Modern band lighting - practical tips / experiences

Andy

Honorary Member
I'm putting this thread up because I've been asked a lot of questions about our band lighting. Lighting is a subject that most bands tackle at some stage, & IMO, is an important part of setting your act apart from others. What follows is quite a long post, but I'm trying to take you through options that are effective, cost effective, & work in the real world. All the stages I describe here are for pub/bar/club acts, & fully practical in those spaces. Beyond that is where the pro lighting guys take over. Lighting has come on hugely in only the last few years, so the game has changed, & if you're serious about your show, you need to read this!

Back in the day, many of us used PAR64/PAR56 cans. For those of you lucky enough to not know what they are, basically big ass bulbs in a lighting unit & powered directly by mains supply from a board. These produced really good colour washes. You put a gel (coloured piece of plastic) in a holder in front of the can to obtain the colour you want. They're a pain to transport, bulbs fail/break with annoying regularity, & most importantly, they consume a huge amount of power & produce a lot of heat. Power consumption alone excludes them from being used in most pubs/bars & small clubs.

Then LED lights came along. Frankly, the early ones were crap. just not powerful enough, & the colours were washed out & weak. But they've improved massively over the last three years or so. it's just a question of selecting the right units for the job. Big advantages = compact, extremely reliable, produce very little heat, very controllable, & the best bit - consume much less power. This means they're a realistic option for use in small venues with domestic power supplies, and the band that want's minimal gear & hauling.

So what's available? I'm going to run you through some options, from the absolute minimum through to a full show, & point out what LED specs work & what don't. This info is taken from direct hands on experience. I'll run this in stages so you can pick up on what applies to you. All modern LED lights have built in programs that can offer you anything from static colours, through automatic colour changes, to full chases. Additionally, they all signal via something called DMX. DMX protocol is the language that's common to all these fixtures. It's how you "speak" to your lights from a control desk, or simply how 2 or more lights communicate to each other.

There's a massive range of units to choose from, but I would advise getting units that use minimum 3 Watt LED's to give you some intensity to your colour wash. LED's work on the old RBG format (Red, Blue, Green), & then mix those basic colours to give you a full spectrum of colour options. Early & modern budget units use single colour LED's. Modern units use what are often termed as Tricolor LED's, essentially RBG in every LED. Colour mixing within the LED itself offers more defined & rich colours over a short distance. More advanced units use RGBW. These have an additional white facility within the LED so not having to rely on RBG on full to give white. The more powerful the LED, the richer the colour you'll get, but beware, as the really powerful units produce more glare than the old incandescent PAR64's, & that can seriously piss off your band mates. Essentially, align the LED power in your colour washes to the size of venue you expect to play, & the distance you expect the lighting units to be from the performer. With effects lighting (I'll cover that later), brighter is always better.


Stage 1: You want a bit of static colour. You can achieve this by simply getting a couple of flood lights. These can be either floor standing or mounted on a stand. You can set each light to the colour you want.

Stage 2: You want a choice of colours & the ability to change them during the show. I think the most economical & most effective means of achieving this is with one or two sets of Parbars. These are essentially a bar of 4 flat panel lights with the control & DMX functions shared between the lights. They come with stands, the lighting packing into something no bigger than a guitar case. They also come complete with a foot controller. This enables you to change colours at will, blackout, & even chase programs. If you don't have a band member who can operate them by foot, then you can either use them in static mode to offer enhanced colour washes, or you can link them up to a separate controller. There's lots of controllers on the market, but a basic manual controller will be more than up to the job, but beware, with lights sharing the same control function in the bar, you'll need a minimum of 16 DMX channels on your desk to enable scene programming. No big deal, but one to watch for. Of course, you'll need someone to operate the desk, but it's very easy to do if you've already programmed a range of scenes.

