Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
STEVEN KOSIBA
NEVETSHKdesign
Steven Kosiba
Steven Kosiba
The text of this work, as well as the effects tables and sample rigs pictured are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license. The terms of Non-Commercial this license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Under this license, you may not distribute the work without attribution, may not distribute it for commercial purposes, and may not create derivative works from this document. You are free to cite this work as long as it is attributed. ALL of the product photographs in this document are the original manufacturers, be that Alesis, American DJ, Chauvet, Elation, ETC, Global Truss, Irradiant, Le Maitre, Martin, NeoNeon, NSI, VEI, or any other manufacturer.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who have made this work possible, mainly the members of the Harmony Central Lighting Forum whose questions inspired me to write this guide. I would also like to thank my parents for actually thinking this a worthwhile endeavor! Many thanks also go out to the proofreaders and readers of the initial releases, as well as people who posed questions that prompted additions and sometimes even full sections of discussion in this work.
Steven Kosiba
Introduction
This guide was written due to the increasing baseline knowledge required to set up and run and run a basic band lighting system. It used to be all simple and easy an analog control board plugged in to a dimmer pack which controlled some parcans and other lights. There wasnt much to it. Now, you need to know control protocols such as DMX and MIDI, and the selection of lighting gear is mind boggling. Along with the increase in technology comes a decrease in quality to keep it at the same price point. So that means more plastic, more 8-bit control, and more things that break. That also means more manuals about more features that you really dont understand, and are often misleading and sometimes impossible to untangle due to translation. There are so many different features that are included now that sometimes you just need to sit down and get back to basics. There is also a massive influx of fixtures. As I always say, nothing is ever state of the art, something new comes out the next dayand that is most definitely true here. There is so much gear coming out all the time that you never really know where to start. I have tried to break down the different types of fixtures and levels of quality among the different varieties. In short, Ive tried to steer you through the pile of, well, low-quality Chinesemanufactured bits of plastic and metal that we have come to call band lighting. Who am I, you might ask? Im a college student (Theatre Design & Tech major, go figure), entertainment electrician, employee of an event lighting and sound production company, and band lighting guy who knows far too much about this sort of thing. This guide exists because of (and for) the folks over at the Harmony Central Lighting forum, which can be found here: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=34. If it were not for them I would have even known where to start in creating this guide. This forum is a good place to ask questions about getting your rig going, and is a wide knowledge and a user base that (including myself) are able to help out a lot in answering your questions. I will admit to spending far too much of my spare time here helping people out. If you have specific questions, dont hesitate to email me at nevetshk@gmail.com. Keep in mind that I get a lot of questions and also have to keep a real life in check (occasionally), and I do give priority to bands and individuals who I work for. That being said, I love helping people out.
Steven Kosiba
Steven Kosiba
Parcan lamps come in a variety of beam spreads, denoted as follows from narrow to wide: VNSP=Very Narrow SPot, NSP=Narrow SPot, MFL=Medium FLood, and WFL=Wide FLood. PAR38 lamps are sometimes simply noted as SP (SPot) and FL (FLood). PAR46 lamps are only available in NSP and MFL, but PAR56 and PAR64 lamps are available in VNSP, NSP, MFL, and WFL in a variety of wattages. PAR38 Flood Lamp PAR38s are generally 50 to 150 watts with a few lamps over 150W, PAR46s are 200W, PAR56s are either 300W or 500W, and PAR64s are either 500W or 1000W (1kW).
DIMMERS With parcans, you need a dimmer to control them. You can get satellite dimmer packs with anywhere from one to six channels that hang on the t-bar or truss next to your lights, and then you plug your lights in to the dimmer pack, set the DMX address, and run the cable to your DMX controller. Some dimmer packs have built in programs and chases, some have microphones for audio input, and some use proprietary multiplex protocols such as NSI, Lightronics and Leprecon. My favorite low cost compact DMX dimmer is the Chauvet DMX-4 dimmer pack. It can also be used as a Chauvet DMX-4 relay pack if you are going to use Pinspots (see the Punch & Audience lighting section for Pinspots). You DO NOT use dimmer packs to power LED lighting, moving Dimmer/Relay Pack lights, or effects lights. These are powered straight from a wall outlet. General rule: if it has a motor or a transformer in it, it should NOT be plugged in to a dimmer pack. You can plug Pinspots in to a dimmer pack that has a switched mode, such as the DMX-4, or a professional dimmer that is rated for inductive loads (a transformer is an inductive load). For a standard four channel dimmer pack, each channel may be rated for 600 watts, but in reality the wiring and connector for the dimmer pack only rated at 1800 watts total. You should pay attention to this and never load any dimmer pack plugged in to one standard wall outlet with more than 1800 watts of lighting instruments. PUNCH & AUDIENCE LIGHTING The next type of lighting is Punch & Audience lighting. This mainly consists of blinders and pinspots. These are used sparingly to get the crowd pumped up in a hurry, and to get the audience to sing along (especially blinders for the latter). Blinders come in many forms. They can be as simple as a parcan with no gel in it pointed at your audience that you bring up during choruses, or as complex as a pair of Colorpalettes pointing at the audience that you use to shine crazy patterns out at them. However, the most popular blinders are halogen worklights. Yup, those 150 to 1000 watt T3 Halogen Worklights that you can pick up at Lowes or Home Depot. I prefer 250 watters with a black housing, because they dont use up as much power as their bigger brothers, and the black housing makes them blend in to the stage better Halogen Work Light and not stick out like a sore thumb like the yellow and orange ones do. I like to use blinders on the front of the drum riser shooting through the band at the audience, angled slightly up, or from the upstage stands or truss shooting out through the band. They are also cool if you have columns of them that you can trigger individually. For smaller venues, I actually prefer a fixture from Cooper that is a 150W outdoor floodlight that you can adapt (if you know electrical codes and wiring well enough) to be a plug-in fixture that has a clamp or zip-tie point(s) on it. I like to use four of these on a truss, in groups of two that are plugged in to a dimmer pack. The 150W fixtures are not so bright as to blind the audience, but bright enough to get the point across and look awesome. Pinspots are an effect that only works if you have haze or fog in the air. The standard pinspot is a PAR36 light with a six volt transformer in the back that takes a 30W 4515 lamp. This lamp produces a parallel, pencil-thin beam that lights up the haze or fog in criss-crossing beams. These fixtures are normally used with a DMX relay/switch pack, but can be used with a dimmer pack if it is in switched/relay mode. This is because most dimmers do not do well with inductive loads, and the transformer
Standard Pinspot
Steven Kosiba
in a Pinspot is an inductive load. There are also LED pinspots. The LED Rain 38 from Chauvet can almost be considered a pinspot, because it is a small fixture with a very narrow beam angle. There are other companies that have LED pinspots, both in just white and in RGB mixing types. However, the LED pinspots that Ive seen have the LED response curve, which is ON-OFF instantly. I much prefer the filament cool down time of standard pinspots; it looks really good and has less of a mechanical, cut and dry look to it. Pinspots are best used in groups. I like to use groups of two to four lights shining out from above the drummer on the upstage truss, or on the ends of the truss shining in a fan across the stage. You can put groups of pinspots on the same channel to save channels on your relay pack using cubetaps and power strips. STROBE LIGHTS Strobe lights can be an interesting addition to your show if you want to crank up the energy. There are many different wattages of strobe lights, and some have more control than others. They range from the 25 watt mini strobes all the way up to the Martin Atomic 3000 strobes, and beyond to things like Lighting Strikes strobes, but those are far out of your budget. The biggest strobe that you should consider purchasing is a 750W model like the Elation Proton Star or the Chauvet DMX Mega Strobe II. The mini box strobes (25 to 35 watts) are great in mass. If you can get ten Elation Proton Star to twenty of them and place them all over the stage, and set the rates slightly off, you can have an amazing effect. It will look like there are a bunch of flashbulbs going off behind you. If you have non-DMX controlled strobes, but you want to use a DMX controller to control them, you can either find a strobe controller for them that adapts DMX control to the control protocol of the strobes (usually a phono plug), or you can use a dimmer/relay pack like the Chauvet DMX-4 in relay to control the power to them for on/off control. The relay pack option is the best if youre using a bunch of mini strobes. One thing to consider when deciding whether or not to purchase strobe lights is the effectiveness of other fixtures in your rig as strobes. Most LED parcans and moving lights have strobe functions, so these may suffice for your strobing needs. But if you want that actual stroboscope look and feel, actual strobe lights are what you want to go for. One of my favorite effects with strobes is to use a dozen or so 25W mini strobes placed on the truss to produce a crazy flashing effect which looks really cool. It makes the whole truss explode with light, but the strobes themselves are not Chauvet Mini Strobe bright enough to make anyones eyes really unhappy like larger strobes. LED FIXTURES: INTRODUCTION LEDs in general: There are several things that I should cover before we jump in to the LED section. LEDs have a distinct look. The light produced by them is almost never