Budget followspots with DMX?

[LiveCommander]

Hi,

 

Last Sunday my band had a gig where we used our own lighting system for the first time. All went well except that the front spots (2x RoboColor I with 4 spots each) were hung on the front truss which was so close to the (front of the) stage that it was impossible to get a good lighting angle on our frontman. He was almost exactly underneath the spots that were aimed at him so his hair was nicely lit but his actual face not so much . It also turned out (as more or less expected) that he moves around too much in order for a fixed spot to do a proper job of lighting him.

 

So I went to see what's available in the budget follow spot department and found this:

 

http://www.americand.../fs2500dmx.html

 

Is this thing any good and reliable? It's incredibly cheap (€ 175) compared to everything else I've found so far but availability is sparse. The shop I get most of my equipment from is expecting another shipment of 15 units end of June and some of those have already been sold in advance and they claim it's a very popular product. Strangely it's nowhere to be found on the US websites of ADJ or Elation.

 

The nice thing about this unit is that it has DMX control which is extremely convenient for us because we run our lighting fully automated using some software that I've written that responds 'intelligently' to what I'm playing (specific triggers for cues depending on the song/stage of the song and the notes/chords I play on my keyboard plus what comes in from the drum triggers). With DMX control I can make sure that some of the sudden blackouts that I've programmed are truly instant. We won't have the luxury of training an operator to do that properly manually.

 

Is there anything else out there that's comparable? I've seen some LED units such as the Chauvet LED Followspot 75 but I wonder if that's going to look very good (in terms of CRI) in this price range. Mind you, this is for small stages for our progrock band so maybe the criticism that I see on budget LED front lighting may not fully apply in our case. But the LED units I've seen (like the Chauvet) are significantly more expensive anyway.

 

Finally, would it be necessary to use two of these for lighting from both sides or would one do in a small (<250) venue?

 

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Arjan

[paulears]

It is a nice spec but has one serious drawback for a follow spot - it's dim. It's also quite narrow beam - so to get a full body, it needs to be a fair way away. £800 will get you something bright (and DMX controllable) . Budget followspots that are bright enough tend to be the ones that are at least 1000W of tungsten - and that's not amazingly bright. Mind you you could just search for a cheap 650-1K profile, and slap in an iris, and bodge up a handle? I'd doubt the LED for that price would really cut it - but I've never used one.

[Nicktaylor]

In the interests of disclosure I am clearing out some kit on the old auction site! In your postion I would buy a second hand 1k sil as and example, I know mine are about £40. You only intend to light from the front without a huge amount of movement about the stage I guess. So on or off, and in time buy a unit dimmer for it. I assume you will be buying a stand elsewhere? Then if it proves its worth maybe upgrade to a higher spec unit

[Brian]

Why not just buy a couple of wider angle profiles and stick them on stands out front? They'll take up a lot less room than a followspot and associated operator. You don't need that much light from FOH to pick out someones face.

[Nicktaylor]

Also agree with Brian, a couple of minuette zooms take up next to no space in the van or whatever!, just an adjustment of the shutters and away you go

[peza2010]

I also fail to see the need to go down the follow spot route especially when there's no one making it follow. Money would be much better spent on a couple of profiles and a stand. And will allow you to rig them in the venues where that will work, or have them out front on stands where it wont.

[LiveCommander]

Hi,

 

Wow, thanks for all the replies. I suppose that the real problem is that I'm somewhat out of my depth here, having no former experience in lighting whatsoever. Although you all seem to understand the problem perfectly well, perhaps some pictures will make some aspects a bit clearer:

 

http://www.toyz-web.com/images/ProgFrog/IMG_6679.JPG

 

As you can see in the above picture our guitar player (frontman) was directly beneath the front truss which is well over the stage area, not even on the edge of the stage. I've never paid attention to such details before but is that a recommended position for the front truss? I think I would have put it up a little bit more towards FOH just slight in front of the stage, rather than well over it. You can also see that he was actually in the beams of both the RoboColor spots that were aimed (almost straight down) at him but his face is dark because he's looking downward a bit.

 

Also note that I was unable to hang our RoboColors where I wanted them (ie. more to the sides) because there were some PARs hanging there which we weren't allowed to move or remove. So I had to put our RoboColor up just a little off-center. I wonder if having them more to the sides would have improved matters, it would have give me more distance and presumably a slightly better angle.

