Lighting a Rock Band

[nickb12345]

Hi

 

A friend of mine has asked me to put together some lighting for his band. He has said he will pay me on a per a gig basis for setting it up and running it. The only problem is this leaves me to buy the equipment myself.

 

At the moment I am thinking about just getting a couple of T-Bar stands some par cans and a couple of chasers. Does anyone on here have any ideas on how I could put together a small rig of lights that will look goodish for around £500?

 

Also any recomendations on suppliers and what kit to use would be extreamley helpful.

 

Many thanks

 

Nick Baker

[Rob]

I would suggest the Behringer Eurolight lighting desk which you can pick up for about £140 (try Ebay) for control if you can afford it.

 

Look at Terralec for cheap dimmers, stands and lanterns. A few PAR cans sounds like a good way to begin. Personally, I would go for 6 regular cans and four floor cans, which can either be used on the ground or in the air.

 

There are various recent threads on this sort of thing if you have a quick nose backwards.

[Jambo_UK]

Have a look at CPC http://www.cpc.co.uk for very cheap pars,

 

If I remember par 56 short eco range from about £10 and DFB-UK do 10 bulbs for Pars at under £90 I think, there site is http://www.dfb-uk.com/ and look under lamps in the manufacture. search.

 

Heres a home-made trick I found on the net, get a piece of patterned glass and put it on a par with a slow motor and place a blue filter behind it and you get a water effect, costs about £5 to make it saves buying the effect which costs £60-75.

 

Hope this helps you and good luck

 

from

 

JAmbo

[Rob]

If you can afford to, I'd steer claear of PAR 56's and go for 64's. So much brighter!

[nickb12345]

Hi

 

Thanks for the help guys.

 

Control wise I like the look of the Behringer Eurolight.

 

When it comes to dimmers the problems start - how do I power it. This band are only small and will be playing at venues such as small village halls and pubs which are not likley to have a one million amp three phase power supply :** laughs out loud **: so what should I do about powering it. The dimmer I like the look of is Terralec code MULTI-D (Products -> Stage Lighting -> Control -> just past halfway down page). This is a 4 channel 5A per channel (total 16a) pack. Would it be ok to run one of these off a 13a plug? If not any idea what I could do instead?

 

Many thanks

 

Nick

[Guest lightnix]

You might also have a look at this thread on rock band lighting from a few weeks ago. Six pages of hints, tips and ideas, some of which might be of interest to you.

[gareth]

How on earth do you get 4 channels @ 5A per channel to add up to a total load of 16A?! :** laughs out loud **:

 

Anyway ... the important thing when you're looking at what you can run from a single 13A socket is not the rating of the dimmers, it's what's plugged into them. A single 13A socket will give you enough juice to run around 3000w of load at one time. So if you've got, say, a small 6-way dimmer pack running 6 Par56's on a t-bar with 300w lamps in them, you can quite happily bang them all up to full at once (6 x 300 = 1800w = 7.5A). But what if they're Par64's? Well, you might have 500w lamps in them, in which case you can still run them all up to full (6 x 500 = 3000w = 12.5A) but you'd better fade them up rather than bump them 'cos that's getting pretty close to the limit. If you upgrade them to 1000w lamps, that's when you have to start exercising a bit of 'operator diversity' to make sure that you only bring 3 of the 6 lanterns up at any one time. Also consider that no matter how many 13A sockets you use, if they're all on the same ring you're still limited to a total of 30A (7200w).

 

So let's say you start really small and basic with 12 Par56 cans @ 300w each, two stands, two t-bars (6 lanterns on each), 2 small 6-way racks and a small desk (get one with more channels than you need right now, you'll be glad of it when the rig expands in the future). For a small pub-type band this kind of setup, with wide lamps in the cans and one stand/t-bar each side of the stage each fed from their own socket, will be fine for starters. So you've got a total connected load of 3600w split across two 13A sockets. No problem. (As long as you're sure there's nothing else sharing your ring main - see below.)

 

Then, once things get going, you can look at adding some floor cans, more dimmers, perhaps another couple of 6-way bars for some good old-fashioned rock-n-roll backlight, etc. etc. Just keep the power limitations at the front of your mind, bearing in mind that you might well be sharing a ring main with the band's backline (and quite possibly various items of catering equipment!). This is far from ideal, but in very small venues it's often the only option.

[nickb12345]

Each channel is rated at 5 Amps 1100 watts with a maximum unit load of 16 Amps.

 

From terralec site!!!

 

Thanks for the help so far.

 

Nick

[misterbassman]

The 5 amp a channel 16 amp global,

Is because each channel is rated at 5 amps but it also says that the maximum load is 16 amps (when fitted with 16 amp connector).

[gareth]

I see where your figures are coming from now - at first I thought you needed new batteries in your calculator. :** laughs out loud **:

[robloxley]

Does it make financial sense to buy rather than hire (not sure how many gigs you're doing or what your profit is etc.)?

[SceneMaster]

The multi-d is a great piece of kit. I own one and yes they work of 13ap and are supplied with 13amp plugs they are easy to add to tbars and use euro plugs for connections.

 

SceneMaster

[P. Funk]

you can get cheap and nasty 4 channel IEC dimmers from CPC for £55. they do work, but you need to adapt them a bit to get them to go on T-bars (creative gaffering maybe? :** laughs out loud **:)

[nickb12345]

Hi

 

Thanks - those dimmers from cpc r lookin good and at only £55 - bargin

 

Would anything like this be any good to control it all?

 

Thanks

 

Nick

[vinny baby]

Would anything like this be any good to control it all?

 

 

I dont see why not

 

 

 

vince