just one color due to the RGB mixing system that uses different red, green, and blue LEDs to mix the colors; its usually something of a blend. For instance, you can see red and green when you mix yellow. LED fixtures use Light Emitting Diodes, usually in red, green, and blue, colors to mix any color you want. Red and Green makes Yellow, Red and Blue makes Magenta, and Green and Blue makes Cyan. As you can see from the RGB Spectrum picture on the right, it is harder to mix yellow and pink with LEDs because the spectrum The Colors Produced by does not extend to those corners of the full color spectrum. This gives you a RGB Mixing wide palette of colors that you can mix with an RGB LED fixture. Some fixtures add white or amber or both in order to get closer to the warmer end of the spectrum. There are generally two types of LEDs: the small diodes found in lower-priced fixtures, and the high-end one-watt or three-watt LEDs found in the more powerful and expensive fixtures. The fixtures that use one-watt and three-watt LEDs are much brighter using far fewer LEDs. For instance, the Elation Opti 30 RGB, a fixture with 12 one-watt LEDs, can outclass a PAR64 LED can with over 150 of the smaller LEDs. However, the PAR64 with over 150 smaller LEDs is still cheaper than the Opti 30 RGB. The smaller LEDs come in two main types 5mm and 10mm. The 5mm diodes are sometimes called 1/4 watt diodes, but consume much less power. Same thing for 10mm diodes being called 1/2 watt diodes, they dont actually use a half watt of power, its far less than that. These are terms that have been injected in to the buzz about LED fixtures and are very misleading. Just understand that the 10mm diodes are
Steven Kosiba
generally much brighter than the 5mm diodes. LED fixtures come in many sizes and shapes, including parcan fixtures, panel fixtures, and striplight fixtures. Another important thing to realize with RGB LED fixtures is that it is harder to get certain colors. For instance, its very hard to mix a good white or a good neutral amber using LEDs due to the amount of the spectrum RGB LEDs cover. LED PARCANS If you like the look of parcans but dont like the power consumption and the fact that you can only have one color, look no further than LED parcans. These require no dimmer packs and hook directly up to your DMX controller, and best of all, they draw very little power compared to parcans that use filament lamps. LED Parcans come in many sizes, from the small Chauvet Colorsplash/LEDsplash Jr all the way up to a wide variety of LED PAR64 cans, in short and long varieties. You have models with the small LEDs, and models with the one-watt and three-watt LEDs. In general, LED parcans have RGB mixing, but some are just white or white/amber to Elation Opti 30 RGB have a wide range of mixable white tones (cool to warm). There are also some LED parcans that have UV (Ultraviolet) LEDs. These can be used in place of lower-wattage blacklights for a UV effect. Youll never have to deal with finding UV lamps again if you go the UV LED fixture route. One main thing to look for when choosing an LED parcan is the beam angle. Is it a narrow fixture or a wide-angle fixture? This is usually determined by the internal lensing of the LEDs, but sometimes (especially in higher end fixtures with the one-watt and three-watt LEDs) determined by additional reflectors in the fixture that can sometimes be swapped out to change the beam angle. Any fixture from the LED Rain series by Chauvet will have a narrow beam, because that is how the internal lensing of the LEDs is Chauvet LED designed. Chauvet lists all of the beam spreads on the spec sheets of the fixtures, which Rain 64 is nice, as many companies do not do this. If you want a tight concentrated beam of light, get a fixture that has a narrow beam angle. A beam angle of 10 to 15 is considered quite narrow, and an angle from 30 to 45 is considered a wide or wash angle. The Chauvet Colorsplash/LEDsplash 200B is a good example of a wash LED parcan because it has a 49 degree field angle, and thus can cover more of the stage. You can put a diffuser (like that off of a drop-ceiling fluorescent tube fixture) in Chauvet the front of an LED parcan to spread the beam out, or use a pre-made diffusion media Colorsplash 200B from a gel manufacturer, such as Rosco 132, 119, or 114. One of the useful features included on many LED Parcans is a double-yoke, which allows you to set the fixture up on the floor without a floor stand. This speeds up setup time and reduces cost you dont have to buy/make a floor base. The American DJ 46HP LED Pro (pictured at left) features the double-yoke assembly, allowing it to be set up on the floor, on top of amplifiers on stage, or on any other sturdy surface. It has 18 one-watt Luxeon LEDs, making it a very powerful fixture for its size. It is a fairly narrow-beam LED fixture, so it can be used to project narrow beams through haze or to spotlight performers. It can also be used to create American DJ 46HP columns of light on walls or backdrops. Also, many LED Parcans shipping now, LED Pro especially from Chauvet, have linkable power. This either uses an IEC Type 1 connector (international computer power cable, also used a lot in fog machine remotes) or a special three pin input/output connector that has a molded fitting that locks together. Outdoor-rated fixtures (Chauvet Colorado series is an example) have unique locking molded 3-prong connectors with locking connectors. Heres a good sampling of what to pick from for RGB LED Parcans right now: Chauvet makes the Colorsplash (now LEDsplash) series, with the 200B and 152B (wide angle), Jr (tiny fixture, not much output, narrow beam angle), LEDsplash 2 (high output, one-watt LEDs), and the 196 (dont buy it, its harder to control, get a 200B or 152B instead). The Rain series is all narrow-beam fixtures, with the Rain 38, 56, and 64. These are decent narrow-beam fixtures, good for narrow beams through haze or spotlighting performers, and have a better LED arrangement than the Irradiant LED Pars. Chauvet also
Steven Kosiba
has a 4BAR pack that has four flat-panel LED Parcans that come pre-rigged on a power and data distribution bar with a tripod and foot controller in a separate pack. This system is completely DMX controllable, so two of these would be decent for a band wanting a get-out-and-go solution for back lighting from the two upstage corners. Chauvet also makes the Colordash Par, which is a small LED Parcan with 18 one-watt LEDs. Chauvet also offers a high-output series of fixtures called the Colorado fixtures including the Colorado 1 and Colorado 3, two popular high-output, weatherized fixtures. On the American DJ side, I dont recommend much, but they have the LED64 and the LED64 PRO. The 64 LED (B Black or P Polish) is a wider beam spread fixture and thus less output per area, and the 64 LED PRO (Black or Polish) is a narrower beam fixture, so thus brighter per area. American DJ also makes a PAR36 LED fixture thats a small, basic RGB mixing fixture. Its not that powerful, and not worth it considering Irradiants offerings for the same price. American DJ also sells a P38 LED PRO that is a brighter PAR38 LED fixture that uses 10mm LEDs. American DJ also sells the P56P LED, which is a basic PAR56 LED wash fixture that is decent for the price. The 46HP LED PRO described previously is a decent high-output fixture with one-watt LEDs. Keep in mind that Irradiant makes a lot of LED cans for other companies, including Chauvet, so youre getting the same product quality from Irradiant. Irradiant offers a black 200B-style casing fixture that is their low-output PAR56 LED fixture. Then there are the two nice little PAR38 LED and PAR46 LED Fixtures, and then there are the standard PAR56 and 64 fixtures with 5mm diodes, the mid-range 56 and 64s with 10mm diodes, and the Pro range 56 and 64 LED fixtures with the one-watt high-power Diodes. My main issue with the Irradiant cans is that they use rings of LEDs, which looks a lot less distributed than the Chauvet Rain fixtures or even the Chauvet 200B and 152B fixtures. Elation also makes some higher power LED fixtures, such as the Opti 30 RGB and Opti RGB. These use the one-watt Diodes and are more expensive, but quite worth it. Elation also now sells the Opti TRI 30, Opti TRI PAR, and a few other TRI series fixtures that have tricolor LEDs (three watt diode module, with a red one-watt diode, green one-watt diode, and blue one-watt diode all in one small package). These give a much more uniform light output and dont have the tricolor shadows commonly associated with LED fixtures. Elation also sells the Opti 16-4 CW and WW (cool white and warm white) fixtures that have four one-watt LEDs in a compact package. These are probably about equal to a 90W PAR38 fixture tops. However, two per side per performer could provide a decent frontlight system. The Colorkey/Solaris/Stage Outlet LED Pars are quickly becoming popular. Their standard LED PAR64 is very popular, and their one-watt LED PAR64 is gaining popularity fast as a good, high-power LED can. These are the LED cans that many mid-level lighting rental companies buy to supply LEDs at a lower cost than the one-watt or three-watt fixtures. The regular PAR64LED is about equal to a 300W PAR56 lamp with a saturated gel, and the high-power can about equal to a 500W PAR56 lamp with saturated gel. There are other LED Parcans floating around out there, but with the smaller fixtures (especially the ones with plastic cases), you have to consider build quality as a major factor in your purchasing decision. LED PANEL FIXTURES Another type of LED fixture is an LED panel fixture. This is a fixture like the Chauvet Colorpalette, or the American DJ Mega Panel. These fixtures have a panel of LEDs that can often be divided up in to different sections (both the Colorpalette and Mega Panel are eight section fixtures). Each of these sections can have its own RGB mixing control, or the fixture can be controlled as a whole. This preference is set in the mode of the fixture or by a control channel. The Chauvet Colorpalette more areas of an LED panel fixture, the more control channels it requires. These lights are good for backlighting and sidelighting where a broad wash of color is needed. They an also produce some really cool effects when you use the internal patterns or mix the 8 individual squares to different colors in a chase. These fixtures can use up a lot of channels (the Colorpalette uses 27 channels in full control mode of all 8 squares on the face of the fixture). There are also UV versions of some of these panel fixtures, such as the Chauvet LED Shadow, which is a high-output UV LED panel fixture. Its worth noting that American DJ uses the higher-power 10mm diodes in Chauvet LED Shadow their panel fixtures (currently just the Mega Panel), which is why they are considerably more powerful (and expensive).
