Upgrading Lighting Rig for Smallish Venue

[tommylong]

Hello, I've recently been asked to lend a hand with ideas for improving the lighting rig in a three hundred capacity Student's Union venue.

 

Currently we have 6 Abstract VRXs and 2 Abstract Extreme DJ lights over the dance floor and 2 Abstract Raptors on the back wall. We also have 8 par cans over the dance floor which are mainly used for lighting the very small, low-rise stage that is used primarily as a dancefloor.

 

What I'd like is to be able to give the venue a bit of a new feel; I'm fed up with the mirror lights which seem to only work right 40% of the time and I think we could get some real improvements by replacing the old-looking flowery gobos with some LED lighting.

 

I know you don't have a whole lot to work on and I'm more than happy to provide more information where needed but it would be awesome if I could get a hand with some ideas for improving this setup? We don't have a whole lot of money to work with but I feel with a little bit of creativity the current lighting could be drastically improved.

 

Thanks in advance for your help,

 

Tommy

[GridGirl]

First question would be what are the current lights driven from? Are the movers on sound-to-light, or are they running from a DMX desk?

 

There's a big discussion on LED lighting here- the problem as I see it is that unless you spend quite a lot on the expensive kit, a lot of what you'll get won't really be bright enough to illuminate anything - the effect will be nice if you're looking right at the unit, but won't light anything much up. If your existing units aren't working properly most of the time, would you be better off to get them serviced and fixed, and get some new gobos for them if it's possible (I don't know the units, so I'm not too sure whether the gobos are interchangeable or not), rather than spend money on new units? Another idea which might be worth considering is getting some scrollers for your parcans - it's a cheaper and cheerful way of getting colour changing in without too much difficulty.

[P. Funk]

From what you've said so far, it sounds like your best option may be to get a few more of the same fixtures, and get some kind of control desk put in place if theyre runinng sound to light. Also get a decent scheme of maintenance put in place - things like that dont look after themselves - you should have someone checking lamps every week if possible, and servicing them when they need it.

 

Do you do many live gigs? Is there a stage, how big is it?

[johnhuson]

As Grid Girl suggests, unless you want to spend a serious amounts of money on LED kit, you will probably be disappointed with the results. In my experience of budget LED fixtures, the level of output from them isn't really that usable and as the quality control on the LED's isn't as high as on expensive units, so you won't get two units to produce identical colours with the same settings (though this may be less of an issue in a club environment.

 

You will also not get the range of effects out of an LED colour changing fixture as you would from a ML with several colours, gobos & positions. I would second the suggestion to look at adding more fixtures (maybe some smallish moving heads?) and getting what you have serviced and repaired. We recently did a club re-fit which included some VRX's and once they were cleaned, serviced and repaired they have been running faultlessly for several months now. Also if your running sound-to-light at the moment the addition of a controller would make it easy to change the look of the lighting rig.

 

Just some food for thought.

[tommylong]

Sorry, should have mentioned. The lights over the dancefloor (VRXs and Extreme DJs) are running off of DMX controlled by a Masterpiece 96. The two Raptors run on Sound to Light. We do practise semi-regular maintainence; the VRXs were serviced only a few months ago but have already begun to fail again. Really, it's only a smallish venue and the ceiling is very low and I'm not too keen on the current way of lighting the dancefloor, which is effectively 6 gobos. I feel this is quite limiting. Instead, I'd like to spread some more light over the dancefloor itself, giving a bit more of a party feel.

 

I understand what you're saying about the current range of LEDs being quite low quality and inconsistant but really it's not a big stage venue, it's just about getting a more varied feel over the floor.

 

I'm also after a new lighting desk. Preferably I'd like something that I could program with a PC and which would run itself and not use up too much room.

 

Sorry if I'm rambling. I'm grateful for your help so far!