Stage 3: You want more power, & more options. using the same control desk, you may choose to uprate the colour washes to something equal to or better than the old incandescent PAR64's. You can buy individual units. These can be flat panel, but more typically shaped like the old PAR cans, & are size rated in the same way. You're probably going to want a selection of floods & spots too (floods disperse light over a wide area, spots have a more concentrated beam). Now you should be looking at much higher powered LED's. Units using multiple 3W RGB LED's are the absolute minimum, 6W + preferred. You also need to think about ease of connection too. Units with a mains in & mains out facility are preferred. This means you can "daisy chain" your mains in the same way you daisy chain your DMX leads (in other words, only one mains supply per group of lights). At this stage, also consider a "hazer". This is like a fog or smoke machine, but unlike those, it puts out a very fine haze that's designed to highlight your beams. It's not offensive to the audience & far less likely to set off venue smoke detectors. Seek permission from the venue owner before using one, as dealing with a guitarist who's just had his valve gear soaked by a sprinkler system isn't funny (well, actually, it is - ah, you know what I mean :)

Mounting your lights:

At stage 3 & up, you also need to think about how you're going to mount your lights. Tripod stands with a bar is the basic level to start from. This is the cheapest option & the fastest to set up & tear down. You may want to consider truss mounting. A truss is a bar that straddles two uprights, usually enabling you to span the front of the stage so you can better position your lights. The uprights can be the same tripod stands as used with a bar. You can get lightweight steel lattice trusses that mount to tripods fairly cheaply, but (depending on span requirements) are fairly weak. Tripod stands can take up quite a bit of floor space, so the next level up is to consider professional aluminium trussing. Although not quite full professional standard, 32mm diameter tube in either triangle or square form is more than good enough unless you're doing theaters/stadiums. It's fairly economical & lightweight too, but setup time will increase considerably unless you can transport stuff in already made up sections. They link together via taper connections & pins that require hammering in. Not something you want to be doing whilst your patrons are watching the big game in a sports bar :( Either way, not only does trussing look professional, it also takes up way less floor space than tripod stands. For 32mm section stuff consider Globaltruss or Astralite. It's all pretty much interchangeable.

Stage 4: You want really powerful colour washes, spots, & effects lighting. Ok, this is where it gets really interesting, & you're hell bent on putting on a show. Now we're looking primarily at lighting the rear of the stage, & this is where we start getting some wow factor vibe going. It would take me forever to run through the options, so I won't go there, other than to describe what we use, & you can see our rig in action on a couple of video clips. I won't go beyond this stage, because you're right into the pro lighting game above this, & if that's your game, someone else is already sorting this out for you. I've also been asked to list the lights we use, so here goes:

32mm Globaltruss trussing.
1 or 2 Transcension 32 channel DMX controllers
Front truss
4 x theater washes c/w barn doors LEDJ210 18 X 8W RGBW fan cooled
2 x Acme 7TC spots 7 x 3W Tricolor

Rear truss
2 x Acme 7TC spots
4 X Chauvet DMF-10 Moonflower. 28W single RGBW with motor prism.
1 x Lanta Fireball Galaxy Pro octoblinder. 32 x 3W Tricolor

Here's two video examples of our rig being used in a fairly large pub (about 400 audience). TBH, a bit cramped on ceiling height for the front truss, & that means the big floods are way too close to the artists. The rig can be broken down to use upright truss columns only, & that's what we did the next time we played this venue.

This one static settings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZVMWr5YxXg&hd=1

This one with some motion to the moonflowers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teUd9OMKsaw&hd=1

& below, a few photos showing our rig & illumination of bandmates in a very small venue.

I hope some of you find this useful.
 

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Andy,

Thank you, that was a very informative post.
Whats the setup time and breakdown time you guys need?
Any roadies/light guy/sound guy?
What kind of vehicle do you transport your equipment in?

thx

jorn
 
I just remembered something funny.