Steven Kosiba
LED STRIPLIGHTS The final type of LED lighting is LED striplights. Popular fixtures are the Chauvet Colorstrip and American DJ Mega Bar. These fixtures are long strips of LEDs, and often have many built in patterns. The Chauvet Colorstrip has blocks of red, green, and blue LEDs next to each other, while the Mega Bar has all of the colors of LEDs mixed together on the surface so that the colors mix better. The Chauvet Colorstrip uses a bunch of 5mm diodes, while the ADJ Mega Bar uses the 10mm diodes. Also, the Mega Bar can be divided up in to sections much like the LED panel lights Chauvet Colorstrip described above, but there are only 3 sections in the Mega Bar. There are also UV/Blacklight LED striplights, such as the American DJ Mega Bar UV50 and UV100. Elation also offers LED strips as well as bricks, which are basically short LED strips. These are available in regular, one-watt, or one-watt TRI varieties of various models that are quite powerful. Another fixture that might fall in to this category or the general LED wash category is the Irradiant Vivid II fixture. It has thirty-six one-watt diodes, in red, green, and blue. It is something of a rectangular form factor fixture, and is a punchy little light thats great if you want to have a fixture per side for high-power sidelighting on the far ends of your truss, especially in American DJ Mega Bar LED a venue with higher ceilings. EFFECTS LIGHTING Effects lighting covers a broad range of lights. Pinspots are sometimes in the punch lighting category and sometimes here in the effects category. Also in the effects category are moonflowers, oil wheel projectors, and some LED fixtures. Also, many LED panel lights and striplights have built in effects which put them in this category as well. Some of my favorite effects for band lighting are the small LED moonflowers that have rotating mirror dishes, like the American DJ Pearl LED American DJ Pearl LED White fixtures (White and Colored). These fixtures have a single LED chip and a rotating mirror dish inside, producing a rotating moonflower type of effect. The white version has all clear mirrors, and the colored version has various colors over the mirror glass. The colored version has been discontinued but is still available used. The most recent addition to the Pearl series, the Tri-LED Pearl, has red green and blue LEDs in it, so you can get a variety of different colors from the effect via the color channel, which scrolls through several different colors. It has channels for Color, Intensity, Strobe, and Rotation. This allows you to create a good variety of colors and movements from one fixture. Another very good effect is the American DJ Saturn TRI-LED System. This system consists of four fixtures that have a set of lenses that creates a fan of seven beams, all the same color. The RGB mixing properties of this fixture allow you to actually use three different DMX channels to control the intensities of the red, green, and blue LEDs. The lenses on the fixture, combined with the three different LED diodes put this fixture in a different class than the lite-brite fixtures. Its a great fixture to use in groups of two or four as a punch effect. These fixtures are also sold individually through American DJ Dealers. Effectively, it can replace a cluster of seven pinspots and it has RGB mixing. Pinspots do have a distinct look and a place in rigs, but in some cases this may be the fixture you are looking for. It can also be a good effect from behind the drum kit. If you do get a whole package of four for your rig, think about putting two behind the drummer and two on the ends American DJ Saturn of your truss, shining across the stage. TRI-LED System There is yet another good fixture in the American DJ TRI series, and its quite unique. The TRI Phase is a very interesting effect that produces a gyrating moonflower type pattern. The color is controllable like the color of the TRI Pearl, with one color channel that scrolls through various combinations of the three LEDs (red, green, and blue), but the fixture has six different lenses and a rotating pattern assembly inside, making for a very interesting and quite active color-controllable moonflower effect. This effect certainly isnt for every band, but if youve been looking for a super-charged energetic moonflower effect, this just might be it.
Steven Kosiba
The ADJ Revo, Quad Gem, Reflex LED, Vision LED, Electra LED, Spectrum LED and Mystic LED fixtures and the Chauvet Vue, DerbyX, J-Five, LX-5, LX-10 and Elan fixtures are certainly interesting effects, but I really think that these fixtures should be reserved for mobile DJs. These lite-brite style effects produce a cheesy-looking LED pattern on the ceiling, and really dont have a place in band lighting, in my opinion. The style of chasing and flashing red, green, and blue beams just seems far too cheesy and DJ-like for most bands. These are excellent DJ effects, dont get me wrong; but I just think that they have no place in the lighting rigs of bands. If youre dead set on one of these lights, the Quad Gem DMX is known as one of the punchiest of them, and is DMX controllable. You have control over the different colored clusters in each of the individual lens assemblies. The ADJ LED Vision is also a nice little fixture, and it has very powerful control over the different LEDs. In the 12 channel mode, it allows you to control four sections of each color of LED. This could be used to create some very nice effects. MOVING LIGHTS The most advanced lights that I will cover are Moving Lights. This includes Moving Head lights and Scanners/Moving Mirror lights. Moving heads generally cost more, but have a wider range of motion. Scanners cost less and are much faster, because only the mirror moves, not the head. One important distinction to make with moving lights is the types of light sources available. Halogen light sources are standard filament lamps, and can be electronically dimmed. 250W halogen sources are common in scanners, usually with the ELC lamp. There are also some moving heads that use ELC or similar halogen lamps. Most halogen lamps used in moving lights have built in reflectors, but in some cases the reflectors are inside the lights. A 250 watt Discharge sources are much more efficient in terms of wattage, and give off a much ELC Lamp whiter white, that even sometimes verges on a bluish shade of white. A 150W discharge source (for example, the common HTI-150) can easily keep up with a 250W Halogen lamp. However, discharge sources are not dimmable, so you have to have a mechanical dimmer in the fixture that is basically a metal flag that moves in to the path of the light in order to dim it. Also, discharge sources must be struck when you power up your rig. This turns on the lamp, and then the lamp does not get turned off until you shut down the rig, which means that the dimming flag or shutter must be in the path in order to black the light out when it is not in use. Terminology: Goboa metal or glass pattern that is projected using a moving light or gobo projector Wheela circular piece of metal with holes cut around the edge to put gobos or color filters in, this rotates to put the right filter or gobo in the path of the light beam when you change the value of the channel. Shutterused to strobe a moving light, this is a metal flag that moves in and out of the beam of light at a high rate of speed. Sometimes two flags that meet in the middle are used in order to be able to run faster strobe effects. Panleft/right movement of the fixture/mirror Tiltup/down movement of the fixture/mirror.
A Gobo Wheel
Scanners are the most basic of moving lights. They have a mirror that has pan and tilt, and has color and/or gobo wheels along with a halogen or discharge light source. A basic scanner has a channel for pan, a channel for tilt, a channel for color on the color wheel, and a channel for gobo on the gobo wheel. It may also have an intensity channel, a strobe channel, or even a channel for rotation of the gobos. Scanners are much faster than moving heads because the only have to move the lightweight mirror and not the whole head assembly, so they can be used for quick movements. The VEI Novascan V250-1 is a very popular DMX controllable halogen scanner that has pan and tilt along with VEI Novascan V-250-1 color and gobo wheels, a strobing shutter, and a dimmer. The Chauvet Intimidator 2.0 is another popular scanner with similar controls and capabilities. The Intimidator 2.0 also has an alternate model with an HTI-150 discharge lamp, which produces the whiter white described in the discharge lamps section. Martin also makes a high-quality line of mid-range scanners that come in several models. The martin SCX 500 is a 150W halogen source, the SCX 600 is a 250W halogen source
Steven Kosiba
and has rotating gobos, and the SCX 700 is very similar to the SCX 600 in terms of features and uses a 150W discharge source. These fixtures are a bit more expensive, but well worth it in terms of quality. The SCX500 is a smart choice for the budget-minded band, and is powerful for its size and wattage. The SCX 500 is a great choice if you have the money, and two to four fixtures is a decent moving light package for club/bar bands. It is a very feature-packed light for being under $400 (you can get it for around $320 + shipping new), and it has a number of great built-in features and quality far beyond any of the others. The SCX fixtures also have built-in movement macros, making the programming of movements in your show exponentially easier. These are really good choices if you have the money, and you will not be disappointed with your purchases. The quality is far above any of the other scanners Martin SCX 600 mentioned due to the Martin build quality and optics. There is also another type of scanners called Rolling Mirror scanners. These have a cylindrical mirror drum that can spin and pan. These fixtures can produce a fan of color and gobo along just about any axis, but are really not that great in some situations. There are several decent rolling mirror scanners on the market, including the Chauvet Insignia 2.0, the VEI V-250-2, and the Martin SCX 800. The Martin SCX800 is much more expensive than the others because of the high output discharge lamp and Martin optics.
Moving heads are usually a bit more advanced, with the most basic of moving heads almost always including a rotating gobo wheel, and many of them including a prism or rotating prism as well, and also possibly multiple gobo wheels, multi-step or continuous zoom, remote lens focusing, and other effects. If youre buying moving heads I sure hope you know what youre doing, because theyre not cheap and certainly not simple. The Chauvet Intimidator 2.0 Spot is a very basic moving head, with a Color wheel and a single rotating gobo wheel. It is fairly compact for a moving head, and comes with a Halogen or Discharge (HTI) lamp, so you can pick which is best for you. Chauvet has also recently come out with a new moving head, the Intimidator Spot 150, which is basically the same as the Intimidator 2.0 Spot HTI but has an updated case design. The Elation Design Spot 250 is a powerful moving head with an MSD-250 lamp. It costs more than your whole truss system but is well worth the price if you are really making a big leap in to larger venues and taking a larger scale lighting system with you. You also should look at the Intimidator Spot 250 from Chauvet, which is a nice 250W discharge moving head. However, at that point, you should strongly consider getting a lighting director on board who will be able to take care of all of the issues with lighting fixtures, power, running Elation Design Spot 250 lights during shows, and making your show look the best that it can. These fixtures are also very hard to operate to their full effect using the basic DJ controllers that many bands use, so it is recommended that you use something such as the Magic 260 or MLC128R with these fixtures. At the very top end of the lighting market for most of the folks reading this book are the smaller Martin fixtures in the MAC line. The Martin smartMAC, MAC250 Krypton, MAC250 Entour, and MAC250 Wash are all professional level moving heads.
