Moving Head Spots

[Ashley R]

If I went for the PAR56 lights and found them too bright,

 

could I add a dimmer ?

 

Or is this just over complicating things ?

 

Pete

 

if you went for PAR 56's you should get a dimmer in the first place so you have control over them, then you can set then to whatever intensity you want.

 

And actually I found Amber and White LED PAR 64 cans on eBay Aust for the same price as a RGB model tonight as I was doing a bit of browsing.

[parrothead pete]

Reading further, it seems that the PAR56 cans, although plugged into a dimmer, would then need to be plugged into a DMX desk,

 

it looks like the dimmer on its own will not work without DMX,

 

is this correct ?

 

Pete

[LXbydesign]

FGS - just get some DMX Pars and put those up cabled back to a little DMX controller.

 

You could add a ceiling half size mirror ball - point your excisting pinspots at it. Looks lovely.

 

Why is such a simple task becoming such a mountain to climb?

 

We can understand you know nothing much about the technicalities of what sort of lighting fixtures to use - so there have now been umpteen suggestions from pros in the industry (and wannabe pros and students!) about what to do and your still asking 1001 questions!!

 

Why dont you take the advice , go with the DMX Par install and then once its all up and running come back and report how effective it is and what else - if anything needs to be done.

 

As you said - its for ONE night a month in a pub!! With all due respect, I dont think punters are really going to give a feck about the stage lighting when they will be more interested on hearing there mates or favorite band play.!

[paulears]

PAR56s with 300W lamps will soon bring the heat levels up and make your aircon work harder. An RGB LED can with red, green and blue on full produces white - we complain about it because in our world, white is a very specific colour - and one we spend ages attempting to match. However, you really won't have this problem. What we mean is that a PAR 56 with the old fashioned mains operated lamp in it is white (but in fact, it's slightly yellow) Any fluorescent tubes you have are not white either - they're even more yellowy. If you have a projection system, it's white will be probably a bit blue. Discharge clever lighting is very blue. These different 'whites' are what we spend lots of time trying to make look the same. If you get a cheap LED PAR fixture and add R,G and B together and shine it on a white sheet, you will think it's white. If you look closely, and maybe wave your hand in front, you'll see odd coloured shadows around the edges, and sometimes, if the light is too close, you actually see bits of red, blue and green tinges.

 

The best way to treat the LEDs is to consider them as 3 in one. Dimmers are best avoided if you can. They're big and heavy - need putting in a rack. Almost certainly, you'll need an electrician to put in proper wiring for them, and using LEDs just does away with this completely - no big heavy supply cables, and this simplicity is what makes a totally simple system so much easier for people who don't know (or just don't WANT to know).

 

A simple panel behind the bar, and maybe a single power switch to turn on the power to the LEDs, and you're done. No maintanance, no running costs bar a tiny bit of electricity. PAR56 lamps cost, and don't really last that long. They burn more juice and produce more heat. If you put gels in them for colour (and perhaps to stop the musicians squinting) they fade and need replacing regularly. There is a higher fire risk, and of course at low ceiling heights the punters could easily burn themselves if they touched them. In my humble view, it's a no-brainer!

[parrothead pete]

I'd like to thank all of you who have been so helpful,

 

especially mrjammy and paulears.

 

I've ordered the LED Bar and the LED PAR56 cans suggested from Thomann,

 

and I'll be sourcing a DMX controller next week (probably the Chauvet Obey 10).

 

I apologise (to LXbydesign) if I've driven you to distraction.

 

Once it is all up and working I'll let you know how I got on.

 

Thanks again.

 

Pete

[paulears]

Take a picture first gig, and let us see the results of the effort you've put in!

[Darren Chauvet]

Hi there.

 

I'm looking for advice...

 

I run a pub, and we recently started having live music in our back room.

 

We don't have a stage, as such, bands/performers set up at one end of the room and the crowd sit it the rest of the room.

 

I have rigged up four PAR 36 pinspots pointing toward the "stage" area, but the term pinspot is very accuarate and they light a very small target area.

 

I recently bought three Chauvet Pinspot 2 lamps.

 

These are LED lamps (only 3W) but impressively powerful, and seem ideal for our size of room- we are not trying to light the Royal Albert Hall.

 

They come with two glass lenses, giving either a 6' beam or a 9' beam (which is better for us).

 

Last night gig went well, but we had several performers on, and after the changover, you guessed it, the spots were in the wrong positions !

 

This led me to thinking, and a little bit of Googling, and I have found these things called "moving head spots".

 

Now please bear with me, because this is all new to me and I don't really know what I'm talking about.

 

What I want is a small spot (ideally four) that I can move remotely, through what I think would be a simple DMX setup- either a small desk or laptop

 

software, allowing me to pan and tilt in order to keep the performers in the spotlight when one goes off and another comes on

 

(it just isn't possible to get to the spots to adjust them manually once the performance has started.)