 

Tommy

[Jamtastic3]

I think that with the amount of scanners that you have plus the couple of barrel effects, you can't really go wrong with the space capacity of your venue. Maybe you need to consider changing the rig around so that the effects are being used to their potential. Do you have alot of rigging points around the venue (ie. cross trussing, scaff poles etc)??? If so, here's some ideas you might want to consider:

Since your VRX's are scans, place them around the edge of the rig, spread evenly so that when they are all on, they surround the majority of the dancefloor. Maybe a few mirrorballs (different sizes/heights) placed near the centre of the dancefloor will give you an extra effect or act as the 'centrepiece' of the rig. With the scans hitting the balls from all around the rig, you will get some nice effects. Since barrel effects give off wider beams of light, maybe place them neaer the centre of the dancefloor rather than at a side wall and have the unit sit horizontally with the ceiling so the light is spread evenly enough all over.

As for parcans, well I don;t think you can go wrong with what you have. What about banks of pinspots?? Classic effect but spread beam effects look great in smoke. You say your ceiling is low, that may be an advantage to you if you did consider LED par's since they are cooler to run yet less intense than a normal par. Remember though that LED's take more DMX channels up and the MP96 only has 96 channels (duh). I think your MP96 at the moment is probably doing a good job. I run 2 MP108's in the club I work in and apart from the sh*tness of doing theatre on them, they are very good boards with movers. So just weigh up how many free channels you have left if you're going to buy more equipment.

[tokm]

You say your ceiling is low, that may be an advantage to you if you did consider LED par's since they are cooler to run yet less intense than a normal par. Remember though that LED's take more DMX channels up and the MP96 only has 96 channels (duh). I think your MP96 at the moment is probably doing a good job. I run 2 MP108's in the club I work in and apart from the sh*tness of doing theatre on them, they are very good boards with movers. So just weigh up how many free channels you have left if you're going to buy more equipment.

Most of the LED cans mentioned in previous topics (showtec mainly) are only 5 or 6 channel.. They'd be a bit naff for anything big, would probably be fine for in the eye line effects and for low over head use.

 

If the o/p really wanted to cut down on channels, pair them all up. i.e. some running off one set of DMX channels, some off others, or all off the same set if need be. OK some'll be doing the same thing, but with the inbuilt effects running, they'll look the same as if you had them running on independent channels for each of them.

 

Tom

[dave singleton]

For a venue of that size I would be very tempted to get some Martin Wizard Extreme's instead. A pic of them in operation can be seen HERE!

 

I currently have 4 and am very pleased with them for output mainly.

[tommylong]

Thanks for all the help guys, I think I'm starting to get a bit of a better picture of what's what.

 

Funny you should mention the Wizard Extremes. We have a couple of old Wizards that we stripped out of our big venue last year and were considering flogging. Again, our ceiling is very low (I don't have exact figures but I'm 6 foot and I can touch the VRXs) and from my experiences Wizards can get very hot!

 

As for lighting bars we're cursed with poor forward planning here. We currently only have 2 lighting bars, both slap bang over the middle of the dance floor.

 

The lack of desk space is already causing an issue. The DMX line for this venue also runs the 200 capacity venue next door which is fitted with four 16 channel Futurelights, so to fit everything on we've already had to start doubling up fixture's DMX addresses.

 

I'm still interested in using some LEDs, I think it might be a good idea to stick in four LED par cans (either adding to the 8 real pars, or more likely, replacing 4) and use this to put some low intensity washes over the crowd.

 

The disco ball idea is good, but again I'd have to look at ceiling height. It may still be possible though.

 

Thanks again, guys, for all the ideas.

 

Oh, and as for desk. What we currently use is a set of pre-programmed environment chases on the MP96 and then lock the board up and use an Outstation to effectively idiot proof (or "DJ proof") the system. Unfortunately our MP96 likes to crash quite a bit though :s I'd be more comfortable with some sort of small PC programmable desk, or in fact running a PC itself where we could load up a lot more pre-sets, etc.

[Tomo]

If the control is already borderline, then it may be worth looking at replacing the lighting console.

 

It sounds like you really want an LPC rather than a full-blown console - a rackmount box that sits in the amp rack and plays back set sequences, giving the DJ a set of tough (and cheap) buttons to activate certain effects and change sequences.

Reprogramming can be a pain though - normally you'd want to hire a 'real' one for a day, program using that then copy the show into the LPC.

 

That said, Congo Jr might be a possibility - it's a full-blown moving light and generics console, but it fits inside a 19" rack and has contact-closure macro inputs to give the DJ some control.