There is apparently a new EU standard to do with energy-efficient stage and TV lighting. I don't know the details but my Grandfather is named as the original researchers from back in the 70s when it was originally proposed! It's been re-submitted by a new gentleman using his theories as a basis with LED lighting replacing the system my Grandfather has proposed (which he admitted would never work). Apparently the technology has only just caught up with his theories with modern LED lighting.

Odd world.

Very useful guide Andy. As a lighting novice I will be taking notes.
 
Andy,

Thank you, that was a very informative post.
Whats the setup time and breakdown time you guys need?
Any roadies/light guy/sound guy?
What kind of vehicle do you transport your equipment in?

thx

jorn
Thanks :)

Setup & breakdown time depends on the rig for the venue. We have two roadies, one on sound, one on lights. If we're transporting everything broken down (i.e in flight cases/truss bags, etc), & setting up a full size two truss light show, it takes about 1 hour to setup, & about 40 minutes to break down with two people on it. That's rare. If we're using the full rig, we'll usually transport the truss cross sections already with lights & wiring installed, leaving only the upright sections & main links to attach. In that mode, it takes 40 minutes to set up & 30 minutes to break down. We can also run the full show using one rear truss + two front stage towers carrying 4 x theater floods. Almost the same light show but without the big front truss. We use that setup a lot. Setup & break down time is about 20 minutes either end.

Lighting & PA is transported in my 3 ton rated box trailer.

Just in case anyone is interested, our pub/club PA is:

2 x Logic system 1.5Kw RMS 18" bandpass powered subs.
2 x QSC KW153 3 way 1Kw RMS bi amp powered tops.
Allen & Heath Mixwizard series 3 16:2
 
That's a great help KIS... Thanks a lot. I reckon I'll read and re-read this quite a few times until I get a real feel for what I want to do. Currently considering a couple of these for spots. I suppose I'm really looking at stage 2 right now and stage 3 later on in the year.
 
That's a great help KIS... Thanks a lot. I reckon I'll read and re-read this quite a few times until I get a real feel for what I want to do. Currently considering a couple of these for spots. I suppose I'm really looking at stage 2 right now and stage 3 later on in the year.
Those lights are fine, but they're effects lights, not colour washes. As mini spots positioned at the rear or side stage they'll work quite well when partnered with lower to medium power floods, but they won't illuminate the band too well on their own. Also, to get that beam effect, you'll need a hazer, otherwise, all you'll get is some light spots on the floor. I wouldn't recommend them as a stand alone band lighting solution. Each light is only 1 x 3 Watt LED. To give you a comparison, look at either video link I've provided, those moonflower lights at the back are 1 x 28 Watt LED operating through a prism. In other terms, over 9 x the power. Marketing videos are very misleading too, as the lights are featured in a heavily hazed room that's 100% blacked out. That doesn't represent the average bar/club environment. Even if the room lights are off, the bar is still lit up, & that alone will kill your lights. You need to start with floods, & work up from there.

I just remembered something funny.

There is apparently a new EU standard to do with energy-efficient stage and TV lighting. I don't know the details but my Grandfather is named as the original researchers from back in the 70s when it was originally proposed! It's been re-submitted by a new gentleman using his theories as a basis with LED lighting replacing the system my Grandfather has proposed (which he admitted would never work). Apparently the technology has only just caught up with his theories with modern LED lighting.

Odd world.

Very useful guide Andy. As a lighting novice I will be taking notes.
Funny how things come round in circles, eh Duncan:) Your Grandfather was obviously way ahead of his time.
 
Now I'm going to have to go away and write lighting control software...

What have you done?!
And that's how the big boys are doing it these days Duncan. It's just impossible to work the mega complex big shows in any other way.

A word about controllers. For the average club band, a simple dmx desk with enough channels to work the fixtures is sufficient. Even the basic ones have a chase facility, & they can all store multiple scenes. In fact, most are chase orientated for the DJ market. We don't use chases in our show, just static scenes, although I may set up a few chase options to use as show highlights (big endings on songs, solo sections, etc). A desk around or just over $100 will serve most band needs just fine.
 
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