Steven Kosiba
Steven Kosiba
10
have 6 or more moving lights with LED fixtures and effects operating along side the movers. This console has the power of console costing much more, but allows you to access them at a price that puts this technology much closer to your budget than ever before. It is really a unique console. It will allow you to program faster and easier than with any of the previously mentioned consoles, and give you far fewer frustrations during live show playback. It will allow you to treat movers using techniques for an analog board bump buttons, faders, etc, except that each of those faders that you used to have for a single light or a chase or a submaster now contains a whole look pre-made that can include chases, moving light movements, color fades, and preset positions that are easy to set up from gig to gig. It is really the top-of-the-line console for the smaller band market. You also have several software options to consider. One of the most popular (and inexpensive) is Freestyler, which can be used with an Enttec USB-DMX interface. It allows you to do more complex scenes and makes your work with MIDI much easier. Freestyler actually uses the Sunlite/Nicolaudie software platform for visualization. American DJs myDMX is not even as good as Freestyler, so dont even consider it. The next step up is Daslight or Sunlite. Both are based of the Nicolaudie style interface, and are similar, but they have their differences. From what Ive seen, Sunlite is a bit better due to a few button functions and scene functions. The next step up from Sunlite is Martin LightJockey, which is the truly professional DMX control software package. If you are a bit more tech savvy, the Chamsys MagicQ PC software might be for you. You can easily hook it up with an Enttec interface, and you can also use one of the many available programming wings if you want to have the power of a professional console but dont want to pay for the full deal this means that you can use your computer and the custom programming wing to make a very powerful combination. With Sunlite, you might want to consider an Xkeys programmable USB keypad for accessing scenes on the fly, as well as a Behringer BCF fader module to control select intensity channels or submasters. When picking a controller, you may want to consider what MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) capabilities you are interested in having for your show. MIDI pedalboards such as the Behringer FCB1010 can be used to recall scenes in your controller. More on this in Basic Programming II section. You also use a MIDI drum pad to control scenes, which is quite useful if the drummer will be running the show from their throne. Most basic controllers offer MIDI scene recall in auto mode, and the more advanced Alesis ControlPad Drum Pad controllers (such as the NSI MLC series) offer more direct selection of any scene or pattern via MIDI. Most software controllers also offer MIDI interfacing, including rather direct selection of a lot of different playback functions. However, some software controllers require that you use their proprietary MIDI interface, but not many. (As a note, you may want to also use a USB Keypad like XKeys if you want to have hands-on access to playback in software not MIDI, but just a programmable USB keypad that gives you key access to playback and sometimes programming in software controllers.) If you use a MIDI sequencing program in your show for backing tracks, patch changes, or anything else, this may be a very easy way to automate your lighting changes and not have to be on top of a MIDI pedalboard or drum pad or have to hire a lighting guy. If you use MIDI with a software solution, and the MIDI controller doesnt have a built in USB>MIDI interface, you will have to purchase one of these as well. But thats not my department of expertise. You should definitely research this part of things quite a bit, because there are some MIDI>USB interfaces that work well, and some that have known issues. You will want to figure this out before making your purchase. Id trust product from E-MU, MAudio, and MOTU, but definitely make sure to do your homework here!
Steven Kosiba
11
front T-stands or t-bars mounted to the tops of your front speakers. This way you can have backlight from the two rear stands and frontlight from the two front stands/bars. Once your rig becomes more advanced, you might upgrade to a trussing system. The standard ten foot trussing systems with the T-stands on either end are fairly weak, but can support just a few parcans and scanners, but not much else. The big guns are Global Truss ST-132 stands and twelve inch box truss. This allows you to span long distances (a pair of six foot or a pair of eight foot lengths is usually good for many smaller stages, or even three five-foot Global Truss ST-132 13 lengths). The ST-132s are very strong and can crank up to thirteen feet. The Crank-Up Stand twelve inch truss can support weight over longer spans and have a lot of lights hanging from it without bending at all. This is great for putting upstage, with the stands on either side of the drummer, and the trussing going over the drum set, but as far back as possible, allowing you to light the drummer with your backlight fixtures. For vertical trusses, Global Truss sells baseplates in two by two and three by three foot sizes that accommodate both their square and triangular twelve inch truss. The two by two foot plates should really only be used for six feet or less of vertical truss, and the three foot plates for anything larger. You will want to consult a professional when you decide to use vertical trusses, because if you do not weight things properly, you can have a whole tower fall over, which ruins your gear and possibly injures a band member and sends them to the hospital. You also have to consider what kind of look you want, as truss design really defines your stage a lot, especially when you start to put more of it up there. One of the big decisions is black or silver truss black truss gives a much more subdued presence, even with a lot of lights on it. If you have a big bare metal truss, you will have a very different look to your rig. You can have a single truss on crank-up stands, a series of vertical trusses that form vertical bars upstage with pipe between them to hold banners, etc. You can also use small LED fixtures for truss warmers or truss toners which are used to light up your truss various colors. This can be interesting if used with truss socks, which are sleeves of white stretch fabric that you pull over vertical trusses so when you uplight the truss from inside with a truss warmer fixture, the fabric lights up.
Steven Kosiba
12
There are also low fog or low smoke generators that have a chiller module that chills the fog in order to keep it close to the ground. The American DJ Mr. Cool fogger/chiller setup is one of the cheaper ones, and the Antari ICE-101 is another low-priced chiller/fogger system. For low-lying fog, the Antari DNG-200 is the best lower-end machine. You should really only consider a low-lying fog machine after you get a nice hazer or fogger for the main beam highlights in your show. There are also options using CO2 (carbon dioxide), but you have to take in to consideration health risks when using CO2.
Plastic O-Clamp
Steven Kosiba
13
stronger, and are also sometimes called half-boros or half-burgers in the pro lighting world due to the name of a double-clamp pipe-connection fixture called the cheeseboro, which has gained the affectionate nickname cheeseburger in the industry. A Cheeseburger is basically two half-burgers put together to allow you to attach two pieces of pipe together. C-clamps are one of the most common kinds of clamps, and come in many varieties, all the way from the small bent steel clamps to the full-size cast C-clamps for professional lighting instruments. There are also some clamps called Jclamps or hook clamps that are something along the lines of a reverse C-clamp in design, and are usually made of bent strip metal. Theyre not very strong, but great for quick setup when using lightweight LED parcans, pinspots, PAR38 cans and lightweight effects lights. You want to look at your trussing system or T-stands to see what size clamps you will need if youre getting O clamps or half burgers. For expensive moving lights hung on C-Clamp truss, you may want to consider Omega Claws or Baby Omegas from The Light Source, Inc.
Steven Kosiba
14
Steven Kosiba
15
For back lighting, youll probably want LED fixtures. Chauvet Colorstrips are a popular choice, along with Irradiant LEDSP56 LED Parcans, Chauvet Colorpalettes, and other LED wash lights. For side lighting, a single Colorpalette per side on the top of a lightweight tripod speaker stand pointing down on to the band is a great idea because of the wide angle that the Colorpalettes cover. Another option is some Irradiant LED parcans, two or three per stand, pointed across the stage. Either option works well. Sidelighting adds depth to your stage that isnt achievable in other ways. It adds another dimension of color that allows you to carve performers out of the stage, as the phrase often goes. If you are using a nice blue-green color for backlight, a saturated blue sidelight can look interesting and add another dimension to the space. For moving lights, you really want to consider what features you need for the show you want to put on. For scanners, the Martin SCX600s and SCX700s cant be beat, but some other popular models include the VEI Novascan V-250-1 and the Chauvet Intimidator 2.0 HTI. The SCX500s are great units if you can afford them, and they are very bright for a 150W scanner. Theyll punch through like many 250W units do, and the build quality is far superior to a Novascan or Intimidator plus the gobo selection is better, there are built in macros, and there is a color wheel with split color capabilities (half of one color, half of another). If you want rotating gobos, youll need an SCX600 or SCX700 or moving up to the moving heads, an Inimidator 2.0 Spot, an Intimidator 2.0 Spot HTI, or an Intimidator 150. For other effects, some White LED Pearls or TRI LED Pearls might be a good idea for rotation effects. You may also want uplighting for the back wall or your backdrop. This can be accomplished with LED parcans or with LED panel lights or strip lights. If you want narrow beams of light uplighting the back wall, use Chauvet Rain fixtures or Irradiant LED parcans, or the Colorkey/Solaris/Stageoutlet PAR64LED cans. If you want to use striplights to uplight the back wall, two or three colorstrips is probably a good idea, or some ADJ Mega Bars. This can be a great way to add movement, color, and another dimension to your show if you are limited in height, fixture placement, or use of fog at a venue. Speaking of backdrops, what kind of backdrop, if you want one? You have two main options if you want a plain backdrop you can have a black backdrop or a white backdrop. White backdrops are great if you want to have a really well lit backdrop with your uplighting. Black backdrops are great if youre going for more of a dead wall behind you, but definitely still pick up light. It is not the same vivid color range as with a white backdrop, but maybe you dont want the contrast that a white backdrop provides. If you get any backdrop, make sure it is flame retardant. If it does not come with flame retardant certification, you need to get it coated with a flame retardant. This is a severe reliability issue. The theatre industry is known for workarounds and working on the edges of how little can be used, but I have seen no curtains in any theatre yet without proper Fire Retardant certification. This is because the liability if a curtain burns and causes a fire is massive. And as the curtain is generally the closest thing to your lights (even if its a few feet away), you really want to have it treated for fire retardancy. If you arent convinced of this from doing some elementary research regarding nightclub fires, there may be a Darwin Award set aside for you. Even without pyro or the curtain being close to the lights, it can catch fire in a number of ways. You do not want this to happen. Some other ideas for your rig mini strobes in large quantities work well. If you put basically one every foot and a half or so on the truss, youll be good to go bumping these strobes is a great way to crank up the show but not really offend your audience since theyre only 25 watts a piece. Pinspots are also a cool idea in groups of three or four, they make a great effect. I like to put four in the center of the truss and three on each end of the truss, and put these on a DMX-4 dimmer/switch pack in switch mode. You can mount these to pieces of 1 or 1.5 EMT conduit and attach clamps to that in order to speed up the process of load-in. I put the center pinspots on one channel, the outer pinspots on another channel, all of the strobes together on the third channel (as long as they dont exceed 500 watts total), and leave the last channel open for pinspots on the floor (in pairs or groups of three bolted to plywood floor bases). It is important to note that without haze or fog or a very smoky room, you will not see the beams of Pearls, scanners, or other pattern effects lights. The Radiance Hazer is the preferred unit for the
Steven Kosiba
16
midrange market, and is a very efficient unit that just sips fluid so one jug lasts forever. If you cant toss out that much cash, look at the Martin Magnum 2500Hz. If thats still to expensive, go with the Star Light & Magic/ADJ/MBT/so many other companies HZ100/Haze Generator machine. You also really need to define the space that the rig will need to fit in to. If you only have space for 5 pieces of truss, but you want 8 vertical truss stands on stage, you may need to get 5 sections and 3 sections which can get rather expensive. Also, Global Truss measures their truss in metric, so youre only going to get close to footmarkings, not exact so for 5, youll probably have to settle for the 4.92 section (1.5 meters), and for 8 youll get the 8.20 (2.5 meter) section.
