revbobuk Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 OK - this isn't a big thing. We're adding lighting to a community hall stage, and this doesn't get used for much more than the annual nativity play and some children's drama. Needs to be easily controlled by people with no technical background. We're planning to use 8 LED PAR56 - that way we don't need to get out the ladders to change colours, the light output will be more than enough for a very small stage, and the power requirements minimal. Here's the question. What sort of controller? It seems that most LED PARs are 4 or 5 channel, and so 8 would need 40 channels. What would be the best way to offer both flexibility and ease of use? It seems that budget controllers are either aimed at disco use - movers & scanners - or generics - dimmed channels. Or the few LED PAR specific controllers don't offer much flexibility, treating the fixtures as a group, not individually. Any good advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 Do you need seperate control of every fitting? Can you address them either the same in pairs, or groups, or odd/even perhaps to reduce the number of control channels required? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revbobuk Posted September 28, 2009 Author Share Posted September 28, 2009 I probably could - but is 8 PARs such a lot to control? If we'd gone for regular PAR56, then I'd expect to be able to control all 8 individually - am I expecting a lot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 If there's not going to be anyone who 'understands' lighting, the best option probably is a fader-per-channel console like a SmartFade 12/48 or 24/96. You will want LED fixtures that just have Red, Green, Blue - but not an overall intensity. Then patch the console so they have three faders per LED Par (Red,Green,Blue), and unpatch the other 'channels' - you almost certainly don't want strobe, macro etc.- This will fill 24 faders, which you can label appropriately. Almost everybody can happily control 'push up faders to get light', even without any tuition. Moving light consoles (while great for people who understand the idea) tend to take more explaining - if only because you have to 'select' the fixture before you can control it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 If there's not going to be anyone who 'understands' lighting, the best option probably is a fader-per-channel console like a SmartFade 12/48 or 24/96. You will want LED fixtures that just have Red, Green, Blue - but not an overall intensity. Then patch the console so they have three faders per LED Par (Red,Green,Blue), and unpatch the other 'channels' - you almost certainly don't want strobe, macro etc.- This will fill 24 faders, which you can label appropriately.This is precisely how we send out (on occasion) some of our LED Pars on hire to the local schools. Our Strand 200 handles 8 pars as above, or (if they want a bit of flashy option for a disco/dance number) I've set it up for 6 or 7 units, with 1, 2, 3 or 4 'spare' channels patched to the S-L function of individual or groups of lanterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benweblight Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 Check out showtechs new products...had a play with one at PLASA and seems to do the job. Largehttp://www.highlite.nl/index.php/highlite/...s/led_commander Smallhttp://www.highlite.nl/index.php/highlite/.../led_operator_4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pritch Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 Just how much control is needed? Just on/off/different colours? Might it be possible to get away with some sort of architecural type wall panel controller, and a few programmed memories? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revbobuk Posted September 28, 2009 Author Share Posted September 28, 2009 These posts have all been really helpful - thanks guys. The showtec looks good, and the guidance about how to use LED PARs is really instructive. Great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew.p.r Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 would something like this be useful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revbobuk Posted September 28, 2009 Author Share Posted September 28, 2009 As far as I can tell from the details I've found, that treats all the fixtures as one - no individual control at all. So a bit too simple! I may have misunderstood the spec, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sound In Gloucestershire Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 yeah that ledj one controls all heads the same plus the buttons only make sense if using their own brand of budget pars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 I was faced with the same issue when installing a system that used 9 led pars (amongst other things) at a church. The eventual decision was to use Freestyler, as the church could source a spare PC without much trouble. Its worked well and I haven't had a single person walk up to it and not be able to get the lights on and to a pretty colour, programming is more complex but the people I've trained are doing fine with that. It benefits from being a windows gui, so people feel at home straightaway, and the interface shows you what you should see, so is fairly simple for people to operate. Not everyones best solution, it all depends on the environment it'll be used in, whether it'll be left setup etc, but has worked really well in that church. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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