Fast colour mixing washlights

[Tom Baldwin]

Looking for people's opinions on which CMY washlights offer the fastest colour to colour transitions?

 

I've got a gig coming up, where I'd like to be able to do some very fast colour bumps, but also some fairly subtle colour fades from my washlights.

 

I hear HES' new ColorCommand is very fast for colour bumps, but unfortunately at least some of my washlights need to be refocusable (no great need for fast movement, though). Hmmm, ColorCommand plus VL-M, anyone?

 

My only idea at the moment is a VL2000 wash, with the colours I want to bump between installed as colours on the fixed wheel.

 

Any thoughts on what I should rent (in the UK)?

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

[Ben]

you could try some of the coemar washes they also have the fixed colour wheel aswell as the colour mixing, might well be worth a look.

[mac500]

Colour command is good for fixed posistion washes. No point using it with a VL-M. The VL-5 is fast with the colour bumps and you get a proper red instead of a light orange. You havent said the size of your venue though.

[Edlight]

The high end studio colours are quite quick,

[peter]

I've heard that the Studio Colours have problems with their colour wheels losing the dichroic coating.... anyone heard anything along these lines?

[timmath]

The vl 2402 wash is the fastest I've found - Very Fast and nowhere near as noisy as most other lamps when bumping colours

 

regards

 

tim

[timmath]

I've heard that the Studio Colours have problems with their colour wheels losing the dichroic coating.... anyone heard anything along these lines?

 

The dichroics on studio colors are now worse than anyone elses moving lights. the good thing is that wheels and steppers are easy to change if they do go.

 

regards

 

tim

[tjkerr]

I got a SMG Giotto 1200 coming on Tuesday I will let you know how it gets on!!!!!!

new toy :** laughs out loud **:

[Matt]

having never heard of ne of the things u r on about, it might seem a bit dum to you...

 

but mac600's, I think the clour changes we did with them we quite fast, kinda strobing around 4 5 times a second, some really hard changes, from like red to blue, and some subtle like blue to purple... speed wasnt an issue, but I saw them move when we did something else with them, and they seemed faster than the ones we have purchased... dunno why?

[peter]

The 600s have a fixed colour wheel as well as a CYM colour mixing system. The fixed wheel has a setting from the higher DMX values (90%+) which enabled colour scrolling through the wheel - CTC, Green, Red, Blue, Open - at various speeds. Using this you can do almost instant snap changes, but the colours are fixed. None of them are particularly nice colours either.

 

Also, the 600NTs are much faster than the standard 600s, as they employ the Mac2k colour mixing system.

[tonymaslen]

have just finished a production using Mac 600's they are very good as far as the colour mixing goes. The CYM with in them means you can change between any colour you want and even use 'UV'/Blacklight as well. (well we found it fun). The colour changes can happen as quickly or as slowly as you want depending on the fade up/down time etc etc etc.

[gareth]

have just finished a production using Mac 600's they are very good as far as the colour mixing goes. <snip> The colour changes can happen as quickly or as slowly as you want depending on the fade up/down time etc etc etc.

Within reason, yes - but the Macs are not the quickest units to use if you want fast 'bump' changes from one colour to another.

[P. Funk]

in my experience the VL-5 hasnt been too good from colour to colour. its about 1 second from beginning to end of one wheel.

 

maybe you could use scrollers on par64s for the fast transitions and then other moving washes for the more subtle stuff?

[Shaun Foster]

Are scrollers not slower than colour wheels????? Also, the Chroma Q ones I have used had a tendancy to slip if they were changed to fast, and end up in the wrong place. Maybe the more expensive ones are better and faster.

 

And also, you would have to make up the scroll so the colours you wanted fast transitions between were all next to each other.

[gareth]

in my experience the VL-5 hasnt been too good from colour to colour. its about 1 second from beginning to end of one wheel.

 

maybe you could use scrollers on par64s for the fast transitions and then other moving washes for the more subtle stuff?

I wonder how you managed to get a time of 1 second end-to-end for a colour wheel in a VL5? The VL5 doesn't have colour wheels ..... ;) It uses CMY dichroic mixing. You're not thinking of a VL6 are you? I doubt it - they do have wheels (colour and gobos) but they're EXTREMELY fast - way less than a second for full rotation.

 

Scrollers are fine as far as they go, but if you want fast bumps from one colour to another you need to make sure that the colours are within a frame or two of each other when you get the scrolls made up.