Stage lighting for duo

[Us Two]

Hi, we've come across this site by Internet searches on stage lighting. It's wonderful to find a dedicated site to lighting, and wonder if anyone can help with some very basic advice.

 

We're a duo, using a stage area minimum 7m x 3m - we've a lot of equipment! - and are currently using the following lighting rig;

 

2 x NJD Quartets with 300w bulbs (=total 2400w in flood)

Ryger Footlight 4 controller

2 x NJD Blitzers

1 x NJD Chaos

 

... which is more than any other duo we've seen, but we want brighter and more interesting lighting! We just don't know where to begin; manufacturers and retailers are good at listing equipment but advice seems very hard to come by.

 

We use one 13A socket for the lights and one for the PA etc. which works well; we've never had an overload problem (yet!). Any system needs to be reasonably compact and easily set up. We use a PC live with audio and MIDI, and wonder whether MIDI control is possible.

 

We'd be very grateful for anyone pointing us in the right direction!

[Tom Baldwin]

Maybe you could tell us a little more about your act - what sort of venues you play, what sort of music you play etc?

 

MIDI control is certainly possible; if all your numbers have some MIDI based backing you can use this to trigger pretty much anything... budget (and space and setup time!) is your only limit!

 

Did you have any thoughts on what budget might be available for this?

[Us Two]

Maybe you could tell us a little more about your act - what sort of venues you play, what sort of music you play etc?

 

Thanks for the reply, Tom. We play covers from Celine Dion to The Corrs; basically pop & strict tempo. Angie sings and talks while Rob is fiddling about with guitars, backing tracks, truculant equipment, and occasionally trying to sing harmonies. Badly. The venues are town halls and private function halls; we don't do pub or club gigs, concentrating on black tie functions. Sometimes we have a stage, and sometimes not...

 

In terms of budget, we'll consider all options - if there's something really suitable but costly, we'll go for it! We don't make our living from music, so a substantial cross-subsidy is fine... It just needs to be relatively simple to set up, which is why we went for the Quartets which are incredibly portable - but replacing the 500w bulbs with 300 watters loses a lot, but ensures that we don't blow the venue's fuses with 4000w in full flood!!!

 

We should add that the live PC runs Logic Audio Platinum (bless you, Apple, for snatching that one away - Cubase arriving shortly) playing audio backing tracks and controlling guitar, harmony and FX processors via MIDI program and control changes. We have an eMagic Unitor 8 feeding all the boxes, and MIDI control would be no problem provided it doesn't take hours per song to write a lighting sequence!

 

Hope this helps.

[peter]

As far as writing a MIDI sequence for your lights, its fairly simple. You have a controller which recieves the MIDI signals, which has pre-programmed 'scenes'. Each of these scenes is triggered by a different note, using 'on' and 'off' to do just that (some allow fade times too). So for you, all you have to do is put in an extra line to your MIDI track which sends the notes for the lighting cues at the correct time.

 

With regards the recieving device, that depends on exactly what you want to control, and how. I've not come across the NJD Blitzer and Chaos, but I assume they're some form of moving effect, with just an on/off.

 

What I think I'd do is to obtain a few cheap DMX dimmers (ShowTec do some which retail at under £100 for 4 channels) and switch packs. Plug your quartets into the dimmers and your effects into the switch pack. DMX is a lighting control signal, which runs digitally. You daiseychain the signal between the packs, giving each their own 'address'. Address the dimmer pack to 1 (the lights will be 1 to 4) and the switchpack to 5 (the effects will be 5 to 8). You'll then need a DMX controller. I've not used MIDI with a low-end desk, but would recommend looking at the Behringer Eurolite LC2412 (perhaps someone can confirm that the MIDI on this desk works in the correct way - I can't find anything obvious on the Behringer website). You feed the MIDI into the desk, and then the DMX signal out of the desk into the packs.

 

 

Hope this helps

 

 

 

Peter

[Us Two]

Thanks, Peter! There's a lot to research there, and we'll get on with it shortly.

 

As far as the lights go, we're speculating that with dimmers, it would be possible to put the original 500w bulbs back in as long aqs the flood "program" does not exceed putting a load greater than 3Kw on the system.