Part 2.5: LIGHTBLUB! Your Sources of Light Moving Lights & LED fixtures
One thing that many people dont realize is the different features that just their lamps (tech jargon for lightbulbs) can have. This section will cover the different types of lamps for moving lights as well as the different types/sizes of LEDs. There are several types of light sources used for moving lights. These mainly consist of halogen lamps, arc lamps, and high-power LEDs. There is new technology coming quickly that is called LIFI or Plasma Lamp technology that will probably make its way in to the lower end market over time.
Steven Kosiba
17
Here's the technology - a halogen lamp causes a filament to heat up. Halogen refers to the gas that is inside the glass envelope. A discharge or arc-source lamp actually generates a continuous electric arc across two points inside the glass envelope, which is why the lamp on this type of fixture cannot be dimmed, and thus you must have a dimming flag in the optical train inside the fixture. This is also why if you power down an arc-source/discharge fixture it can sometimes be a while before you can power it back on. Halogen lamps in scanners and moving heads, most commonly of the ELC variety or similar small reflector halogens, are just what they say they are - halogens. Just like overhead projector lamps, just like halogen floodlight lamps, whatever. Same old technology filament glows to produce light. Halogens can be controlled by an electronic dimming circuit, and thus moving lights with halogen lamps in them do not need dimming flags they can use an internal electronic dimming circuit. The HTI-150 is a common lamp in low-wattage discharge movers. It is a bit brighter than a 250W ELC. It is definitely perceived to be much brighter due to the higher color temperature. Other types you may see are CDM-150s, MSD-250s (in the higher-end 250W scanners and moving heads), and there is also an MSD-150, which is used in the Martin smartMAC luminaire. Discharge lamps also cover everything with an MSR, MSD, HSR, HSD, HMI, CDM, or HTI prefix. These three-letter codes refer to the particular style of discharge/arc source lamp, and range from 150 to 1200 watts in the standard ranges, and higher for some specialty searchlight fixtures. Pro level moving lights, save a few specialty tungsten fixtures (mostly for theatre use), use discharge lamps. The smallest lamp in a pro-grade fixture is the MSD-150, which is the 150W lamp for the Martin smartMAC luminaire. Generally they start with the MSD-250, a 250W discharge lamp that is the standard for 250 watt pro level movers. It has approximately two to three times the output of a 250W halogen lamp, if not more. The light from discharge lamps is also a lot higher color temperature, so it appears even brighter. The MSD-250 is used in the ADJ Accu Scan 250, Accu Spot 250 II, Accu Spot 300, Accu Wash 250, and Accu Color 250; Elation Focus Spot 250, Power Spot 250, Power Wash 250, Design Wash 250, and Design Spot 250; the Chauvet Intimidator 250, Q-spot 200, 250, and 300; the Martin MAC250 series; and many other pro level 250W moving lights. The "Color Temperature" (measured in Kelvins, or K) is the perceived "shade" of white that the lamp emits. Lower color temperatures are warmer sources, higher color temperatures are harsher, bluer sources. Discharge lamps often have a much higher color temperature than halogens (on the order of 6000K to 8500K), so they appear brighter to the human eye. The lamp will have several specs - the output (luminous flux or luminous emittance) in lumens or lux, the color temperature in Kelvins, the lamp life in hours, and the CRI (number, no units), along with the wattage (usually in the name). It will also describe the lamp base (aka socket) that the lamp fits. Mover lamps should be replaced before they die, because the output will decrease noticeably and the color temperature will also decrease with age - about 750 hours is the standard "lifetime" that I'd leave a 2000hr rated discharge lamp in a fixture for. ALL LAMPS should be wiped down with an alcohol swab before being installed in a moving light. This is to prevent oils from your fingers or any oils that got on the lamp during the packing process (although they are usually clean out of the box, I usually wipe them down) from causing a catastrophic failure. When heated, the oil from your fingers causes the glass envelope of the lamp to become weak and bulge out, and possibly break and spread hot, sharp glass all over the inside of your moving light. Not an often occurrence but enough of a danger to wipe down all of your lamps before putting them in, halogens and discharge lamps alike. High power LEDs fall in to a different category these are basically a super-bright LED or LED module (multiple diodes close together on a single chip) that is about the same color temperature, CRI, and brightness as an equivalent discharge source. A 100w LED source has been said to be equivalent to a
Steven Kosiba
18
250W discharge lamp. A 20W LED is probably about equal to a 150W halogen lamp by my best estimations and comparisons of specifications. There are some good things about LEDs in general LED movers and LED pars. There are no filaments to break, no lamps to replace, and much less heat than many equivalent fixtures. You should realize however, that LEDs really dont have Color Temperature or CRI. This is because they do not produce full spectrum white light. Ive described this further on in detail. LED Pars have several different types/sizes of LEDs. By far the most common ones are the 5mm and 10mm diodes. These are sometimes called 1/4 watt and 1/2 watt diodes, but draw far from that much power this is a term introduced by a manufacturer or dealer that has propagated itself through the industry and is complete nonsense. These diodes are the small diodes found in most lower-end LED pars, striplights, panel lights, and the lite-brite effects lights. The 10mm ones are significantly brighter than the 5mm ones. Lensing is internal to the diode package through the material that covers the diode. High power LEDs, such as the one-watt and three-watt models, are significantly brighter. They are extremely high output, and often have external lens systems that allow you to swap out lenses on the LEDs. There are many different fixtures that use these LEDs. In general, you only need 24 to 36 or so one-watt LEDs to compete with somewhere close to 150 to 200 5mm LEDs. You definitely may want to consider the Elation bricks for high power fixtures because of their compact size and narrow form factor they have the power of fixtures twice their size, and are a great alternative to high-power LED pars in many situations. There are also the new TRI-LEDs. These are actually three diodes in one chip that allow you to have three one-watt or three-watt diodes very close to each other, which makes the color mixing much smoother and uniform, and you hardly ever get the three color shadows with these fixtures. This is due to the fact that all three of the diodes are contained in the same lensing system. Effects lights that use TRI-LEDs often have noticeable separation of the red, green, and blue beams, but the colors are still much more uniform than the lite-brite fixtures and definitely much more controllable. There is one thing that most people dont realize about LEDs: theyre single-wavelength or setspectrum emitters. That is, for the red, green, and blue LEDs, you dont have a nice wide spectrum where it also emits some in the blue range, some in the red range, and some in the green range to get an overall nice color like a regular lamp does with a gel in it, but you get a very set wavelength of red, a very set wavelength of green, and a very set wavelength of blue. White LEDs are multiband emitters, in that they emit a series of wavelengths of light in order to make your eye think that they are white. The other main way of making white light is to use phosphor-coated LEDs, which basically converts another emission peak in to multiple peaks for white light. This method produces a somewhat less spiky emission spectrum, but nonetheless is not a true full-spectrum white source. This is why, if you try to put an amber gel over a white LED parcan, youll basically get no difference in the light because the light doesnt have the full spectrum emission required for the gel to apply its emission curve to a full visible spectrum. To make that simple and non-technical, many white LEDs simply produce red, green, and blue at the same time in order to make your eye think its seeing white.
Steven Kosiba
19
necessary. Professional DMX cable comes in five-pin and three-pin varieties, so make sure to get the three-pin stuff for your rig if thats what all of your lights and control stuff use. The five-pin cable is used on a lot of higher end moving lights and professional lighting desks and dimmer racks, and just doesnt use two of the pins. Its just a different connector from when they had different ideas about the protocol when it was written, so they wanted to have two extra pins to use later.
