Comments on: Band Stage Lighting – Make Your Gig A Concert

By: jabels

jabels — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:35:47 +0000

any advice out there for a first time LD cutting their teeth on an old 80s metal band? colors,dos and donts etc?

By: Steve K

Steve K — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:46:45 +0000

It seems there are a lot of us about (here and in other forums) who are trying to find a simple dmx/foot controlled stage solution, for not much dosh.

I’ve been trying to find a DMX controller which will respond to a MIDI foot pedal and although there are lots around that will do this, the details of how they work seem to be thin on the ground. Even the manuals are of not much help.

It seems the main question I should be asking here is this:

I want to trigger chases on a DMX controller via a MIDI pedal and have them controlled by the ‘sound/music’ facility in the controller. If I set the DMX controller to ‘sound/music’ mode then select chases via MIDI will the ‘sound/music mode’ remain active or do I need to re-select this each time I change chases?

Does anybody have experience of this? Can anybody give me the name of a DMX controller that can work this way?

Cheers

Steve

By: John Valyo

John Valyo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:51:41 +0000

We are a “Dad Band” that play on stages that average 10 X 18 feet. Though we play driving rock, we use a simple self powered Behringer PA and look for a simarlily simple lighting system that works itself (we have no lighting tech). Reliable, easy to move, and effective without being overkill, is more important than budget. And, BTW, I need to purchase the lighting system this week….our gig is on Sat 1/30. Many thanks. regards, JV

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:38:48 +0000

I’m in a 5 piece band and we run our own sound and lighting from the stage. One person runs 5 bars of 4 par 64s with a dedicated DMX controller/pedalboard. I run 2 Quad Gems used for back lights and 2-4 moving spots using a tabletop style DMX controller sitting on my amp which as you probably suspect gets tricky as well as distracting to watch on stage. The few dedicated foot controllers I’ve seen are, in my opinion, too limited. I’m trying to find a way to control the intelligent lights with a DMX controller that can be managed with a foot console of some sort. Ideally I’d like to construct “x” number of scenes for “x” number of songs per set and trigger them sequentially (or at least as no-brainer as possible). For example, say for the first song I need a few scenes: 1) spot on keys (250s) and a audio triggered sync from his keys triggering a pattern on the quad gems. 2) Guitars come in spots switch to guitar 3) vocals come in color change and spots on vocals.. etc. etc. I’d like to have a pedal board of say 10 buttons where maybe the first bank has the first 5 buttons set for each of the scenes above where I can just hit each button with my foot as the song progresses. I know life can get more complicated with this approach but that’s the basic goal I’m trying to achieve. My lighting controller vendor says this is not possible (or as least we not aware of how to do it since they appear to focus from the perspective of a dedicated lighting person). I can’t believe there isn’t a controller that can be manipulated in a standard way using MIDI pedal board or something similar. Is there a simple way (ok ANY way) to control either a hardware controller or PC based software via a foot controller? Does any one have any experience with this?

Thanks,
Steve

By: dan winter

dan winter — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:42:15 +0000

Hey, I converted 16 par 64’s to led kits and can now get fantastic colored stage washes, any color you can imagine. this is great for club stages. however larger concert stages seem to bring out the pulsing of the leds . is this a common problem? what if anything can change this effect. thanks, dan

By: LD SHARUKH

LD SHARUKH — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:44:59 +0000

Hi Sheena
A 226 lee colour correcton filter from a wide parcan at a distance of 16 feet above and at an angle of approximately 45′ should solve all your problems. Use lee 226 or equivalent only, i cant guarantee others.

Basically you will have to light him from both sides of the stage using wide parcans only. Depending on the size of the stage. You can also use Straw lee004 it is the same as Bastard amber use it and try it. What colour skin is the singer?
The above works for caucasian not dark skins
ciao hope it helps

By: Sheena

Sheena — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:04:31 +0000

Thanks very much Rob.
So as far as the angles
your saying a light equal in height to the singers face is best? I’m not sure this is possible in most venues. Even in small places it seems like the lights either come from above or below. What did you mean?
Also is the color gel called ‘bastard Amber’ a good choice? I’m really going to try to do my best to light the guy in a complimentary way.. any more help is greatly appreciated!
thanks from Sheena

By: Rob Sayer

Rob Sayer — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:17:01 +0000

Hi Sheena. On caucasian skin, warm colours like straws and light pinks give the singer a healthy looking glow. Avoid using cold colours like steel blue and green if they are worried about looking ghostly.

Lighting angles can also contribute to your bad look. Uplighting (from footlights on the floor) or steep lighting from overhead is guaranteed to make your singer look like a character from a ghost train. Try to find some more flattering angles, as well as colours.

By: Sheena

Sheena — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:27:28 +0000

Could anyone help me a little bit. I have been asked to do the lights for a band on a small club tour. The clubs will have lighting and the singer is a bit older and asked me to light him in a complimentary way. He mentioned that in some photos of the stage, from a previous tour, he looked like an old ghost. I looked at the photos and its clear that the lights were wrong.The lights were making him look bad. Does anyone know which sort of gels or colors would help in this situation?
Thank you very much.
Sheena

By: John

John — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:06:21 +0000

Cheers Rob,
After due consideration, I think I’m going to buy a couple of LED PAR 56 cans and mount them to the PA speaker stands or on top of the speakers. This should give us versatility to have different softer colours to avoid the vivid 70’s feel or the bright white chip shop theme!

Like these: http://www.bksound.co.uk/product.asp?numRecordPosition=1&P_ID=1250&strPageHistory=&strKeywords=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=238

Do you think it would be worth getting some sort of cheap controller for the lights? Anything you could recommend?