Some lighting questions

[clintsilver]

Just found yer great forum and seem to be some knowledgable guys on here so hoping someone can help me. I run a 6 piece band, cover stuff, working 2-3 nights a week. Usual types of venues. Some big , some small. I have a stage wash lighting rig, 1 unit per side, 8 x 250W bulbs in each unit, so with a chase program running and the controller master setting at about 70% Id have 2 bulbs @ 500W @ 70% so roughly 350W a side at any given time. this serves us well.

 

Sick of buying 200 quid worth of bulbs a year so looking for an adequate LED solution. Budget maybe up as far as maybe the grand for the right unit.

 

looking at the equinox megabar.

http://www.theaudioworksuk.com/index.php/lighting-effects/lighting/equinox-mega-bar-system.html

 

The 8 x PAR56 rig here

http://www.mjlstagelighting.co.uk/index.php?cat=COMPLETE_RIGS_HALOGEN

 

The thomann stage wash rig

http://www.thomann.de/ie/stairville_hlx3_highpower_led_wash_set.htm

 

I do like the idea of the stairville unit but I find the build quality of stairville to be quite low in that I am touring with a van and even though I case everything, my 3 previous experiences with thomann own brand lighting units is not good. 2 were faulty design and Ive had to rewire a controller I bought off them 2 years ago, 3 times in the last 6 months.

 

there doesnt seem to be too much in the mid range for a band, its mostly DJ gear, the equinox seems to be about as mid range as I can find but even then Im picking holes with it. Can anyone give a review of it if they ahve it or if tehre are any simialr bands out there, what are you using that you could recommend. Even if someone can say to get a few white ground spots at 60-70 quid each and then the par bars will suffice. So little reviews I can find.

 

Anyway all suggestions welcome..

[paulears]

To be honest, cheap equipment from any brand is unlikely to be road hardened - hence why decent cases are a must! Stairville are no worse or better - and of course are probably made in the same town!

[clintsilver]

To be honest, cheap equipment from any brand is unlikely to be road hardened - hence why decent cases are a must! Stairville are no worse or better - and of course are probably made in the same town!

 

Oh agreed. I cant seem to find a midrange unit that will satisy my needs as a stage wash. I had priced some multiple units to see what I could get but I was up around the 4k mark before even looking at cases. All the rest of those units seem to be more Dj disco orientated.

[Shez]

Have you considered building your own system rather than buying a single unit that's less than ideal? A pair of lighting stands with T bars, eight LED cans, some DMX cable and a basic controller should do the job. That then opens the market up a bit more as there are far more different makes / models of LED cans out there than there are one-box systems. Depending on how you case it up, it needed take any longer to set up.

[clintsilver]

for sure, I would be open to building my own rig and would take more pride in it knowing what I was putting together. Again though, its just finding the sites that will do what Im looking for. Im hoping someone has put something together that I could use as a reference point. Id like to read something like

 

"Oh look, I got 4 cans from www.siteX.com, the 8 x 3w LEDs in the can are much better then the generic brand systems and I was surprised the cheap ass controller I got from www.siteY.com was so sturdily built. "

 

maybe everything is available on thomann. Stands and leads I got already.

 

Actually heres a question, you know all those LED units that you see times 4 on a T bar from the sites I listed above, are they all dimmable with a controller and is it just cos theres only a foot controller suppleid that theyre not dimmable out of the box?

[Ynot]

For a slightly more robust LED option you won't go far wrong with the LEDJ Omni - we have 10 in our theatre grid at the moment as toplight and to be honest they're well worth the money.

CPC have them up at £182 plus VAT, or even less, at £169 if you buy 3 or more.

So less than £1400 for 8 of those, so all you need is a small DMX controller capable of driving 48 channels (if you want independent control of all 8).

Shouldn't break the bank.

You'll need hard-power cables and DMX, as opposed to the dimmer cables you have for the current crop (I assume 15A or even IEC/13A...?)

[rossmck]

For a slightly more robust LED option you won't go far wrong with the LEDJ Omni - we have 10 in our theatre grid at the moment as toplight and to be honest they're well worth the money.

 

How do you find the dimming curve on these ? particularly over a slower fade / at the low end ?

[Ynot]

How do you find the dimming curve on these ? particularly over a slower fade / at the low end ?

Not perfect, but not bad either. As a more budget option there are limits to the finesse, but whilst I did have concerns about the bottom end dimming when I had a demo pre-purchase, I've not really noticed it during the shows I've lit with them thus far.

 

And definitely not a problem for band lighting on the scale of the OP.

[KidRay]

Our singer changed her NJD quartets (4 x 250w) for LED lights (the controller for the NJDs died) and found that a lot of the LED wash units were nowhere near bright enough, so she tried a couple of LED pars with 7 x 3w LEDs. These are just about bright enough, but the beam angle is quite narrow (40 degrees according to the blurb), especially when compared to the NJDs.

I have a couple of the Stairville version of the Equinox megabar and, while not a bad light, much brighter than the LED par 64 with 10mm LEDs they replaced, I would prefer to get individual fixtures than the 4 on a bar. There's not that much difference in price and you'd have a lot more freedom in where to place them.

The LEDJ Omni look interesting, I haven't used them, but 9 x 9w should be a lot punchier than the 7 x 3w fixtures we're currently using, but again the beam angle is quite narrow at 25 degrees.

[irine]

To be honest, cheap equipment from any brand is unlikely to be road hardened - hence why decent cases are a must! Stairville are no worse or better - and of course are probably made in the same town!

 

 

absolutely true :)

[Darkness]

I started looking at LED lighting a few years ago, mainly because its relativly cheap to run and can make lots of different colours and I was limited on power and space to get any conventional lights.

 

I started off with some LEDJ Stratos Wash panels, while they were quite good at lighting small backdrops they where no good for lighting people, the spread was to much and they were nowhere near bright enough. My lightest purchase was some Stairville 36x3W LED Pars, they are much brighter and better for lighting people although I find can be a bit narror on large stages. When I first got them I was very suprised at just how bright they are, the dimming curve isn't great at the bottom end but for live music I don't find this really matters too much. I'm going to be using them at the end of the month to light some bands, will be the first time I've used them on their own.