Steven Kosiba
20
For example, in a rig with four Chauvet Colorsplash 200Bs for frontlight and three Colorstrips for backlight and controlled by a DMX-70, you would set the first 200B to address 1 to correspond to fixture button 1, the second 200B to address 33 to correspond to fixture button 2, the third 200B to address 65 to correspond to fixture button 3, and the fourth 200B to address 97 to correspond to fixture button 4, and so forth. Now since you can link the Colorstrips all together to make them act like one really long Colorstrip (its on a later page!), you only need one address for the master and you just set the others to slave. So you set your master Colorstrip to address 129 to make your Colorstrips correspond to fixture button 5. Or, if you also want all of your 200Bs to be the same and you really dont need to control them separately, you can set all of their addresses to 1, and they will respond in unison to fixture button 1. Higher end controllers, such as the NSI MLC16D, NSI MLC128R, Elation Magic 260, Elation Show Designer Series, ETC Smartfade ML and any higher end console allow you to address fixtures sequentially based on the number of channels. You dont have a set interval. For instance, if you have two four-channel dimmer packs, four Novascans (five channels each), and eight LED Parcans (five channels each), you can address the first dimmer pack as 1, the second dimmer pack as 5, the first Novascan as 9, the second Novascan as 14, the third Novascan as 19, the fourth Novascan as 24, and the LED pars as 29, 34, 39, 44, 49, 54, 59, and 64. You then have to tell the console what addresses each fixture starts with and what kind of fixture it is (with a fixture personality or fixture profile) in order to tell the console how many channels the fixture has and what each of them does. A fixture personality is a file that has all of the information on channels for a specific fixture, including how many channels the fixture has and what each of them does. You will notice that each of the consoles that I mentioned has a set of encoder wheels that are used for entering the channel values. These rotary encoders are basically dials or knobs that you use to set the values of your channels. You will also notice that each of these controllers has an LCD display above or below these encoder wheels. This LCD display shows the name of each channel, such as Dimmer, Strobe, Color, and Gobo for a scanner or Dimmer, Red, Green, and Blue for an LED fixture. Each of these things (Color, Gobo, Strobe, Red, Green, etc) is called an attribute, trait, or parameter. Also, if there is a channel such as a color wheel that has values for the positions around the wheel defined in the personality, it will tell you what color the fixture should be at on the wheel. This works for any channel with values that are defined in the personality. Also, most (but not all) of these controllers have joysticks for positional control (which is why Pan and Tilt or X and Y are not listed for the scanner attributes above), and these joysticks are generally of much better quality than the almost unusable ones on the lower end controllers (DMX, Obey, and Operator series). Each lighting console has a different format for their fixture personalities, and some of them are impossibly hard to make from scratch. Here is a sample fixture personality written for the Elation Opti 30 RGB to be used on the MLC16D: Device Opti 30 RGB Trait Dimmer Type Continuous Channel 6 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black Yes BoValue 0 Master Yes Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 Trait Red Type Continuous Channel 1 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black No BoValue 0 Master No Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 Trait Green Type Continuous Channel 2 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black No BoValue 0 Master No Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 Trait Blue Type Continuous Channel 3 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black No BoValue 0 Master No Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 Trait Strobe Type Continuous Channel 5 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black No BoValue 0 Master No Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 Trait Macro Type Continuous Channel 4 Size 8Bit Invert No XAxis No YAxis No Black No BoValue 0 Master No Default 0 Maximum 255 Minimum 0 End
Steven Kosiba
21
Steven Kosiba
22
Steven Kosiba
23
Now youve got things addressed. Take some white Gaffers Tape and put a small piece on each fixture, and write the fixture number, the address of the fixture, and the dipswitch settings if it has a dipswitch, and the fixture mode settings if theyre complicated on the tape in black pen or extra fine point sharpie marker. This way if anything on the fixture gets un-addressed or reset, you can go back and set the fixture up without any major hassle by just looking at the tape. Later, once you have put some programming time in to your show and know that you wont be changing the address any time soon, put a piece of packaging tape just larger than the piece of gaff tape over it so that it cant get rubbed off and the ink wont run if the tape gets wet for any reason. You can also use a Labelmaker and then use the packaging tape over that if you want to. It produces a cleaner finished product, and if you have a Labelmaker, this is a great idea. Once you address and tape all of your fixtures (dont put on the packaging tape until youre sure that everything works perfectly and everything is responding to the right address), hook up the fixtures, power all of them up, power up the controller, and just try to get control over all of your fixtures. One by one select the fixtures and experiment with the faders or encoders. Look at the table of DMX values in your fixtures manual to determine which fader does what. Many controllers show you the numerical value of the channel as you are moving the fader, so you can see what you are doing to the channel in reference to numerical values in the DMX channel value table in a fixtures manual. If anything doesnt work, visit the Harmony Central Lighting Forum and ask a question someone will probably get back to you quickly. In fact, someone else has probably had the same issue. With the Chauvet controllers that have a polarity switch on the back (to switch the polarity of the DMX output), make sure its on the right setting. If your lights dont respond properly, this may be an issue. If your lights dont respond at all, check the blackout button and accompanying LED indicator. So now that you know everything works and youve got control over all of your fixtures, set up the lights on their stands and t-bars in some semblance of what the actual rig will look like, and its time to program!
Steven Kosiba
24
Now that youre able to program a bank chase, enter Program mode and go to the next bank of scenes. Set all of the LED fixtures to just Red. If you have some effects lights, such as Pearls or what have you, bring up their intensities. If youre using punch lights or pinspots, put some of those in here. Add scanners if you have them, with a gobo but no color. Position them at center (50/50, or 128/128 for pan/tilt channel values). Record this scene to the first scene button. Now leave the whole scene up but bring up the green in the LEDs as well, move the scanners to a new position, change pinspots, whatever. Record the next scene. Now take down the red, change the other lights and scanner positions, and record the next scene. Now bring up the blue (so the LEDs now have blue + green), change the other lights and move the scanners. Record the next scene, take down the green (now only blue), change things, record the next scene, bring up the red (LEDs now red + blue), change things, record the next scene. You now have six scenes in the bank. Exit program mode, and recall these scenes individually to make sure that they all recorded properly. Now go to auto playback mode, and adjust the rate and time faders until you have a good chase going. This can take some finessing of your timings to get it right. You should have a sequence that has a rainbow chase of LEDs with the effects lights constantly changing. Now that you are able to program banks of scenes and play them back individually or as chases, you should be able to move on to learning movement effects (if you have moving lights), and then on to designing your show.
Steven Kosiba
25
When using MIDI to recall scenes, you will either be using a MIDI pedalboard, a MIDI drum pad, or a MIDI sequencer. If youre already using a MIDI sequencer, you probably dont need an in-depth explanation of how this whole deal works. You send a MIDI note command and the controller changes scenes. If youre using a MIDI drum pad or MIDI pedalboard, youre probably going to need a bit more help here.
Steven Kosiba
26
The Magic 260 is a controller made by Elation for American DJ that is based on the MLC128R. However, it has a few more features in some respects. It allows you to use effects for pan and tilt movement, and has preset positions that you can record in to scenes or patterns. So for instance, if you would like to have your scanners move to the drummer for a solo in a certain scene, but your setup is different every night, so your drummer will be in a different place in relation to the scanners every night you perform. You can use a preset position for the drummer, which will allow you to change that position whenever you set up your lighting rig, and then the lights will go there every time. Larger professional lighting consoles have dozens of these, and they are called position palettes or focus palettes. When you are programming on these controllers, its good to get a basic set of static scenes programmed first, and then start with patterns. Programming scenes is easy you press the record button and then you press the scene button that you want to record to. The scene is now recorded. You can recall it by pressing the scene button. There is no separate program or playback mode on the MLC series controllers, you are either in live values or in pre-recorded values of a scene or pattern, and you dont have to be in a different mode. All of these controllers have MIDI implementation which is better than the basic controllers. Youll be able to access all of the different patterns and scenes without having to worry about programming certain amounts of scenes in to different banks and setting the controller in auto mode and all of that crap. Youll probably have a MIDI note value to set the page to be in, and then a MIDI note value to select the scene or pattern within that bank. Some notes on questions that I occasionally get on the MLC16: to adjust fade time of scenes when simply playing them back live with the scenes page, use Wheel 1 to adjust the Fd: ## which is the fade time in seconds. If you are having issues with a pattern playing back, make sure that you dont have any fixtures selected. If you need a custom personality built for a fixture that NSI/Leviton doesnt have a profile for (their library additions are notorious for taking forever), I can build one for you and send it to you. I can also tweak profiles for you if you need that. Youll notice that I didnt exactly do a step by step walk-thru of these controllers. This is because for controllers of this level, they will actually send you a manual that was written well. Youll be able to actually learn about the inner workings of the controller from the manual. The manual for these was written by someone who knows how to explain things fairly well, even for the Magic 260.
Steven Kosiba
27
dim fixtures with arc/discharge lamps. If your fixture has a prism, this is usually on a separate holder that flips in to place, and if it rotates, there will be a separate motor for that, too. The prism may also be on an effects flag that has several other items, such as color correction filters. Thus, there are some interesting effects that you can do. If your fixture has built-in gobo shake, this is accomplished by having the motor that rotates the gobo wheel snap back and forth really fast. If you have split colors, the motor for the color wheel stops at a point between two of the color chips so that the beam of light passes through half of one of them and half of the other. You can also have color shakes that usually shake between two colors on the wheel, which can be a very interesting effect. If your fixture does not have color shake, it is easy to emulate. Just flip back and forth between two colors on the color wheel with the proper fade time, and you have a color shake effect. Many fixtures also have a gobo scroll effect. This is a great effect. It rotates the whole gobo wheel continuously, so you are switching from gobo to gobo to gobo to gobo in a slow rolling effect, or fast. Most fixtures have some range of values for this sort of effect that allow you to set the speed of the effect. Knowing how the innards of a moving light work really allow you to create effects on your own with control software or a controller. With the right fade times and control values, you can emulate a lot of these effects even if they arent included as macros in your lights. Using the built-in effects of your moving lights, or making the equivalents of them with your controller, can be an easy way to add a whole new level to your show.