 

We did have some stands to put the RoboColors on but I didn't know how crowded the place would become and they'd have had to be fairly close to the stage and not at FOH, which was at the back of the room, for them to work. Didn't want them to become a tripping hazard. The stage was also rather high (elevated 1m/3ft above the ground) and our stand only go up 3m(9ft) so I'd be lighting us almost horizontally which probably would have worked well for the guitar and bass player but not for keyboards and drums.

 

Here's another picture:

 

http://www.toyz-web.com/images/ProgFrog/IMG_6672_cropped.jpg

 

Same problem here. The spots work well for keyboards and drums which are further to the back. Bass player was not as badly lit as the guitar player but still far from ideal as he did't pay enough attention to where he was standing. The above picture may suggest that the guitar player is fairly static but he does move around quite a bit to the left and right on occassion.

 

 

It is a nice spec but has one serious drawback for a follow spot - it's dim. It's also quite narrow beam - so to get a full body, it needs to be a fair way away.

 

At least in this particular situation that would probably have been an advantage as we could have set them up on the balcony which was about 10m (say 30ft) away from the stage and about 4m (12ft) high.

 

FWIW, the advertising blurb has this to say with regard to output:

 

"The FS2500DMX is a compact follow spot with amazing light output for the used ELC lamp. It can be easy compared with a 650W halogen followspot in light output."

 

I'll take that with a jar of salt but it would be nice to hear from anyone who happens to be familiar with this product if there's any truth in this. I suppose optics do make a difference but this is a budget product so I don't expect miracles.

 

Mind you you could just search for a cheap 650-1K profile, and slap in an iris, and bodge up a handle? I'd doubt the LED for that price would really cut it - but I've never used one.

 

What is the defining difference between a follow spot and a profile? Obviously the follow spot has a handle but other than that? I don't even think I'd need the iris, unless it is to accomodate varying distances where it's setup and still be able to keep the same area lit, ie. I won't need/use it for effect purposes. DMX control is pretty much a requirement though and I don't think there's much out there that has that. DMX controlled color wheel would be nice too have as well I'm using that feature on the RoboColors to match the front light to the back light in some cases.

 

As for LED follow spots, here's a video someone made on the Chauvet LED Followspot 75:

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=0jVbgtOMIKo

 

He seems very positive about it but I think his target audience is DJs for weddings and such stuff.

 

In the interests of disclosure I am clearing out some kit on the old auction site! In your postion I would buy a second hand 1k sil as and example, I know mine are about £40.

 

Where would I find that auction site?

 

You only intend to light from the front without a huge amount of movement about the stage I guess.

 

I think there were two problems really:

 

1) Light coming up from way too high and close up

2) Frontman moving around (not clear from the picture I posted but take my word for it)

 

So on or off, and in time buy a unit dimmer for it. I assume you will be buying a stand elsewhere? Then if it proves its worth maybe upgrade to a higher spec unit

 

On/off would be fine but again DMX control and a color wheel would come in very handy.

 

Why not just buy a couple of wider angle profiles and stick them on stands out front? They'll take up a lot less room than a followspot and associated operator. You don't need that much light from FOH to pick out someones face.

 

That's probably true but in that case the budget follow spot might have enough output to do the job, even if it's not very bright. It's not that I'm totally set on getting a followspot and you have all given me plenty of reason to do some more thinking on this.

 

I am a bit worried though that putting up too might frontlight will destroy the eye-candy that I'm trying to create with my backlighting by washing out the color. Apart from the 8x Puck Q6W's that I had up there were also 4 ancient Martin scanners with 150W Halogen lamps. Unfortunately I won't have much opportunity to experiment with different solutions, even if I had the hardware to try in the first place (which I don't). If I need to cater for every location he'll be in I'll need several lights to cover the entire area and they'd have to be on all the time. And if they're not DMX controlled they will destroy the blackout effects.

 

Also agree with Brian, a couple of minuette zooms take up next to no space in the van or whatever!, just an adjustment of the shutters and away you go

 

I also fail to see the need to go down the follow spot route especially when there's no one making it follow. Money would be much better spent on a couple of profiles and a stand. And will allow you to rig them in the venues where that will work, or have them out front on stands where it wont.