 

The next question is very basic, but you're dealing with lighting dimwits here (or total dimmers as you please!); should we persevre with the Quartets - essentially four spots in one can - or should we consider PAR cans, and which ones to give good light but not blow the fuses!!!

[peter]

I think we may have our wires crossed... I was talking about these

http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/quartetf.jpg

Strand Lighting Quartet

 

and had assumed that NJD had rebranded them, however now I've looked, you're talking about these:

 

http://www.njd.co.uk/njd/maindir/Products/Standard_Lighting/Quartet/quartetpic%5B1%5D.gif

NJD Quartet

 

These can be connected to dimmers, but you'd need 4 channels per unit, so you'd need two of the dimmers I talked about above. If you were to ditch the Quartets and go for Parcans, you could connect them to 1 channel each, but beware - Par64s (the most common type) can take 500w or 1000w lamps. Obviously with 1000w lamps you could only run 3 of them at full from a 13A supply. Par56s can be lamped at 300 or 500w, and they might be your best bet. You will, however, be restricted by the colour of the gel in front of the units, whereas the Quartet gives you colour mixing. There are instruments out there which will do colour mixing and DMX control, but they're very pricey and probably not worth the investment. You could always colour mix using 3 x 300w Par 56 either side of stage, gelled with Red, Green and Blue.

http://www.experienceonline.de/bilder/PAR56_Bar.jpg

 

Sorry for the confusion

 

 

 

Peter

[vinny baby]

maybe you could ditch the Quartets and go for the NJD spectre or the ACME colour mixing units. These are basically the same as the quartet but only have 3 lamps in each, and they are also DMX which meens that the dimmer units are built into the lights them selves, would make seting up a doddle and also save you money because you dont need dimming packs.

 

Also as far as MIDI goes, a lot of bands,duos ect are now using cakewalk, which bassically plays several tracks of midi, so instead of programming your lighting into a sequencer, that triggered via the pc, you actully program your MIDI marks on the PC itself, you then use a dongle which is USB to MIDI, you then connect this to the lighting controller and thru you other MIDI effects (reverb ect).

 

The advantages of cakewalk is that is comes with a media player called virtual Jukebox, which is like winamp. you can then import the tracks, that have MIDI cues stored within the track, and arange them in any order and create playlists without disturbing the MIDI element.

 

I would advice getting out into the clubs and having a look at what other duos are using, you will be suprised to find that a lot of duos now have very exstensive light shows. My girlfriend is in a duo herself, and they have just invested in a £10,000 lightshow. (Robe)

 

vince

[Jivemaster]

Sometimes the 13a limit is very restricting, but knowing the london hotel circuit its a reasonable limit. The more difficult limitation is the prohibition and over ventilation of smoke or haze. This limits the effectiveness of beams of light and beam effects. Look into PAR 56's some behind with strong colours Some lighting your faces with more pastel tints. Are you typically playing under full light while dinner is served or under loe light after. few lightshows look effective while the fluourescent tubes are lit.

[Us Two]

I think we may have our wires crossed... I was talking about these

http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/quartetf.jpg

Strand Lighting Quartet

 

Thanks, Peter - we don't know the Strand Quartets, and you are correct that the units we are using are the pictured NJD product. There's no need for any apology!Your comments are very helpful, and we'll think carefully.

 

The advantages of cakewalk is that is comes with a media player called virtual Jukebox, which is like winamp. you can then import the tracks, that have MIDI cues stored within the track, and arange them in any order and create playlists without disturbing the MIDI element.

Thanks, Vinny. We're interested in the playlist function within Cakewalk; in Logic, you have to create a single "song" as a set with start and end markers for each song within the set. Perhaps Cakewalk is more useful than Cubase in this respect? More info would be appreciated!

 

We note your comments about your girlfriend's duo. That sort of expenditure is unprecedented in the cicles we move in, but the point is well made! :(

 

Look into PAR 56's some behind with strong colours Some lighting your faces with more pastel tints.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, Jivemaster! In general, we play using minimal room lighting - low or none if the bar staff know how to turn the darned things off!!!

 

Your point about lights facing forward is interesting - we wondered about a linked set of lower output lights at the back facing forward.

 

Keep the comments coming - we're learning a lot already from you guys, and it's much appreciated.

