LED lighting.

[Phil Starr]

OK I know it's not strictly PA but I'll make a fair bet that the poor s*ds that do the PA get lighting duty as well

 

Just got these, well strictly speaking I just bought the last four. I've had two for a while that I use as static lights to illuminate the band, they come with diffusers as well as clear fronts so they don't blind you if you use the diffuser. I lent two of them to a friend for a party and he used a sound to light program I'd never tried which works like a giant sound level meter. They are sold as PureSound Pixel Bar Switch. They look white in the video but that's because my phone couldn't capture the colours as it was saturated by the light levels, you can see the colour changes in the room.

 

They are obviously programmed to follow the drums and seem to be fairly good at following the tempo. The plan is to use them on stands on stage so that they lift the light levels in the louder sections and fall away in any stops or quieter passages and create better dynamcs than the more usual chase sequencers. I've been trying various lights hapharzardly for a while and never been happy so this is an atteempt to up my game by actually planning the lighting.

 

Forgive the mess, I'd just spent an hour making up some decent length leads with UK plugs instead of the 1.5m euro leads supplied

 

 

[Al Krow]

Thanks Phil. Lighting is often very much overlooked as being key to a live performance - certainly has been by me and my crew! On my agenda to upgrade our lighting set up over the next 12 months...

[Phil Starr]

All I can say is don't do what I did. I had no plan and wasted a lot of money on stuff I don't use. I discovered lights can be too bright as well as not good enough and still have a couple of PAR lamps that will blind any audience. You can dim most lights but not when they are on automatic sequences. Most of the automatic sequences are too fast (designed for dicos not bands) and using a DMX controller is as much work as setting up the PA and getting a mix so it doubles your set up and knock down time. Fortunately lighting has become a lot cheaper and more reliable and so far I haven't lost any led bulbs. 

 

Most local bands I see seem to have settled on a single set of 'party lights': a set of four PAR lights on a stand with a sequencer/sound to light built in and operated by a footswitch. I have one of these and it does a job but willleave either the band or the audince in the dark. They take up a lot of floor space though and aren't absolutely stable. I wouldn't put them anywhare an audience member could knock them over. I quite like the LED bars like the ones in the video. Most of them are 1m long and you can shove six of them in a canvas bag. They are great at up lighting a wall or your banner, You can sit them on the floor to illuminate your front line and increasingly I've used them on short stands (basically tiny speaker stands with a top hat to fit the light) which gets the light where you want it and takes up less space.

 

My current set up for a small to medium venue is  4-6 strips all mounted vertically on stands. Two point back at us to illuminate the band. the other four go behind us pointing at the audience with one pair running a sequence and the other pair running sound to light. If there is space we'll put up the Party light set. We also have some dirt cheap lasers that do the dancing dot thing on the ceiling. These are low powered lasers that don't need a dedicated operator or a licence.

 

I'm finding the strips a lot more convenient than the 'party lights' they take up less space in the van and are more versatile so you can adapt to each venue. Both band and audienbce get more light too. Without the clumsy overhead stand set up time is about the same for all six as a single party light.

 

For me lighting is an irritating necessity, get it right and the band look really professional but it's a lot of work and nobody pays you extra as a pub band to have great lighting. As it get's more sophisticated i have wondered about offering an optional lighting package to venues. 

[SimonK]

I'm not much into lights either but do realise they are important for a performance. Life got much easier when things moved to low wattage LEDs as before that I had to spend more time thinking about power than anything else!

 

I've got a handful of these that we keep on a fairly static/slowly changing colour to light the band https://www.thomannmusic.com/stairville_led_flood_panel_150_40.htm ...and then a couple of these set to sense/change with the beat, albeit they've had more use in my daughters bedroom for disco lighting! https://www.thomannmusic.com/stairville_stage_tri_led_bundle_complete.htm

 

Cheap, cheerful, but fine for small gigs especially as powered off a couple standard extension leads and pack down pretty small.

 

 

[Rosie C]

For the last few years these 'Stairville' LED lamps from Thomann have been hanging from the ceiling of our practice space. But with a house move coming up, they're on a T-bar now, and ready for our next gig. 

 

We abandoned using a DMX controller and went with built-in automatic programmes. Two lamps are running sound-to-light, with slightly different settings. DMX cables let the 3rd and 4th lamps duplicate the 1st & 2nd.

 

https://www.thomann.co.uk/stairville_mini_stage_par_7x4w_rgb_ww.htm

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Rosie C

[Phil Starr]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

I'm not much into lights either but do realise they are important for a performance. Life got much easier when things moved to low wattage LEDs as before that I had to spend more time thinking about power than anything else!

 

I've got a handful of these that we keep on a fairly static/slowly changing colour to light the band https://www.thomannyeahmusic.com/stairville_led_flood_panel_150_40.htm ...and then a couple of these set to sense/change with the beat, albeit they've had more use in my daughters bedroom for disco lighting! https://www.thomannmusic.com/stairville_stage_tri_led_bundle_complete.htm

 

Cheap, cheerful, but fine for small gigs especially as powered off a couple standard extension leads and pack down pretty small.

 

 

The PAR floods are prtty much what i have on my Party Light bar I quite like the multiple single coloured bulbs as they give a sense of movement, and the tri light bundle is pretty much standard for bands. It's interesting that both of us and @Rosie Cseem to have gone for lamps around 20W each. four of those gove a decent amount of light on a small stage without blinding people. I have got a couple of 180W Par lights I bought before I'd really thought things through and they are mad, there's no way you could use them in small venues and the only time i've used them successfully  is outdoors.

 

Those Stairville floods look great because of the 45deg spread of light. Proper floods which is what you need when the lights are necessarily close to you. Too many of these lights have too narrow a beam.

[Rosie C]

39 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

It's interesting that both of us and @Rosie Cseem to have gone for lamps around 20W each. four of those gove a decent amount of light on a small stage without blinding people. I have got a couple of 180W Par lights I bought before I'd really thought things through and they are mad, there's no way you could use them in small venues and the only time i've used them successfully  is outdoors.

 

 

Yes, they've enough light for a small venue, though I tend to point them at the ceiling rather than at eye level. 

 

Back in the late 1990s I was part of a heavy rock DJing team. Our main lights were on a goal-post shaped tri-lite truss with 6x 300W halogen PAR56s, 4x 250W gobo projectors with moving-mirror style mechanism, 2x 250W moonflowers, fog machine and UV fluorescents. In comparison I can get the same amount of light from a bunch of lightweight and relatively cheap LED units.

 

That said, even though MP3s were more efficient, I missed dropping the needle onto vinyl when we moved to laptops instead of turntables. In the same way there's something about the halogen PARs I miss - even though they were heavy, and lighting gel melted every few weeks and the bulbs would break and cost a small fortune to replace. But I'm sure this nostalgia would disappear within minutes of having to load that kit again  

 

[Rosie C]

2 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Those Stairville floods look great because of the 45deg spread of light. Proper floods which is what you need when the lights are necessarily close to you. Too many of these lights have too narrow a beam.

 

For an extra £3 or so you can get a gel holder for them, and the 4 pictured above have diffuser gels fitted to spread the light more.