Steven Kosiba
28
around these eight points of the circle. So if you have two lights, you start one on one side of the circle and the other across from it. If you have four lights, you put the lights on every other point. Its nice if you have more than two lights to put the lights in order clockwise or counterclockwise around the circle the effect looks a lot better that way. Once you have the lights evenly spaced around the circle, record the first scene. Then move all of your lights to the next X mark clockwise or counterclockwise (remember which way youre going here!). Record the next scene, move to the next point in the same direction, record, repeat, so forth till all eight scenes are filled and all eight points have been hit by every light. You can get interesting effects by grouping up your lights in pairs here i.e. if you have four fixtures start two fixtures on the same dot on each side of the ring, and record the eight steps of the circle. Id recommend using the first and third fixtures on one side and the second and fourth fixtures on the other. You can easily modify such an effect to be a figure eight by just making an 8-point figure eight with the tape marks or you can make it an oval, a random movement chase, anything you want. The next movement effect that I am going to explain is something of a classic effect the Can-Can effect. Its basically applying a triangular or sine wave to all of your moving lights. Make four tape lines on the floor going stage left to stage right so the tape is parallel to the front of the stage. These should be somewhat evenly spaced and the furthest line out should probably be placed about a foot or two out in to the audience. You are now going to place the lights staggered out over these lines. Dont use the pan controls, leave all of the lights pointed straight downstage. Start by putting light one on the line furthest upstage, the second light on the second row of tape, third on the third row, fourth on the fourth row. Now, record a scene. Then you need to advance everything by one so light one moves to line two, light two moves to line three, light three moves to line four, and light four moves to line three. This continues. Whenever a fixture gets to line one or line four, it reverses direction. This creates the effect of the lights bouncing between two defined lines. Youll want to keep the fade times in the right region here in order to not see the fixtures stopping at every single new position, so that it basically looks like theyre in continuous motion, much like a pendulum but tilted out towards the audience. You can also have what I call a snap-wave, which is where you start with all of the fixtures upstage (about in line with the drum riser, and one by one you snap them up to above the heads of the audience on a zero count, and then snap them back down. This is not for every song but in certain situations in certain songs, it can be a really dramatic effect. You can either do this as a continuous or one time bump in other words, you can start with everything down and have the lights move up and come back down one by one, or you can have one light move up over the audience and then the other follows it up and then the next, and then you bring them back down one by one once all of the lights are pointed up high. The effect produced by this is that one by one, the lights reach their upper limit of tilt, and then reverse direction and head towards the lower limit defined by the effect (usually not the physical limits of the fixture). Once they reach the lower limit, they again reverse direction. This is a six step effect, so you will leave two scenes of the bank open. To create an effect that looks more like a sine wave and less like a triangular wave, spread the two center lines further apart, but dont move the top lines. This will make the top of the movement slower than the center, but will still look a bit choppy because of the low step count of the effect. You can also apply the above effect to pan motion instead to get a sweep effect across the stage. Simply put out the tape lines perpendicular to the originally suggested method, and program the effect with the pan motion. This will create a sweep effect across the stage. Offset the lights by different numbers of lines for interesting effects. You can do this effect with the lights at audience knee level, or up above their heads moving back and forth. You will find a set of effects tables in the back of this guide that show you visually how to set up and make these effects, and show you what each scene should look like from a top view with an example rig that has four scanners on the rear truss. This is an absolute top view, so its as if the camera was hanging over the rig from the ceiling. The examples are with four scanners on a rear truss, but you can apply these effects to any number of fixtures in any number of positions. Just remember that for scale, the truss is about fifteen feet long in those pictures, so dont tape out a dinky little circle on the floor make it big enough to make a nice effect. Each image is a scene. Scenes progress from top left
Steven Kosiba
29
to right then down to the next row. So on the circle effect, the top left image is the first scene, the next image to the right is the second scene, the third image on the top row is the third scene, then the first image on the second row is the fourth scene, etc. Reads like it should, no tricks there.
Part 8: Designing the Show II: Color Part Deux: Gels and Frontlighting
If youre using conventional parcans, you may be wondering what gels to put in them in order to get your desired effect. My favorite (and the standard in the US) color filter manufacturer is Rosco, but Apollo, Lee, and GAM (Great American Market) also produce a good product. If were talking frontlight, there are a few things to look at: If youre using them for just a little bit of face light with only enough cans to cover the stage once, you probably want to look at a light Bastard Amber (Rosco R02 all numbers with the R prefix are Rosco numbers) for your face light. This can really carve performers out of the stage and really let people see your faces. If you are doing several colors of front light, I recommend R02 Bastard Amber, R34 Flesh Pink, and either R68 (Parry Sky Blue) or R74 (Night Blue). The pink and amber should be fairly straight shots, but you want to do a cross wash with the blue. This is a great tableau look (changes, between songs, etc), and can also add nice frontlight color certain songs. If youre using a dark blue (R80 or R74), put it on the most upstage (towards the back wall of the stage) side of the T-bar (as T-bars are usually angled), or at the ends of a front truss. This will allow you to get the best cross wash that covers most of the stage and provides an interesting angle with this color. This is the look that youre going for with this. You may also want to double up
Steven Kosiba
30
on fixtures, because the dark blues have very low transmittancies. So given four medium or wide pars per side on a T-bar, and that two pars (one from each side) can cover the stage, I would have an R02, an R34, and two R74 gelled fixtures on each side of the stage. This will give you good overall control over color balance. If you have LED fixtures for frontlight, ditch the R74 or R80, just use low-wattage parcans with bastard amber (and R34 if you have enough cans) to pick out performers. The saturated blue can be provided by the LED cans, and this is a great way to maximize your frontlight color options. If youre using LED fixtures for frontlight, you should strongly consider using wider angle wash fixtures, like the Chauvet LEDsplash 200B or 152B. Two fixtures per side should suffice. For backlight, there are several standards. The known standard is if you are given the choice of only two colors, its Red and Blue. I usually pick R26 or R27 (depending on the saturation required and the power of the instruments), and either R74 or R80, depending on the band and music. I prefer R74 for most situations, but R80 is something of a standard for band lighting. If you have an option for another color, its usually a yellow or amber of some sort. R12, R312, R15, or R22 or R23 for the darker amber end of things. Given a fourth color, either green or pink depending on the band. For a good backlight green, I like to use anything in the R90 thru R95 range that fits the music. Usually R90, R93, or R95. Those are fairly good colors. In the pink range, R39 is my decided favorite. Other good pinks include R339, R42, and R46. The colors really vary by band. If given four colors for a funk band, I might choose R39 (a dark pink), R95 (a blue green), R15 (a yellow on the amber side of things), and R74 (a nice dark blue). If given four colors for a hard rock band, I would probably choose R12 (a bright yellow), R26 (a strong red), R74 (a dark blue), and N/C (no color, white). Another interesting color to throw in to the mix is a nice deep blue-purple. My favorite being R358 (Rose Indigo). There are several other options, but many of them are too saturated to be able to compete with the other gels in your rig. R358 is a perfect balance of color and transmittancy. Given six colors (a six-bar lamp bar), I usually pick R15 (but a double cut, as in two sheets of color in one frame for more saturation) or R22, R26, R39, R358, R74, and either R90 or R95 depending on the band. Sometimes sacrificing the green or yellow/amber for a no-color fixture is a good idea.
Steven Kosiba
31
Part X: In Closing
This is just a laundry list of stuff that I need to say. If you have any questions about band lighting, post them over at the Harmony Central Lighting Forum. If you have any suggestions of what to add to this guide, email them to me at nevetshk@gmail.com. I have put countless hours of writing, planning, and research in to this guide. Im not asking the world, but five or ten bucks if you really get some good information out of this guide. Think of it like shareware software if you use it, think about keeping up the effort. If you look at it and say I already knew that!, then keep it in your pocket youve obviously done a lot of research yourself. My paypal email is nevetshk@gmail.com. I have also attached a number of system diagrams that I have done for people and just done for this guide in order to give you some ideas about how to start and where to go from there. The glossary is a constantly under construction thing check back for updates as things progress, and send me suggestions for the glossary if you want to.