 

It's something worth considering but I'm still wondering if a single follow spot wouldn't be a bit more professional looking compared to washing the stage with white front lights. I think we can manage getting someone to operate it. They just won't be trained to respond to sudden cues so that's where the DMX control comes in.

 

Sorry for the long rambling post and thanks for all that's been suggested so far. Any further thoughts/suggestions?

[paulears]

To be honest, I love the look of a followspot overpowering the other stage lights with a great, crisp, circle of light that is lovingly controlled by an empathic operator. However - the reality is that operating a followspot is a task often given to newcomers or any body who is not busy, and a poorly controlled followspot is a bit of a train wreck. The iris, on a followspot is pretty important because as people move backwards and forwards to keep the head to foot circle the same, the iris is constantly being opened or closed slightly. It also looks good when for certain numbers you drop down to a wait to head, or even for effect, just a head! Most new spot ops given your kind of show, open it up to BIG and that way, they don't need to move much - it's so tiring!!

 

Those 250W lamps by the way are what we had in slide projectors for a long time - and they can be compared to a 650W profile, but compared as in saying they're nowhere near as bright. With the optics zoomed in so the beam is narrow, it's a bit better, but they are just not really very bright - which is the killer. Use a bit of saturated colour and the operator probably can't even see the circle!

 

Have you considered maybe some kind of floor light. I'm a new convert to LED bars on the floor - they're pretty bright, and would allow some musician movement. Getting decent ops would be my number 1 don't do follow spots advice. Even decent followspot stands are expensive.

 

A followspot isn't really different from a profile - just optimised for somebody to use without burning themselves. Iris controls on the top (which is what happens if you slot one into a profile) make gloves important - because an awful lot of heat comes from just where you need to have a hand. They usually have a better balance point, so taking your hand off is possible. Not really much more to it than that in the simpler versions. We have 1.2K HMIs as follow spots. When one died, our old Strand 1K CSIs were not as bright - and we used to be very happy with these, but stage levels have creeped up. I still have a tungsten 2K and it is a glow-worm. The old 1K followspot from the 60s still works too, but is hardly there at all. Your stage looks pretty bright because it's small - so a 1K tungsten could be enough - less than that and I'd doubt it.

[timsabre]

Agree with paul about followspots with inexperienced/inattentive operators. Very distracting.

 

If it was me I would put a couple of (normal lamp, not LED) par 56's on the floor with diffusion gel in pointing up either side of the lead singer, and another couple for the bassist. Easy to rig and allows quite a lot of side to side wandering before he's out of the light. Or Paul's LED batten idea is good but more expensive.Or stick your robocolours on the floor either side of the singer/bassist and take the lenses out to give a wide beam.

[Nicktaylor]

I would go down the Paul route with some floor cans. The 10mm led easily match the par 56s I think and you can vary the colour as required ie deum sols drift to a colour wash. soloish back to as near white as you can get. Going back to the profile suggestion, you really need two stands to cros light in from the front. One stand as suggested would be a very boring wash across the stage

[LiveCommander]

However - the reality is that operating a followspot is a task often given to newcomers or any body who is not busy, and a poorly controlled followspot is a bit of a train wreck. The iris, on a followspot is pretty important because as people move backwards and forwards to keep the head to foot circle the same, the iris is constantly being opened or closed slightly.

 

Agree with paul about followspots with inexperienced/inattentive operators. Very distracting.

 

In our case the back-to-front movement would be limited to 1-2 meters at most and the spot would probably be >8 meters away so I suppose the iris could be fixed once set. But point about poorly controlled followspots taken.

 

Those 250W lamps by the way are what we had in slide projectors for a long time

 

It's what we have in our RoboColors as well.

 

A followspot isn't really different from a profile - just optimised for somebody to use without burning themselves. Iris controls on the top (which is what happens if you slot one into a profile) make gloves important - because an awful lot of heat comes from just where you need to have a hand.

 

I guess the FS2500 is a poorly designed followspot then because the manual which I downloaded specifically warns about the top getting extremely hot, and that's exactly where the iris control is.

 

Even decent followspot stands are expensive.

 

I was looking at budget ones of course :unsure:.

 

Have you considered maybe some kind of floor light. I'm a new convert to LED bars on the floor - they're pretty bright, and would allow some musician movement. Getting decent ops would be my number 1 don't do follow spots advice.