 

The lights that I have been looking at seem to be more for a disco setup than for what I want.

 

They include changing colours (which might be useful) and something called gobo wheels which I don't need (I don't think so, anyway).

 

So, all I want is a pan/tilt spotlight, shining a white light, to illuminate perfomers once we turn the houselights down.

 

LED light would be preferable to incandescant, I'm perfectly happy with the performance of the Chauvet 2W LED lamps,

 

and Chauvet do a moving head spot but it seems expensive for what I want.

 

Now then, someone out there must have some advice to give, have some experience of moving spots or have some comments to make.

 

Please help a Newbie through this minefield, I don't want to waste money buying the wrong kit- what is your advice ?

 

Thanks,

 

Pete

 

Sorry it's a long post, but I wanted to give as much information as I could.

 

Hi Pete,

 

I work for Chauvet Lighting...and I am really pleased with your comments, thank you.

 

Have you looked at our website: www.chauvetlighting.com here you will find a number of moving heads on there..plus a whole range of par cans / stage illuminare too.

 

Failing that...who is your nearest dealer?

 

regards

 

Darren

[parrothead pete]

Hi Darren,

 

Yes, I've looked at your website, and found it very useful.

 

I have just taken delivery of a Chauvet Obey 10 DMX controller which I will be setting up in the next day or two.

 

I have bought four PAR56 RGB LED cans which are now installed and I'm just waiting for the DMX cables to arrive so that I can try everything out.

 

I do have one question, and I wonder if anyone can help ?

 

I have bought a Stairville LED Bar, from Thoman, as suggested by several people earlier.

 

The instruction are in German, although it seems quite simple, it can be switched into several modes.

 

however it does not have any dip switches (the other lights do), so I wonder who you connect it to the controller,

 

when you don't seem to be able to assign it DMX channels like you can on the other lights ?

 

Can anyone give me any advice ?

 

As I said, the DMX cables have not arrived yet, so I ahven't had a chance to play with it yet.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete

[paulears]

They use the menu/up/down system like most modern moving lights. So repeated prods of the menu button toggle through the things you can adjust, like modes and DMX address number, then you go up and down to the required value.

 

These things have a few different modes that allow access to the three colours across the entire fixture or in smaller groups, and there are some built in effects too, although I've only ever used them in direct control. At the simplest you mix the three colours with the R,G and B channels - if you have the time and patience, you can access all sorts of features. If you ask Thomann, they'll send you a manual in English, I'm sure!

[parrothead pete]

As long as I can connect it to the DMX controller it will be OK.

 

The power lead that came with it isn't long enough to reach the supply,

 

so I haven't powered it up yet.

 

Also, because I haven't received the DMX cables yet I haven't really played with it.

 

It was only after I had installed it that I realised there were no dip switches.

 

If you can toggle through the menu and select DMX control that should be OK.

 

Thanks again for your help.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[paulears]

The display has somewhat cryptic abbreviations, but they're English abbreviations!

[parrothead pete]

The strange thing is, that the PAR56 RGB LED cans have the instructions in English,

 

but the LED bar is in German, but watching a video of it on Youtube the display seems to be in English.

 

I sent an email to Thoman, asking them to suggest a simple DMX controller,

 

and they replied, but in German, which wasn't much help.

 

Once I get the cables I am sure that I will be able to figure it out,

 

but we have a band playing tomorrow night, and I want to get it all up and running for that,

 

so I thought I'd ask the questions now, rather than wait until tomorrow when I start plugging in cables.

 

thanks again,

 

Pete

[parrothead pete]

Last nights gig went down well.

 

The DMX cables still haven't arrived so all the fixtures were set up manually.

 

Once they are set up properly we will be able to use them to their full potential,

 

last night two were set to white, one to green and one to blue (although the flash on the camera has washed out a lot of it).

 

Thanks to all of you who helped and offered advice, as you will see I took some of your advice

 

and installed a back cloth, it makes a big difference.

 

If you are interested you can see somephotos here...

 

http://www.clevelandbay.co.uk/bluesatthebay/id8.html

[Jamtastic3]

That's an interesting back cloth! Where did you get that from?

 

Also, how are you hanging everything?

[parrothead pete]

The back-cloth came from the fabric department of a local department store (Boyes).

 

It is a black cloth with blue hologram sequins, it cost 2.95 per metre, and I used 9 metres.

 

The room has a wood trim and the cloth is held by a series of small bulldog clips screwed to the wooden trim,

 

this makes putting the back-cloth up and taking it down a less than one minute job.

 

Nice and simple, but very effective !

 

Cheers,

 

Pete