Band lighting

[uk_lefty]

Is anyone here knowledgeable about lighting? I'm looking for good resources for making sensible, low cost changes with the gear we have to make our stage presence look more professional? I'm sure there's tons out there, just like there is for bass playing, but my base knowledge is zero here!

 

I've somehow ended up being the storage man and set up guy for the band's lights. I have to be honest, I never wanted to be and was a bit reluctant... Then I saw some photos from our last pub gig and realised the value. Without these lights we would have looked far less professional. Now I want to take it a step further and actually understand what to do with colours and changes in the lights to make it a bit more slick. 

What kit we have:

All the kit is cheap Chinese stuff

We have lights that go up the back and side walls which we could link together but don't;

Side filler lights that we hook onto the PA Speaker stands;

Some crazy whirl around things that can do strobe but we rarely use them.

 

Any advice to get me started on this would be very much appreciated.

 

[Mudpup]

Get a hazer..... It'll make everything look 10 times better. 

 

Don't have everything flashing all over the place on sound active programs or fast programs. It's fatiguing for the audience to watch.

 

Give us a better idea of what you actually have - led bars, spots, floods etc 

 

And can you be bothered to learn DMX programming or buy a controller? Oh and do you want to take on the additional work of being the guy that has to do it 😉

[Mudpup]

Here's our setup in a pub gig....

 

2 ADJ Sweeper beams on stands at the rear running a slow auto program. 

 

2 ADJ VPars run as uplighters in the drums set to a slow fade auto program

 

2 ADJ Vbars on the floor at the front point upwards set up on a slow auto fade just using 3 colours 

 

They are all just left running but I can black out the rear lights and change the program on a remote switch if I want. Minimal effort required.

 

There are 2 lasers that we have either side pointing inwards as well set to auto programs.

 

There are 2 Chauvet Duo moving heads on the floor in front of the amps pointing up. They are linked to a Bigfoot DMX floor controller that I run. I can change colours and programs via that. It's a really useful bit of kit. The plan is to add the rear sweepers and the drum lights to the DMX floor controller eventually so we can get some scenes going. 

 

Oh and there's a hazer that I run on a remote but I went a bit mad with it here...

 

And having a backdrop makes it all look a bit better I think. Nothing worse than fighting against a telly or dartboard in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Mudpup

[dmccombe7]

31 minutes ago, Mudpup said:

Here's our setup in a pub gig....

 

2 ADJ Sweeper beams on stands at the rear running a slow auto program. 

 

2 ADJ VPars run as uplighters in the drums set to a slow fade auto program

 

2 ADJ Vbars on the floor at the front point upwards set up on a slow auto fade just using 3 colours 

 

They are all just left running but I can black out the rear lights and change the program on a remote switch if I want. Minimal effort required.

 

There are 2 lasers that we have either side pointing inwards as well set to auto programs.

 

There are 2 Chauvet Duo moving heads on the floor in front of the amps pointing up. They are linked to a Bigfoot DMX floor controller that I run. I can change colours and programs via that. It's a really useful bit of kit. The plan is to add the rear sweepers and the drum lights to the DMX floor controller eventually so we can get some scenes going. 

 

Oh and there's a hazer that I run on a remote but I went a bit mad with it here...

 

And having a backdrop makes it all look a bit better I think. Nothing worse than fighting against a telly or dartboard in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

Dont think i'd add anything more to that lighting. Looks good the way it is. 

I had the full DMX desk with Pars, lazers, scanners, projectors but its a lot of extra work. I'd suggest keeping things on slow fades is the way to with maybe one or two spots on a faster setting but looking at the clip above that looks pretty good to me as it is.

Dave

[Mudpup]

49 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Dont think i'd add anything more to that lighting. Looks good the way it is. 

I had the full DMX desk with Pars, lazers, scanners, projectors but its a lot of extra work. I'd suggest keeping things on slow fades is the way to with maybe one or two spots on a faster setting but looking at the clip above that looks pretty good to me as it is.

Dave

No we deffo don't need any more kit. I just need to find some time and space to set everything up in a room and create the scenes on the Bigfoot DMX. We will be able to lock the Sweepers pointing downwards at an angle, synchronise the drum and front light colours and then just have the moving heads and lasers creating some motion for some songs. 

[dmccombe7]

51 minutes ago, Mudpup said:

No we deffo don't need any more kit. I just need to find some time and space to set everything up in a room and create the scenes on the Bigfoot DMX. We will be able to lock the Sweepers pointing downwards at an angle, synchronise the drum and front light colours and then just have the moving heads and lasers creating some motion for some songs. 

Sorry i thought you were the OP there. 

What you have looks impressive.

Dave

 

[uk_lefty]

19 hours ago, Mudpup said:

Give us a better idea of what you actually have - led bars, spots, floods etc 

 

And can you be bothered to learn DMX programming or buy a controller? Oh and do you want to take on the additional work of being the guy that has to do it

I don't even know the names of this stuff tbh, I just got lumbered with it when I joined the band. I'll take some photos of it tomorrow. 

 

Re: additional work we all take on some responsibility in the band so I am happy to do some added work. I don't know how complex DMX Programming is but I could have a go I guess....

[uk_lefty]

This is what our stage looked like last time with our own lighting out... The weird spotty light thing in one of the pics was part of the venue house lighting which was a bit of an eBay Mish mash by the look of it. Our own lighting is the colour up the walls and the green and blue side fillers on the stage.

