edwardsgallery/) which isn't all that or http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10...amp;btnG=Search

[Mystic]

there was a thread about such disco efffects in a french lighting forum (with lot of images...) : http://fr.forums.audiofanzine.com/apprendr...schoolquot.html

[Bad_Rock]

Thank you very much guys. You have no idea how much I appreciate your help on this.