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Weekend Warrior Stage Lighting Discussion
- Thread starter Stinsok
- Start date
Hoping to not derail the discussion: I know somebody who claims that he gets migraines from LED lights (incandescent are OK). Has anybody heard of such a thing? If it's real, my first guess would be that they're being refreshed at some frequency that "resonates" with this person. Might better-quality LED lights be a solution?
Thanks!
That's a good idea. Should have done that last night since we were all pretty tightly packed in there. Didn't need those lights pointing at us from 6' away!
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It's possible. They do make "Flicker Free" LED lighting that is used for video production that has a different refresh rate.
I think they only come in white or warm white but don't quote me on that. Fluorescent lights have the same effect on people as some LED lights. I think all LED lights flicker when dimmed vs full on.
Working in the movie biz I've hung a lot truss and pipe for several generations of LED fixtures. They came into wider use in film well after I'd transitioned from lighting to rigging but out of curiosity I've picked the LX brother's brains about them. There are definitely LED lights that will dim flicker free but they ain't at all cheap....not even remotely close to practical for a bar band.
Something I have seen a lot of mostly on big budget stuff like Tomorrowland and the last Star Trek is the onsite manufacturing of LED lighting using high quality peel and stick LED ribbon from companies like LiteGear. It comes in RGB, an amber or yellow of some sort I think and cool and warm white. I know it's not super cheap either but not nearly as expensive as something like a [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] where you're into the region of $4000 per light. I'm sure things will change and prices will drop eventually but right now true flicker free seems to still be kinda cutting edge.
If you blew off needing to dim them I'd guess flicker free might be a whole lot less expensive. This has me curious now....I'll ask around at work next week and try to get some opinions from people who know LEDs much better than I do.
Here's an interesting thread on flicker on LED xmas lights and home lighting, but it may apply to the LED stage lighting that we use. Reply #7 is interesting.
Do all LED christmas lights have a strobe-like flicker? - Straight Dope Message Board
I've noticed a strobing effect on the drummers box fan when the stage lights are on and more so when dimmed. It's not as pronounced as a old style Xenon flashtube, but it's there.
Do all LED christmas lights have a strobe-like flicker? - Straight Dope Message Board
I've noticed a strobing effect on the drummers box fan when the stage lights are on and more so when dimmed. It's not as pronounced as a old style Xenon flashtube, but it's there.
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Here's a better shot of our setup...not a great composition, but better sense of lights and throw. Again, Wash FX units mounted to the top handles of the mains speakers. Obey 40 on the shelf near the fire extinguisher.
Hey we also run our wash fx's like you all do. But we have been going stand alone mode. With the obey 40 are you are you all dimming the wash fx at all? in the photos they do not look as "hot/bright" as ours gets in the same setup
Here's a better shot of our setup...not a great composition, but better sense of lights and throw. Again, Wash FX units mounted to the top handles of the mains speakers. Obey 40 on the shelf near the fire extinguisher.
Sorry - I made a typo there, I've got the Obey 10, not the 40. That said, yes, I have created scenes that used dimmed down RGB values and that makes a HUGE difference - like between being blinded and not! What I find annoying on these DMX controller is there's not a master dimmer fader. So, I manually adjust the RGB faders to dial in the colour/intensity that I want for each fixture - and I can control up to 8 (?) individual fixtures.
I found dialling in a suitable colour mix and brightness without a DMX controller a bit frustrating in stand-alone mode - it can be done, but not without a lot of button clicking.
For instance, in the picture above, I've got the uplighting at 100% (255 Red, 0 Green, 255 Blue) and the Wash units at around 25% with a pinkish/whitish/amberish colour mix. I have a selection of scenes programmed into the Obey 40 that I can choose based on the desired colour mix and overall brightness for a room, plus an "idle" setting for mood lighting before and betweens sets. I also programmed a "teardown" scene for the end of the night. So, the controller is fairly versatile for that kind of thing (static scenes). I do the "pre-production" at home before the show and maybe do small adjustments on site. And then set it and forget it. Too easy.