Steven Kosiba
32
Glossary
American DJ Importer/manufacturer of DJ lighting. They are a sister company to Elation Lighting. Antari The atmospheric effects (fog/haze/etc) division of American DJ/Elation. Atmospheric Effects Fog, haze, and any other effect that enhances beams of light. Attribute A controllable feature of a fixture, like pan, tilt, color, gobo, etc. Barrel Scanner See Rolling Mirror. Beam Angle Effectively the width of the beam of light, given in degrees, or in qualitative terms such as wide, narrow, or medium. Technically defined as the angle at which the intensity of the pool of light is at fifty percent of what it was in the center. Bump Button A button on a lighting board, usually an old-style two-scene board, that bumps the light up to full (or whatever the level of the Bump Master is at) while the button is pressed. Chamsys The company that makes the MagicQ software package and consoles. This software package is very advanced and has many features. Chauvet Importer of DJ lighting gear. Neo-Neon makes a lot of their stuff. Their moving lights are generally smoother than American DJs in terms of movement. I often recommend Chauvet before ADJ. CMY Cyan, Magenta, Yellow color mixing. These colors allow you to mix almost any color you want to. This is subtractive color mixing, in that the color flags/gradient filters subtractively remove wavelengths from the beam of light. For instance, if you put in Magenta and Yellow at full, you will get Red, because Magenta and Yellow are the two secondary colors that contain red. If you know any physics of optics or color theory, this will make complete sense to you. Color Temperature this is a measurement of how blue or how amber/how warm or cold the white light produced by a fixture is. This has relations to the temperatures of stars, but to make it simple, higher color temperature lamps produce bluer light. Color Wheel A disc of metal that contains glass color filters around the edge, often dichroic glass. The edge of the wheel is in the path of the beam of light so that only one color (or two if you want to do a split color) is in the beam of the light at once. A stepper or servo motor controls the position of this wheel. Compu Cad (Elation) Elations rebranding of the Sunlite software suite a few different features, but its basically the same as one of the levels of Sunlite product. Daslite The sister software program to Sunlite, built on the same platform but has a slightly different featureset and GUI. Dowser A piece of metal or glass that is shaded or slotted so that more light can pass through at the beginning and the light is completely blocked by the time the flag/disc is completely in the light beam. Elation High quality lighting manufacturer. Elation gear is some of the best in the business for midlevel rigs. Some of the fixtures are definitely reaching Martin quality Eliminator Cheap DJ lighting gear distributor, the only thing Ill buy from them is their mini-strobes. Encoder One of two things, but most commonly data entry wheels on a moving light controller. Alternately, a positional sensor in a moving light that tells the light how far it has traveled. Fixture In short, this is a light. A parcan is a fixture, a moving head is a fixture, and an LED panel light is a fixture. Focus Can mean two things the first meaning is how hard or soft a the gobo image is. Hard focus is when the gobo projection is very crisp. soft focus is when the gobo projection image is soft or fuzzy around the edges. Higher end moving heads have remote focus control that allows you to control the focus of the gobo images from your lighting console. One important thing to note is that when the images is projected at ten feet and is hard focused, it will not be hard focused if it is instead pointing thirty feet away at a wall. The focus will be slightly off. This is because the image is being focused on a surface that is further away. The other definition of focus is the X/Y position of a moving light on stage. For instance, focus points are positions on stage that a light is preset to that update throughout a series of scenes or cues. Fog Machine A device that uses a heating element and a high-pressure nozzle to turn fog fluid in to the large white mass moving across the stage. Fogger see Fog Machine
Steven Kosiba
33
Freestyler A lighting control program built on the Sunlite platform, but much more stripped down. It is available at no charge and simply requires an Enttec USB>DMX interface. Gobo A metal or glass pattern that is projected with a moving light or other gobo projector Gobo Wheel A disc of metal in a moving light that has a number of gobos placed around the perimeter. There is an indexing servomotor or stepper motor that changes from one gobo to another or scrolls through them all. Hazer A device that uses either a heater and nozzle or a compressor to produce a thin and evenly distributed layer of atmosphere that allows you to see light beams really well while not producing the thick, white cloud and annoying smell commonly associated with fog machines. Irradiant The main US importer and distributor of Neo-Neon products. On par for quality with Chauvet (Neo-Neon manufactures a lot of Chauvets products). Joystick A positional control device on moving light controllers that allows you to control the pan and tilt attributes of moving lights (scanners/moving heads). Kelvin a measure of the color temperature of a lamp. Incandescent bulbs (e.g. par lamps) are generally around 3200 Kelvin, while arc source/discharge lamps range from around 6000 Kelvin to around 9000 Kelvin. The sun is around 5800 Kelvin. This scale originates from the astronomical blackbody radiation Planck spectrum, which judges the temperature of a star in Kelvins based on the emission spectrum of the star. Lamp Cord Lightweight, 16 or 18 gauge two-conductor electrical cord that is used for low wattage, two-prong connector fixtures like mini strobes. Le Maitre An atmospheric and pyrotechnic effects company that is best known in the band lighting market for their popular Radiance hazer. Light Jockey Martins lighting software. Widely regarded as one of the best lighting control programs in the industry. Luxeon A brand of high-power LED that is used in many high-end lighting fixtures. The standard wattages are one watt and three watts. MagicQ A software control package and a series of lighting consoles from Chamsys. The Martin A professional lighting manufacturer based in Denmark that produces high quality automated lighting fixtures. Martin makes the SCX series of scanners, and the world standard MAC Moving Heads. myDMX American DJs rebranding of the Sunlite basic lighting control software. Comes with a basic 3D visualizer package thats the same as the one in any Sunlite-based software. Moving Head A moving light that swings the whole optical system to position the beam of light. The gobo wheel, color wheel, lamp, prism, etc are all housed in the part that moves. Moving Mirror A moving light that uses a mirror to orient the beam of light. These come in several different types and are often refereed to as Scanners. Neo-Neon A Chinese manufacturer of lighting equipment. Known for their LED fixtures. They manufacture a lot of equipment for Chauvet, as well as distribute their equipment directly through Irradiant in the United States. NSI A lighting equipment manufacturer that makes a lot of dimmers and control boards, as well as selling parcan fixtures and DMX cable. Now under the umbrella company Leviton. Palette A setting for a group of channels (focus palette pan/tilt, beam palette gobo, shutter, focus, color palette RGB, CMY, or color wheel) that is used repeatedly in programming through accessing its memory location. Once a palette is updated, all of the places where that palette is referenced in cues, scenes, and sequences are updated with the new information. This is especially useful if you are loading in to a different stage each time you use your rig, but you want there to be special cues for each of the band members that are right on target with the moving lights every night. Rather than go through and update all of the cues, you can simply update the focus palette for each of the band members, and youre set as far as positions are concerned. Focus palettes are also called focus points. Palettes are also called presets on some lighting controllers. Pan The left-right movement of a moving light (scanner or moving head). Parameter see Attribute Prism (3-facet) An effect in most higher-end moving heads and some scanners that triples the image coming out of the front of the light. There are other types of prisms, such as 4-facet, 3-D, or 9-facet that all have different ways of splitting the image. The 3-d prism is a special effect that appears to blur the image out in one direction and then rotates the blur about the center of the gobo image.
Steven Kosiba
34
RGB Red, Green, Blue color mixing. This is additive color mixing. So when you mix together red and blue, your eyes perceive it as pink or purple (depending on the color mix). When you mix red and green, you get something along the lines of yellow or amber (hardest to get with RGB Color Mixing). When you mix blue and green together, you get a blue-green color commonly referred to as Cyan, or some shade near it, like teal or aqua. You will notice that the colors made by combining two colors here are the same set of colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) used in subtractive (CMY) mixing. RGBA Adds Amber to the RGB mix because amber is one of the harder colors to get with LEDs. This allows more colors to be produced with LEDs. RGBW Adds White to the RGB mix because white is a harder color to get with LEDs, so this adds another dimension to the color mix. RGBAW Adds both White and Amber to the color mix, resulting in an incredible variety of colors. Rolling Mirror A subset of scanners/moving mirror lights. These lights have a mirror drum as it were that rotates about an axis, and that axis can pan back and forth. Scanner A moving mirror light. These come in several varieties, the main two being flat mirror and rolling mirror. Shape Effect A pre-built effect in a lighting console or fixture movement macro that moves the fixture in a certain shape about a center point. This allows you to get quick, smooth, continuous movements. Shinp a Chinese laser company that produces many two and four module lasers. Shutter The part of a moving light that strobes the beam usually a single metal flag or pair of metal flags (small rectangles/triangles of metal) that chop the beam of light continuously to create a strobing effect. Step A single scene in a chase. Steps are often very similar to each other but change slightly from one to the next. Submaster A look on a fader often found on manual lighting consoles (NSI manual boards, Scene Setters, etc) that allow you to set up groups of lights or lighting looks on faders. Sunlite A lighting control software suite which is very powerful. Many other software suites are based on it, and most use its visualization engine. Tap/Sync A function on many lighting controllers that allows you to tap the beat of the music in to the board. The quality of this function is related directly to the price of the board. I have yet to get the tap/sync button on the DMX/Obey series from Chauvet work, but regularly use the tap/sync button on the NSI MLC16D because it works so well. Tilt The up/down motion of a moving light. Trackball An alternative to a joystick, a positional control for moving lights on some lighting consoles (often a plug in device, through a serial or PS/2 port) that allows you to control pan and tilt quickly and easily for programming. Trait see Attribute Wiggle Light A moving light either a scanner or a moving head. Generally used by people who dont like them or more often than not, dont know what to call them. Can also refer to the little 4515 oscillators that swing back and forth. X-Laser a manufacturer of lasers in the United States known for helping people get the required variances for higher-powered lasers that they sell. Zip Cord See Lamp Cord.
Steven Kosiba
35
Dealer Index
This is simply an index of dealers who will sell you stuff. None of these dealers paid for placement. I hand picked this list from people who I would buy from. My regular suppliers are the top two here, and I honestly considered putting only them here because I think that you should buy from them first.
Centerstage Lighting
www.centerstagelighting.com info@centerstagelighting.com Centerstage sells products through their website and their eBay store, where they often have dozens of B-stock items that are far below the best prices you can get anywhere else on the brand new ones but the warranties are always reduced to a shorter term than the originals. This gets you awesome gear at a lower price. Also, on their website, many of the products that they say are their own house brand are actually ADJ and Chauvet products, and youll most likely receive an ADJ or Chauvet product, not a Centerstage brand product. They do this to sell things for significant discounts that MAP pricing would not allow them to do otherwise.
Steven Kosiba
36
Cheaplights
17203 Bamwood Drive Houston Texas 77090 800 880-0883 www.cheaplights.com help@cheaplights.com Basically, they sell a lot of stuff that is actually name brand ADJ, Chauvet, or other distributors product, but they sell it under their own name. They have a lot of other random small lights as well, but you need to remember that if its super-cheap, theres probably a good reason. If youre in the area, Ive been told that you can just go to their warehouse and check stuff out and ask them questions.
Steven Kosiba
37
Steven Kosiba
38
Steven Kosiba
39
Steven Kosiba
40
Steven Kosiba
41
Rig Ideas
Steven Kosiba
42
Rig Ideas
Steven Kosiba
43
Rig Ideas
Steven Kosiba
44
Rig Ideas
Steven Kosiba