 

If it was me I would put a couple of (normal lamp, not LED) par 56's on the floor with diffusion gel in pointing up either side of the lead singer, and another couple for the bassist. Easy to rig and allows quite a lot of side to side wandering before he's out of the light. Or Paul's LED batten idea is good but more expensive.Or stick your robocolours on the floor either side of the singer/bassist and take the lenses out to give a wide beam.

 

I would go down the Paul route with some floor cans. The 10mm led easily match the par 56s I think and you can vary the colour as required ie deum sols drift to a colour wash. soloish back to as near white as you can get

 

I thought that lighing from below would give a ghostly look to the faces? Granted, in the pictures our guitar player is looking down anyway so may not be that much of a problem and I supose the idea is that the uplighting is more or less to fill in the dark spots where or when the RoboColor doesn't do its job?

 

A LED solution would be interesting since it would allow me to do more with color but what sort of budget are we looking at do this halfway properly? I suppose a 113 Euro ShowTec LED bar would be a completely waste of money? It has 10mm led but I don't think the specs are very impressive:

 

- lumens : 800

- Lux @2m: 613,3

- Efficacy (lm/W) 36w

 

I suppose those very low-cost LED bars are intended to be looked at rather then to illuminate surface or a person's face. Any particular model you'd recommend specifically if I decide to go the LED route? I supposed it'd have to be tri or quad LED's like my Pucks use? Or is that not as important when used as front-lighting in this way?

 

I imagine a few conventional PARs might work better than those ultra-cheap LED bars like the one I mentioned but I'm wondering how difficult it is to floor mount conventional PARs given the amount of heat they will produce. Would a short par like the American DJ par 56 work?

 

http://static.bax-shop.nl/images/resized/233/1232932/150x150/PAR56_kort_zwart.jpg

 

 

And if it does, how would I floor-mount something like that without setting the place to fire?

 

Learning a lot here, thanks!

 

Thanks,

Arjan

[alistermorton]

I imagine a few conventional PARs might work better than those ultra-cheap LED bars like the one I mentioned but I'm wondering how difficult it is to floor mount conventional PARs given the amount of heat they will produce. Would a short par like the American DJ par 56 work?

 

http://static.bax-shop.nl/images/resized/233/1232932/150x150/PAR56_kort_zwart.jpg

 

 

And if it does, how would I floor-mount something like that without setting the place to fire?

 

For floor mounting you have two options. For the type of can illustrated, with a single yoke, you can get a heavy metallic disk that the yoke bolts to, keeping the can off the floor and stopping it moving, or even a pair of lightweight crossed legs. Try googling for par can floor mount or par can base. Alternativley, you can get cans with a pair of yokes intended for flor mounting like this:

 

http://www.sounds4uentertainment.co.uk/ekmps/shops/sounds4udj/images/dts-aluminium-short-eco-floor-mount-par-56-can-1397-p.jpg

[J Pearce]

If you just want to pick out faces then fronty-sidelight can be nice in this sort of setup and wouldn't wash out your punchy backlight colours.

In some venues you can find a nice position for a narrow par on top of/behind/just onstage of the PA stacks.

 

The best thing really is to have a play and see what works for you. I suspect the practicalities of having a followspot and op and somewhere to put them safely for every show might get tiresome...

 

Even major touring shows have to compromise on where lights end up, so having a few options in your setup to accommodate different venues would be wise.

[alistermorton]

I imagine a few conventional PARs might work better than those ultra-cheap LED bars like the one I mentioned but I'm wondering how difficult it is to floor mount conventional PARs given the amount of heat they will produce. Would a short par like the American DJ par 56 work?

 

http://static.bax-shop.nl/images/resized/233/1232932/150x150/PAR56_kort_zwart.jpg

 

 

And if it does, how would I floor-mount something like that without setting the place to fire?

 

For floor mounting you have two options. For the type of can illustrated, with a single yoke, you can get a heavy metallic disk that the yoke bolts to, keeping the can off the floor and stopping it moving, or even a pair of lightweight crossed legs. Try googling for par can floor mount or par can base. Alternatively, you can get cans with a pair of yokes intended for floor mounting like this (we used to call these "pups") :

 

http://www.sounds4uentertainment.co.uk/ekmps/shops/sounds4udj/images/dts-aluminium-short-eco-floor-mount-par-56-can-1397-p.jpg

[mac500]

Yeh I'd suggest some foot lights. Tri coloured LEDs or warm white LEDs.