New lighting rig - thoughts welcome

[Ryote]

Hi when your sourcing some of your movers I would consider giving www.usedlighting.co.uk a look as they are currently selling mac 250+'s at £600 + VAT if your buying 2 at a time they will throw in a flight case. As well as that I would give www.thomann.de/gb a look as they consistantly carry offers on their site and any order over £150 is delivered free. Failing that talk to Roger Mullan at Rea Sound in the North (they are near Cookstown) +44 028 86764059 they are the Martin distributors for Northern Ireland and can get you some great prices.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Are you intending to use the EFX lights/ wizzards to light up the band or the audience. I am getting the horrid vision on nastry 70's disco effects, which I think you want to avoid? As a result I would hang back on buying the EFX/SCX lights, and get your basics sorted first.

 

With regards to moving heads, to be honest, unless you have a good LD who can sort them out/ program them well, you wont get your moneys worth out of them, and they will look a bit pants. I would personally spend the money on 8 - 12 LED pars, and maybe some LED wash units (these have 750 LED's and are about £89) from Uni Lyte - you could use these for a rear cyc wash/ general wash. There isn't much info about them yet I don't think.

 

Also, before you can really use moving heads and scanner units, you will need a desk with more channels and more functions, so that would be my next port of call.

 

So initially I would buy:

 

12x LED Par 64's

2x T bars and stands

power and DMX cable/ ditro

flightcases for pars

4x floormount kits for 4 of pars

 

That would do you generally for now, you can then go and hire stuff in to add to that to see what does/ doesn't work.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[Modge]

To be fair I might well be inclined to save money on the floor mount kits by using such technology as a bit of wood (ax. 1' square or less) with a n M10 sized bolt hole though it and another, M10 bolt head sized hole far enough threw to recess the head. Not so fancy, but paint them black, on a black stage and no one will be any the wiser.

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Fair doos Modge, would work fine.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[dave singleton]

I honestly wouldnt buy LED Pars to light the band. Take it from someone with them currently.

 

The best you can do is use Par 56's if power is a concern (possibly rainbow pars). They just arnt good enough in terms of output etc. I lit a dance floor the other day for a dinner dance type thing using 8 a side (floor was about 7.5m x 5m) and it didnt provide much light at all. In the end I used movers to wash the floor as that was all that was available. The LED pars would be much more suited to "in-shot" backlight type effects.

[Ynot]

Hi all,

newbie here looking for your comments and suggestions. We've decided to start upgrading out lighting rig

Hi Shane - welcome to the Blue Room.

 

Nice web site, by the way - esp liked the personal profile of Donal! :P

 

To business...

I think others have already commented on the cheesy cheap & cheerful movers/scanners, and I tend to agree with them. Yep - to program movers for a band gig situation can be tricky, even with decent gear, and that can change with every location you play, due to time & space restrictions.

 

I'm going to come down on the side of those suggesting you upgrade with some flexible solutions like the LED pars (to light the backing or use as backlights) with some regular 300/500w Par 56's to add to the visibility angle, and keep things simple. If you do want to use movers, what might be a good first option would be to look at hiring a couple of (eg) Macs or Robes (if available over there) and see what you can achieve with them over a short period - maybe pick a week where you have more than one gig to try them in different venues. Beware, though, that programming can take a while if you're not used to it!

 

The mistake a LOT of bands make when starting out with movers is letting the things dance around on auto or sound to light, rather than making them do what you WANT them to do. Some of the best effects I've achieved with movers are subtle, with minimal actual movement of the heads, but using the fixtures to set a different mood.

(I've also done some pretty naff sets with movers, too, I have to admit - usually down to limited time!!)

 

If you watch the way a lot of the TV LD's use movers, you'll see that for a lot of the numbers they move to set a scene, then stay in the same place, giving a colour wash or maybe a gobo. They don't physically move then til the number ends, where they then either move to a 'park' or standard setting or go into the next set's scene. They may change colour during the song, or strobe if the music fits.

 

Anyway - don't think I've said too much that hasn't already been posted, so I'll shut up now!!

 

TD

[Jamtastic3]

If you watch the way a lot of the TV LD's use movers, you'll see that for a lot of the numbers they move to set a scene, then stay in the same place, giving a colour wash or maybe a gobo. They don't physically move then til the number ends, where they then either move to a 'park' or standard setting or go into the next set's scene. They may change colour during the song, or strobe if the music fits.

 

True, but is that not because the people behind the cameras get all fussy when you have a rig full of movers moving into the cameras and blinding everything? That's my theory anyway.

[savman]

Good stuff lads

 

I'm almost sold on 4 x Mac250's and just having LEDs or PARs on the rear truss. Christ I certainly don't want to spend a few grand only to have it look like a cheesy rig so use of any effects will be secondary to PARs and very minimal.

 

I think I'd just like to have something extra special that kicks in for one song mid-way thru the show and every odd song after that Less is more is my thinking and we've no intention to just setting them to Chase and leave them be.

 

I like the idea of the moving heads with rotating gobos which I could see myself using tastefully on a single colour and a some haze.

 

Thanks for all advice so far, have taken everything on board or should I say have taken everything back to the drawing board :P

[Modge]

Much as it seems like spending money with out visible result I would suggest that before you get the moving heads you get some thing to run them off of. A 48 channel effort designed for generics (if that's what it is - if it IS a moving light desk I take all this back) really won't do them justice and further you'll land up having to pair stuff, which detracts from what you can do with it as well. Just a thought on the grounds that I'd hate you to buy the head's and then the rest of the band be upset because they took anon's to program then looked less than there best. There's lots and lots of threads on the best small desks to choose between and remember PC control is (if you have a laptop at least) a possibly very economical option.

