First lighting.

[paulears]

If I've understood you - you want to work from FOH, so you might be able to use one of the multicore pairs for the DMX control signal to the dimmers. The thing to remember is that the multi is not designed for this, so may, or may not work. If it doesn't - you could just tape the real DMX cable to it. More reliable and the chances of the data buzz leaking into the audio are much less (although I do this regularly with a 50m multi, with no problems at all)

 

By the way - some PARS are VERY bright - PAR64s are not to be stared at, PAR56 are less bright but still kick! Have a read through the lighting section for LED stuff - so much of it, you will find it hard reading it all!

[MarkPAman]

I've read the threads and wiki's and I ended up at a thread that referred to another thread as having the definitive answer about LED's… but it didn't!. Are LED's worth investing in???... from what I have seen in other applications, so called white LED's seem to have a blue'ish, almost UV type of output and I wonder at an LED's ability to 'project' it's output… have I got this all wrong!?

 

I've put together a smallish rig of 12 LED par 56s for using at pub gigs - two stands with 4 each & 4 as floor cans. So far I've found it to have more than enough light output and be quick and easy to set up. As I only have LEDs I've not spent money on dimmers, and I hope that the units I have will last a good long time.

 

OK they do not do white very well, but does that matter for a band? :(

 

The one thing I did get wrong was getting a disko type controller which was not really much good for what I want to do with these lights. While of course the one I have will control the lights, there are things I would like to be able to do live that are not possible with it. I'll be buying something more sophisticated next time budget becomes available.

 

The other thing that you may want to consider, now or in the future, is haze or smoke, now that the punters are not providing it for us.

[ryandell]

How do you find the Showtec dimmers Brian? Personnally I find the dimming curve a bit strange, but for what you pay for them (£79 each?) well worth it. And they are DMX! Only annoying part is they have IEC connectors, but you can get these from a DIY shop unlike 15a plugs.

 

 

Hi Brian,

 

Just to clear this up, are the showtec bar that you have accept DMX control ?

 

Thanks

 

Ryan

[Tomo]

For lighting a band in a small space like a pub, the cheap LED parcans are pretty good - but you do need quite a few of them!

8 to 12 seems a reasonable number most of the time.

 

In general, LED fixtures are good at strong colours, (especially red, green and blue) but poor at whites.

 

The cheap ones do not do subtle at all - but for band lighting, do you care?

 

The main issues with LED at present are:

- You can't adjust focus - one beam angle is all you get.

- They don't do white properly (even white-only ones have varied colour temp)

- The beam 'quality' is shocking - look at one doing 'white' in haze!

- They are not very bright, and have very short throws - most are very wide-angle which makes the brightness issue worse.

 

So they are good for very short throws where you want strong colours, and the more expensive flood varieties are good for cyc lights.

[boatman]

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Obviously, from what you guy's have kindly told me, I will start off with some PAR's. Is it a case, as with most, of getting what you pay for… quality/function wise?. I'm bound to make some mistakes, but was wondering if I should 'dip a toe in' with something like this: Musicstore

.

.

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Hi Josh,

 

At only €477, that kit looks suitable. It's certainly a very simple controller that shouldn't give you any heartache at all. I see it comes with PAR56 WFL which will probably be OK at the sort of range you are using, but you may want to change them for a narrower beam.

 

Just to put you in the picture, there are four beam angles in PAR56 lamps:

 

WFL - Wide Flood

MFL- Medium Flood

NSP - Narrow Spot

VNSP - Very Narrow Spot

 

For all they cost, you may want to buy a selection and choose the ones that suit you best. As paulears said even 300W PAR56 lamps are not to be stared at and the narrower the beam the brighter they will appear to the individual band members.

 

Also, PAR lamps produce an oval beam rather than a circular one. To get the coverage you need, the lamps can be rotated in the fixtures, but dont try to do this when it is hot!!!

 

Good luck.

