VL7 Colour mixing

[Tom Baldwin]

Thinking about hiring a few VL7s for an upcoming show, mainly because of the very narrow minimum zoom (5' - can't find anything apart from a CF7 that zooms that narrow), but have never used them before.

 

My main question relates to the colour mixing system - I'm struggling to understand it. I know it's different to classic CYM three flag mixing, but I'm not clear exactly how. My best guess at the moment is that it's related to the technique used in CXi scrollers, i.e. one string which goes from Yellow to Cyan, and another which goes from Yellow to Magenta. I think it extends it by allowing the saturation to be reduced (to zero, presumably), so you can mix any pair of secondaries, or some space between them?

 

Is this even close?

 

How easy is it to use?

 

When searching the BR for info, all I could find was a video clip showing someone playing ice hockey with them... does this reflect their true usefulness? Or are they actually usable?

 

What I need is: colour mixing, decent zoom range (incl v. narrow), a few gobos, slow movement, and not too much (static) noise.

 

Any alternatives? (What's the CF7 like? It seems to get a lot of bashing on the LN - and I'm not sure who might still have them? 4th Phase - in which case PRG seem to have narrow movers stitched up!)

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

[Guest lightnix]

IIRC the colour mixing system on the VL7 consists of two glass plates, which move in an X-Y plane. One carries R, G, and B shades and the other carries C, M and Y. In each case the saturated shades are at the top of the plate, fading down to white at the bottom.

 

It's not a great solution, as many colour changes wind up going through green, which can look particularly naff on slow colour changes. They work-around is to program a chase, but surely that's a bit much just to achieve a non-green colour change?

 

When searching the BR for info, all I could find was a video clip showing someone playing ice hockey with them... does this reflect their true usefulness? Or are they actually usable?

That's probably about as useful as they get. The optics in the VL7 are excellent, but are also the only good thing about it IMHO, the rest of it is pants. They're oversized, overweight (two man lift), overengineered, noisy (fans for days) and slow. I'm not saying "don't use them", but if you do decide to I can guarantee that it will only be once

[jamienip]

There was a topic of recent that has some refernec to VL colour mixing, it can be found here.

 

HTH,

 

James

[David Buffham]

What I need is: colour mixing, decent zoom range (incl v. narrow), a few gobos, slow movement, and not too much (static) noise.

 

How about VL3000 spot - these meet most of these criteria, zoom between 10 and 60 degrees (is 10 degrees narrow enough for your purpose?) and seem to be reliable.

 

David

[jamienip]

What I need is: colour mixing, decent zoom range (incl v. narrow), a few gobos, slow movement, and not too much (static) noise.

 

How about VL3000 spot - these meet most of these criteria, zoom between 10 and 60 degrees (is 10 degrees narrow enough for your purpose?) and seem to be reliable.

 

David

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

VL3000 Spot have an iris so can go very narrow spot wise, but not so sure on gobos. They are quite quick when needed, yet smooth and quiet at the same time. ALso, VL3000 Spots are quite large in size, and do not have traditional lamps in them (like the VL1000) - would this be suitable?

[mac500]

ALso, VL3000 Spots are quite large in size, and do not have traditional lamps in them (like the VL1000) - would this be suitable?

 

the vl7 doesnt have a 'traditional' lamp in them either.

[Tom Baldwin]

VL3000 spots would certainly meet all the other requirements - size wise, they don't appear to be that different to the VL7, but do get you more features. They certainly "do" gobos, but the 10' beam is not so ideal.

 

One of the uses for these lights (and the one that yields the 5' beam requirement) is to fake a laser beam effect (for any number of reasons, a real laser isn't going to happen).

 

I think it was a post by 'Nix that suggested this idea to me in the first place... having just tracked it down, I see that I suggested Emulators in that application - any ideas where to hire these from?

 

The other attraction of a VL7 was (I assume) a relatively small beam diameter leaving the fixture (compared with, say, a Source4 5') - although it's starting to sound as though hiring a few S4 profiles for this effect, plus some movers for everything else I would have done with movers, might make more sense. I just would have liked to have a smaller beam, though...

 

All thoughts gratefully received!

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

 

EDIT or maybe some of the AR-111 lamps Stu's so keen on? I do wonder about brightness, though?

[Stu]

Tom,

 

If you want to borrow some of my Par 36s with AR111s for testing purposes, PM me off forum if I can be of any help.

 

Stu

[Guest lightnix]

I see that I suggested Emulators in that application - any ideas where to hire these from?

AKAIK they were discontinued by High End some time ago. I certainly haven't seen any for ages (and didn't see that many of them in the first place), so you'll probably have to search quite hard, methinks

[mac500]

I know they had them on the west end production of Starlight express not sure what happened to them after the show.