Because it's a real desk, it would be easy to reprogram as necessary or for special events.

 

As for the lights - LEDs sound quite good for your venue, mostly because of the very low ceiling height.

However you do need a lot of them, preferably with individual control, to get good effects from them - they do swirling rainbows, primary colour strobing and the like fairly well, especially in a dark nightclub.

 

Small numbers of them make good truss warmers, but not a lot more.

[Jamtastic3]

Any chance you can post a pic or two of the setup you have at the moment??? It might help to see the overall size, height and rig flexibilites.

[tommylong]

I would love to post photos but unfortunately I'm home for Christmas. I will get some as soon as I can though.

 

Last (academic) year we were using a Masterpiece Replay Unit and Outstation but the Reply Unit and I programmed it all up on the MP96 but the memory card seemed to be buggered (probably the battery!) so we've been using the MP96 itself for the past term. Although people seem to fond of Masterpiece's, even for moving light control, I find ours to be more of a Disasterpiece (I think this though may be down to a lack of servicing!).

 

Thanks for all your help guys, I think I might go off and do a bit of research of my own (mainly looking at the various ideas you've given me and how much they'll cost!) but I will keep my eyes on this thread if any more of you geniuses have ideas!

 

Thanks again,

 

Tommy

[Jamtastic3]

Yeah the only thing I hate about the 2 MP 108's I have is: A - becuase they are only HTP boards and don't have LTP, they are terrible for moving lights in a theatre situation. And B - The memory technology is so old, that half the time the memory cards like corrupting all the programmes and then the card becomes useless (and they are fairly hard to buy).

Apart from that - great boards for moving lights in band and club situations (probably becuase they are mostly defined as club boards, but bad design for the environment intended)

 

... yeah I like Masterpieces, so shoot me.

[tommylong]

Okay, I've spent most of the day reading the entire LED thread and I think four the time being I'm going to get 4 x Showtech Par56 LED. Of course, I'd like to do a lot more in the long run but budget wise that looks like it may be all I'm allowed for now.

 

A quick question... I assume that for a Masterpiece Reply Unit to work the data it takes from the Memory Card must be written by an actual Masterpiece 96/108/256. It's not some sort of open standard that can be programmed via another means is it?

 

I'm still looking for a desk solution... I've been considering an Entec USB DMX dongle for a while now but I believe the basic package only allows 36 channels. Is this the basic Entec software that only uses 36 channels or is it something about the dongle itself? Is it's the software, can you use alternate software?

 

Cheers, guys.

[johnhuson]

If you buy the Enttec Open USB DMX interface there is a wide variety of software you can use which will allow you to output 512 channels, list can be found here. For a club application I would highly recommend Freestyler, it's free and quite similar in interface and use to Martin Lightjockey, just quite a bit cheaper. So for around £40 plus the cost of a PC you have a decent controller.....certainly a lot better than a Masterpiece in my opinion. Some people complain that the speed of the DMX refresh on this interface isn't brilliant but in a small club environment with the type of fixtures you have I think you would struggle to notice!

 

becuase they are only HTP boards and don't have LTP, they are terrible for moving lights in a theatre situation.

No makes them a terrible moving light console in all applications! I've used them extensively and it takes twice the time to do something than you would expect it to take on pretty much any other 'moving light controller'.

 

The memory technology is so old, that half the time the memory cards like corrupting all the programmes and then the card becomes useless (and they are fairly hard to buy).

Granted technology is old, but only problem I've had with corrupt data on the cards is due to poor battery, the desk even tells you battery voltage when you put a card in. Cards are also readily available, if your having problems feel free to PM me and I can help!

 

Apart from that - great boards for moving lights in band and club situations (probably becuase they are mostly defined as club boards, but bad design for the environment intended)

Ok, I wouldn't say there 'great' but they are acceptable in a club and can be very usable once you get your head round them! But they are lacking major ML functions e.g. pallets. And yes the touch sensitive keys are hopeless in a mildly moist environment (i.e. most nightclubs!)

 

... yeah I like Masterpieces, so shoot me.

BANG! :D