 

John

[Josh 2]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks very, very much for all of the patient responses and info… much appreciated.

 

Just a couple of things I'm not still sure about (sorry):-

 

@ MarkPAman. You mention that because you are using LED PAR's, you haven't spent on dimmers. Does this mean that it's not normal/recommended/possible to dim LED's? Could I also ask what is the difference (and how do I tell) the difference between a 'disco' type controller and others more suitable?

 

Oh BTW: they haven't totally banned smoking in Spain… so perhaps I can save a bit on a smoke/haze machine!

 

@ boatman. Thank you for looking at that link and the heads up concerning beam angles. I've noticed some ads for 'short' and some for 'long' PAR's, is this something else o do with focus or does it just set the reflector further back to eliminate stray light!?

 

@ ALL. Because of my location and the possible venues, the Spanish electricity supply and local installations often leave a lot to be desired!. Would this make LED's a better choice assuming less current required?

 

Now please don't laugh at this because I've never touched a stage light, but I have an idea of mixing some conventional and LED Par's. Using the LED's as floor standing, possibly with filters pointing (generally) up at the band members and then the conventional PAR's (white) on T-stands to dim/brighten the individuals… am I on the right track… ish?

 

Thanks,

Josh.

[Psychedelic Theatre]

Hi Josh,

 

Good to see you're getting the idea so quickly!!

 

 

Someone mentioned earlier that some fixtures use more than one DMX channel. LED pars are a basic form of this. Basically they have several channels, for example, one channel will control the red LEDs, another will control the yellow LEDs, another will control the blue LEDs, and another will control the intensity of the light. You can then set the levels of the colour channels to mix the colours you want.

 

You don't need a dimmer pack for LEDs, because the circuitry within the LED PAR does this for you, when you raise or lower the value of the intensity channel. On a normal PAR you need a dimmer pack, the dimmer supplies the power to the fixture on the command of the DMX value (as sent out by the control you are using, I.e a lighting desk). This means that it is effectively supplying less power when the light is dim, and more when the light is bright. In an LED PAR you plug the fixture into a normal power socket and then you connect the fixtures together using a DMX cable.

 

You connect the fixtures together in a daisy chain fashion, that is, you connect the DMX cable from the desk into the input of one PAR, then take another cable from the ouput of that first PAR and connect that to the input of the second, and so on. When you reach the end of the chain, you use a DMX terminator. As was mentioned earlier, you can control 512 channels of DMX with one universe. That means that if you were to have a rig of 8 LED PARcans that each needed 4 channels (as my example above) and you wanted control over each fixture independantly you would need to set the DMX address on each PAR so that they continue on from each other. So it would look like so:

 

PAR 1: 1

PAR 2: 5

PAR 3: 9

 

and so on.

 

This means that you have independant control over each channel, or each of the 8 LED PARcans.

 

It is probably more useful to pair them up in this situation, so if you wanted to PARs to do the same, you would give them the same DMX address. A typical 8 PAR setup, for this kind of situation, would be two T-bars with 4 fixtures on each. If you wanted to pair the fixtures up, you could do it like this:

 

PAR 1 ----PAR 2 ---- PAR 3---- PAR 4 PAR 5----PAR 6----PAR 7----PAR 8

Ch. 1-----Ch. 5------Ch. 9-----Ch.13 Ch.13----Ch. 9-----Ch. 5----Ch. 1

 

 

You mention power supply in your post. LEDs do not require a large power supply, you can run many lanterns off one standard 13A socket, whereas it is only realistic to run 6x500W Pars off a standard 13A socket.

 

So if power is an issue, it would be a good idea to look into LEDs further.

 

 

Hope that helps,

 

Tim

[boatman]

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@ boatman. Thank you for looking at that link and the heads up concerning beam angles. I've noticed some ads for 'short' and some for 'long' PAR's, is this something else o do with focus or does it just set the reflector further back to eliminate stray light!?

.

.