[Mush]

[

Your point about lights facing forward is interesting - we wondered about a linked set of lower output lights at the back facing forward.

 

Keep the comments coming - we're learning a lot already from you guys, and it's much appreciated.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Back lighting helps add a bit of depth to the picture and make you, the performers stand out from the background.

 

Light at a high(ish) angle from back will give you a `halo` around figures that differeniates you from the backjground, watch singers on TV, always have that glow around their hair from backlighting.

 

Too low an angle though and you`ll dazzle the punters, lower brightness effects like moonflowers can give a nice effect at lower angles though and help project the performance out into the audience.

 

Colour mixing floods are good for a wash of colour , but still easier to hear someone you can see, would think about colour wash floods with some narrower spots to highlight faces.

[Us Two]

Thanks. Mush! We know what you mean about the "halo" effect. It's thoughts like this we need; there just doesn't seem to be any definitive advice on what lighting actually works in given situations. We're becoming more aware of what others are using; it's a case of having concentrated so much on the music that the light show is lagging well behind.

 

We're still concerned about the 3Kw limit; if we use two Spectres for front lighting, keeping a further set of lights at the back - plus other moving lights - becomes problematic as the limit is easily exceeded. We're thinking that splitting the lights so the main DMX controlled lights are on one 13A plug and the PA and moving lights are on another is one solution, provided the DMX controller can still "talk" to lights on both outlets.

 

To paraphrase Queen/Ben Elton, we're going ga-ga!!!!! :( We need advice on a complete system to give maximum effect within the limitations of what are essentially domestic power outlets. Any thoughts?

[david.elsbury]

We're thinking that splitting the lights so the main DMX controlled lights are on one 13A plug and the PA and moving lights are on another is one solution, provided the DMX controller can still "talk" to lights on both outlets.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That'll be fine. You might look at using an opto-isolated DMX splitter to split the data to the devices on the different circuits, someone with a little more experience than I on that should be able to correct me if I'm incorrect.

David

[vinny baby]

I think im right in saying here, that yeah you limited to 13A on a normal socket, but whats stoping you from spreading the load onto several 13A sockets? Surely your limitation is what ever the ring main is rated at which in most cases is 32A.

 

If this was the case most performers on the circuit would be stuffed if everybody was limited to 13A.

 

I myself use 10 moving lights on stage, and we only play venues where there is normaly only 13A sockets. (bigger venues have bigger power outlets).

 

we also have quite a large PA rig aswell, 5k or so in smaller venues.

 

the stages usally have about 6 or so outlets all rated at 13A each, but the ring main is rated at about 32, so as long as you dont exceed 13A on each socket, and 32A overall, your laughing!

 

if need be run power cables around the venue, to enable you to draw more power.

 

Only thing you have to be carefull of is, restaurants and such like, make sure that nothing hefty is plugged in else where in the venue on the same ring main. I have encounted problems where some tit has plugged in tumble dryers, microwaves, and heaters onto the same phase and main as the stage sockets.

 

soon as you plug in you havent got much power to play with, and half the time you are not aware of this unitill it trips.

 

vince

[Us Two]

I think im right in saying here, that yeah you limited to 13A on a normal socket, but whats stoping you from spreading the load onto several 13A sockets? Surely your limitation is what ever the ring main is rated at which in most cases is 32A.

 

If this was the case most performers on the circuit would be stuffed if everybody was limited to 13A.

 

vince

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, Vince. We think we could spread the load as you suggest, particularly if lights can be powered separately from the controller(s). By this we mean doing away with the Ryger 4 controller, for instance, which has to have both main sets of lights connected via Bulgin plugs.

 

Two NJD Spectres at a total of 3Kw (6 x 500w) would be the max on one plug, but are we right in thinking two or more DMX-controlled lights could be on separate plugs yet be controlled simultaneously? (remember we know next to nothing about this!)

 

At the moment we separate the lights (total 2700w) from the PA etc. (2Kw) on separate 13A plugs, so there's a little in reserve.

 

Any further thoughts gratefully received!

 

Angie & Rob

[Us Two]

That'll be fine. You might look at using an opto-isolated DMX splitter to split the data to the devices on the different circuits, someone with a little more experience than I on that should be able to correct me if I'm incorrect.

David

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, David - further confirmation awaited!

 

Angie & Rob