19 hours ago, Mudpup said:

And having a backdrop makes it all look a bit better I think. Nothing worse than fighting against a telly or dartboard in the background.

Great advice, thank you.

Edited October 31, 2022 by uk_lefty

[skidder652003]

deffo recommend a haze machine, black backdrop and a band banner.

Edited October 31, 2022 by skidder652003

[redbandit599]

I've set off a few fire alarms with our smoke machine, do hazers have the same issue?

[lurksalot]

I used to use 6 ADJ Pars and link them to a Ryger controller and let it run , the ryger has blackout and flood stomps and a number of set sequences. I had a couple of laser pattern things that I would occasionally use on the ceilings , but no fogs or hazer as the warbler had asthma and was nervous of them 

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by lurksalot

[la bam]

1 hour ago, uk_lefty said:

This is what our stage looked like last time with our own lighting out... The weird spotty light thing in one of the pics was part of the venue house lighting which was a bit of an eBay Mish mash by the look of it. Our own lighting is the colour up the walls and the green and blue side fillers on the stage.

Great advice, thank you.

That's nice and colourful, all you need to do on top of that is light the band in white from the front.

It's the one thing nearly everyone forgets to do. 

Add some plain white light to light up the band members and the colours will still work great at the back.

Edited October 31, 2022 by la bam

[skidder652003]

35 minutes ago, redbandit599 said:

I've set off a few fire alarms with our smoke machine, do hazers have the same issue?

they can do, i've heard of some bands who put dust covers over the smoke alarms with the permission of the landlord but obviously I couldn't condone such behaviour...

[dmccombe7]

Some venues will isolate the smoke detectors if asked.

Dave

[police squad]

23 hours ago, Mudpup said:

Here's our setup in a pub gig....

 

2 ADJ Sweeper beams on stands at the rear running a slow auto program. 

 

2 ADJ VPars run as uplighters in the drums set to a slow fade auto program

 

2 ADJ Vbars on the floor at the front point upwards set up on a slow auto fade just using 3 colours 

 

They are all just left running but I can black out the rear lights and change the program on a remote switch if I want. Minimal effort required.

 

There are 2 lasers that we have either side pointing inwards as well set to auto programs.

 

There are 2 Chauvet Duo moving heads on the floor in front of the amps pointing up. They are linked to a Bigfoot DMX floor controller that I run. I can change colours and programs via that. It's a really useful bit of kit. The plan is to add the rear sweepers and the drum lights to the DMX floor controller eventually so we can get some scenes going. 

 

Oh and there's a hazer that I run on a remote but I went a bit mad with it here...

 

And having a backdrop makes it all look a bit better I think. Nothing worse than fighting against a telly or dartboard in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

a ha, Yellowhouse. We did a gig together at the Margate Winter gardens, in about 2008

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, la bam said:

That's nice and colourful, all you need to do on top of that is light the band in white from the front.

It's the one thing nearly everyone forgets to do. 

Add some plain white light to light up the band members and the colours will still work great at the back.

 

Better than white is a pair of Par's or equivalent, one each side oriented towards the opposite corner of the stage area. One with a very pale orange/straw filter (Lee 205...), the other with a very pale blue filter (Lee 201...). This gives frontal lighting with a slight contrast each side of the band's faces, with no blinding beam directly in their eyes. Placed forward of the front of stage, as high as reasonably possible, angled across at 45°. Much better than plain white. Just sayin'; my 'Tip Of The Day'. 

[la bam]

16 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Better than white is a pair of Par's or equivalent, one each side oriented towards the opposite corner of the stage area. One with a very pale orange/straw filter (Lee 205...), the other with a very pale blue filter (Lee 201...). This gives frontal lighting with a slight contrast each side of the band's faces, with no blinding beam directly in their eyes. Placed forward of the front of stage, as high as reasonably possible, angled across at 45°. Much better than plain white. Just sayin'; my 'Tip Of The Day'. 

I completely agree.

[NoRhino]

5 hours ago, la bam said:

That's nice and colourful, all you need to do on top of that is light the band in white from the front.

It's the one thing nearly everyone forgets to do. 

Add some plain white light to light up the band members and the colours will still work great at the back.

Definitely the thing to do to make the colours pop.  We use 4 DMX fixtures each side and keep 1 on each bar set white aimed across the line where the mics are. Leave the remaining 6 units to provide the interesting stuff. Simple and effective.  

[la bam]

Yes, theres nothing worse than just all the band continually changing red, green, blue all night in a never ending colour wash.

 

For a simple set up, think of it as 2 sets of lighting. 1 to actually light the band (so people can see them) and 2 for the disco style party effect.

[Mudpup]

7 hours ago, redbandit599 said:

I've set off a few fire alarms with our smoke machine, do hazers have the same issue?

The one we have has a wired remote and you can vary the output level, duration and frequency of the output. It also has an option to have a constant haze but you can again vary the output down to almost nothing to flat out choking everyone. It's just a little Beamz one but it's probably the most essential bit of kit we have.

 

https://electromarket.co.uk/beamz-f900-fazer-haze-machine-soft-case

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Mudpup

[Mudpup]

6 hours ago, la bam said:

That's nice and colourful, all you need to do on top of that is light the band in white from the front.

It's the one thing nearly everyone forgets to do. 

Add some plain white light to light up the band members and the colours will still work great at the back.

Yeh, spot on @la bam