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cool ! I am going to be ordering a obey 40 for the same thing and to run sceens from a midi foot controller. I will update when I get closer to bing ready to launch it
I'll be really interested in hearing about that. I'm working with a recently purchased Foot-C controller and finding it a lot more limiting than I thought it would be programing wise, and that even after doing what pre purchase homework on it I was able so I'd have some idea of what to expect going in. Thinking now that an Obey 40 with some sort of foot controller to operate it from would be the ticket.
i would be interested in learning about the footsy but I was a little worried about it from the bad reviews. what did you see as the limitations etc. I am about to buy the obey I will let you know about that Thanks
I'm still learning and some of my issues may be connected to my slowly growing understanding of DMX, but FWIW.
First off, on the Foot-C there are only 6 DMX channels available to work with. I'm running two Chauvet 4Bar Flex light arrays, one on each side, and a 6Spot at the back stage for some down lighting and depth, pretty common and basic setup. The 4Bar Flex will operate on either 15 channels or 3 channels, 15 giving you access to each of the 4 light pods individually and all of the built in programs the 4Bar Flex is factory programmed for, 3 channel mode just gives you control over the individual colors (RGB) and only with all 4 pods acting together as a single unit. With the Foot-C I can't seem to get the 4Bar Flex to work in 15 channel mode, I seem to be limited to just the 3 channel operation. So I can set up rudimentary, static scenes and simplified chases but that's about it. I can't operate or program each light pod (4 per bar) individually, can't trigger the built in programs (chases etc) etc. My guess is that to be able to access all 15 channels the controller needs to have that many control channels available. But again this may be just my limited knowledge of DMX at work, if so someone please educate me on that.
Also the Fade time and speed of change from one step in a chase to the next is global only, meaning that I can't program it to have one step slowly fade in or out, the next one flash on immediately etc, program different scene on times for each step in a chase before moving to the next step etc. Fade time for each step and also for each preset in Scene mode has to be identical.
To get it to blackout you have to hold the footswitch down for 3 seconds (same multi function footswitch controlls Music/Auto/Blackout modes), again not handy to use. My workaround is to program scenes in blocks of 4 with every 5th preset being a blackout scene. Works but kinda unhandy.
Even at that it still does some cool things but it's not as user friendly or intuitive as I would have hoped it would be, again possibly due to my lack of knowledge more so than the controller itself. Based on what I know about it so far I wouldn't suggest it to someone who is wanting to get deeper into fancier programming, but on a basic level it does work and will do some cool, but limited, things. I've studied the instruction manual (fairly unhelpful), viewed the Youtube videos etc. If I'm missing something I'm certainly open to input. Perhaps as time goes on they'll release better optioned versions but at this point (assuming I'm not just too dumb to figure it out) IMO it's worth about half of the $150 I paid for it.
By the sound of it a £25 DMX USB interface and a refurbished touch screen windows tablet at £85 and QLCPlus would offer more as long as touch operation is sufficient, add an extra £15 for a set of cheap USB drum pads for foot control. Given that £1 is $1 for electronics purchasing that would be under $150. Granted the cheap interfaces may not be smooth on dimming transitions, but QLC Plus is pretty flexible once you get the hang of it
I received the obey 40 Sat and started playing with it sunday night. Once you figure out how to name your fixtures (Simple RTFM) setting up scenes and chases is fairly simple. I dont have to much time to get the midi pedalboard working by weekend. But the goal is start working on that after the weekend. If you mostly have non moving lights I highly recommend the obey 40.
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Here are a few shots from last night show one WashFX mounted on top of each main slaved together. the towers (totems) in rear I built out of old antenna mast and have color strips mounted inside them (all color strips are slaved together) I have not worked Dmx control into the live rig
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Being a bassist and a pro photographer, I decided that we were seriously lacking in the lighting department, and I can use the lighting for both businesses. Light is everything to a photographer. So, I ended up buying 2 Chauvet 4BAR USBs, a Chauvet 6-spot, a colorstrip mini, a Chauvet Swarm 5FX, a Hurricane Haze 1D and an Obey 40 controller. I may have gone a little overboard, but the idea is to start doing lights/sound for other bands too.
Too bad that venues do not provide at least basic lighting , i.e. a lightbulb.
One venue in town has nada. The bands that go in without their own lighting
look like silhouettes all night.
One venue in town has nada. The bands that go in without their own lighting
look like silhouettes all night.