 

Hi Josh,

 

The long PAR cans hold the gel further from the lamp and the tube has a 'collimating' effect, especially if it is a chrome fitting with a polished interior. Thus they are better for the narrower beams.

 

The short cans should be used for the wider beams

 

.

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@ ALL. Because of my location and the possible venues, the Spanish electricity supply and local installations often leave a lot to be desired!. Would this make LED's a better choice assuming less current required?

 

Now please don't laugh at this because I've never touched a stage light, but I have an idea of mixing some conventional and LED Par's. Using the LED's as floor standing, possibly with filters pointing (generally) up at the band members and then the conventional PAR's (white) on T-stands to dim/brighten the individuals… am I on the right track… ish?

.

.

 

No I think you need a bit more explanation. 'Normal' PAR cans use filament lamps which need an external dimmer. In the system you mentioned earlier, the dimmer is in the control unit and the multicore mains cables will connect the control unit to the lamps via the splitter boxes. 'LED' PAR cans have dimmers built into the lantern itself and must be fed with both a mains supply and a control signal. The mains supply must be virgin (ie not from a dimmer) and the control signal is the 'DMX'. LED PAR cans occupy several DMX channels which control the intensity of the Red, Green & Blue channels in various ways. If you want to mix 'Normal' and 'LED' PAR cans you need a DMX controller and a DMX controlled dimmer pack for the 'Normal' lanterns. The dimmer pack will also need a virgin mains supply and a feed of the DMX signal. The previous post from Psychedelic Theatre explains how you connect the LED PAR cans together and you would connect the DMX dimmer pack for the 'Normal' PARs at the end of the chain. You will also need extension cables from the dimmer pack to the 'Normal' PAR cans, unless it can be located close enough for direct connection.

 

HTH.

 

John

[Josh 2]

Hi Tim and John,

 

Arh, I see now. I hadn't realised that LED Par's contain some of the control circuitry. I understand the concept of daisy chaining, but had assumed there would still be an external device required for dimming LED's. Excellent… thanks very much for sticking with me and realising where I was going wrong.

 

Everything else mentioned I gratefully acknowledge and understand.

 

Thank you and everyone else who has helped me with the topic… I really do appreciate it.

 

Josh.

[MarkPAman]

@ MarkPAman. You mention that because you are using LED PAR's, you haven't spent on dimmers. Does this mean that it's not normal/recommended/possible to dim LED's?

 

Seems that's already been answered very well.

 

Could I also ask what is the difference (and how do I tell) the difference between a 'disco' type controller and others more suitable?

 

Well, the controller I have (£100ish Stairville thing) can record & play back many scenes & chases. During playback I can alter the overall speed and fade times. However, that's about it. Worse ithing s that every scene it records includes the full 512 DMX channels, so it's not possible to recall (say) the floor cans on blue, without recalling what all the other lights were doing when I programmed it. And switching to program mode causes a blackout, so that's no use during a show. I'm sure it's a perfectly good controller for some stuff, but do not like it at all for what I want.

 

I've found that I would like to be able to alter things during a show. For instance I can't even just lower the levels without reprogramming. I don't yet know what sort controller will be better, but I'm expecting to have to pay a lot more than I did for the first one.

 

If we're lucky, somebody may help us both with this one ;) :)

[spotlites]

hi ya u should try getting just two wind up stands one per side of stage with a t bar at the top of each stand and on that bolt permantly 4 LED par cans which are like £40 each with a few DMX control cable linking each one to a contoller and the beauty about all this is it will run of a 13A plug in any environment and means u have as many colours as u need. if you like I will draw u up a quote followed by a diagram and stuff.

 

hope it helps mate

[greenalien]

One aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet is heat - several kW of PARs can make the stage area pretty hot which may be a serious consideration in Spain. The hot lamps are also hazardous to touch (burns) and can be a fire risk.

LEDs run cool and use a lot less power.

(just my 2p worth!)