 

On the choice of heads front having used the robe 250 xt's I can join the fan club they seem to have on here - quicker than the mac250+'s I'm used to and with nicer gobo's. mac250 Entours can probably match them for speed, but not value.

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

I just noticed you had a website, so looked at your current lighting.

 

You currently have 4x 300w Par 56's?

 

 

So, why not get another 4, and a couple of T bars, and fix 4 to each T bar. That way you will get a good strong front light.

 

You could then get a rear truss setup, say 4m long, and mount 8 - 12 LED pars to give you a general colourwash and use them to add some movement to the light show i.e. a subtle chase with maybe all the LED pars at 75%, then alternate them to 100%. You could also then mount 2 or 4 movers (robe 250xt/ mac 250), (Hired for now maybe) onto that.

 

So I'll summarise:

 

8x Par 56's

2x T bars

2x 4 par 56 flightcases

1x zero 88 betapack (To power the pars)

8 - 12 LED pars

Flightcases for the LED pars

4m truss (2x 2m sections), with stands and adaptors

DMX and power distro

 

Then, think about getting a better desk which you can run mover off, as you won't be able to off a 48 ch very easily.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[savman]

Yeah we have 4 par56's alright and I've ordered one of those Showtec T-bars that powers the 4 cans and assigns a DMX channel to each. Like I said I do like the look of traditional PARs and we're at the point now where we might be able to have the best of both worlds with PARs and LEDs.

 

I'm fairly sure we'll go with 8 Front Wash Cans on 2 Tripods, whether they are LEDs or PARs remains to be seen but that's a dilemma that will no doubt sort itself out by whichever performs the task better. We may even mix and match for different gigs or just use LEDs in smaller venues or where power draw needs to be minimal. I like that idea because it means we keep everything modular which is just as important.

 

Regarding the rear truss, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself but I really wanted something decent or different than just more wash light. Not that I want half a dozen multicoloured rays spinning around the room but from my own limited experience moving lights give you something extra to play with creatively. There's only so much "wow" factor with color changing LEDs,. We have done a few corporate shows where the rig was provided or hired from AV company. One such show they had 2 x Showtec Octopod LED sets (16 x small spots) but we remember them not being all too powerful. They used these in conjunction with some Mac500's which pretty much did all the donkey work.

 

Another show we did recently had a bigger hired rig, IIRC about 12 PAR64's along with another 12-14 moving heads (some profiles and some washes). Here's a pic http://www.santoria.ie/gallery/albums/user...inityrooms2.JPG and although the Heads were a brand not familiar to me (was very similar to Futurelight design) they got some fantastic results with the spinning gobos and some haze (the feckin' bubble machine was too much though, leaves stains on bloody everything )

 

There is a decent argument for the Showtec moving heads or Futurelight, Pearl River or whatever but the availability of parts has to be a big factor in our decision making and from what I hear these things are made in China and after sales service is less than satisfactory (from 3rd party reports I've read).

 

Not to be stubborn, but I do think we need some kind of scans or intels somewhere on stage. Not that I want to have more pointless toys and gadgets to play with, but because from the many shows I've seen they can really do the job if used correctly.

 

I am seriously considering the Robe's but I'm reluctant and don't really know why. But I suppose it's a straight toss up between them and Martin, the primary advantage being we've already used and abused Martin gear and it seems to take it pretty well. But I dunno, still sitting on the fence on that one.

 

I just want good lights!!!!!

 

 

Moderation: Long and unnecessary (it was the post above in its entirety) removed.

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

I see your eagerness to add the "WOW" factor to your lightshow. I see you have opted for bars with internal dimmers, which I have used once, and are fine as long as you want to limit the patching ability of your pars, but for bands they are ideal and if you run each par on a separate DMX channel i.e. occupying 8 DMX channels total for the 2 bars with 8 pars, they should work well.

 

If you think the 8 pars will give you enough in terms of general light, then by all means try movers out, they are the most flexible out of scanners and movers.

 

Looking at this pic:

 

http://www.santoria.ie/gallery/albums/user...inityrooms2.JPG

 

I would say if you used a similar setup as that i.e. the back truss, with 4 wash movers flown on it, it would provide a really flexible rig and for a band that size you could get some great colour washes out of it. You could fly two profile/ spot movers between wash movers to add specials. This would make LED pars redundant. If funds allow another pair of profile/ spot movers by the drum kit would help layer the lighting, and you could make some cool criss cross effects with them.

 

But, as you are a movable show, your show will need to adapt to each venue, and if stage space is minimal, movers might not be very usable. So I would suggest hiring before buying. ROBE movers are great, I think the cost a bit less than the Martin equivelent and are pretty reliable. Our local hire company has changed from Martin to ROBE, so that shows me they are serious players.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[bjkered]

I Can recommend Robe.

 

I use Robe 275 and 575 XTs in our rig and over the last 4 years no faults and a good selection of Gobos along with some extras. Especially like the quick connects for rigging the 575s to truss

 

Here they are at work http://www.protechaudiovisual.com/

 

No problems and found the after sales support excellent.

 

Cant quite say the same for Robe sales folks as they are amazingly slow to get back on requests to buy something from them. V strange for a salesman

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Also, just to add a bit of help for the LED units, here's a link to a post on LED pars:

 

http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?show...0pars&st=73

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[savman]

Cheers Daniel that's a very interesting thread on the LEDs and thank you (and everyone else) for your terrific advice so far.